Retired from Ministry, Not from the Gospel, with Kenneth Ulmer

What happens when a long pastoral calling ends, friendships fade, and the church faces cultural fracture? Bishop Kenneth C. Ulmer (42 years in ministry at Faithful Central Bible Church in Inglewood, CA) joins Mark Labberton for a searching conversation about retirement from pastoral ministry, loneliness, leadership, and the meaning of credible witness in the Black church today.

“Ministry can be a lonely business.”

In this episode, Bishop Ulmer reflects on the stepping away after four decades of pastoral leadership, navigating aloneness, disrupted rhythms, and the spiritual costs of transition. Together they discuss pastoral loneliness, friendship and grief, retirement and identity, church leadership after elections, authenticity versus attraction, political division in congregations, and whether the church still centers Jesus.

Episode Highlights

• “Ministry can be a lonely business.”
• “[Boy, pointing to a church] Is God in there? [Pastor] Sometimes I wonder.”
• “There’s a Moses in you that will see farther than you’ll go.”
• “The tension is authenticity versus attraction.”
• “Jesus is the answer for the world today.”

About Kenneth C. Ulmer

Bishop Kenneth C. Ulmer is Bishop Emeritus of Faithful Central Bible Church in Inglewood, California, where he served as senior pastor for more than four decades. A nationally respected preacher, civic leader, and mentor, Ulmer played a significant role in the spiritual and economic life of Los Angeles, including the preservation of the Forum as a major community asset. He has been a prominent voice in conversations about the Black church, urban ministry, and faithful Christian leadership amid cultural and political change. Ulmer continues to teach, preach, and advise leaders while reflecting publicly on vocation, aging, and wisdom in ministry.

Learn more and follow at https://www.faithfulcentral.com

Helpful Links And Resources

• Faithful Central Bible Church: https://www.faithfulcentral.com
• Conversing with Mark Labberton: https://comment.org/conversing
• Credible Witness podcast: https://faith.yale.edu/credible-witness

Show Notes

• Long pastoral tenure ending after more than four decades of leadership
• Friendship formed through shared grief and the loss of trusted companions
• Prayer, friendship, and ministry forged “on our knees” at Hollywood Presbyterian
• Loss of regular companionship revealing unexpected loneliness and aloneness
• “Ministry can be a lonely business.”
• Absence of trusted friends exposing a deep relational void
• Final sermon titled “I Did My Best,” echoing 2 Timothy imagery and the words on Kenneth Ulmer’s father’s grave
• “I fought a good fight” as closing vocational reflection
• Disrupted spiritual rhythm after forty-one years of weekly preaching
• “My rhythm is off.”
• Identity shaped by Sunday coming “every seven days”
• Question of where and how to worship after stepping away
• Public recognition colliding with uncertainty about purpose
• Therapy as a faithful response to grief and transition
• Energy and health without a clear channel for vocation
• Question of “what do you do now?” after leadership ends
• Seeing farther than you will go as a leadership reality
• Deuteronomy 34 and Moses viewing the Promised Land
• “There’s a Moses in you that will see farther than you’ll go.”
• Passing vision to a Joshua who will go farther than he can see
• Grief of cheering from the sidelines while no longer on the field
• Wrestling with authenticity versus attraction in church leadership
• John 12:32 and the tension of lifting up Jesus to draw others
• “The tension is authenticity versus attraction.”
• Fear of entertainment, production, and celebrity eclipsing Christ
• Question of whether churches are built on preaching or personality
• Political polarization dividing congregations and pulpits
• Question pastors must ask: “Who am I going to be after this ballot?”
• Kingdom identity beyond donkey or elephant, only the Lamb
• “Holding up the bloodstained banner” as faithful witness
• Doors of the church open—how wide are they, and for whom?
• Concern for credibility after the benediction and after the election
• Civic engagement without surrendering theological center
• Preserving community good beyond church walls and buildings
• Forum purchase as economic stewardship, not church expansion
• Question of whether God is still “in that house”
• How much of the God inside gets outside into the neighborhood?
• Jesus as the enduring answer amid cultural confusion
• Worship song, “We Offer Jesus”
• “Jesus in the morning, Jesus at noonday, Jesus in the midnight hour.”
• Call to be the extended incarnation in ordinary life: “You are the temple.”
• “Who are you turning away that he [Jesus] would not turn away?”

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Production Credits

Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.