The Importance of Reaching Ernest
July 1, 2001
At the time, it seemed like my worst nightmare. I was newly ordained, called to a very rural two-point parish where the average age of the congregation was 65 or older. Cows and cornfields dotted the countryside and fueled the local economy. This was one of those places where the same names kept appearing on the mailboxes as you drove our narrow highway. Everyone was related in some way. Families toiled side-by-side for generations, working the land, creating a community. But it was a way of life that was slowly dying, and with it my parish. This congregation was in decline longer than I had been alive. I was called to palliative care, and that seemed to be a waste of my gifts and energy. I should be a church planter, I thought. I shouldn't be stuck way out here in the boondocks. I was probably going to be their last pastor. I would be remembered as the kid who closed one of the oldest congregations in our denomination. I put on a brave face. "Whereever God calls me to serve, I'll serve with joy," I told my bishop, only half-believing the words myself. Like most mainline churches, this one struggled with the question, "How do we get the young people involved?" They called a young pastor (I was 29 at the time), not only because that was what they could afford, but also because they wanted to reach out to the younger generations. So I settled into my first call, the lone shaved head lost in a sea of white hair. My congregation envied the nearby Christian Reformed Church for their new building, their large attendance figures, and their well-populated youth group. "What are they doing that we aren't?" we asked ourselves. "Maybe we can duplicate their program." I met the Christian Reformed pastor at the coffee shop to pick his brain. ...
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