Yet it is sad to note that the greatest generation has led our church into its only period of decline. While at the helm they presided over more dismantling than building. They witnessed this decline without any major organizational self-criticism much less any significant change in the way our church does its work. As pastors and bishops, the generation of World War II proved to be peculiarly ill-suited for evangelism, allowing us to lose contact with at least two generations of youth, as well as the Boosters offspring who tended to desert the churches their parents had built. I believe a major reason for the ineffectiveness of our senior church leadership is their worldview.
Builders are incredibly loyal to the institutions, including the churches, to which they belong.
They give sacrificially, support rather unconditionally, and feel a deep debt of gratitude to the church that they helped to build. They were good at building great institutions, but they are unwilling, unimaginative reformers. They devised the social legislation, and the huge governmental bureaucratic growth of the post-war years, and are reluctant to make major modifications in laws, rules, and procedure. Along with their love for an institution comes great confidence that the institution, despite its flaws, is on the right track. Calls for fundamental reform of the institution are dismissed by the Boosters as disloyal.