Category: Article

Bambang Budijanto – General Secretary

A. INTRODUCTION

Most of us are familiar with the terms, “succession of leadership,” or “transition of leadership,” and probably “regeneration of leadership.”  In most cases they are understood as the passing of baton from one generation (usually older) to the next generation (usually younger) of leader(s) or leadership in an organization, company, church and network.

This short paper will challenge this prevailing concept and argue that the Kingdom of God will be greatly benefited if we develop an intergenerational leadership model instead.  Intergenerational leadership is where leaders from different generations will sit together on the decision-making table and contribute based on the nature and perspective of their respective generation. 

This is different from what many churches and organizations often practice today, where we see the younger leaders operating on low levels waiting for their chance to climb the ladder with the more senior leaders on the top leadership.  The Intergenerational leadership is operating at every level of the organization and network structure, but the implementation must begin at the top level of the decision makers. 

B. THE ASSUMPTION:

In every stage of life, we think, perceive and act differently, due to our mental (brain), psychological and social states of our lives. 

People in their late teens and mid-twenties are characterized by idealism and camaraderie.   They have a lot of energy, both mental and physical, to explore new things in life and work.  They engage in a lot of daring initiatives and risk taking endeavors.  Many great and impactful ministries were started at this age window.  Among others, Billy Graham’s first sermon was delivered in 1937, when he was only 18 years old.  The great Chinese leader, Wang Ming Dao, came to Christ at the age of 14, and decided that the church “needed a revolution” and that God had entrusted to him the mission of bringing about this spiritual revolution.  At the age of 24, he began his pastoral ministry. 

In their late twenties to late thirties, most people would build their careers.   They move within their existing space and path, and use their full energy to push toward maximum impact, productivity and “success.”  Some accomplish through a fierce battle, while others through maturing skills of relationship and negotiations.

Leaders at their forties and probably early fifties, based on their extended learning years and broad exposure in an organization are best at building strategy (choices of path) to achieve outcomes and gain success. 

Good leaders in their mid-fifties, sixties and seventies seek legacy and significance rather than success and position.  They serve best as sounding board for the executives.  They function best as encouragers and as mentors, to produce more great leaders, to remove obstacles, to model organizational culture, to model servant leadership, to create as much space as needed for other younger leaders to operate, to contribute insight and continue to learn new things.

What a rich and great impact would be achieved if the best representation of these different generations in our church, network and organization could sit on the decision-making table, learning and walking together for the common goal.  Each generation will contribute their best, through their passion, risk taking, innovation, wisdom, strategic mind, and persistence in pursuing God given goals:  One heart, one mind, one focus with diverse and rich contributions from different generations in the decision making processes.

C. THE HINDRANCES IN IMPLEMENTING INTERGENERATIONAL LEADERSHIP

1. We Choose the Easy Path – Unintentionally

The problem with our human nature is, we naturally prefer to work with people who are of the same generation with us.  Why? Because we speak the same language, which is much easier to manage.  Therefore, in most cases we will find a church or an organization led by a group of leaders or executives who are all around the same age, who are all at their sixties-seventies, or all at around twenties.  We tend to hire and work with people who are like us in temperament and speak our language (our generation).

This is a huge tragedy for the church, by having top leadership who are all at the same age (generation), the Kingdom of God has lost a huge contribution that He entrusted to the other generations.  If a church or an organization is led by a leadership (executive) team,  who are all between the ages of sixties and seventies and if they operate with “executive” mind rather than “mentor” mind, focus mostly on success rather than significance and legacy, then most of their decision making perspectives would be on how to run the show themselves, how to avoid risks, so that they will finish well in the organization.  There will not be any breakthrough or innovations.  It will be much less inspiration and daring endeavor to follow God. Similarly, if a church or an organization is led by a leadership (executive) team who are all in their twenties, it will have missed a lot of rich contributions, which God has entrusted to the other generations of the thirties, fifties, and sixties.

It is true that to communicate intergenerational is harder and takes intentionality, but it is also true that through intergenerational leadership, the church will be much impactful and fruitful in building and expanding the Kingdom of God on earth.

2. Focus on Tenure in Organizational Culture

Many traditional organizations were built upon the leadership concept of “tenure” or seniority, instead of functions, giftedness and performance.  This culture has significantly hindered the formation of an intergenerational leadership.

3. Worldly Leadership Paradigm

When leadership is seen as position instead of function or role, then the focus of the organization and the energies of the leaders are no longer on common impact, but on the “position” of top leadership.

4. Social and Economic Deficits and Pressures

In conventional succession plan, the former leader(s) will retire and the younger leader will assume his place as the top leader.  When leadership is seen as a position, prestige and primary source of (level) incomes, in many developing world, in churches and para-church organizations, leaders would tend to hold the leadership position as long as they could, because there are other important factors in play, such as social access (status) and family livelihood.

D. CLOSURE:

The Intergenerational Leadership model is not only a good leadership concept, but one model that will promote unity, collaboration, synergy for all generations existing in the church today in ushering toward the full manifestation of the Kingdom of God, through holistic disciple making; one model that will maximize the impact of the richness of God’s gifts he entrusted to each of the generations.

Both the World Evangelical Alliance General Assembly 2019 in Indonesia and the Asia Evangelical Alliance General Assembly 2020 in Malaysia, and especially the AEA Conference on Intergenerational Leadership (May 14-15, 2020) will give greater significance and emphasis on learning how to operationalize this model.  Join us in this discovery journey.

Rev. Paul H. Ueki – Chairman of AEA

“Give to those of the faith, so that they may be teachers of others.” (2 Timothy 2:2)

It was about twenty years ago, when I was a missionary teacher at Caribbean Wesleyan College in Jamaica and assisting a pastor at a local church. One of our youth members visited Japan for a learning project. When she came back, she told me what she experienced in Japan. One of her observations surprised me. She said, “I did not see any pregnant woman during my stay in Japan.”

I knew that Japan had a serious problem of a decreasing birthrate. However, I did not see this issue as my Jamaican friend saw. Now I am in Japan and engaged in pastoral ministry at a local church. It is my third year at this church. I recognize that we do not have members of twenties and thirties of age. It is my earnest desire to have intergenerational leadership at our church. The church board should be consisted of experienced members who worked and led the church in the past, and active members who now carry out what the board decides, and young learners who are expected to be active leaders in future. In any level of the board—a local church board, a denominational board, a national alliance board, a regional board, or a world alliance board—it is healthy to have leaders from various generations.

Japanese churches ought to emphasize in winning young people. Then they must train young people as leaders through on-the-job training. We tend to wait until young people become qualified and accepted as leaders among other members. If we wait, we may fail to draw abilities from our young members. Another important thing is to have Christian families and raise children in the church.

Rev. Dr. John Yates, Chairman of Australia Evangelical Alliance

I spend a significant part of my time in one on one meetings, generally with younger men. They may be pastors, teachers, evangelists, even a few apostles and prophets, ministering in the Church (Eph 4:11). But they also include those called to represent Christ in business, the arts, law, trades, education and so on. Some would describe my ministry at this level as spiritual direction, others might call it mentoring or using the gifts of wisdom and knowledge (1 Cor 12:8). The categorisation is secondary, what is relevant is that much of the substance of the reflections below is much based on ministry experience.

We have all seen the lack of “succession planning” lead to the collapse of a ministry. So, the subject of intergenerational leadership is a vital one. Nevertheless, the lens through which it is approached requires much care. Firstly, to restrict discussion to leadership always denies the practical outworking of the “priesthood of all believers” and incidentally tends to degenerate into patterns of hierarchy and control that are unbiblical.  Secondly, such foci often place outcome ahead of relationship. There is nothing to suggest that, for example, megachurch pastors are the godliest leaders. All of Paul’s congregations after all were in houses! Even the useful expression “intergenerational discipleship” suffers from the rarely commented on fact that this sort of language disappears after the middle of the book of Acts (9:25).

For several reasons I think we need to revert to a fundamental parent-child connection when we think about these issues. The greatest treasury of cross-generational wisdom in the Old Testament is Proverbs, and it is founded on such a pattern. “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching,” (1:8). This flows into Paul’s matured theology of leading churches and relating to his younger protégé, Timothy. “I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children.  For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. I urge you, then, be imitators of me. That is why I sent  you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ” (1 Cor 4:15-17; cf. 1 Tim 1:2, 18; 2 Tim 1:2). At the most basic level  “intergenerational leadership” should be thought of in terms of a “father/mother” – “son/daughter” relationship.

In Australia we are confronted with accelerating moral decay across the culture and declining spiritual disciplines in the Church. Only 20% of Aussie Christians read the scriptures daily! Amidst this crisis the Evangelical Alliance is working, not on another “strategy”, but joining with the Lord to expand on what he is already doing intergenerationally (Acts 11:23-25). This will involve partnering the many thousands of older believers across our networks with younger people who desire to grow in the Lord across all the spheres of culture, education, the arts, science and technology, law, business, media, sport, politics etc. Matured men and women have learned the wisdom of God through decades of experience in these fields that can greatly benefit emerging leaders in like vocation. This partnering must be done prayerfully in step with the Spirit (Gal 5:25).

An older man passed on some infallible wisdom to me decades ago, “Pay attention to those who you know God has placed you in relation with.”  If the Lord makes the connection, then the natural result will be “a building up in love” (Eph 4:16). The criterion for partnering across generations is not institutional position, success, reputation, credentials, or superior knowledge, but an unwavering commitment to the centrality of Christ. Where the Lord himself is kept as our focus God’s plan for impartation between generations will move towards its appointed goal in the power of the Spirit. I am constantly amazed at how in thousands of one to one meetings brothers from a huge range of ethnicities and traditions, from Catholic to Pentecostal, have freely submitted to direction, correction and instruction. Since money never changes hands and none of this is institutionalised ulterior motives are kept away.

What is happening in the Spirit is not submission to me as a formal leader (Heb 13:7), which I am not, but a share in Jesus’ submission to the Father in going to the cross (Phil 2:5-11). What is submitted is the Spirit’s secret wisdom (1 Cor 2:7-8) that there can be no ultimate glory without walking Christ’s path of willing suffering (Luke 24:26) for the sake of the kingdom of God. The voice which must be heard in intergenerational fathering for the raising up of succession in leadership is the voice of God the Father. And, according to the scriptures, the Father is most lovingly revealed in the realm of painful discipline (Heb 12:5-11). This cannot be reduced to a set of procedures or principles, even if these are biblically derived. The Father’s presence is made known in the pain experienced as I am constrained by the Spirit to correct one of my spiritual children. I am often anguished in talking to people about their sin (cf. 2 Cor 12:19-13:4), but in the Lord such admonition carries an astonishing authority that is very rarely resisted. I can only believe that the Father’s love for his Son is being mediated through my life in the Spirit. This is tremendously humbling.

The Evangelical Alliance in Australia is prayerfully seeking to guide a pragmatic but mostly spiritually shallow Church back to the building blocks of relationships flowing from the life of the Trinity. We envision that God will raise up a marvellously inclusive movement. With masses of older mature believers moving into retirement, and an emerging generation of young people dissatisfied with costless forms of discipleship robbing them of proper nurture, things are providentially set up for a major work of grace. Glory to God alone.