I have written before that you cannot go forward while looking backward. I am not dismissing the value of history to give context to our lives and our church. History and heritage are valuable and important. But history tells us how we got here, it does not tell us what to do next.
A pastor's job is to lead the flock of God forward. To look to the regions beyond and to lead us to our promised land. To do that a leader must know God and he must not be afraid of growing old.
One thing about time is that it never stops moving forward. We change with time. Some things we do better with time. Some things we find our abilities diminishing with time. Growing old together is a good thing as long as you do not expect your spouse to remain as they are forever.
Pop culture in every generation is a fantasy world of the young and the beautiful and has zero connection to the real world. A visual world of pop entertainment paints a false picture of what to look like and how to solve problems.
My prayer is not just that a new crop of young leaders will rise up to lead us forward. It is that our existing leaders will be wise enough to lead us to the Promised Land. That just like the aged apostles of the first century, they will never stop preaching to us the whole counsel of God in Christ. Amen.
Life must be lived to the end. Pastor Mitchell and his wife did that. Will we?
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