Passing the Baton or Running Together?

John Fehlen and I showed our above video at this year’s Foursquare Connection as part of a presentation we did on the need for multigenerational leadership in our church family. The video is funny, but the challenge is serious. Here’s what we said:

Right now in the U.S. we have over 6800 licensed Foursquare ministers. Only 286, or 4% of those, are in their 20’s. In fact, less than 20% of all our ministers are under 40.

We currently have four active generations in Foursquare leadership (builders, boomers, X’ers, Millennials), but we have far more than twice as many active in the two older generations than we do in the two younger generations; when we look at trending numbers we realize we have a very rapidly aging denominational leadership!

At Connection last week our president shared a target of seeing 10% growth of new churches each year, which means we’re going to need 295 new senior pastors next year alone to cover transitions and new churches. The question we asked is, “Where are we going to get all these pastors?”

John and I have spent the past year listening to the hopes and dreams of hundreds of younger leaders all over the Nation, and we’ve been consistently hearing the same thing. We haven’t heard “I want to grab the baton of power.” Instead what we’re hearing over and over again is talk about FAMILY. They’re recognizing their need for family relationships with multiple generations.

And this isn’t about entitlement—it’s about the harvest. There’s an epic harvest coming and many of our young leaders are already passionately serving, leading and engaging this ripening harvest in amazing and creative ways. They simply want to find out how to really do this thing WITH older generations.

In other words, as leaders, they want to sit at the table as full partners…not be banished to the kid’s card table in the kitchen. In a healthy family there’s room made at the table for multiple generations: So, If we look around our leadership table and see only our generation, that represents a real problem—and it’s a problem we have right now at every level of our Foursquare family.

Consider this: Students graduating from College this year will be in their late 30’s and early 40’s in seventeen years; that’s when Foursquare turns 100. Think about where you’ll be in seventeen years! If your answer is in another assignment, or retired…or dead, who’s going to take your place? We aren’t suggesting dismissing or passing over the older leaders, but together, we must prepare the younger rising leaders to be released into significant ministry assignments within our family.

So we’ve been asking: What actions can we take right now to ensure the effective influence of the next generations of Foursquare leaders?

And we’re discovering that the answer to this challenge isn’t as organizational as it is relational.

What if every one of us identified at least two younger leaders with whom to build an authentic, committed, discipling relationship that led to them becoming qualified Foursquare pastors? Because regardless of our age, every one of us has a Biblical responsibility to run with the next generation as they’re being shaped into all God has anointed them for.

We also should all search for at least one older leader to engage and learn from. Older leaders must be sought out for their wisdom and strength of experience. We desperately need their partnership!

So if everyone discipled two younger leaders, and also invited the investment of one older leader, it could truly change our church culture.

Then instead of just quickly handing off leadership from one generation to another, we’ll run together like one big team. The old African proverb says: “Alone you can run fast, but together, we can run far.” Let’s plan to run far together as the Foursquare Family!