I was overseeing the doctoral program, and the potential student calling my office landline had a fundamental question for me: “Do you allow 71-year-old retirees to apply for your program?” I jokingly told him, “Yes, as long as you pay the full tuition up front” (and, how I was grateful he had a good sense of humor!). Within months, in fact, he was a student in our program.
It was one of the few times that one of my students was old enough to be my dad. I recall the looks of my much younger students when they entered the classroom and saw an older man in a suit coat and tie. I suspect they assumed that he was a guest speaker for the day. He was, after all, the oldest guy in the room.
It didn’t take long, though, for the young doctoral students to gravitate toward this older brother in Christ. They grew to want to hear his thinking—and I shared that desire even though I was the professor in charge of the class. It’s that background that has led to my still remembering some of this brother’s more powerful statements within the classroom.
On this particular day, we were discussing the unhealthiness of local churches, often guided by unhealthy leaders. Our brother leaned back in his chair and quietly and humbly said to the class, “Gentlemen, here’s one of the primary problems I see with many pastors. . . .” He paused, and all of us waited with anticipation to learn from his experience.
“One of the problems I see with many pastors,” he said, “is that they’re actually pastoring three churches: the one they never got over because they either (a) remember only the glory days or (b) bear the scars of a tough experience; the one they’re currently pastoring that should be their primary focus but sometimes isn’t; and the one they’d like to be pastoring—usually a ‘bigger and better church.’”
“Brothers,” he continued, “you can’t be the best pastor you can be when your eyes are on more than one congregation.”
For young pastors in the class who aspired for more recognition, the words challenged them at a heart level. For the few of us in the room who had already tried to navigate more than one congregation in our minds, our brother had put into words a problem we had never been able to articulate. So much did his words challenge me that I still remember them decades later. They were, and still are, the wisest thing I have ever heard from a 71-year-old student.
Perhaps his words spoken so many years ago still speak to your heart today. If so, let us know in the comments section how we might pray for you and your work.
