The world may think you’re past your prime; Jesus doesn’t think that. Don’t throw in the towel when the finish line looms so near… For decades, you’ve been amassing wisdom and experience and patience and perspective. Now, on the other side of a career, you’re finally free to share those riches with others. There are younger men and women in the throes of their early careers, new fathers and mothers insecure in their parenting, teens eager to grow up but unsure how — all in desperate need of your rooted presence. 

This is a plea for aging Christians not to follow millions of your peers in making a tragic mistake: leaving the place, and especially the local church, where you have built up years, if not decades, of relational capital.

We’re now about halfway through the great retirement transition of that massive generation born from 1946 to 1964. The first Boomers hit age seventy in 2016; the last of the Boomers will hit seventy in 2034. So, here we stand at about the midpoint of the vocational sunset of more than seventy million Americans — about 20 percent of the U.S. population.

I’ll resist commenting on the sociology and economics. I want to raise one particular flag, and wave it back and forth, for the eyes of Boomers who profess to love Jesus.

Florida Man

Earlier this year, an article called “The Retreat of the Successful” caught my attention. The author, Justin Powell, focuses on the disappearance of local businesses and the (retiring) men who once built them. He’s not against the state of Florida, but he laments the growing trend of retreat:

The Florida house has become a symbol. It’s not just about retirement. It’s about retreat. About people who once carried the weight of a place deciding they’ve had enough — and disappearing just when they’re needed most. . . . To be clear, I’m not blaming Florida. Rest is good. Warm weather is great. And after decades of building something, enjoying the fruits of your labor isn’t wrong.

But the problem isn’t geography. It’s disconnection. It’s a mindset that says: I’m done. Let someone else carry the weight. It’s the decision to pull up roots instead of planting deeper.

What we’re losing isn’t productivity — it’s presence. You can’t replace 40 years of trust and community.

Powell calls this retreat “a quiet exodus” that is “hollowing out American towns — not just economically, but relationally, institutionally, even spiritually” (my emphasis). Others can lament the economics; my leading concern is the spiritual and relational loss to local churches:

Churches, nonprofits, and civic boards lose someone who said “yes” without needing recognition. The next generation loses a mentor. And families — especially extended families — lose a rooted presence they didn’t even realize they relied on.

Rooted Presence

I greatly appreciate the phrase “rooted presence.” As a pastor, I deeply value the rooted presence of aging godly men and women in a local church. It cannot be reproduced in short order. Deep roots take decades.

Godly influence compounds when you invest deeply in a place and demonstrate long years of durability. Go elsewhere, and you have to start all over again. But stay put, and you begin to reap the harvest of what you’ve sown over decades of faithfulness.

Part of embracing your finitude and the stubborn contours of God’s design for human life is recognizing that you cannot microwave rooted, faithful, trustworthy presence. If decades are chips, you get, at most, eight or nine to spend. You don’t choose how your first two are spent. In the modern world, we have some remarkable freedoms in how we spend our third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh chips. By the time you’re hitting seventy, you have spent most of your chips. But there is no better return on your last one or two than doubling down in the place you’ve invested the rest.

It’s not just the communities and churches left behind that lose out. Powell observes,

Even the retirees themselves don’t gain as much as they think. Their calendars may be full, but they often feel rootless. Disconnected. You can’t recreate the depth of a 30-year friendship at age 70 wandering around your empty vacation home. And when those familiar faces are no longer around, a kind of spiritual loneliness sets in.

To be clear, you might spend your golden years in some daring foreign mission like Raymond Lull.

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