Monday, April 11, 2016

THE WISDOM OF THE AGED

I come from a small church denomination with less than a thousand people across the country, with five bishops! Throughout the years it has been puzzling for me and for many people I talk to, how we have so many bishops in so little a denomination as ours.

Recently, I've been reading the stories of church leaders from all the member churches of our congregations and it suddenly hit me why we had so many bishops. Each area/district is in a separate province, a few hours away from each other (by driving), and a few days away by hiking. In each of these areas, people have different cultures, different languages/dialects, different context, and different perpectives. They often need a leader who understands their context to mentor them and disciple them. They need a leader whom they can visit for advice and who can also visit them from time to time to encourage them. In their geographical locations, it would be hard for one bishop to visit the churches on a regular basis without being physically exhausted. That is why, perhaps, they needed five bishops - one for each strategic location. They needed a bishop not just to lead, but mostly to serve as a mentor, a fatehr figure, an adviser, a counselor. 

This now becomes clear to me. The wisdom of the aged people can be puzzling for us, younger generation, but it is amazing to finally figure out that yes, somehow, their wisdom made sense.

There is a lot of things we can do to improve on our current situation, and we need not ditch the wisdom of the aged. In fact, we need their wisdom, their past experiences and lessons from pains ad mistakes - in order to guide our generation into dreaming for the future. :)