Connectional Addiction: Retirement, Identity, and the Hidden Temptation of Ministerial Influence
Connectional Addiction: Retirement, Identity, and the Hidden Temptation of Ministerial Influence
By Mike Powers
Last June (2025) I retired for the third time since 2017. Obviously, I am not very good at this. With each retirement, I experienced some common and rather odd feelings. Some of these feelings reveal the typical stages of grief: denial (“I can’t be this old!”); anger (“I am not appreciated or being treated fairly!”); bargaining (“Maybe…if only…how about…”); depression (“Bummer. This is really happening.”); acceptance (“Ya know, this may not be so bad after all”).
I also have noticed something else, something more difficult than I would have imagined or want to admit: I struggled with not being included in the connectional life of the church. For the past 52 years, I have been a person of influence, recognition, and power. Youth and parents respected me as the youth leader. Small membership churches had high expectations of me as their spiritual director, neighbor and friend. Middle-size churches bestowed upon me the mantle of leadership, giving me more time and space to broaden the scope of my ministry. I learned the primary role and responsibility of staff leadership and development in the two large-membership churches. Being in ministry to more people, I needed to invest deeply in a few key leaders who needed my wisdom and direction. Along this journey as an itinerant minister, I was an eager and a willing participant in the connectional life of the United Methodist Church on the district, conference, jurisdictional and general church levels. Serving as an organizer and Conference Superintendent in the Global Methodist Church, I was immersed in the connectional Church. Throughout my ministry, I was needed and included in all these spheres of influence, and then I was not.
It is a strange feeling, this sense of ‘disconnecting’ with all that ordered my days and nights for 52 years. Oh, I understand I am retiring only from the ‘active itinerant ministry’ and still part of the covenant fellowship with my colleagues, but I am certain that friends who have gone before me into retirement identify with these feelings. When one retires, he/she is disconnected, excluded, and no longer considered a person of influence, recognition, and power. To my surprise, this sense of loss, of no longer ‘being in the loop’ nor part of the ‘powers that be’ (excuse the pun), has revealed how addicted I became to the connection. All of this has been such a dynamic part of my thinking, praying, hoping, planning, investing, reading, talking, decision-making, etc. that the thought of going cold turkey made me wonder if there is life after retirement?
The apostle Paul’s admonition in Ephesians 5:18 comes to mind: “Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit.” Paul’s concern is not so much on alcohol-related issues as being dependent on artificial stimuli, getting hooked on something that becomes more important and more energizing than the Holy Spirit. Henri Nouwen explained in his classic work, “In the Name of Jesus,” that Jesus was tempted by satan to be relevant (a person of influence), spectacular (highly recognized) and powerful (all-controlling), i.e., artificially stimulated by and dependent on the anti-spiritual rather than the Holy Spirit. Paul used the word “debauchery” (ἀσωτία: unsavedness, incorrigible, dissolute) only one other time, Titus 1:6, when he is describing the high calling of character of an elder (ἐπίσκοπος), “…someone who is…not accused of debauchery and not rebellious.” Or as we can conclude, someone who is under the influence of the Holy Spirit and only the Holy Spirit.
It has taken me three tries to appreciate that the transition into retirement can be much more than relinquishing spheres of influence, resigning from positions of recognition, and releasing my grip on power and control. This is a God-moment, a Celebration of Recovery-moment for the restoration of my soul, a renewal of the Holy Spirit, and a return to my original call to ministry. May it be so, Lord. May it be so.
A final word. I wonder how many of my clergy brothers and sisters, active and retired, have become addicted to connectionalism, where being a person of influence, holding positions of recognition, and wielding authority over others have become the energizing passion of their lives rather than the pure, simple joy of serving Jesus and all that he loves? I wonder how many of us are willing to honestly confess that this compulsion to be relevant, spectacular and powerful has made life unmanageable, and, like an alcoholic in an AA meetiing, we are ready to admit our only hope of recovery is in the intervention of a Higher Power, the Spirit of Truth? Such serious, intentional transparency and vulnerability may require the relinquishing of positions to demonstrate how desperate we are for the healing power of the Holy Spirit. Such humility, honesty and willingness to do whatever it takes to be personally renewed in the Spirit is our best way forward not only for ourselves but for the recovery of the whole Church. May it be so, Lord. May it be so.
On the other end of my ministry, when I finished college and was sorting out the calling of God on my life, I read a prayer by Christina Rossetti and copied it in my Bible. I hoped this would characterize my life of ministry. “The Lowest Place” is her contemplation on the heart of the apostle Andrew. Now on this end of my ministry career, I want to pray these words more honestly and completely and regularly than before.
Give me the lowest place: not that I dare
Ask for that lowest place, but Thou hast died
That I might live and share
Thy glory by Thy side.
“Give me the lowest place: or if for me
That lowest place too high, make one more low
Where I may sit and see
My God and love Thee so.
May it be so, Lord. May it be so.
