#247 Young Pastor

"You're pretty young to be a pastor." I can't tell you how many times I've heard that in my career. When I first started out, I definitely understood. I was twenty-five years old. I'd gone straight from high school to college to seminary and then entered full-time work as a minister of the Word. I was about as young as you could expect a pastor to be.

But now, nearly six years later, I'm finding the comment more and more amusing. I still understand it to an extent. The people who tell me how young I am are probably just meeting me and don't really know how old I am or how much experience I have. I look pretty young (though I always wonder what these people would think if I didn't have my beard—I'm significantly younger looking then). But I've been doing this for a while now. I'm serving my second congregation. I've got two kids at home. I'm not a fresh-faced seminarian anymore. In fact, I turned thirty-one last week. I'm definitely not old, but I'm excluded by those who "don't trust anyone over thirty."

The thing with the "young pastor" comment is that I'm never quite sure what people mean by it. Are they complimenting my youthful appearance, or are they wondering if I'm really qualified for the job? Despite the fact that most of my seminary classmates were my peers, it seems most people I meet assume a pastor is going to be older than I am. (Maybe they never think too much about pastors starting their careers or have a lot of experience with pastors who enter ministry as a second career.) So I smile and laugh and move on with my day. I'm not losing any sleep over strangers being surprised at my age and/or my job. But I have to say, it won't bother me when these comments eventually go away.

Grace and peace,

BMH