On Monday, August 24, I had the joy of sitting down for a long visit with the Rev. Dr. James "Jim" Ewing. We shared a table, a glass of water, a cup of coffee, and a couple of hours that I will not soon forget. What began as a check-in became a conversation about ministry, memory, aging, and the kind of faithfulness that only shows itself over decades. I came to offer a presence. I left having received a good deal more than I gave.
One of the first things our conversation made plain is something our polity already tells us but our practice sometimes forgets: retired ministers are still ministers. Standing does not expire. Ordination is not a job description that ends when the last pension check begins. Our retired clergy remain in covenant with the Church, with this Conference, and with one another.
Jim's ministry was never confined to a parish pulpit. He served as a CPE supervisor and as a sector Director of Pastoral Care and Counseling, which means much of his life's work was spent forming other ministers and sitting with people in the hardest hours of their lives. He taught pastors how to listen. He sat in the supervisory session and asked the question that helped a student finally see themselves clearly.
That work did not stop when the title came off the door. It changed shape. The clinical setting gave way to the table. The supervision of students gave way to the encouragement of whoever sits down across from him. The formal evaluation gave way to the story told well to someone who needed to hear it. That is still ministry. It is simply ministry without a job title.
Sitting with Jim reminded me how much institutional memory lives in our retired ministers. They remember the mergers and the closures. They remember the fights we won and the ones we lost and why. They remember what the Conference looked like before the current structure, before the current buildings, before most of us arrived. When we do not visit them, we do not just neglect a person. We lose a library.
They also carry pastoral wisdom that cannot be taught in a classroom or captured in a manual. Jim spoke with the kind of clarity that comes only after a person has buried enough parishioners, sat with enough families in crisis, and preached through enough seasons to know the difference between what is urgent and what is important. That perspective is a gift to those of us still in the thick of it.
Here is the part I most want our clergy to hear. Ministers who have spent forty or fifty years caring for others often find that no one caring for them. The calls are thin out. The invitations stop coming. The people they served have moved on or passed on. Loneliness is one of the quiet realities of retired ministry, and it does not announce itself.
Active clergy visiting retired clergy is not charity. It is a covenant. It is the Church remembering its own. And it is, frankly, good for us. Every one of us who is still serving will one day be the person on the other side of that table, hoping someone will remember to knock.
Not everything we discussed was ministry. We talked about family, about health, about what changes and what does not as the years pile up, about the things that still bring delight. There was laughter. There was a good deal of laughter. Jim has held on to his humor, and that alone preached a sermon to me about how to age faithfully.
I have two invitations for you: first is for our active clergy. Pick one retired minister. Call them. Better yet, go see them. Take an hour. Bring nothing but your attention.
The second is for our retired clergy. The Southwest Conference hosts a monthly Zoom gathering for retired ministers, and there is a place at it for you. It is not a meeting and there is no agenda to survive. It is an hour of connection with colleagues who understand this season because they are living it too. Come and listen if that is all you want to do. Come and tell a story if you would rather. Simply reach out to my office and we will make sure you have the link and the schedule.
You will not regret either one. You may find, as I did, that you came to give and stayed to receive.
Grace and peace,
The Rev. Dr. Derrick Elliott