by David Melton
I taught a group of students at Boston Baptist College this morning. They are primarily juniors and seniors, so in a year — maybe two — they will graduate from Boston. What does the next decade look like for them?
Of course, the Lord could come. I don’t think any of us would argue with that! That’s the day we are homesick for … that is what all of creation groans to see.
But what if the Lord tarries? Clearly scripture tells us to “watch” but keep “working.” So in a decade we very well might be right here tending the vineyard. For the students I met with today, what does that mean?
I say it will likely be different for my students than it was for me. Many of us graduated from our ministry education with very little debt (thanks to the generosity of our forbearers and perhaps some frugality and industry on our own part). Almost all of us had an opportunity waiting for us to go into “full-time” ministry soon after graduation. Church “jobs” — not glamorous, to be sure — were there to be had! For my first paid ministry job I mopped floors and knocked doors. Then I got “promoted” to youth ministry and still did the other. But I was able to start my “working life” doing church ministry!
In the new landscape, college costs have necessarily soared — and nobody seems to be able to help that. That means that college debt is also soaring, and the grim reality is that many of our best young graduates leave college with tens of thousands of dollars of debt! They don’t like it, we don’t like it. Then, the other reality is that full-time ministry jobs are much scarcer than a generation ago. That, too, is just unavoidable reality — cost of living is higher, healthcare costs are prohibitive. It is a brutally challenging forecast.
The truth is that ten years from now many Bible college graduates will still be paying off student loans and just finally getting opportunities for full-time ministry positions — if they haven’t migrated to somewhere or something else.
I wish I had a quick one-two-three solution to all of this. I do not. But our leadership in Boston, administration and trustees, has been diligently working on this for years … we call the whole discussion “From here to there,” and we are implementing some strategies and working on others. Let’s let the spotlight shine on this challenge. We dare not be cautious and just pretend that our finest young men and women should, and will, just stand around and work secular jobs and wait for a decade. I, for one, don’t think our churches can afford to do without them for the next decade. I know these young people. Many of them have the right stuff.
This morning, I taught students from around the U.S.A. and several nations of the world. Ten years from now, they can be the heart of who we are. Let’s do the next decade with them. Let’s come up with a “ten-year plan.” Let’s talk.