Future Generations of Ministry

“Nevertheless, a local church that takes its mission of evangelism and discipleship seriously should be able to fully train leaders for service in the local church. Any calling that is incapable of reproducing itself is incompetent in that calling. This training is for her own leaders in the years to come. A thriving church can easily assume that it ‘has it covered’ because its current elders are doing a fine job and its current pastor preaches well and looks healthy. Everyone has trouble imagining what the church will look like in fifty years when none of the current leaders is alive. No one even thinks about it. But Charles de Gaulle put it well when he said that the graveyards are full of indispensable men. That day will come whether we want it to or not. A church that does not think of establishing continuity with the future generations of that same church is, in principle, a church populated by short term and anti-covenantal thinkers” (The Paideia of God, p. 110).