Thread by @Thom1st

I have a deep appreciation for Boomer colleagues who've mentored me. But I've also seen that our assumptions about ministry often don't align. While I receive wisdom when offered, I don't always take advice. This confuses them @ times. What's obvious to them isn't to me.

This is NOT a knock on Boomers or Boomer pastors. I think there's a generation divide in how we were trained and what we were told pastoral life *is* and what the church *should* be.

I think some of them are surprised, given how gifted they think I am (for which I'm humbled!) that I'm not aiming to make my church a megachurch.

But I've worked in megachurches and, while I'm fine with their existence, I'm not sure that's *how* I want to do ministry.

Another example is the place of politics or divisive subjects. I don't think the church can avoid politics because the church should be modeling (rather than imitating) how to have difficult conversations around politics or ethics or whatever.

Again, this is not a knock. And I may even realize I'm wrong about some things I didn't receive from them. It's just an observation that this has happened frequently enough for me to take note of it...and take note of the genuine disappointment I sometimes sense from them.

I'm not always a huge fan of generation-gap narratives because they become so entrenched, but I do think there are training differences and differences of cultural assumptions that come in to play. I'm not issuing a judgment, just an observation.

But we have to recognize that pastoral approaches are context-specific. Boomers *assumed* a Christianized America. Millenneals and GenZ not only do not get to assume that, but we won't even inherit a world that assumes Christianity is a moral good.

A fancy light show and great tech won't fix the character flaws of the church. A personality cult around a good preacher won't adequately display the gospel in a culture where everyone is a "brand" and nobody is human.

I, too, love a production that is well done. I appreciate the thoughtfulness that goes into some Sunday services (again, no judgment). But we are long-past the day when those things, in themselves, are going to appeal to "seekers" who AREN'T even "seekers" anymore.

And while the church has pastors who are *great* storytellers, the next gen church is going to need pastors who are gifted *story-livers* bc we have not seen enough of that.

The next church-growth movement is going to have to be all about character - communal and individual.

At the end of my life, I want my grave to read something like, "He lived the Story." If my obit is about the size of my church and not the things stood up for or the character I displayed, then I've failed as a pastor.....nah, hell no, I've failed as a Christian.

Character by itself won't get you on the stage at Catalyst (is Catalyst still a thing? I dunno). But it's what the church desperately needs right now from the bottom up.

Not "perfection." Just consistency of character.

No doubt my Boomer colleagues would agree. (That's why I said I'm not knocking them.) But I would hope they'd also agree that the leaders of their generation have largely squandered their moral authority on culture wars, hypocrisy, and celebrity. Not all (thank God), but enough.

May the grace of God save those who follow from that fate and restore to the church a faithful character and witness to the self-giving love of Jesus who was NOT a celebrity, didn't have a light show, didn't issue vision statements, but damn it, he changed the world.

And may the grace of God continue to inspire those Boomer pastors who just put their head down each day and live and preach and pastor and tell the story of the gospel with deep integrity (not matter how different we see ecclesial life).