Age and the Ministry: Consequences for Minister-Parishioner and Minister-Minister Relations

Abstract

firm, are functionally-specific rather than diffuse. Functional specificity in formal organizations is based on the ability of limited work-related performance criteria to serve as guidelines for actions and interpersonal relations. But, as many studies have shown, nonwork criteria often become important. Among members of small work teams, this leads to friendships and, often, subversion of the organization's formal work rules. In other instances, non-work criteria can lead to discrimination against minority groups, as it does in many areas. There are many sources of diffuseness, and there are also many diverse consequences. The purpose of the present paper is to suggest how one non-work criterion, age, can affect the ability of one kind of service worker, the minister, to perform adequately in his occupational roles. Since the minister provides services to individual parishioners and since he also is charged with directing the business affairs of the church organization, the intrusion of non-work criteria into one set of relations can, if they spill over into other sets of relations, have accumulative negative consequences for the minister. A complete consideration of the meaning of age would have to analyze how age affects the minister's other role relations: the way he relates to his denominational superiors, to his colleagues, and to those outside the church. In short, the potential consequences of age-based behavior are wide-reaching. For the relative ages of potential role partners can affect the creation, structuring, and termination of inter-personal relations. In occupational terms, age can have crucial significance for the way a person performs his occupational duties, the way he relates to his "occupational community," and, the career pattern he follows. The ministry is an excellent locus for the study of the significance of age. This is because the universalistic ideology of Christian religion seems to argue that all men should be treated equally, regardless of variations in their social position. Also, ordination and clerical garb provide a minister with credentials which are supposed to take primacy in determining the minister's relations with his clients. That