“If I was starting my ministry today…” began the 87-year-old preacher. I uncapped my pen and hung on to his every word.

As a pastor in my first year of pastoral ministry, I listened intently to Dr. Karl Stegall’s sermon to pastors and laity at the Alabama/Emerald Coast Annual Conference of the Global Methodist Church. To those gathered there, from every stage of life, he spoke wisdom and experience only 60+ years of ministry could bring.

I’ve known Karl for about a decade now. His seminary scholarship foundation helped my wife and me pursue seminary degrees debt-free. He and his wife welcomed us when we moved into the neighboring county just last summer. He’s a legend and a saint and I’m grateful to know him.

As I sat there listening to Karl speak to my annual conference, I couldn’t help but think of another preacher I had recently heard. A few weeks before, at the Global Methodist Young Adult 242 Conference, I heard Rev. Emily Allen preach.

I’ve known Emily for about 5 years now. Emily is a 26-year-old seminary student who was recently ordained in the Global Methodist Church. A few days after she preached at the 242 Conference, she preached at her own Global Methodist annual conference.

The juxtaposition of these two annual conference preachers was striking to me: a retired Methodist minister in his “sunset years of life’ (his words, not mine) and a seminary student in the dawn of her pastoral ministry.

And as I thought of these two incredible preachers, I couldn’t help but think:

These are the two preachers we need.

These two aren’t just the two preachers we need. They represent the two teachers we need. The two politicians we need. The two scientists and advocates and authors and farmers we need.

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A couple years ago, I wrote a blog post about young people in leadership in the church. I didn’t think much of it, until it blew up wider than I could have imagined. Apparently, I had hit a nerve, something that young and not-so-young people had noticed and knew needed to be changed.

Since then, I’ve thought a lot about how we as the church help young people feel welcomed, heard, and empowered to lead. Events like the 242 Conference (where young clergy and seminary students were poured into by denominational leadership) and the Northeast Annual Conference of the Global Methodist Church (where Emily was invited to preach) excite me for the future.

But as excited as I get by these events, I seem to find just as many events where Emilys aren’t given space to lead. Where, at best, young people are seen and not really heard.

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After writing about young people in leadership in the church, I’ve also noticed in our society that it’s not just young people who feel like they aren’t being seen, heard, and empowered to lead. After reading one of my blog posts, a friend in the latter decades of her life shared with me that the older she gets, the less she feels like she has opportunity to share her wisdom.

Hearing that broke my heart. If we want to make progress in the future, we need to learn from those who have lived the longest in the past.

I think this is a prevalent issue in Western culture. We want to hear from the people who are at the most “productive” years of their lives, those whose names we know and seem to be fruitful in all they currently do.

We have an obsession in our Western society with the “now.” We value things that are immediate. Not the past. Not the future. Now.

We hear from preachers called “Bishop,” “President pro tempore,” and “Senior Pastor of [Largest Nearby Church].” We don’t want to hear from those who are retired or those who haven’t even pastored a church yet.

We want to hear from CEOs and COOs leading businesses that are booming. We don’t want to hear from presidents emeritus or middle managers.

We want to hear from the professors with recent discoveries and theories. We don’t want to hear from those who blazed the trail for today’s scientists or those who are still cutting their teeth in the field.

Sure, it’s great to hear from those who are at their peak of their productivity and accolades. But if we’re only listening to preachers with big churches, writers of best-sellers, and coaches of winning teams, then we’re limiting ourselves to only hearing the lessons of “now” and not the lessons of the past or the future.

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Certainly, we need other preachers than Karl and Emily. We need Jim’s in their 60s and Kim’s in their 30s. We need Reese’s in their 50s and Kaleesa’s in their 40s. We need to hear a wide range of preachers of various ages and genders and races.

But too often, Karl and Emily never get to fill our pulpits. Or our board rooms or garden club socials or networking breakfasts.

But what if we started listening to those who are at the peak of their potential and the peak of their wisdom? What if we started listening to the Emily’s and the Karl’s of this world?

What if?

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I couldn’t help but think about when Karl was 26 years old listening to 87-year-old preachers. He would have been listening to someone who was born in 1876. Someone whose parents lived through the Civil War. Who lived through the Great Depression and both World Wars. Who knew what it was like to live in a world without automobiles and airplanes.

And I couldn’t help but think of the 26-year-olds that an 87-year-old Emily will preach to. They’ll be the ones who lead the church into the 22nd century. They’ll have lived through COVID and AI and things we can’t even dream of.

If we look at the lifespans of those who preached to Karl and those that Emily will preach to, these two preachers will be connect people 300 years apart.

These are the preachers we need.

We need to hear from, read, and be around those of many generations.

The perspective Karl has on the world can’t be bought. And the perspective Emily has on the world can’t be bought either.

And yet, too often, these are the two preachers we tend to silence.

We silence the Karl’s of this world as being “irrelevant, outdated, not up with the times.” We silence the Emily’s of this world as being “naive, uninformed, not earning her place.”

We do so at our own peril.

We need preachers who say, “We’ve tried it before and it doesn’t work” and we need preachers who reply “Why not?”

We need preachers who have “been there, done that” and preachers who haven’t even been around the block once.

We need preachers who can give decades’ worth of stories and preachers who have decades’ worth of stories yet to be written.

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As excited as events like a 242 Conference intended to empower young people makes me, I also look around and see a lot of well-meaning people who proclaim their belief of empowering the next generation stand in the door and the pulpits that others should be filling. If we’re ever going to hear from the Karls and the Emilys, it’s going to take humility for those in power to step aside and let others have a word.

That blog post that—to my surprise—blew up all began with one leader in some of the peak years of his productivity saying, “Anybody in this room, maybe 45, 50, or older, we should do nothing except beside or behind a young leader. We’re out of time for building our careers. That stuff just does not matter anymore.”

If we believe that young people are the “leaders of the future,” then we need to give them opportunities to be leaders now.

We need to give them opportunities to preach and be preached to. We need to give them opportunities to give and receive feedback. We need them to lead and be led.

If we believe that “history repeats itself,” then we need to give those who have lived in history the opportunity to teach us.

We need to stop being so productive and sit down to listen to them. We need to look to them as advisors and teachers and mentors. We need to ask questions and learn from them.

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I imagine that there are many of you reading this who relate best with Karl. You know some things because you’ve seen some things and it seems like nobody wants to hear the wisdom you’ve earned.

I want to tell you: The world needs you. We need you. I’m sorry that we haven’t listened well. Find spaces where you’re welcomed and share your life experience. We could really use it.

I also imagine that there are many of you reading this who relate best with Emily. You know that you have things to say but it seems like nobody wants to hear them. You know that one day, you’ll be entrusted to lead and yet nobody wants to teach you. Find those who do hear you and empower you and stick with them. They are worth following.

For those in between the Karls and the Emilys: Open a door. Hand over a pulpit. Give away a platform. Even if you’re not being invited to preach at annual conferences (or whatever an annual conference looks like in your career or hobby), you have places of leadership and power that you can hand over to another person.

What does it look like to invite a Karl into the board room to share where your organization has gone? To invite an Emily to join you at a meeting to contribute and learn? How can you invite a Karl to your kitchen table for your kids to ask questions or an Emily to grab coffee so that you can see things from her perspective?

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I dream of a day, hopefully very soon, where I know that I can walk into an annual conference and will learn from a Karl and an Emily. I dream of a day where we soak in a lifetime of lessons from Karl. Where we say to Emily, “We believe in the future of your ministry so much that we want you leading now.” I dream of a day when people young and old look around and say, “These people care about me. They know me. They want me.”

May that day come quickly.

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