As full time ministers look towards retirement, what transitional preparation do you believe is needed and what would you like to see happen?
The C/E, perhaps like other denominations, has no defined policy of support regarding full time ministers retiring and facing issues of loss of home, community, spiritual base and needing to find somewhere to live and new outlets for their gifts. There is to add into the pot, the whole area of letting go and discovering life continues post retirement so that the psychology of retirement is transformed from the negative into a positive encounter with the aging process.
This is the situation with so many leaders. . . They are growing weary. They are approaching retirement, in a few months, this year. And then suddenly the church begins a frantic search for a new pastor. There has been no plan at all for the transition – no plan for raising up the new leader, and not much of a plan for the retiring old leader.
Both ends this is a dire situation must be addressed. Churches must begin to adopt a Culture of Succession. At all levels, in all departments of the Church there must always be an intentional process of succession. Succession must involve deliberate building of the rising generation through the good and godly influences of the “Risen Generation” that is ready to retire.
In such a culture of succession, just as certainly as we are building emerging new leaders, we will be simultaneously caring for the retiring older leaders.