WHY PASTORS STAY TOO LONG
Gary L. McIntosh
Studies of peak performance have been completed for several professions. For example, professional athletes tend to peak around age 28, and the average age for those setting world records in athletics is 26. 1 Of course, some Olympic medal winners have been over forty, and a few well known football, baseball, and basketball players have competed into their forties.
For careers that involve mental creativity, performance tends to peak later in life. Philip Hans Franses, an economist, found that physicists have often made their most important discoveries at age 48, while chess grand masters tend to peak in their mental acuity at age 31. Famous artists have produced their most priceless works around age 42, Nobel Prize – winning authors most often wrote their best work at age 45, and classical composers have written their most popular music at 39. The average age for a person’ s prime creative work is 42. 2 If the general studies of creative people in similar occupations holds true for pastors, most will reach their peak creativity between 35 and 50 years of age.
But, like in other professions, some pastors will continue to minster effectively well into their eighties.
Why Pastors Stay Too Long
Pastors often wait too long to retire for a number of reasons, but here are a few that top the list.
• A lack of financial preparation for retirement. Today’ s churches usually try to help a pastor
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