March 14, 2025 • 58 mins
Pastor Andrew Jones shares insights on unity within the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, exploring how harmony functions differently from uniformity and creates a more beautiful expression of Christ's body.
• Concordia (harmony) creates beauty through diversity of notes working together rather than identical sounds
• Musical metaphors illuminate church dynamics—dissonance and resolution both necessary for beautiful music
• Vulnerability in leadership creates safety and authenticity rather than maintaining false facades
• Curiosity about different expressions of faith builds understanding and appreciation across differences
• The prior approval process needs greater transparency to build trust and protect church leaders
• Churches facing decline must process grief before creating new visions for the future
• Post-pandemic ministry requires adapting to new realities like online worshippers becoming in-person members
• Community-facing spaces create opportunities for connection beyond traditional church activities
Find Andy's books "10 Questions to Ask Every Time you Read the Bible" and "10 Lies Satan Loves to Tell" wherever books are sold, and subscribe to his newsletter at biblecurious.substack.com
Find peace, clarity, and companionship for your spiritual journey.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Lead Time.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Welcome to Lead Time, tim Allman here.
Jack Kalberg has the day off.
I get the privilege today,though, of hanging out with a
brother just met have beeninfluenced by his writing and
we're going to refer to some ofhis writing, especially around
the topic of unity and harmonytoward the mission of Jesus,
(00:25):
specifically in our sharedcontext, which is both being
pastors in the Lutheran ChurchMissouri Synod.
So this is Andy Jones.
He serves at Concord,california, in Concord,
california, at First LutheranChurch.
That's about 20 miles east ofOakland in the Bay Area.
He is a graduate of ConcordiaSeminary in St Louis.
(00:45):
He's a friend of for those ofyou who know, caleb Cox, caleb
is a young pastor in the LCMS atRedeemer Lutheran Church in
Fort Collins, colorado.
He's been married for 17,.
So, going back to Andy now,andy and Caleb are friends.
Andy's been married 17 years.
He was on the mission field forfour years and then did campus
(01:05):
ministry at Concordia, st Paul,for a bit and then went to the
seminary.
Now he's been at his first callat First Lutheran there in
Concord for seven years.
What a joy to get to spend sometime with you today, andy.
How are you doing, man?
Speaker 1 (01:18):
I'm doing all right.
Good to meet you, Tim.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yeah, good to meet you.
Thanks for reaching out.
Let's start on the topic ofConcordia.
You did some writing, which wasfantastic.
You're an excellent writer onwhy Concordia is so necessary,
but it's so hard to live by,Andy.
Let's just orient ourselvesthere.
Around the topic of unity,unity.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Yeah, so you know I'm not a Latin scholar.
The word concordia meansharmony.
From what everything I've seen,it's sort of a unity and
harmony concept, and I'm asomewhat musical person.
I can sing okay, I'm notplaying the piano or guitar or
anything but as far as musicgoes, harmony is a concept that
I think helps us understand whatit means to be in unity and to
(02:08):
be in harmony and to be inconcordia with one another,
because in music you could playthe exact same note on multiple
different instruments and itwould sound fine, but it's not
going to sound as beautiful asif you have an array of notes
that work together in harmony,that build chords and movement
(02:33):
and rhythm and all these sortsof things.
And so I think one of thechallenges that we have in the
church right now and reallyforever, is how do we, how do we
have unity with one another inthat harmony, making a more
beautiful church that soundsbetter, that looks better, that
(02:55):
is better, through harmony.
That is not just a singularnote, and if you think about,
you know what Paul talks aboutin both Romans and first
Corinthians is that there's thisconcept of the body of Christ
being, you know, many members.
It's not good if the entirebody of Christ is all a hand or
(03:17):
all an eye or all an ear.
You need a variety of pieces, avariety of body parts, variety
of members, in order for thechurch to be the body parts that
(03:51):
they're meant to be, allowingpeople to be the notes that
they're meant to be, dependingon which metaphor you want to go
with.
So that's where I'm coming fromon this topic.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Well, I'm coming from a similar, if not same
perspective.
Are you a fan of Cody Fry atall?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
I can't say that I am .
Speaker 2 (04:12):
He's a recording artist.
For those of you, I'm a big fanof Ben Rector as an artist.
It's good have you heard of BenRector.
You know who Ben Rector is.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
I've heard of him, yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So he and Cody Fry collaboratesome.
I went to their concert with mywife and they had a huge
orchestra.
If you look up, if you're a BenRector fan and you can get to
one of his orchestra concertswith he and Cody Fry
unbelievable.
Cody Fry's big song, if you lookhim up on iTunes or whatnot is
(04:45):
I Hear a Symphony and thebeautiful part of that song is
there's like any good storyyou're going to have a setting,
you're going to have movement,you're going to have dissonance,
you're going to have climax,you're going to have resolution,
you're going to have the ahkind of experience.
You're going to have resolution.
(05:19):
You're going to have the ahkind of experience.
We're finally at rest.
But I love the middle point ofyou know I hear a symphony or
any good orchestra or any goodpiece of music is there is a
little to be dissonance, chordsthat don't quite, and then it
kind of there's something in me,andy, and in you and anybody
that's attuned toward music,that wants to see resolution.
But it comes through a goodpiece, comes through resonance,
and I think a lot of times ashuman beings we just we want to
(05:39):
get rid of the dissonance, wewant to get rid of anything that
is like slightly uncomfortablefor us.
But anyway, a great piece ofart always has whether it's in
song or in writing, it hasconflict, and I guess this goes
down to one of my kind of mainrecurring themes is I don't know
(06:00):
that the church and the churchthat we're a part of the LCMS,
that the church and the churchthat we're a part of the LCMS is
wrestling well with dissonanceand conflict, and I think we're
pursuing uniformity, we'repursuing everybody.
Just do the same melody and youcan refer to worship.
You can refer to a number ofthings.
Just do the bylaws or whateverit is.
(06:22):
Rather than saying you knowwhat, let's have the
disagreement together.
Let's honestly say you know, Idon't agree with you on this,
but we're still brothers inChrist and I appreciate the work
that you're doing in yourrespective context.
I don't know that we'recultivating theological
hospitality, and maybe it's nottheology as much as it is just
(06:45):
contextual hospitality.
Today we want to get rid of alldissonant notes.
Anything more to say there?
Andy, I love the metaphor.
I think it's very helpful.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Yeah, I think part of that is, I think, just learning
to love various things, andoften that happens through
curiosity.
Various things, and often thathappens through curiosity.
You know, I can think of a lotof pieces of music that I've
sung over the years that, likethe first time that we ran
through them as a choir, or Ijust ran through them soloing or
whatever I was just like I donot like this, like there's
(07:16):
something about it that I don'tcare for, and usually it's, it's
just unfamiliar to me.
There's a particular composernamed Eric Whitaker who has
several pieces that are justlike he creates chord clusters
that's what he likes to do andso he's got like 16 notes that
are just jumbled together andsound like this mess.
(07:36):
And the first time you singthrough it you're like I don't
even know what my note is, likeI can't even find it in the mess
of this.
I notice like I can't even findit in the mess of this, but
then, as you say, it likereleases into this major chord
that sounds beautiful, but itwon't sound as beautiful if you
don't go through the chordcluster to get there.
And I think for me what itoften took was it took practice
(08:01):
one.
But it also took me learning tolove the song over time,
learning to be curious aboutlike okay, so what is happening
in this song that other peoplelove it?
Like, what am I missing andmisunderstanding about this?
I remember being in a choir oncewhere we sang a piece that you
(08:21):
know wasn't from my culture, itwas from a south american
context and there were parts ofit where, uh, certain choir
members were meant to make likebird song, like bird sounds in
it and the and like thebrightness of it.
Everything about singing it wasjust like this doesn't feel
like me and I listened to a, arecording of it, and I'm like I
(08:44):
don't like that.
But I learned to love it.
I learned to sit with it andunderstand why it was beautiful,
and it took me being curiousabout it and being like okay, I
think I'm getting it and havingother people explain why they
love it.
And I think in the churchcontext we struggle with that
(09:04):
Because we know what we like, weknow what we're going to do and
if someone is going to dosomething different, we're
really reluctant to learn whythey love that thing, why
they're doing it a different waythan we might be, and we really
struggle to be curious aboutour brothers and sisters in
Christ and what they're up to,and I think we're.
We suffer for it because wedon't learn what is good and
(09:27):
true and beautiful outside ofour, our little box and there's
a lot that is good and true andbeautiful outside our little box
of the things that we love.
And so I think being curiousabout why people uh appreciate
not only just musical things,but why people appreciate
different forms of expression inworship, why people want to do
(09:51):
things a little bit differently,curiosity can go a long way to
building relationships andbuilding love toward one another
.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
I can't be both curious and condemning at the
same time.
It's a different spirit.
It's a different spirit.
No, I mean, I've tried Like.
I've got to do a conversationwhere I'm like you know I'm
going to go down one of thosepaths really really quick, and
the more I keep an open,invitational learning posture,
(10:25):
because ministry is hard,Ministry is messy and it'd be
really easy to lead.
Thus, saith Tim, you will dothese things.
Why?
Because I have positional powerI'm the senior pastor here.
Like it just doesn't work.
It works short term, Like powerdoes not work over the long
term and it actually, itactually destroys me.
(10:45):
Like that's the thing thatJesus is coming to give this new
way where open, invitation,learning, curiosity, like that
is the way of Jesus.
Jesus was crucified because hedid things that were slight.
You've heard it said this way.
Now I'm going to say it thisway Like Jesus was initiating
this whole new way of being.
(11:06):
It was in line with the heartof God from the very beginning.
So it wasn't entirely new.
We just needed to see itmodeled out, because we're
forming our identity onpharisaical tendencies, centered
in the law, centered in doingthings within the box, and we
don't realize, use the boxmetaphor every time we try to
orient ourselves around.
This is the way we're puttingourselves into that box and the
(11:28):
witness to the world looksreally, really, it's really sad.
It's really small.
It's a narrowing power pridetendency that really eats at a
leader's soul.
It appears Jesus says a lot ofthings that are fantastic, but I
think it's in Matthew 25, whenhe's let no one call you rabbi,
(11:51):
for you have one rabbi, yourfather, who is in heaven.
You know, Matt, don't callanybody master.
Jesus is like hidden straightat the power center of the
apostles that they're going tobe prone You're a big deal
because you got to hang out witha risen Jesus.
No, this is a dispersed model.
Is it going to get maybe uneasy, and are you uncertain about
(12:16):
how it's all going to take place?
Are you going to lose your life?
Yeah, many of them did losetheir life.
But it's the call of adventurethat is in every human heart and
the more we try to squelch thatdown and the adventure is
learning all the unique ways Godis at work out in the world and
I get to be a small part ofthat story the tendency toward
(12:38):
narrowing just crushes my spiritand I can only imagine for
those that have that sort of atendency, a disposition, man,
there's so much freedom on theother side of just admitting I
have that disposition.
To want my way, it sounds a lotlike confession and absolution,
doesn't it Andy?
Speaker 3 (12:58):
A little bit.
Yeah.
Yeah, the way that Jesushandles power is always such an
interesting thing, because ifyou think about a few different
stories that come up, like thinkabout John 4, jesus with the
woman at the well, you know hebestows dignity on this woman,
he creates a relationship withher and he reveals his love to
(13:21):
her and he reveals his love toher.
And those things happen overand over again Every time that
Jesus encounters anyone that hasless power than he does, which
is pretty much everyone.
You think about Zacchaeus andhow much dignity Jesus bestows
on this guy that has been justshut out of his community
entirely and totally.
Think about how Jesus handleschildren.
(13:43):
He bestows dignity on children,who are not thought of very
highly in that culture, and heeven does this with people who
have power.
One of the things that I thinkis overlooked in the Gospels is
that Jesus doesn't just go eatwith tax collectors and sinners.
He goes to the Pharisees'houses too.
He sits down with the religiousleaders and eats with them and
(14:06):
bestows dignity upon them.
It's just that they don't wanthim to be a part of their lives,
and it ends up with them beingopposed to him and narrowing,
narrowing, narrowing until Jesuscan't fit inside their box,
doesn't want to fit inside theirbox, and the result is violence
.
The result is Jesus' death.
So yeah, the way Jesus handlespower is something we have to
(14:30):
take very seriously, because heis always humble and giving away
the power, allowing himself tobe harmed, even for the sake of
others, giving away that power.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Yeah Well, he did it for us.
He did it to show immense lovefor the world and a brand new
way of living, and this is whythe gospel of Jesus Christ
changed, is still changing, theworld, because it's completely
counter to the flesh and it's adying and then, on the other
side of dying, being raised.
I heard recently Russell Brand.
(15:10):
Have you heard of Russell Brand?
Right the stand up and he'skind of had an awakening of
faith.
Have you heard him speakrecently, andy?
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Not recently.
I've heard that that'shappening.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
It's kind of fascinating.
He was on the Jordan Petersonpodcast recently and it's funny
to listen to a deist whounderstands the scripture but
only metaphorically, likeencounter, this former hedonist
now turned radical Jesus-lovingguy, and what Russell said,
because they orient a lot aroundhumility and power in those
(15:47):
kind of philosophical, thetheological conversations.
But what he says is I'm veryevidently not Jesus and that's.
Nothing could be truer thantrue, right, we're so not Jesus
on so many levels.
But then he said but I have alittle bit of Paul in me,
because I want to be the guythat starts the movement that
(16:07):
releases everything.
Paul is a humble leader.
He's referring to Paul, though,as like the greatest I am, and
so that side of me, the sinful,fleshy side of me, has to be
crucified with Christ so that hewould have his way.
But I have to acknowledge itorganization, institution or
(16:41):
synod, when we don't acknowledgethat, we're wrestling, you know
, publicly, with our own sin,our own desire for my way,
rather than other ways there canbe.
There's lots of different ways.
Jesus released the Holy Spiritand it said about the greatest
(17:02):
movement of love that crossedcultural boundaries the world
has ever known.
Do you ever just think aboutChristianity how, like other
religions, don't cross cultureslike the Christian story does.
Why?
Why is that?
Have you ever thought aboutthat, andy?
Why?
Why Christianity is socross-cultural?
Speaker 3 (17:24):
It's a good question, um, I think it like.
I think some religions can.
It just depends on what it isso like, like one of the reasons
that I think that Christianityis able to cross cultures is
from from the inception of thechurch on Pentecost, there is a
(17:45):
wide variety of languages spokenand cultures that are
represented, and they all gohome baptized and believing in
Jesus.
So I think it starts with that,already sort of embedded into
the DNA of the church fromPentecost on.
I think language is a huge, hugepart of it.
You know the languages of thescriptures.
(18:05):
We want them to be translatedinto every language.
You know we want everyone tohave the scriptures in their
heart language, whereas if youthink about Islam, for example,
the scriptures of Islam Cannotbe in any other language and
truly be scriptures.
They, they, they need to be purein this way, they need to
(18:28):
remain in their originallanguage, and I think that
that's part of why it'sdifficult for Islam to become
more multicultural, because ifyou want to really know the
scriptures, you have to know thelanguage.
And so and I'm not a religionexpert in various religions
around the world, but I thinklanguage is a huge part of it
(18:50):
and the encouragement to worshipin your own language, to
worship with your own contextual, cultural, musical stylings,
the encouragement to haveleaders from your own culture
and your own community.
All those things are reallyimportant, I think, to the
church and help it to be more ofa multicultural movement than
(19:15):
perhaps certain other religions.
That's a good question, thoughI'm going to have to think on
that some more.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
I would have to think on it too.
I think the heart of it ishumanity's need for a higher
story, an orienting, groundingstory, and the story that's
given in the 66 books of theBible, one uniting story from
(19:42):
creation to recreation,rebellion, promise.
Jesus, the hero of the story.
When everything seemed lost, wewere going to be riddled with
sin, we would be outcasts andimmigrants, sent and dispersed,
the diaspora of the Jews.
(20:03):
God made a way in a person, forthe Jew, but also then for the
Gentile, for the world to see anew way of living, for sin to be
eradicated and for life to bethe ultimate outcome of our
journey, when everybodyrecognizes death is so wrong.
I think that's one of the mainreasons why the Christian story
(20:27):
it plays a note or it's aharmonious, let's use your image
.
It's a harmonious story.
That is truer than true.
It's a grounding narrative andit orients me, rather than me
having to orient myself to it.
It's just like it's in me.
I think this is where passivefaith kind of comes in right.
(20:48):
It's very evident that I haveno way to make it through, to
orient myself to the world,apart from being oriented by the
hero of the story, the God ofthe universe, who's made me his
own.
Anything more to say about thepower of story, though, andy.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
I think that's solid.
We, as God's people, we are apart of that story.
I think that's one of thechallenges that I think pastors
face is trying to get people torecognize that the stories of
Scripture are one, unified, andthey're heading in the same
direction.
They're all pointing towardsJesus and his death and
(21:27):
resurrection for us.
But I think, getting people torecognize like, no, you're a
part of this story.
This isn't some old historybook, this is your story.
These are the patterns thatform you into the person that
you are, and they will continueto form you and Christians for
(21:48):
generations to come until Jesusreturns.
And so there's something aboutyour identity being centered in
that story that that just makessense.
And you, you step into thatstory and you recognize who you
are, both as a sinful person whodesires their name to be known
(22:11):
and desires more power than isgood for them, but also you are
a person who's been saved byJesus.
You're his beloved child, and Ithink for me, the paradox that
we don't talk about often enoughin the church is this paradox
of courage and humility.
(22:31):
There needs to be this courageto share and to want other
people to know Jesus, but therealso needs to be this humility
of you.
Know, I don't need to be theApostle Paul.
I can be where God has placedme and have the influence that
he has given me with you, knowand receive whatever influence
(22:54):
and power is given to me with anopen hand, yeah, but use it
with humility and not try toseek after it and grasp it and
gain more and more, but rather,if it is given, it is given by
the one who has all power andauthority to give it.
I'm not going to try to take itaway from him or those he's
given it to.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
That's good, that's good.
I'm thinking about language,and when we speak to one another
, we're making a type of, andwe're even like, testing certain
ideas.
We're making an offering ofsorts have you ever thought
about it that way?
We're like we're offering thesewords, this idea, to God, right
(23:38):
, and to scripture, and we'rejuxtaposing our offering.
You could say to God, is it inline with scripture?
And then we're offering it toour neighbor in the hopes that
it will be received and anoffering will come back, right.
So courage is in line withmaking these verbal offerings to
(23:58):
one another, to God, and, andcentered in the word of God.
And and then humility.
The other side of courage is isreceiving another type of
offering that may be dissimilar.
I'm thinking of Cain and Abel.
Right, some offerings Godaccepts is higher, you know,
more worthy, more sacrificialthan maybe my offering.
(24:21):
And so humility is confessing,okay, my heart, my offering may
not have been in the rightspirit.
Right, I need to be humbled asI offer my words under your word
there.
Anything more about theoffering motif as it relates to.
Most of the time, we think ofofferings as like a physical
something, money, or in the Cainand Abel it's a grain offering,
(24:43):
or a fruit offering, or a sheepoffering, an animal offering,
but I think our words this isvery, it's deep to me right, we
were created by the word right,everything we well, actually God
got dirty, but he spokecreation into being for
everything we see, and so ourwords are a type of offering.
(25:05):
Anything to add to that, Andy.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
I mean as an author, that rings true for me.
I have a couple of books thatare published by Kikoria
Publishing House and I try tothink of those as offerings.
That's a good way to put it.
I have this desire that I thinkis placed on my heart.
(25:28):
I offer these words and I hopethat they are received well and
they resonate with people andpeople are strengthened and
encouraged by them.
And then, so you know, my lastbook came out last month and in
the middle of January, and I'malready working on like the
(25:48):
third book in the series andjust thinking about trying to
offer this proposal and put thisforward into the world.
And as an author, there's alwaysthis constant struggle that you
face where you think thateverything you do is really good
and everything you do is reallybad.
And it's really hard to sortthat out because one day you
(26:12):
could be super confident andthink they're going to love this
.
But the reality is I'm going tosubmit a proposal at the end of
March and the reality is thisoffering might be rejected, it
might be pushed aside and saidyou know what this really isn't
it?
No, thank you.
And that's a risk that you haveto take.
(26:33):
You know, as pastors, sometimesyou preach a sermon and it just
doesn't work right.
It just falls flat and you feelterrible about it.
That happened to me two Sundaysago.
I preached what I would call abad sermon and yet it's an
offering, and sometimes thatoffering is received by people
in a way you don't expect.
(26:54):
And so so two weeks ago I'mpreaching on John nine and the
healing of the man born blind,and I don't know.
You know, it's just one ofthose, one of those days I'm
tired, it doesn't go well, itends my I just ended poorly.
And as people are walking outof church, you know, one of one
of the people that walks out ofchurch has an adult daughter
(27:15):
with disabilities and and shetells me she she was following
along and when we, when you gotdone, she just turned to me and
said Jesus is the light of theworld and so, like that offering
that I thought was garbage, thespirit does something even with
that and transforms it in thisway that is beautiful and
(27:36):
wonderful and received.
And I get something in return,this encouragement that says,
even when you're at your worstand weakest, the Spirit still
does what the Spirit does andencourages and gives faith to
God's faithful people.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Andy, that is so good , that's so true.
And the reason I'm laughing islike if you've been a
communicator for any length oftime, you've had that moment
where you're like, whoa, thisisn't going as well.
Did you ever think about howit's going?
Humans are funny, right, ourbrains are funny.
I can almost look down onmyself.
(28:16):
And the more I acknowledge inthose moments and it could be
because of I didn't put the prepin or there's something
physically going on the more Ikind of allow the Holy Spirit to
look at oh, look at this sweetlittle guy giving his best shot
right now the more I kind ofallow the Holy Spirit to look at
oh, look at this sweet littleguy giving his best shot right
now.
You know, the more I then justacknowledge, or even in the
middle of a message, like I'mgoing, like we're leading toward
(28:40):
, hopefully, a satisfactoryconclusion of that rhetorical
unit, right, but then I just mymind goes blank or something the
more I just stop in that momentand say I don't know what I'm
supposed to say next.
Let me reorient myself.
There's a removal of a mask,and I just become more human
(29:02):
Every single time.
I choose humility toacknowledge what everybody else
knows, and I just have to saythat I acknowledge it too, like
this isn't going that well andit could be in anything.
It could be in preaching orteaching or in a podcast, or
this isn't going like.
The more I acknowledge that, themore people are drawn, rather
than like putting up that falsefront Like everything is
(29:23):
absolutely great.
No, I'm a human and I'm goingto have some days are going to
be better than others.
Some days my mind's going towork more sharply than others.
Right, what is it about sin?
That wants to put up a mask?
I think that's a really goodimage.
It's just nothing to see here.
You know, I got no words,nothing wrong.
Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Yeah, and I think that vulnerability takes off
that mask right and says maskand says no, I'm a human being
who makes mistakes like anybodyelse, and I think oftentimes we
believe wrongly that putting onthis persona of this mask of I
(30:07):
got it all figured out, it'sgoing to be safe for other
people and they're going to bedrawn to that.
But the reality is thatvulnerability is a much, much
safer place for people toentrust themselves to you
because they realize you arelike them.
You are vulnerable and you makemistakes and especially, you
know, as people who spend a lotof time in front of other people
(30:28):
and, you know, hear things likeyou know, I could never
memorize a sermon.
I don't know how you do thatright, like it's like that's not
the point, but theyunintentionally, I think, hold
up pastors higher than we oughtto be held and I think that can
(30:51):
lead to both a power trip insome cases of like yeah, I'm
great, look at me.
But also it can lead to thiscrash and this and a need to
keep that facade up becausethey've held you up here, so you
got to stay up there.
They've held you up here, soyou got to stay up there, so
(31:17):
it's a really challenging thingto just be honest and say this
is not my best work this week,I'm exhausted, I'm not ready
really today.
And how do you do that in a waythat that is honest, that is
vulnerable but also doesn't, youknow, make people lack trust in
you?
Like, how does it increasetrust rather than make people
(31:40):
think that you don't know whatyou're doing, which you probably
don't at least I don't.
But yeah, it's this complicated, tenuous balance.
I think that we have to strikein leading God's people and
being honest with them, beingvulnerable with them, but also
still trying to lead them.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Yeah, no, that's, that's really great.
You wonder?
I mean, let's go to Paul Imentioned him earlier like he
has to consciously lower himselfright.
Chief of sinners, romans 7, thegood I want to do, I don't.
Some people think that's likePaul being kind of over.
(32:19):
Well, Paul didn't really dothings or not do things that he
shouldn't, you know.
No, like he really did, likethis is a wretched man that I am
, like he's calling himself out,and so I think we just need to
go to the scriptures and theapostles.
You can go into the OldTestament.
You've got a series ofunfortunate events.
In the story of Job.
You've got a series ofunfortunate highs and lows, but
(32:42):
more lows, I would say, in thestory even of King David, a man
after God's own heart.
These are very human people whowere fallible, and I guess I'm
just going to dip my toe.
This is lead time.
So we talk about the currenttrajectory of our church body
and leaders, the struggle of notstaying engaged, and I think
(33:07):
we're moving in a good directionhere around the topic of
formation.
And I think we're moving in agood direction here around the
topic of formation.
How does a pastor becomewell-formed?
What is the role of seminaryeducation and how should we
maybe be looking at differentways to do it, not downgrading
our theology, et cetera.
I think there's more opennessto that conversation right now.
I'm grateful for that.
(33:33):
But the other one that's just ahard one to get my mind wrapped
around is the prior approvalprocess and how leaders get
raised up or not acknowledgedfor certain positions, and it
just feels like the whole thingis more.
There's a lot of gray darkaround, there's a lack of
clarity around it, and I knowyou are a friend of Matt
Barrasso who put together,hopefully, a resolution that
(33:54):
will get discussed so that therecan be greater, and I say this
I think there needs to begreater protection of our
leaders, respect for our leaders, for President Harrison and
right now, because a lot of it'slike behind the scenes, some of
us can put kind of the worstconstruction on what appears to
be why did a certain amount ofleaders not get considered?
(34:17):
I don't know why, becausethey're leaders in good standing
in the church.
So we just would like to havegreater transparency on that,
and I know it's complex for sure.
So, anything as I just kind ofdive head first into the
struggle of the prior approvalprocess right now, because I
think if we can get clarity onthis, we can we can bring more
(34:39):
trust to those at differentleadership positions in our
synod.
Any any more comments there,andy?
Speaker 3 (34:45):
Yeah, I think with prior approval in particular,
having transparency is justreally important because it
opens up the conversation andyou know, if there's a person
who's applied for a job andthey're told, nope, you can't
have it, and by all accounts,they're qualified, they have all
(35:09):
the necessary degrees and yearsof service and all those sorts
of things, they have all thenecessary expertise that the
seminary or the university wantsto hire them, and then they're
told by a governing body, nope,we don't want you.
And they're not told why.
I feel like that would bereally disconcerting for someone
(35:33):
and really difficult for themto think like, okay, so what am
I supposed to do?
What is wrong with me?
That I'm not being included?
And I feel really bad forpeople who've gone through that
and not had that transparency,not had an opportunity to
(35:54):
clarify any of the statementsthat they had to make and
filling out paperwork andwhatnot, Because I think
transparency is just shininglight on something that is in
darkness, and I think there's alot of scriptural depth to that
particular metaphor of light anddarkness and there's nothing
(36:17):
wrong with shining a light onsomething that is in the dark.
That's what we do as God'speople and so, and I think it
would also help.
It would help universities.
It would help seminaries, Ithink it would also help.
It would help universities.
It would help seminaries.
It would help the people whowant to apply for these jobs to
know okay, if this is a linethat I cannot cross or I won't
(36:42):
receive prior approval, then atleast I know that and I won't
waste my time trying to applyfor a position that I know I'm
not going to get.
If whatever it is, whether it'smusic related or a particular I
don't even know what, becausethere's no transparency.
I don't even know what theissues are.
Whatever it is, I just need toknow so that I don't waste my
(37:07):
time and I don't waste anyoneelse's time.
So that's, I don't know.
It's one of those issues whereI don't understand why the
transparency thing is just notbuilt into it.
It seems obvious to me, butapparently it's not, and so I'm
trying to be like Matt and I areboth trying to be as curious as
possible about this as justbeing like please help us
(37:27):
understand this.
And it's really hard to do andnot get frustrated.
As you said, it's really easyto have the worst construction
on something when it's in thedark.
It's a lot harder to do thatwhen it's in the light, and then
we'll just know, and I thinkthat's for me anyway.
That would be satisfying justto have that transparency.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Does that make sense?
It does.
I don't know that I've evershared this publicly, but Jack
Kauberg and I and this goes backto Pastor Jake Besling we
taught for every other year atConcordia University in Irvine
in the cross-cultural ministryprogram and really and I'm not
(38:11):
being I think it was a great,great experience.
We, I think four differentiterations, we, um, we taught in
that class and got to know ourstudents really well and and the
class got really great kind ofreviews.
It was like a kind of missionto execution at the local level.
Those were some of the concepts.
So two thirds of it was mostlylike leadership disciplines from
(38:31):
the personal to the corporatereality and building healthy
culture system structure A lotof the stuff we talk about with
the ULC.
But we were not asked to returnto that program and the director
of the program God bless him helike was called and it was a
super awkward conversation fromhis.
I was like I know what you'regoing to say.
(38:53):
I'm not being invited becausethe seminary kind of was taken
in St Louis, has taken moreresponsibility for the program
and the only way I could kind ofconceptualize it is I was on a
list, right, I obviously wasassociating with the wrong
people or maybe publicly hadsaid certain things that were
too challenging to the statusquo of synod, or people looked
(39:18):
online and saw that one of ourworship forms includes a drum,
you know, or whatnot Like.
Those are the only ways I canreally kind of make sense of it
right now.
And could some of those thingsbe a disqualifying notion?
I guess it's just not clear.
We don't have any synod bylawsthat say you can't have drums in
(39:40):
worship or anything like that.
We've not spoken of the synodand you associate with people
that we don't really like and sothat kind of keeps you off the
list.
That's the best I can have asto the rationale of why certain
(40:02):
people don't get onto certainlists.
Any comment there, andy, as wepivot, so uncomfortable.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
I don't know, and I think that's what's frustrating
about it is like that's yourstory, and I've heard a handful
of other stories of people whoyou know weren't asked back or,
uh, didn't, didn't meet priorapproval, so didn't get a
position somewhere, and they allhave different guesses as to
why.
Right, because Because theydon't know, and at least one
(40:36):
person I'm thinking of, none ofthe things you said would be
true about them Not at all.
So what is it?
I don't know, and it's not thatI need to know, it's just I
feel so bad for this guy whowanted this job, who's qualified
(40:56):
for this job and was told youcan't have this job, like it
doesn't make sense to me.
And nothing, nothing aboutnothing about the people I know
who've been rejected by priorapproval.
I cannot find a reason why, alegitimate, disqualifying reason
.
And I think the other thingthat I'll say about prior
(41:18):
approval that I think isfrustrating is I'm struggling to
understand why someone who isrejected from being a
theological professor rejectedfrom being a theological
professor we say nope, can't dothat, you can't be training
(41:38):
pastors.
Why is that person in theparish, where that's really the
church at its true heart, likeif there's something
disqualifying about being aprofessor?
Why isn't there somethingthat's disqualifying about being
a parish pastor?
And't there something that'sdisqualifying about being a
parish pastor?
And?
there's not, and I think thatit's very clearly not in the
parish pastor sense.
So why are we holding up thesepositions so much higher than
(42:02):
they ought to be held?
Being a pastor and shepherdingGod's church, being in the
congregation, that's the church,and I understand that the
training of pastors is veryimportant.
I know that's something that'svery close to your heart, but
the idea that you could do moredamage somehow in a seminary
(42:26):
setting or a university settingversus the congregation just
doesn't make any sense to me.
Versus the congregation justdoesn't make any sense to me,
because anybody who's beenthrough the seminary will tell
you that there are plenty there.
You know, there's like 40, 50professors.
You're going to be shapeddifferently by different
professors and if there's onethat's not quite your jam, you
(42:46):
just sort of ignore them and youare formed by someone else,
right.
And so if if that's the case,like you know, for me I was
formed by Bob Cole and Rev Rossoand Dave Schmidt, like those
guys are the the three main guyswho formed me when I was at
seminary, and if I had never hadthem, well then it would have
(43:09):
been someone else right.
And if one professor isn'texactly up to this uniformity
standard, I don't know.
I feel like we're going to bejust missing out on so many good
people if we create a standardthat is too uniform, that isn't
(43:31):
harmonious enough, and we're notgoing to have the true
expertise that we need, becauseeveryone is going to be too
cookie cutter, both in teachingand in coming out of the
seminary, and that's just.
I don't think that's good forthe church.
The church needs variety.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
Yes, needs variety.
Yes, yeah, well, the reason I Ikind of think it's it's, it's
uh, almost it's a juvenile thingto be even even talking about.
Uh, I mean, we, we should talkabout it.
But, like the, the reason, it'svery it's like I, I choose my
friends on the playground.
It's very, it's like I choosemy friends on the playground.
(44:14):
It's almost like a playgroundmentality, right, like I like
these guys, but I don't likethose guys.
It's just, human beings are moreprone to be drawn toward.
Like, are you going toacknowledge it, call it what it
is, or like say you know, I likethis brand of Lutheranism
better, you know, and thisperson that subscribes to this
brand is in and this person thatdoesn't is out.
(44:37):
And Lutherans have always beenkind of wrestling with this and
there's nothing new about this.
Who are we going to listen to?
Who's going to shape us?
And I guess the concern to landthis is that we're narrowing in
terms of what confessionalLutheranism is, rather than and
(44:59):
I'm not talking theology, butit's the approach, it's the
sociology of the way we'reorienting ourselves, rather than
having a widening tendency toutilize all of the gifts within
the body of Christ to let thefull harmony, the symphonic
harmony song be played.
(45:19):
I just think we're verynarrowly trying to determine
what it means to be aconfessional Lutheran in the
LCMS, and I think it would breakLuther's heart, to be quite
honest, because it was aboutfreedom, it was about the
priesthood.
It still is about that.
It's the freedom in the gospel,it is the movement out for the
(45:41):
sake of the world which isobviously the heart of Jesus,
rather than the narrowingtendency.
Jesus definitely had a wideningheart for Jew to Gentile, et
cetera.
So yeah, it just is what it isand hopefully we'll see some
changes on the prior approval tobring more light.
And again, this is to protectleaders, not to call leaders out
.
Like, I need to have clarityabout what I can do and what I
(46:05):
can't do in the local context orelse my leadership trust in the
local congregation will bedecimated If things kind of stay
in the dark.
How are you spending the money?
Who gets to be?
What are the?
What are the means by whichcertain leaders get to be on a
leadership Like it's not rocketscience.
There needs to be transparencyof that process.
That's all we're.
That's all we're calling for,andy.
(46:25):
Anything more.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
Yeah, and I don't think it's a a new problem,
right, like this goes back allthe way to 1 Corinthians 3 and
the Corinthian church being likeI follow Paul, I follow Apollos
, and Paul's words to them arepretty clear like knock it off.
You are all better for havinglistened to both Apollos and me
(46:53):
and we're.
You're not following either ofus.
We're all following Jesustogether.
Paul and Apollos are justservants of Jesus.
And just as as we, as you followone person, it's like a.
It's a false choice, right?
Yeah, Following Paul andfollowing Apollos is a false
choice, because they're bothfollowing Jesus, amen.
So what's the point of havingsides when they're on the same
(47:18):
team, or we want to be on thesame team and we're constantly
being told that we're not andthat just feels I don't know.
(47:43):
That just feels reallydifficult because I don't think
I'm on the opposite team and yetI get treated that way
sometimes.
I know you've gotten treatedthat way from what you've
revealed in this episode and sotrying to just recognize like no
, we're all following Jesustogether and we can disagree on
(48:05):
certain things and have somedissonance about certain things.
And let's move towardssynthesis, let's move towards
the resolution of the dissonantchords, that we can all make
this beautiful music and be thisbeautiful church together.
Speaker 2 (48:20):
Yeah, yeah, no, that's, that's good.
And, to be clear, I have nohardness of heart toward any
person in leadership, frompresident Harrison to any kind
of seminary president.
So they're doing that.
We're all just doing the bestwe can and uh, and we need.
We need one another and we needall the gifts, that's all the
all the call is is it doesn'thave to be me Like it, it's just
(48:43):
.
There's a lot of people who havehad similar experiences to what
I have.
Who cares if I'm teaching aclass?
I'm not, honestly, I'm not eventhere as to what I have.
Who cares if I'm teaching aclass?
I'm not, honestly, I'm not even.
There's plenty of things to do.
I was, I was, um, like I justloved the, the heart of the
cross-cultural ministry program,that's.
That was the only kind ofsadness.
I was like, oh, that was, thatwas fun to learn with those guys
.
So, hey, last question, thishas been good.
(49:05):
Um, how is your congregation?
Let's close with hunting somereally good stuff how is your
congregation seeking to raise upleaders to advance the gospel
locally?
I'd love to just close with astory or two of man.
We're trying, we're raising upleaders and the Holy Spirit is
out ahead of us and we get to bea part of kingdom-expanding
efforts in your local context.
Tell a story or two of God atwork, andy.
Speaker 3 (49:26):
Sure, sure, sure.
So you know my congregation.
I arrived, you know, six, sevenyears ago and they had been
vacant for about two and a halfyears and when I arrived it was
(49:47):
a congregation that was, youknow, sort of it had seen its
glory days in the past.
They were down to maybe 60 to70 people in worship on a Sunday
and I was there.
For, you know, in the first 18months I was there I'm only the
fifth pastor at thiscongregation in over 80 years
and while I was there, two of mypredecessors, who are still,
(50:07):
you know, in the congregation,passed away.
In my first 18 months I got todo both of their funerals and
what I learned through throughthe process of doing their
funerals and just being therefor 18 months, was that this
congregation had just so muchunprocessed grief, uh, over the
(50:28):
glory days being gone, and youknow they were.
They were a 200 to 1st andSunday they had a K through 8
school.
They had all this stuff goingon in the early 2000s and then
all of a sudden it just fell off, school closed and just wasn't
going well.
And so my ability to just namethat and say you guys have a lot
(50:51):
of unprocessed grief.
Every time we talked aboutwhere we were going, like vision
for the future, they could onlythink about the past.
They just lost all theircreativity.
They wanted things to go backto the way they were.
Being able to name that, toprocess a little bit and then to
(51:11):
create a vision for movingforward, was really important.
Of course, we did all that andthen, like three weeks later,
the pandemic happened, and sothat created a sort of surge of
emergency with them.
But since I had been there justlong enough to create a little
bit of trust you know, inCalifornia it was very much an
(51:34):
online only sort of thing, likewe weren't in person for several
months, but I think ultimatelythankfully, mainly because of my
wife, who's very tech savvy wewere able to put something
together that sort of keptpeople together and what we
discovered, I think, over thattime period, was just how to
(51:56):
care for people in differentways.
And on the other side of thepandemic, you know, I would have
a new member class and therewould be people showing up that
I'd never met before, we'd justbeen watching online, and the
first time to show up as a newmember class, I'm like I didn't
know you existed, and even stilltoday, there are tons of people
who become guests for the firsttime, and it's weird to have
(52:21):
someone who knows you becausethey've been watching you online
and you've never met them, andso we've really, I think,
transitioned from that griefstage into okay, what does Jesus
have next for us?
And so part of that isidentifying some new leaders.
There are several new people inthe congregation that we are
(52:43):
investing in and trying to givethem roles that are not.
One of the problems that Ithink churches have is someone's
a guest and then six weekslater they're asked hey, do you
want to be the vice president ofthe congregation?
No, so giving them like littlesteps to like involve themselves
in different things issomething we've been up to, and
(53:05):
I think the biggest thing thatwe have going at our church
right now is we have a lot ofspace, like we have this outdoor
area, that where we used tohave school, where mobile units
used to be for the school, andit's just sort of sat there for
20 years and nothing's reallyhappened to it.
So now we're developing a planto make that more community
facing just a welcoming outdoorspace.
(53:26):
You know we'll see what thatturns into.
Maybe that's community gardenbocce ball, pickleball.
You know we'll see what thatturns into.
Maybe that's community gardenbocce ball, pickleball, you know
something like that, where thecommunity can gather together
and be on our space and get toknow them.
So that's cool.
That's some of the stuff we'reup to here.
Speaker 2 (53:43):
Well, you don't need this, but congratulations and
God's proud of you.
Thanks, congratulations andGod's proud of you.
You persevered, are perseveringand you did all that you could
to care for people.
I say this to any pastor, right?
I mean it was adiscombobulating time, very
(54:05):
confusing.
It's unnatural for a pastor tohave people that know him and he
doesn't know them.
The identity, the online wholeworld added another dimension to
pastoral ministry that I thinkwe're still kind of wrestling
with more of a detachedfigurehead as a pastor than a
(54:34):
human who has highs and lows and, um, good days and bad days and
, uh, just as doing the bestthey can to bring word and
sacrament to to God's people, um, and so I say all that to to
say, man, well done.
And especially in a contextlike California.
I know you know you want totalk about a post-Christian
culture like that is.
(54:54):
That is the waters in which youare walking through there.
So, way to go, and better days,your, your.
Your move toward opening upspace and offering your campus
that the Lord has given to youfor the sake of community
connection is the right impulseand you're listening to that
impulse and moving in that.
Praise God, andy, this has beenso good.
(55:15):
My principal is actuallywaiting to connect with me right
now, so we have to land it.
But if people want to connectwith you, how can they do so
handy.
Speaker 3 (55:25):
The easiest way is I have an author newsletter that I
call Bible curious.
It's a sub stack.
You can find it atbiblecurioussubstackcom.
That's the easiest way.
Speaker 2 (55:37):
If you want to follow what I'm up to.
I should have shame on me.
I should have asked about yourbooks.
So what are your books?
No worries, yeah, yeah, thatyou wrote, shout out.
Speaker 3 (55:47):
Sure.
The first one is called 10Questions to Ask Every Time you
Read the Bible.
It's about building biblicalfluency, being curious, and the
second one is called 10 LiesSatan Loves to Tell.
It's about deception, you know,and Satan, but mostly about
Jesus and the truth and lightthat he brings to us.
Speaker 2 (56:05):
Love that, love that and, if you don't mind, what's
the project you're offering toCPH?
Speaker 3 (56:12):
The third project I'm working on is in the same
series.
It'll be about prayer.
I don't have a title yet, but,um, something about like, the
takeaways we have from prayer,the benefits that we have of
praying, and you know some ofthe different things jesus
teaches us about how to pray,hey let let's sign it.
Speaker 2 (56:32):
If I had any kind of influence, which I don't I would
say let's book that deal.
Yeah, anyway, I can't wait toread it.
Well, you're a gift, andy.
Thank you for the generosity oftime.
This is lead time.
Please like, subscribe, comment.
Wherever it is you take inthese conversations, and we pray
, the ultimate outcome is notfrustration or anger or division
, but it's working toward unity,to play your part in the
(56:55):
symphony of God's mission,carrying that amazing,
harmonious symphonic song, whichis the Holy Spirit song, out
into the world and entrusting itto the God who wants all of His
kids back, and we get to play asmall part in that huge,
eternal, eternal song.
It's a good day.
(57:15):
Go and make it a great day.
Wonderful work, andy, thank you.
Speaker 3 (57:19):
Thanks, tim, appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (57:20):
You've been listening to Lead Time, a podcast of the
Unite Leadership Collective.
The ULC's mission is tocollaborate with the local
church to discover, develop anddeploy leaders through biblical
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Subscribe to our channel, thengo to theuniteleadershiporg to
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(57:42):
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.
Thanks for listening and staytuned for next week's episode.
This is Lead Time.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Welcome to Lead Time, tim Allman here.
Jack Kalberg has the day off.
I get the privilege today,though, of hanging out with a
brother just met have beeninfluenced by his writing and
we're going to refer to some ofhis writing, especially around
the topic of unity and harmonytoward the mission of Jesus,
(00:25):
specifically in our sharedcontext, which is both being
pastors in the Lutheran ChurchMissouri Synod.
So this is Andy Jones.
He serves at Concord,california, in Concord,
california, at First LutheranChurch.
That's about 20 miles east ofOakland in the Bay Area.
He is a graduate of ConcordiaSeminary in St Louis.
(00:45):
He's a friend of for those ofyou who know, caleb Cox, caleb
is a young pastor in the LCMS atRedeemer Lutheran Church in
Fort Collins, colorado.
He's been married for 17,.
So, going back to Andy now,andy and Caleb are friends.
Andy's been married 17 years.
He was on the mission field forfour years and then did campus
(01:05):
ministry at Concordia, st Paul,for a bit and then went to the
seminary.
Now he's been at his first callat First Lutheran there in
Concord for seven years.
What a joy to get to spend sometime with you today, andy.
How are you doing, man?
Speaker 1 (01:18):
I'm doing all right.
Good to meet you, Tim.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yeah, good to meet you.
Thanks for reaching out.
Let's start on the topic ofConcordia.
You did some writing, which wasfantastic.
You're an excellent writer onwhy Concordia is so necessary,
but it's so hard to live by,Andy.
Let's just orient ourselvesthere.
Around the topic of unity,unity.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Yeah, so you know I'm not a Latin scholar.
The word concordia meansharmony.
From what everything I've seen,it's sort of a unity and
harmony concept, and I'm asomewhat musical person.
I can sing okay, I'm notplaying the piano or guitar or
anything but as far as musicgoes, harmony is a concept that
I think helps us understand whatit means to be in unity and to
(02:08):
be in harmony and to be inconcordia with one another,
because in music you could playthe exact same note on multiple
different instruments and itwould sound fine, but it's not
going to sound as beautiful asif you have an array of notes
that work together in harmony,that build chords and movement
(02:33):
and rhythm and all these sortsof things.
And so I think one of thechallenges that we have in the
church right now and reallyforever, is how do we, how do we
have unity with one another inthat harmony, making a more
beautiful church that soundsbetter, that looks better, that
(02:55):
is better, through harmony.
That is not just a singularnote, and if you think about,
you know what Paul talks aboutin both Romans and first
Corinthians is that there's thisconcept of the body of Christ
being, you know, many members.
It's not good if the entirebody of Christ is all a hand or
(03:17):
all an eye or all an ear.
You need a variety of pieces, avariety of body parts, variety
of members, in order for thechurch to be the body parts that
(03:51):
they're meant to be, allowingpeople to be the notes that
they're meant to be, dependingon which metaphor you want to go
with.
So that's where I'm coming fromon this topic.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Well, I'm coming from a similar, if not same
perspective.
Are you a fan of Cody Fry atall?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
I can't say that I am .
Speaker 2 (04:12):
He's a recording artist.
For those of you, I'm a big fanof Ben Rector as an artist.
It's good have you heard of BenRector.
You know who Ben Rector is.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
I've heard of him, yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So he and Cody Fry collaboratesome.
I went to their concert with mywife and they had a huge
orchestra.
If you look up, if you're a BenRector fan and you can get to
one of his orchestra concertswith he and Cody Fry
unbelievable.
Cody Fry's big song, if you lookhim up on iTunes or whatnot is
(04:45):
I Hear a Symphony and thebeautiful part of that song is
there's like any good storyyou're going to have a setting,
you're going to have movement,you're going to have dissonance,
you're going to have climax,you're going to have resolution,
you're going to have the ahkind of experience.
You're going to have resolution.
(05:19):
You're going to have the ahkind of experience.
We're finally at rest.
But I love the middle point ofyou know I hear a symphony or
any good orchestra or any goodpiece of music is there is a
little to be dissonance, chordsthat don't quite, and then it
kind of there's something in me,andy, and in you and anybody
that's attuned toward music,that wants to see resolution.
But it comes through a goodpiece, comes through resonance,
and I think a lot of times ashuman beings we just we want to
(05:39):
get rid of the dissonance, wewant to get rid of anything that
is like slightly uncomfortablefor us.
But anyway, a great piece ofart always has whether it's in
song or in writing, it hasconflict, and I guess this goes
down to one of my kind of mainrecurring themes is I don't know
(06:00):
that the church and the churchthat we're a part of the LCMS,
that the church and the churchthat we're a part of the LCMS is
wrestling well with dissonanceand conflict, and I think we're
pursuing uniformity, we'repursuing everybody.
Just do the same melody and youcan refer to worship.
You can refer to a number ofthings.
Just do the bylaws or whateverit is.
(06:22):
Rather than saying you knowwhat, let's have the
disagreement together.
Let's honestly say you know, Idon't agree with you on this,
but we're still brothers inChrist and I appreciate the work
that you're doing in yourrespective context.
I don't know that we'recultivating theological
hospitality, and maybe it's nottheology as much as it is just
(06:45):
contextual hospitality.
Today we want to get rid of alldissonant notes.
Anything more to say there?
Andy, I love the metaphor.
I think it's very helpful.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Yeah, I think part of that is, I think, just learning
to love various things, andoften that happens through
curiosity.
Various things, and often thathappens through curiosity.
You know, I can think of a lotof pieces of music that I've
sung over the years that, likethe first time that we ran
through them as a choir, or Ijust ran through them soloing or
whatever I was just like I donot like this, like there's
(07:16):
something about it that I don'tcare for, and usually it's, it's
just unfamiliar to me.
There's a particular composernamed Eric Whitaker who has
several pieces that are justlike he creates chord clusters
that's what he likes to do andso he's got like 16 notes that
are just jumbled together andsound like this mess.
(07:36):
And the first time you singthrough it you're like I don't
even know what my note is, likeI can't even find it in the mess
of this.
I notice like I can't even findit in the mess of this, but
then, as you say, it likereleases into this major chord
that sounds beautiful, but itwon't sound as beautiful if you
don't go through the chordcluster to get there.
And I think for me what itoften took was it took practice
(08:01):
one.
But it also took me learning tolove the song over time,
learning to be curious aboutlike okay, so what is happening
in this song that other peoplelove it?
Like, what am I missing andmisunderstanding about this?
I remember being in a choir oncewhere we sang a piece that you
(08:21):
know wasn't from my culture, itwas from a south american
context and there were parts ofit where, uh, certain choir
members were meant to make likebird song, like bird sounds in
it and the and like thebrightness of it.
Everything about singing it wasjust like this doesn't feel
like me and I listened to a, arecording of it, and I'm like I
(08:44):
don't like that.
But I learned to love it.
I learned to sit with it andunderstand why it was beautiful,
and it took me being curiousabout it and being like okay, I
think I'm getting it and havingother people explain why they
love it.
And I think in the churchcontext we struggle with that
(09:04):
Because we know what we like, weknow what we're going to do and
if someone is going to dosomething different, we're
really reluctant to learn whythey love that thing, why
they're doing it a different waythan we might be, and we really
struggle to be curious aboutour brothers and sisters in
Christ and what they're up to,and I think we're.
We suffer for it because wedon't learn what is good and
(09:27):
true and beautiful outside ofour, our little box and there's
a lot that is good and true andbeautiful outside our little box
of the things that we love.
And so I think being curiousabout why people uh appreciate
not only just musical things,but why people appreciate
different forms of expression inworship, why people want to do
(09:51):
things a little bit differently,curiosity can go a long way to
building relationships andbuilding love toward one another
.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
I can't be both curious and condemning at the
same time.
It's a different spirit.
It's a different spirit.
No, I mean, I've tried Like.
I've got to do a conversationwhere I'm like you know I'm
going to go down one of thosepaths really really quick, and
the more I keep an open,invitational learning posture,
(10:25):
because ministry is hard,Ministry is messy and it'd be
really easy to lead.
Thus, saith Tim, you will dothese things.
Why?
Because I have positional powerI'm the senior pastor here.
Like it just doesn't work.
It works short term, Like powerdoes not work over the long
term and it actually, itactually destroys me.
(10:45):
Like that's the thing thatJesus is coming to give this new
way where open, invitation,learning, curiosity, like that
is the way of Jesus.
Jesus was crucified because hedid things that were slight.
You've heard it said this way.
Now I'm going to say it thisway Like Jesus was initiating
this whole new way of being.
(11:06):
It was in line with the heartof God from the very beginning.
So it wasn't entirely new.
We just needed to see itmodeled out, because we're
forming our identity onpharisaical tendencies, centered
in the law, centered in doingthings within the box, and we
don't realize, use the boxmetaphor every time we try to
orient ourselves around.
This is the way we're puttingourselves into that box and the
(11:28):
witness to the world looksreally, really, it's really sad.
It's really small.
It's a narrowing power pridetendency that really eats at a
leader's soul.
It appears Jesus says a lot ofthings that are fantastic, but I
think it's in Matthew 25, whenhe's let no one call you rabbi,
(11:51):
for you have one rabbi, yourfather, who is in heaven.
You know, Matt, don't callanybody master.
Jesus is like hidden straightat the power center of the
apostles that they're going tobe prone You're a big deal
because you got to hang out witha risen Jesus.
No, this is a dispersed model.
Is it going to get maybe uneasy, and are you uncertain about
(12:16):
how it's all going to take place?
Are you going to lose your life?
Yeah, many of them did losetheir life.
But it's the call of adventurethat is in every human heart and
the more we try to squelch thatdown and the adventure is
learning all the unique ways Godis at work out in the world and
I get to be a small part ofthat story the tendency toward
(12:38):
narrowing just crushes my spiritand I can only imagine for
those that have that sort of atendency, a disposition, man,
there's so much freedom on theother side of just admitting I
have that disposition.
To want my way, it sounds a lotlike confession and absolution,
doesn't it Andy?
Speaker 3 (12:58):
A little bit.
Yeah.
Yeah, the way that Jesushandles power is always such an
interesting thing, because ifyou think about a few different
stories that come up, like thinkabout John 4, jesus with the
woman at the well, you know hebestows dignity on this woman,
he creates a relationship withher and he reveals his love to
(13:21):
her and he reveals his love toher.
And those things happen overand over again Every time that
Jesus encounters anyone that hasless power than he does, which
is pretty much everyone.
You think about Zacchaeus andhow much dignity Jesus bestows
on this guy that has been justshut out of his community
entirely and totally.
Think about how Jesus handleschildren.
(13:43):
He bestows dignity on children,who are not thought of very
highly in that culture, and heeven does this with people who
have power.
One of the things that I thinkis overlooked in the Gospels is
that Jesus doesn't just go eatwith tax collectors and sinners.
He goes to the Pharisees'houses too.
He sits down with the religiousleaders and eats with them and
(14:06):
bestows dignity upon them.
It's just that they don't wanthim to be a part of their lives,
and it ends up with them beingopposed to him and narrowing,
narrowing, narrowing until Jesuscan't fit inside their box,
doesn't want to fit inside theirbox, and the result is violence
.
The result is Jesus' death.
So yeah, the way Jesus handlespower is something we have to
(14:30):
take very seriously, because heis always humble and giving away
the power, allowing himself tobe harmed, even for the sake of
others, giving away that power.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Yeah Well, he did it for us.
He did it to show immense lovefor the world and a brand new
way of living, and this is whythe gospel of Jesus Christ
changed, is still changing, theworld, because it's completely
counter to the flesh and it's adying and then, on the other
side of dying, being raised.
I heard recently Russell Brand.
(15:10):
Have you heard of Russell Brand?
Right the stand up and he'skind of had an awakening of
faith.
Have you heard him speakrecently, andy?
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Not recently.
I've heard that that'shappening.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
It's kind of fascinating.
He was on the Jordan Petersonpodcast recently and it's funny
to listen to a deist whounderstands the scripture but
only metaphorically, likeencounter, this former hedonist
now turned radical Jesus-lovingguy, and what Russell said,
because they orient a lot aroundhumility and power in those
(15:47):
kind of philosophical, thetheological conversations.
But what he says is I'm veryevidently not Jesus and that's.
Nothing could be truer thantrue, right, we're so not Jesus
on so many levels.
But then he said but I have alittle bit of Paul in me,
because I want to be the guythat starts the movement that
(16:07):
releases everything.
Paul is a humble leader.
He's referring to Paul, though,as like the greatest I am, and
so that side of me, the sinful,fleshy side of me, has to be
crucified with Christ so that hewould have his way.
But I have to acknowledge itorganization, institution or
(16:41):
synod, when we don't acknowledgethat, we're wrestling, you know
, publicly, with our own sin,our own desire for my way,
rather than other ways there canbe.
There's lots of different ways.
Jesus released the Holy Spiritand it said about the greatest
(17:02):
movement of love that crossedcultural boundaries the world
has ever known.
Do you ever just think aboutChristianity how, like other
religions, don't cross cultureslike the Christian story does.
Why?
Why is that?
Have you ever thought aboutthat, andy?
Why?
Why Christianity is socross-cultural?
Speaker 3 (17:24):
It's a good question, um, I think it like.
I think some religions can.
It just depends on what it isso like, like one of the reasons
that I think that Christianityis able to cross cultures is
from from the inception of thechurch on Pentecost, there is a
(17:45):
wide variety of languages spokenand cultures that are
represented, and they all gohome baptized and believing in
Jesus.
So I think it starts with that,already sort of embedded into
the DNA of the church fromPentecost on.
I think language is a huge, hugepart of it.
You know the languages of thescriptures.
(18:05):
We want them to be translatedinto every language.
You know we want everyone tohave the scriptures in their
heart language, whereas if youthink about Islam, for example,
the scriptures of Islam Cannotbe in any other language and
truly be scriptures.
They, they, they need to be purein this way, they need to
(18:28):
remain in their originallanguage, and I think that
that's part of why it'sdifficult for Islam to become
more multicultural, because ifyou want to really know the
scriptures, you have to know thelanguage.
And so and I'm not a religionexpert in various religions
around the world, but I thinklanguage is a huge part of it
(18:50):
and the encouragement to worshipin your own language, to
worship with your own contextual, cultural, musical stylings,
the encouragement to haveleaders from your own culture
and your own community.
All those things are reallyimportant, I think, to the
church and help it to be more ofa multicultural movement than
(19:15):
perhaps certain other religions.
That's a good question, thoughI'm going to have to think on
that some more.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
I would have to think on it too.
I think the heart of it ishumanity's need for a higher
story, an orienting, groundingstory, and the story that's
given in the 66 books of theBible, one uniting story from
(19:42):
creation to recreation,rebellion, promise.
Jesus, the hero of the story.
When everything seemed lost, wewere going to be riddled with
sin, we would be outcasts andimmigrants, sent and dispersed,
the diaspora of the Jews.
(20:03):
God made a way in a person, forthe Jew, but also then for the
Gentile, for the world to see anew way of living, for sin to be
eradicated and for life to bethe ultimate outcome of our
journey, when everybodyrecognizes death is so wrong.
I think that's one of the mainreasons why the Christian story
(20:27):
it plays a note or it's aharmonious, let's use your image
.
It's a harmonious story.
That is truer than true.
It's a grounding narrative andit orients me, rather than me
having to orient myself to it.
It's just like it's in me.
I think this is where passivefaith kind of comes in right.
(20:48):
It's very evident that I haveno way to make it through, to
orient myself to the world,apart from being oriented by the
hero of the story, the God ofthe universe, who's made me his
own.
Anything more to say about thepower of story, though, andy.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
I think that's solid.
We, as God's people, we are apart of that story.
I think that's one of thechallenges that I think pastors
face is trying to get people torecognize that the stories of
Scripture are one, unified, andthey're heading in the same
direction.
They're all pointing towardsJesus and his death and
(21:27):
resurrection for us.
But I think, getting people torecognize like, no, you're a
part of this story.
This isn't some old historybook, this is your story.
These are the patterns thatform you into the person that
you are, and they will continueto form you and Christians for
(21:48):
generations to come until Jesusreturns.
And so there's something aboutyour identity being centered in
that story that that just makessense.
And you, you step into thatstory and you recognize who you
are, both as a sinful person whodesires their name to be known
(22:11):
and desires more power than isgood for them, but also you are
a person who's been saved byJesus.
You're his beloved child, and Ithink for me, the paradox that
we don't talk about often enoughin the church is this paradox
of courage and humility.
(22:31):
There needs to be this courageto share and to want other
people to know Jesus, but therealso needs to be this humility
of you.
Know, I don't need to be theApostle Paul.
I can be where God has placedme and have the influence that
he has given me with you, knowand receive whatever influence
(22:54):
and power is given to me with anopen hand, yeah, but use it
with humility and not try toseek after it and grasp it and
gain more and more, but rather,if it is given, it is given by
the one who has all power andauthority to give it.
I'm not going to try to take itaway from him or those he's
given it to.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
That's good, that's good.
I'm thinking about language,and when we speak to one another
, we're making a type of, andwe're even like, testing certain
ideas.
We're making an offering ofsorts have you ever thought
about it that way?
We're like we're offering thesewords, this idea, to God, right
(23:38):
, and to scripture, and we'rejuxtaposing our offering.
You could say to God, is it inline with scripture?
And then we're offering it toour neighbor in the hopes that
it will be received and anoffering will come back, right.
So courage is in line withmaking these verbal offerings to
(23:58):
one another, to God, and, andcentered in the word of God.
And and then humility.
The other side of courage is isreceiving another type of
offering that may be dissimilar.
I'm thinking of Cain and Abel.
Right, some offerings Godaccepts is higher, you know,
more worthy, more sacrificialthan maybe my offering.
(24:21):
And so humility is confessing,okay, my heart, my offering may
not have been in the rightspirit.
Right, I need to be humbled asI offer my words under your word
there.
Anything more about theoffering motif as it relates to.
Most of the time, we think ofofferings as like a physical
something, money, or in the Cainand Abel it's a grain offering,
(24:43):
or a fruit offering, or a sheepoffering, an animal offering,
but I think our words this isvery, it's deep to me right, we
were created by the word right,everything we well, actually God
got dirty, but he spokecreation into being for
everything we see, and so ourwords are a type of offering.
(25:05):
Anything to add to that, Andy.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
I mean as an author, that rings true for me.
I have a couple of books thatare published by Kikoria
Publishing House and I try tothink of those as offerings.
That's a good way to put it.
I have this desire that I thinkis placed on my heart.
(25:28):
I offer these words and I hopethat they are received well and
they resonate with people andpeople are strengthened and
encouraged by them.
And then, so you know, my lastbook came out last month and in
the middle of January, and I'malready working on like the
(25:48):
third book in the series andjust thinking about trying to
offer this proposal and put thisforward into the world.
And as an author, there's alwaysthis constant struggle that you
face where you think thateverything you do is really good
and everything you do is reallybad.
And it's really hard to sortthat out because one day you
(26:12):
could be super confident andthink they're going to love this
.
But the reality is I'm going tosubmit a proposal at the end of
March and the reality is thisoffering might be rejected, it
might be pushed aside and saidyou know what this really isn't
it?
No, thank you.
And that's a risk that you haveto take.
(26:33):
You know, as pastors, sometimesyou preach a sermon and it just
doesn't work right.
It just falls flat and you feelterrible about it.
That happened to me two Sundaysago.
I preached what I would call abad sermon and yet it's an
offering, and sometimes thatoffering is received by people
in a way you don't expect.
(26:54):
And so so two weeks ago I'mpreaching on John nine and the
healing of the man born blind,and I don't know.
You know, it's just one ofthose, one of those days I'm
tired, it doesn't go well, itends my I just ended poorly.
And as people are walking outof church, you know, one of one
of the people that walks out ofchurch has an adult daughter
(27:15):
with disabilities and and shetells me she she was following
along and when we, when you gotdone, she just turned to me and
said Jesus is the light of theworld and so, like that offering
that I thought was garbage, thespirit does something even with
that and transforms it in thisway that is beautiful and
(27:36):
wonderful and received.
And I get something in return,this encouragement that says,
even when you're at your worstand weakest, the Spirit still
does what the Spirit does andencourages and gives faith to
God's faithful people.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Andy, that is so good , that's so true.
And the reason I'm laughing islike if you've been a
communicator for any length oftime, you've had that moment
where you're like, whoa, thisisn't going as well.
Did you ever think about howit's going?
Humans are funny, right, ourbrains are funny.
I can almost look down onmyself.
(28:16):
And the more I acknowledge inthose moments and it could be
because of I didn't put the prepin or there's something
physically going on the more Ikind of allow the Holy Spirit to
look at oh, look at this sweetlittle guy giving his best shot
right now the more I kind ofallow the Holy Spirit to look at
oh, look at this sweet littleguy giving his best shot right
now.
You know, the more I then justacknowledge, or even in the
middle of a message, like I'mgoing, like we're leading toward
(28:40):
, hopefully, a satisfactoryconclusion of that rhetorical
unit, right, but then I just mymind goes blank or something the
more I just stop in that momentand say I don't know what I'm
supposed to say next.
Let me reorient myself.
There's a removal of a mask,and I just become more human
(29:02):
Every single time.
I choose humility toacknowledge what everybody else
knows, and I just have to saythat I acknowledge it too, like
this isn't going that well andit could be in anything.
It could be in preaching orteaching or in a podcast, or
this isn't going like.
The more I acknowledge that, themore people are drawn, rather
than like putting up that falsefront Like everything is
(29:23):
absolutely great.
No, I'm a human and I'm goingto have some days are going to
be better than others.
Some days my mind's going towork more sharply than others.
Right, what is it about sin?
That wants to put up a mask?
I think that's a really goodimage.
It's just nothing to see here.
You know, I got no words,nothing wrong.
Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Yeah, and I think that vulnerability takes off
that mask right and says maskand says no, I'm a human being
who makes mistakes like anybodyelse, and I think oftentimes we
believe wrongly that putting onthis persona of this mask of I
(30:07):
got it all figured out, it'sgoing to be safe for other
people and they're going to bedrawn to that.
But the reality is thatvulnerability is a much, much
safer place for people toentrust themselves to you
because they realize you arelike them.
You are vulnerable and you makemistakes and especially, you
know, as people who spend a lotof time in front of other people
(30:28):
and, you know, hear things likeyou know, I could never
memorize a sermon.
I don't know how you do thatright, like it's like that's not
the point, but theyunintentionally, I think, hold
up pastors higher than we oughtto be held and I think that can
(30:51):
lead to both a power trip insome cases of like yeah, I'm
great, look at me.
But also it can lead to thiscrash and this and a need to
keep that facade up becausethey've held you up here, so you
got to stay up there.
They've held you up here, soyou got to stay up there, so
(31:17):
it's a really challenging thingto just be honest and say this
is not my best work this week,I'm exhausted, I'm not ready
really today.
And how do you do that in a waythat that is honest, that is
vulnerable but also doesn't, youknow, make people lack trust in
you?
Like, how does it increasetrust rather than make people
(31:40):
think that you don't know whatyou're doing, which you probably
don't at least I don't.
But yeah, it's this complicated, tenuous balance.
I think that we have to strikein leading God's people and
being honest with them, beingvulnerable with them, but also
still trying to lead them.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Yeah, no, that's, that's really great.
You wonder?
I mean, let's go to Paul Imentioned him earlier like he
has to consciously lower himselfright.
Chief of sinners, romans 7, thegood I want to do, I don't.
Some people think that's likePaul being kind of over.
(32:19):
Well, Paul didn't really dothings or not do things that he
shouldn't, you know.
No, like he really did, likethis is a wretched man that I am
, like he's calling himself out,and so I think we just need to
go to the scriptures and theapostles.
You can go into the OldTestament.
You've got a series ofunfortunate events.
In the story of Job.
You've got a series ofunfortunate highs and lows, but
(32:42):
more lows, I would say, in thestory even of King David, a man
after God's own heart.
These are very human people whowere fallible, and I guess I'm
just going to dip my toe.
This is lead time.
So we talk about the currenttrajectory of our church body
and leaders, the struggle of notstaying engaged, and I think
(33:07):
we're moving in a good directionhere around the topic of
formation.
And I think we're moving in agood direction here around the
topic of formation.
How does a pastor becomewell-formed?
What is the role of seminaryeducation and how should we
maybe be looking at differentways to do it, not downgrading
our theology, et cetera.
I think there's more opennessto that conversation right now.
I'm grateful for that.
(33:33):
But the other one that's just ahard one to get my mind wrapped
around is the prior approvalprocess and how leaders get
raised up or not acknowledgedfor certain positions, and it
just feels like the whole thingis more.
There's a lot of gray darkaround, there's a lack of
clarity around it, and I knowyou are a friend of Matt
Barrasso who put together,hopefully, a resolution that
(33:54):
will get discussed so that therecan be greater, and I say this
I think there needs to begreater protection of our
leaders, respect for our leaders, for President Harrison and
right now, because a lot of it'slike behind the scenes, some of
us can put kind of the worstconstruction on what appears to
be why did a certain amount ofleaders not get considered?
(34:17):
I don't know why, becausethey're leaders in good standing
in the church.
So we just would like to havegreater transparency on that,
and I know it's complex for sure.
So, anything as I just kind ofdive head first into the
struggle of the prior approvalprocess right now, because I
think if we can get clarity onthis, we can we can bring more
(34:39):
trust to those at differentleadership positions in our
synod.
Any any more comments there,andy?
Speaker 3 (34:45):
Yeah, I think with prior approval in particular,
having transparency is justreally important because it
opens up the conversation andyou know, if there's a person
who's applied for a job andthey're told, nope, you can't
have it, and by all accounts,they're qualified, they have all
(35:09):
the necessary degrees and yearsof service and all those sorts
of things, they have all thenecessary expertise that the
seminary or the university wantsto hire them, and then they're
told by a governing body, nope,we don't want you.
And they're not told why.
I feel like that would bereally disconcerting for someone
(35:33):
and really difficult for themto think like, okay, so what am
I supposed to do?
What is wrong with me?
That I'm not being included?
And I feel really bad forpeople who've gone through that
and not had that transparency,not had an opportunity to
(35:54):
clarify any of the statementsthat they had to make and
filling out paperwork andwhatnot, Because I think
transparency is just shininglight on something that is in
darkness, and I think there's alot of scriptural depth to that
particular metaphor of light anddarkness and there's nothing
(36:17):
wrong with shining a light onsomething that is in the dark.
That's what we do as God'speople and so, and I think it
would also help.
It would help universities.
It would help seminaries, Ithink it would also help.
It would help universities.
It would help seminaries.
It would help the people whowant to apply for these jobs to
know okay, if this is a linethat I cannot cross or I won't
(36:42):
receive prior approval, then atleast I know that and I won't
waste my time trying to applyfor a position that I know I'm
not going to get.
If whatever it is, whether it'smusic related or a particular I
don't even know what, becausethere's no transparency.
I don't even know what theissues are.
Whatever it is, I just need toknow so that I don't waste my
(37:07):
time and I don't waste anyoneelse's time.
So that's, I don't know.
It's one of those issues whereI don't understand why the
transparency thing is just notbuilt into it.
It seems obvious to me, butapparently it's not, and so I'm
trying to be like Matt and I areboth trying to be as curious as
possible about this as justbeing like please help us
(37:27):
understand this.
And it's really hard to do andnot get frustrated.
As you said, it's really easyto have the worst construction
on something when it's in thedark.
It's a lot harder to do thatwhen it's in the light, and then
we'll just know, and I thinkthat's for me anyway.
That would be satisfying justto have that transparency.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Does that make sense?
It does.
I don't know that I've evershared this publicly, but Jack
Kauberg and I and this goes backto Pastor Jake Besling we
taught for every other year atConcordia University in Irvine
in the cross-cultural ministryprogram and really and I'm not
(38:11):
being I think it was a great,great experience.
We, I think four differentiterations, we, um, we taught in
that class and got to know ourstudents really well and and the
class got really great kind ofreviews.
It was like a kind of missionto execution at the local level.
Those were some of the concepts.
So two thirds of it was mostlylike leadership disciplines from
(38:31):
the personal to the corporatereality and building healthy
culture system structure A lotof the stuff we talk about with
the ULC.
But we were not asked to returnto that program and the director
of the program God bless him helike was called and it was a
super awkward conversation fromhis.
I was like I know what you'regoing to say.
(38:53):
I'm not being invited becausethe seminary kind of was taken
in St Louis, has taken moreresponsibility for the program
and the only way I could kind ofconceptualize it is I was on a
list, right, I obviously wasassociating with the wrong
people or maybe publicly hadsaid certain things that were
too challenging to the statusquo of synod, or people looked
(39:18):
online and saw that one of ourworship forms includes a drum,
you know, or whatnot Like.
Those are the only ways I canreally kind of make sense of it
right now.
And could some of those thingsbe a disqualifying notion?
I guess it's just not clear.
We don't have any synod bylawsthat say you can't have drums in
(39:40):
worship or anything like that.
We've not spoken of the synodand you associate with people
that we don't really like and sothat kind of keeps you off the
list.
That's the best I can have asto the rationale of why certain
(40:02):
people don't get onto certainlists.
Any comment there, andy, as wepivot, so uncomfortable.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
I don't know, and I think that's what's frustrating
about it is like that's yourstory, and I've heard a handful
of other stories of people whoyou know weren't asked back or,
uh, didn't, didn't meet priorapproval, so didn't get a
position somewhere, and they allhave different guesses as to
why.
Right, because Because theydon't know, and at least one
(40:36):
person I'm thinking of, none ofthe things you said would be
true about them Not at all.
So what is it?
I don't know, and it's not thatI need to know, it's just I
feel so bad for this guy whowanted this job, who's qualified
(40:56):
for this job and was told youcan't have this job, like it
doesn't make sense to me.
And nothing, nothing aboutnothing about the people I know
who've been rejected by priorapproval.
I cannot find a reason why, alegitimate, disqualifying reason
.
And I think the other thingthat I'll say about prior
(41:18):
approval that I think isfrustrating is I'm struggling to
understand why someone who isrejected from being a
theological professor rejectedfrom being a theological
professor we say nope, can't dothat, you can't be training
(41:38):
pastors.
Why is that person in theparish, where that's really the
church at its true heart, likeif there's something
disqualifying about being aprofessor?
Why isn't there somethingthat's disqualifying about being
a parish pastor?
And't there something that'sdisqualifying about being a
parish pastor?
And?
there's not, and I think thatit's very clearly not in the
parish pastor sense.
So why are we holding up thesepositions so much higher than
(42:02):
they ought to be held?
Being a pastor and shepherdingGod's church, being in the
congregation, that's the church,and I understand that the
training of pastors is veryimportant.
I know that's something that'svery close to your heart, but
the idea that you could do moredamage somehow in a seminary
(42:26):
setting or a university settingversus the congregation just
doesn't make any sense to me.
Versus the congregation justdoesn't make any sense to me,
because anybody who's beenthrough the seminary will tell
you that there are plenty there.
You know, there's like 40, 50professors.
You're going to be shapeddifferently by different
professors and if there's onethat's not quite your jam, you
(42:46):
just sort of ignore them and youare formed by someone else,
right.
And so if if that's the case,like you know, for me I was
formed by Bob Cole and Rev Rossoand Dave Schmidt, like those
guys are the the three main guyswho formed me when I was at
seminary, and if I had never hadthem, well then it would have
(43:09):
been someone else right.
And if one professor isn'texactly up to this uniformity
standard, I don't know.
I feel like we're going to bejust missing out on so many good
people if we create a standardthat is too uniform, that isn't
(43:31):
harmonious enough, and we're notgoing to have the true
expertise that we need, becauseeveryone is going to be too
cookie cutter, both in teachingand in coming out of the
seminary, and that's just.
I don't think that's good forthe church.
The church needs variety.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
Yes, needs variety.
Yes, yeah, well, the reason I Ikind of think it's it's, it's
uh, almost it's a juvenile thingto be even even talking about.
Uh, I mean, we, we should talkabout it.
But, like the, the reason, it'svery it's like I, I choose my
friends on the playground.
It's very, it's like I choosemy friends on the playground.
(44:14):
It's almost like a playgroundmentality, right, like I like
these guys, but I don't likethose guys.
It's just, human beings are moreprone to be drawn toward.
Like, are you going toacknowledge it, call it what it
is, or like say you know, I likethis brand of Lutheranism
better, you know, and thisperson that subscribes to this
brand is in and this person thatdoesn't is out.
(44:37):
And Lutherans have always beenkind of wrestling with this and
there's nothing new about this.
Who are we going to listen to?
Who's going to shape us?
And I guess the concern to landthis is that we're narrowing in
terms of what confessionalLutheranism is, rather than and
(44:59):
I'm not talking theology, butit's the approach, it's the
sociology of the way we'reorienting ourselves, rather than
having a widening tendency toutilize all of the gifts within
the body of Christ to let thefull harmony, the symphonic
harmony song be played.
(45:19):
I just think we're verynarrowly trying to determine
what it means to be aconfessional Lutheran in the
LCMS, and I think it would breakLuther's heart, to be quite
honest, because it was aboutfreedom, it was about the
priesthood.
It still is about that.
It's the freedom in the gospel,it is the movement out for the
(45:41):
sake of the world which isobviously the heart of Jesus,
rather than the narrowingtendency.
Jesus definitely had a wideningheart for Jew to Gentile, et
cetera.
So yeah, it just is what it isand hopefully we'll see some
changes on the prior approval tobring more light.
And again, this is to protectleaders, not to call leaders out
.
Like, I need to have clarityabout what I can do and what I
(46:05):
can't do in the local context orelse my leadership trust in the
local congregation will bedecimated If things kind of stay
in the dark.
How are you spending the money?
Who gets to be?
What are the?
What are the means by whichcertain leaders get to be on a
leadership Like it's not rocketscience.
There needs to be transparencyof that process.
That's all we're.
That's all we're calling for,andy.
(46:25):
Anything more.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
Yeah, and I don't think it's a a new problem,
right, like this goes back allthe way to 1 Corinthians 3 and
the Corinthian church being likeI follow Paul, I follow Apollos
, and Paul's words to them arepretty clear like knock it off.
You are all better for havinglistened to both Apollos and me
(46:53):
and we're.
You're not following either ofus.
We're all following Jesustogether.
Paul and Apollos are justservants of Jesus.
And just as as we, as you followone person, it's like a.
It's a false choice, right?
Yeah, Following Paul andfollowing Apollos is a false
choice, because they're bothfollowing Jesus, amen.
So what's the point of havingsides when they're on the same
(47:18):
team, or we want to be on thesame team and we're constantly
being told that we're not andthat just feels I don't know.
(47:43):
That just feels reallydifficult because I don't think
I'm on the opposite team and yetI get treated that way
sometimes.
I know you've gotten treatedthat way from what you've
revealed in this episode and sotrying to just recognize like no
, we're all following Jesustogether and we can disagree on
(48:05):
certain things and have somedissonance about certain things.
And let's move towardssynthesis, let's move towards
the resolution of the dissonantchords, that we can all make
this beautiful music and be thisbeautiful church together.
Speaker 2 (48:20):
Yeah, yeah, no, that's, that's good.
And, to be clear, I have nohardness of heart toward any
person in leadership, frompresident Harrison to any kind
of seminary president.
So they're doing that.
We're all just doing the bestwe can and uh, and we need.
We need one another and we needall the gifts, that's all the
all the call is is it doesn'thave to be me Like it, it's just
(48:43):
.
There's a lot of people who havehad similar experiences to what
I have.
Who cares if I'm teaching aclass?
I'm not, honestly, I'm not eventhere as to what I have.
Who cares if I'm teaching aclass?
I'm not, honestly, I'm not even.
There's plenty of things to do.
I was, I was, um, like I justloved the, the heart of the
cross-cultural ministry program,that's.
That was the only kind ofsadness.
I was like, oh, that was, thatwas fun to learn with those guys
.
So, hey, last question, thishas been good.
(49:05):
Um, how is your congregation?
Let's close with hunting somereally good stuff how is your
congregation seeking to raise upleaders to advance the gospel
locally?
I'd love to just close with astory or two of man.
We're trying, we're raising upleaders and the Holy Spirit is
out ahead of us and we get to bea part of kingdom-expanding
efforts in your local context.
Tell a story or two of God atwork, andy.
Speaker 3 (49:26):
Sure, sure, sure.
So you know my congregation.
I arrived, you know, six, sevenyears ago and they had been
vacant for about two and a halfyears and when I arrived it was
(49:47):
a congregation that was, youknow, sort of it had seen its
glory days in the past.
They were down to maybe 60 to70 people in worship on a Sunday
and I was there.
For, you know, in the first 18months I was there I'm only the
fifth pastor at thiscongregation in over 80 years
and while I was there, two of mypredecessors, who are still,
(50:07):
you know, in the congregation,passed away.
In my first 18 months I got todo both of their funerals and
what I learned through throughthe process of doing their
funerals and just being therefor 18 months, was that this
congregation had just so muchunprocessed grief, uh, over the
(50:28):
glory days being gone, and youknow they were.
They were a 200 to 1st andSunday they had a K through 8
school.
They had all this stuff goingon in the early 2000s and then
all of a sudden it just fell off, school closed and just wasn't
going well.
And so my ability to just namethat and say you guys have a lot
(50:51):
of unprocessed grief.
Every time we talked aboutwhere we were going, like vision
for the future, they could onlythink about the past.
They just lost all theircreativity.
They wanted things to go backto the way they were.
Being able to name that, toprocess a little bit and then to
(51:11):
create a vision for movingforward, was really important.
Of course, we did all that andthen, like three weeks later,
the pandemic happened, and sothat created a sort of surge of
emergency with them.
But since I had been there justlong enough to create a little
bit of trust you know, inCalifornia it was very much an
(51:34):
online only sort of thing, likewe weren't in person for several
months, but I think ultimatelythankfully, mainly because of my
wife, who's very tech savvy wewere able to put something
together that sort of keptpeople together and what we
discovered, I think, over thattime period, was just how to
(51:56):
care for people in differentways.
And on the other side of thepandemic, you know, I would have
a new member class and therewould be people showing up that
I'd never met before, we'd justbeen watching online, and the
first time to show up as a newmember class, I'm like I didn't
know you existed, and even stilltoday, there are tons of people
who become guests for the firsttime, and it's weird to have
(52:21):
someone who knows you becausethey've been watching you online
and you've never met them, andso we've really, I think,
transitioned from that griefstage into okay, what does Jesus
have next for us?
And so part of that isidentifying some new leaders.
There are several new people inthe congregation that we are
(52:43):
investing in and trying to givethem roles that are not.
One of the problems that Ithink churches have is someone's
a guest and then six weekslater they're asked hey, do you
want to be the vice president ofthe congregation?
No, so giving them like littlesteps to like involve themselves
in different things issomething we've been up to, and
(53:05):
I think the biggest thing thatwe have going at our church
right now is we have a lot ofspace, like we have this outdoor
area, that where we used tohave school, where mobile units
used to be for the school, andit's just sort of sat there for
20 years and nothing's reallyhappened to it.
So now we're developing a planto make that more community
facing just a welcoming outdoorspace.
(53:26):
You know we'll see what thatturns into.
Maybe that's community gardenbocce ball, pickleball.
You know we'll see what thatturns into.
Maybe that's community gardenbocce ball, pickleball, you know
something like that, where thecommunity can gather together
and be on our space and get toknow them.
So that's cool.
That's some of the stuff we'reup to here.
Speaker 2 (53:43):
Well, you don't need this, but congratulations and
God's proud of you.
Thanks, congratulations andGod's proud of you.
You persevered, are perseveringand you did all that you could
to care for people.
I say this to any pastor, right?
I mean it was adiscombobulating time, very
(54:05):
confusing.
It's unnatural for a pastor tohave people that know him and he
doesn't know them.
The identity, the online wholeworld added another dimension to
pastoral ministry that I thinkwe're still kind of wrestling
with more of a detachedfigurehead as a pastor than a
(54:34):
human who has highs and lows and, um, good days and bad days and
, uh, just as doing the bestthey can to bring word and
sacrament to to God's people, um, and so I say all that to to
say, man, well done.
And especially in a contextlike California.
I know you know you want totalk about a post-Christian
culture like that is.
(54:54):
That is the waters in which youare walking through there.
So, way to go, and better days,your, your.
Your move toward opening upspace and offering your campus
that the Lord has given to youfor the sake of community
connection is the right impulseand you're listening to that
impulse and moving in that.
Praise God, andy, this has beenso good.
(55:15):
My principal is actuallywaiting to connect with me right
now, so we have to land it.
But if people want to connectwith you, how can they do so
handy.
Speaker 3 (55:25):
The easiest way is I have an author newsletter that I
call Bible curious.
It's a sub stack.
You can find it atbiblecurioussubstackcom.
That's the easiest way.
Speaker 2 (55:37):
If you want to follow what I'm up to.
I should have shame on me.
I should have asked about yourbooks.
So what are your books?
No worries, yeah, yeah, thatyou wrote, shout out.
Speaker 3 (55:47):
Sure.
The first one is called 10Questions to Ask Every Time you
Read the Bible.
It's about building biblicalfluency, being curious, and the
second one is called 10 LiesSatan Loves to Tell.
It's about deception, you know,and Satan, but mostly about
Jesus and the truth and lightthat he brings to us.
Speaker 2 (56:05):
Love that, love that and, if you don't mind, what's
the project you're offering toCPH?
Speaker 3 (56:12):
The third project I'm working on is in the same
series.
It'll be about prayer.
I don't have a title yet, but,um, something about like, the
takeaways we have from prayer,the benefits that we have of
praying, and you know some ofthe different things jesus
teaches us about how to pray,hey let let's sign it.
Speaker 2 (56:32):
If I had any kind of influence, which I don't I would
say let's book that deal.
Yeah, anyway, I can't wait toread it.
Well, you're a gift, andy.
Thank you for the generosity oftime.
This is lead time.
Please like, subscribe, comment.
Wherever it is you take inthese conversations, and we pray
, the ultimate outcome is notfrustration or anger or division
, but it's working toward unity,to play your part in the
(56:55):
symphony of God's mission,carrying that amazing,
harmonious symphonic song, whichis the Holy Spirit song, out
into the world and entrusting itto the God who wants all of His
kids back, and we get to play asmall part in that huge,
eternal, eternal song.
It's a good day.
(57:15):
Go and make it a great day.
Wonderful work, andy, thank you.
Speaker 3 (57:19):
Thanks, tim, appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (57:20):
You've been listening to Lead Time, a podcast of the
Unite Leadership Collective.
The ULC's mission is tocollaborate with the local
church to discover, develop anddeploy leaders through biblical
Lutheran doctrine and innovativemethods To partner with us in
this gospel message.
Subscribe to our channel, thengo to theuniteleadershiporg to
create your free login forexclusive material and resources
(57:42):
and then to explore ways inwhich you can sponsor an episode
.
Thanks for listening and staytuned for next week's episode.
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