Generational turnover. . .

A recent article in the ELCA's The Lutheran has sparked a discussion of the impending change in the face of Lutheranism when the largest group of Lutheran pastors (those 55 and over) begin to retire.  One statistic that has held relatively constant for the LCMS is 325 pastors retiring each year so that means that 3200 pastors may retire in the next 10 years -- a very significant slice of those pastors currently serving LCMS congregations.  The statistics in the ELCA are not remarkably different.  You can read the article in The Lutheran here.

For years some have been taking pot shots are our seminaries for pushing recruitment as a self-serving means of preserving faculty and institutional identity.  Perhaps there is a grain of truth in this but the overwhelming reality is that large numbers of LCMS pastors will face the prospect of retirement in the next 10 years (me included).  In addition to needing new pastors (not a myth but a very real need), we will also see what this will do to change the face of Lutheranism.

In the ELCA this retirement boom will mean:

1. Fewer and fewer ELCA clergy will have any memory of the predecessor bodies and the majority of the clergy will know only life within the ELCA...
2. Fewer and fewer ELCA clergy will remember a day when there was not such a great divide in Lutheranism and when Lutherans were much closer than today in their understandings of Scripture, church, ministry, etc...
3. Fewer and fewer ELCA clergy will recall the battles that have left this church body scarred with conflict and losses (the battle over the issue of gays and lesbians within the church and ministry, in particular)...
4. More of the ELCA clergy will presume the stances of their church body on a whole host of social issues has always been what it is now...

In the LCMS this retirement boom will mean:

1. Fewer and fewer LCMS clergy will have any memory of the split and controversy over Biblical authority that marked Missouri's history so deeply...
2. Fewer and fewer LCMS clergy will recall the institutional structures that once provided nearly all LCMS pastors (junior college, senior college, and seminary pathway) and most will assume that all pastors came from outside the church colleges or from second careers...
3. Fewer and fewer LCMS clergy will recall when other Lutherans had more in common with Missouri than conflicts with us over doctrine, faith, and practice...
4. More of the LCMS clergy will identify with the more conservative perspective on doctrine and practice that resulted from the split in the 1970s...

I am no crystal ball sleuth to predict what the future will look like, but I feel somewhat safe in suggesting the future will reflect those changes. . .