Retirement

Pastors must be, in one sense, mildly schizophrenic: that is, what they know and hear (especially in confession) must never be allowed to change your public behavior or unduly influence it. I'm finding out that preparing for retirement, and preparing a congregation for retirement, presents a similar situation. What you think a congregation should do and the direction you think it should go may be wildly dissimilar from what the people of the congregation might think that they want. It seems to me that one has to take special care not to try and force a congregation to do what you think is the right thing to do.