August 27, 2025 • 50 mins
In this episode of Lead Time, Tim Ahlman returns from sabbatical with a candid conversation about the changing landscape of ministry in the LCMS. From re-organizing senior staff and shifting governance models, to the biblical case for pastoral sabbaticals, to the urgent realities of pastoral formation, this episode doesn’t shy away from the hard questions.
Tim shares personal reflections from his sabbatical and his upcoming book release, while Jack dives into the tough realities facing small congregations, bivocational ministry, and the need for fresh approaches to leadership. Together they recap the Pacific Southwest District convention, explore resolutions around SMP pastors and Lutheran identity, and call the church to unity rooted in Scripture and Confession.
👉 Topics include:
Why Christ Greenfield restructured its leadership model.
The benefits of sabbaticals for pastors (and congregations).
Governance models that help or hinder ministry.
Urgent challenges in pastoral formation and SMP pathways.
What really defines Lutheran identity.
How property development and mission innovation can shape the future.
This is a hopeful yet challenging look at where we are and where we’re headed as the LCMS seeks to unite for the sake of the gospel.
Join the Lead Time Newsletter! (Weekly Updates and Upcoming Episodes)
https://www.uniteleadership.org/lead-time-podcast#newsletter
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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 (00:04):
Welcome to Lead Time, Tim Allman here with Jack
Kalberg.
This is our first podcast backfrom sabbatical and I am so
excited, Jack.
How was your summer, man?
Let's just start there.
It's been a minute since folkskind of reconnected with us.
It was not a slow summer aroundhere in Christ Greenfield.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Not even remotely slow and for those of you who
might not be as tightlyconnected to Christ Greenfield,
in our story we've been goingthrough a season of change.
Over the summer we didsomething that I probably would
not recommend for people, but itwas probably the right call in
our specific situation.
We did an entire reorg of oursenior staff.
On the day that Tim left forsabbatical he gave the staff a
(00:47):
PowerPoint presentation and saidhere's the new org chart.
Have fun.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Peace out Now to be fair, that was following like 90
days of consultation and stuff.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Yeah, the way it played out was interesting.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
But yeah, I don't the way we, where we ended up, was
good, you know we'll just startthere.
I mean, but yeah, I don't theway we, where we ended up was,
was good, you know, we'll juststart there.
I mean, anytime you're in a, ina ministry and we have a pretty
strict policy governance.
Not many churches probably haveas strict of a policy
governance kind of policy base,probably for a number of
churches our size.
But we have the permission andreally the expectation from our
(01:25):
board and therefore thecongregation.
As the congregation grows,evolves, the family ministry
grows and evolves.
You got to take a look at howyou're operating consistently.
Who's in the room to make whatdecisions, and we are our senior
executive staff had gotten kindof larger and it let us.
You know there's there's justsocial dynamics in a room when
you have about 13 to 20 people,you're going to have 2 to maybe
(01:51):
3 voices that are louder and noteverybody feels like they can
speak.
So that was one of the reasons.
But our consultant said we weremaybe becoming at that level, a
little bit more finance focusedmaybe a little bit to systems.
And I've been in the last twostaff meetings and it's been
entirely ministry and then wegot to talk money, we got to
(02:13):
talk systems, but the rightpeople need to be in the room to
talk that and future vision.
Yeah, future vision, and we'dlose half the staff a lot of
times with the conversations wewere having and we'd lose half
the staff a lot of times withthe conversations we were having
.
So, yeah, I mean it was kind oftough, because you never want
to do things that kind ofdisappoint people, but full
transparency.
I wrote a letter to each one ofour teammates and said, hey, we
(02:36):
need you on the team.
You're very, very valuable.
Thanks for playing your roleand understanding this need to
get tighter.
So we went from about 15 or soin the senior executive down to
eight and then kind of adifferent rhythm of meetings.
We have about an hour and ahalf meeting and then we bring
the rest of our team in for kindof an overview Q&A and anybody
(03:00):
from our staff can come on tothat meeting just to make sure
that there's a good flow ofinformation.
And we also this may be, thismay be something that folks are
like whoa, that's kind of wild.
Everybody on our team now andthe executive staff reports to
Jack and Jack is my one directreport and then we're going to
have to do a podcast, justhonestly, on our board
governance.
I think there's a lot to sharethere.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
So yeah, any kind of takeaways over how it went?
Yeah, because that's a veryinteresting observation.
Like you and I have beenteaching some with some some
other classes on some schoolsystems about leadership and
mission, and one of the themesthat comes up with people who
are preparing for ministry orpastoral roles like a lot of
times these problems go back tothe governance model that
(03:44):
they're working in, and there'sa lot of times these problems go
back to the governance modelthat they're working in and
there's a lot of churches thatif they're operating in the old
council style model, it's goodfor certain things and but it
also creates a lid on theorganization.
Eventually, what do you thinkit's good?
Speaker 2 (03:59):
for Just pause right there.
What do you think the oldcouncil model is good for?
Speaker 3 (04:08):
I think it's good for small churches that really want
to put a focus on inclusion andvolunteerism, so like that.
That's the original thought ofthe council model.
So you know, think about backin the day when, when this is
like back in the day when theLCMS was partnering with the
ELCA to do church planting, andthey would say, ok, we're
planting a church here andyou're planting a church here,
and when they're thinking aboutplanting a church in the area,
their expectation is going togrow to about 250 people and
(04:30):
that's about as much as thatchurch is ever going to grow to,
because that's how much onepastor can handle, probably for
a congregation.
And they're not thinking aboutreally big churches, right.
They're thinking about local.
You know smaller communitychurches, more of what you might
see in the typical.
You know Midwest right, thatmaybe seats 150, something like
that, right, and if you got twoservices full, you know that's
(04:55):
probably what they're plantingand so the council model handles
that totally fine.
And if you're in a region where,let's say, it's a good
Christendom model where peoplesee themselves as part of the
priesthood of all believers andactive participants in the
church, but what it does, is itkind of, you know, at least in
the version that we walkedthrough, you know the version
(05:16):
that I saw, it kind of divorcedthe pastor from the business of
the church and that wasintentional.
And I guess really the questionis is that the right call?
Should you?
And that was intentional?
And I guess really the questionis is that the right call?
Should you say that the pastoronly does ministry and he's not
involved in any of the business,that say, kind of divorced from
some of the strategic,analytical, operational parts of
(05:39):
the church?
Or is it more important tobuild a ministry model where all
of those things are thought ofas ministry really Right, and
then ultimately supervised by apastor?
So I would say, for a churchthe size of the churches that
they were intending to plant,the governance was a good model.
You can sustain a church thatbig and you can create, buy in
and when you think about like aserve team we talk about serve
(06:00):
teams and a leadership pathway,like you have a version of that
like a church with a schoolboard right, has people serving
and leading and in itshealthiest version there's a
pathway and a pipeline to getpeople into those board and
committee roles right, but itdoesn't scale.
(06:41):
At a certain point in time youend up having a council and that
council becomes like your defacto executive team.
But they're all at puttingtogether social events and
cooking hot dogs and getting youknow and it's very difficult
for that person to be makingreally tough staffing decisions
and really hard budgetingdecisions and really difficult
decisions about the debt of theorganization.
Right, they like they werethere to cook hot dogs and
(07:04):
invite people to.
You know what I mean.
That was their expertise, right.
And so, yeah, I would say forthe smaller church, where some
of those business decisions arelower stakes decisions, that's
fine.
But when you get into a big,complicated church with
multi-million dollar budgets,then it gets really difficult
for that and there is a shiftinto a more professional church
(07:25):
model.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Well, let me pause and give a shout out to the book
of Acts, the deacon model.
So the apostle says it's notgood.
They started to build a teamright To handle a lot of the
business of the church, the careof orphans and widows and the
marginalized, and obviously thatobviously included financial
(07:46):
oversight.
And I don't think, though, wewould be wise to think the
deacons were completely divorcedfrom the apostles as the
ministry went out.
There's no way they wereintimately connected to all of
the ministry but their primaryfocus was Word and Sacrament.
Now, what happens, I think, jack, as you get to a certain size
say past 250, and we're justmoving right into our governance
(08:07):
.
Hold on, we're going toactually be talking about the
Pacific Southwest DistrictConference convention coming up
here really soon.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Sometimes we go on a rabbit trail and we have to talk
it out.
So we have to figure it out.
So, what can?
Speaker 2 (08:19):
happen if a congregation grows.
You probably have and I'm goingto paint with a broad brush
here.
You probably have one of twotypes of pastor a pastor who
says you know what?
Speaker 3 (08:31):
I'm okay being passive, kind of on the sideline
and letting the church justkind of visitations.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
I'll preach, yeah, that's it yeah, exactly, and
other people can worry about it,right, yeah, and I guess that
can kind of work, I think.
I think the congregation isprobably going to hit a lid if
that's the pastor's approach.
The second is the pastorprobably starts to maneuver
(08:55):
behind the council's back, maybein partnership with some of the
council, but he's kind of exofficio at that meeting.
If he's driven, he's probablygoing to figure out other ways
to build social capital andtrust and be able to move
forward with consensus, maybewith and without some of the
people that are on that council.
And that gets very, very messy.
That obviously leads to parkinglot conversations and maybe we
(09:18):
got some pastors right now whoare in that situation and I pray
for you, man.
It's a tough spot to be and Iremember one story being in a
council meeting.
So we moved from a councilmodel to a policy-based
governance model.
Ish, when I first got here andyou and I were working, I
(09:38):
remember going into one of ourboard meetings and and having
having a member of the boardwant to go line by line through
you know hundreds of line itemsto say why did this line item
overspend by maybe a hundred ora thousand, I don't know, and
this they didn't spend and sothey wanted to.
I mean it was exhausting, jack,wasn't it?
(10:00):
I mean I look back, I almosthave PTSD from some of those
meetings.
I mean they were long.
Me too, and we met monthly, somonthly equals management.
Anytime a group of people meetmonthly, they're going to want
to get it under the hood to anextraordinary degree.
But it was like who gets toreally make what decisions at
the end of the day?
It was very, very complex andso we made the choice shout out
(10:22):
to Paul Zills to go down.
We've been last seven years orso down the policy, strict
Carver policy governance modelwhere the board knows their
roles.
They speak for the owners ofthe congregation, speak for the
entire congregation.
One point of accountabilitythrough myself.
And then I and our team treatthe members of the congregation
(10:47):
and I don't let some peoplebristle at this.
It is what it is and it fitsactually in our Lutheran
understanding as customers orconsumers of word and sacrament
Right.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
All for the sake of right.
What's that?
Beneficiaries?
Of beneficiaries, beneficiaries, right and they're benefiting
from this service, right, butthey also they have two roles,
both to be a beneficiary and anowner.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
So the board is going to engage with them as owners.
They're going to see if thepolicies that we've set, the
ends that we've set, we reallythe goals that we've set for the
ministry are still the accurategoals, and then they're going
to monitor.
The board will monitor am Istaying within the said
policy-based or strict policy,not just policy-based strict
(11:32):
policies that limit what I'msupposed to do or not do?
Right, and that's very, verypointed.
And we then developed thesemonitor reports that we give to
the board on a quarterly basisthat show where we're in
compliance and where we'rehonestly out of out of
compliance and by what datewe'll be in compliance.
That's a very, very broad, highbrush of what our, our model is
(11:55):
.
If you want to have aconversation with us
uniteleadershiporg, just reachout.
We'll give you honest opinion.
There's, uh, jim galvin is alsodoing governance consulting.
Right now he's in the LCMS andJim and then Paul Zills is also
another consultant that we'vebeen with for a number of years.
Anything more to say there,jack, and I would say you know
better system for us.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
What's the right governance for you.
It has to do a little bit withwhat stage of growth and what
your long term ministryambitions are.
Right, yeah, and I wouldn'tnecessarily recommend going to a
strict policy model right offthe bat.
If you, as your first jumpagain, that's all contextual.
It may depend on the type ofteam you built, but I think it
(12:38):
actually was kind of a logicalstep of what we did, moving into
policy ish governmentgovernance and then going into
the full one, because it got usa chance to, it, did improve
certain things.
So it solved a bunch ofproblems and it created other
problems.
And I guess the other thing islike, no matter what governance
system you're in, it's going tobe hard.
Like there's there's difficulty, I agree, and this is this is I
(13:03):
call this the X, the XP slashexecutive director motto is you
pick your problems Right.
Call this the XP slashexecutive director motto is you
pick your problems right.
So every set of governance hasbenefits to it and problems
associated with it.
And as you pick a path, youknow you're owning those
benefits and you're also owningthe problems that go along with
that.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
And the problem for policy governance is man.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
You have to have like a really great administrative
team to be able to put thesereports together, because they
are thick and stout.
And you have to have like areally great administrative team
to be able to put these reportstogether, because they are
thick and stout.
And you also have to be, youknow, have to be confident that
you can recruit the right peopleto serve in that board.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Exactly yeah.
So it's getting the rightcompetencies of board members.
That's one thing you need tomake sure of.
And then your administrative,your ability to gather data,
because it can't just be well,I'm a good guy Like people, like
me, you know.
No, show me the dollars, showme the money, jerry I mean I'm
(13:58):
going back to Jerry Maguire Likeit has to be based in facts, in
hard data, right, jack?
And for the first five years orso, we felt like we were
failing, because there was acertain percentage of the policy
, of the governance policies,we're like we're going to get
there.
We're not there yet.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
in there, yeah, and you know it's never 100 percent.
You know, I would say like ifyou get under the hood of even
your healthiest ministries,you're going to find at least 20
percent of something that'sdysfunctional, right, yeah, so
that's, that's just like thetruth.
And what you're reporting does,is it like, blatantly exposes
what that is.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Right.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Which is good, it's accountability and we need to be
working on those things, and soyou know what we do.
Our culture here is we embracecontinuous improvement,
challenge Right.
We have hard conversations, wereceive hard, hard feedback and
we commit to get one percentbetter every day.
That's a culture that we try tobuild here, amen, amen.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Hey, let's.
We didn't really talk about mysabbatical.
It was fun.
Yeah, a lot of time with familyand national parks.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Yeah, what was your favorite?
Speaker 2 (14:57):
part of it.
I mean just life goes so fast,jack, yeah, it's astonishing
Been here 12 years and my kidswere six and four.
You know six, five and fourwhen we moved here, and now
they're 18, 17 and 16.
And to have all of them drivingby the way, pray for me to have
(15:17):
those those sweet moments withthem, having more adult kind of
future focused conversations notall of it, a lot of it's just
fun and hanging out and the.
The cool thing is they stilllike to be.
I mean, they like to be withtheir friends, don't get me
wrong, but they still like tohang out with mom and dad and,
um, those days go so fast.
So, yeah, our trip to thenational parks were amazing.
(15:40):
A yellowstone god's creation inthe west here is is
unbelievable.
The state of arizona has, inutah, have some amazing park,
zion and Bryce Canyon, and soYellowstone, grand Tetons.
It was just a really, reallysweet time.
And and then the only kind ofwork I did was working on
finishing my book, which is nowin kind of formatting, some
final editing, and we we hadthought we were going to release
(16:03):
it in the fall because it'skind of kind of ready, but we're
going to be ramping up uh forfebruary 2 release.
February 2nd is going to be thedate, um, and I I hope, I hope
you guys buy it and find it,find it useful and it'll be
published through the ulc.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Yeah it's our first ulp.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Actually, you know, leadership, publishing our first
book of god willing many.
We got some others in thehopper.
I think you're going to beworking on some and other other
team members here are going tobe working on some, and I got a
fictional project that I'mworking on, this, pastor Paul.
I won't say a whole lot aboutthat and so just kind of fun.
I think a lot of our writing isgoing to be honest.
The tone we wanted to be honest, straightforward, accessible,
(16:45):
but also a little bit of levity.
We take ourselves so seriouslyand the mission of God is
advancing and it's the HolySpirit's work, and so I hope
it's a book speaking ofConfessing Jesus' Mission that
people will read.
And even if you disagree withsome of our conclusions, we
agree on word and sacramentgoing forth forth that more and
(17:07):
more people need the gospel ofJesus Christ.
So on the front end of the bookit's kind of a quasi academic
missiology from a missiologicalwork from a Lutheran perspective
and kind of standing on theshoulders on some others who
have done some some great work.
So yeah, and then then we teachsome of our principles.
At the very end of the bookit's kind of a cliff notes
(17:28):
version of some of our teaching,just to kind of wet people's
whistle a little bit and getthem, get them pumped to go
deeper with us.
What are you gonna say, jack?
Speaker 3 (17:33):
So kind of as you, as you're coming back now, what
would you say like what would bethe benefit for a church to
adopt a sabbatical policy forits pastors or its all of its
staff, its directors?
What would be your thoughts onthe benefits, on that, why they
should consider that?
Speaker 2 (17:48):
so ridiculously connected in our culture today
and pastors, you know, there'salways another meeting, another
problem, another, you know,person who needs help and it can
just become and I wasn't atthis point I could, could have
gotten to that point justbecomes overwhelming.
Right, I need a sabbaticalduring this season because of
(18:10):
some of the stuff we've talkedabout on this podcast, right,
and just kind of setting itaside and letting it go,
releasing it to Jesus.
So I think every congregationshould have a rhythm of
sabbatical for their pastor, forother executive directors, and
whether it's a full, I took 10weeks.
You know that may be toward thelonger end of getting away,
even if it's just a month, likeMichael Pastor, michael or other
(18:34):
associates like, take June off,go hang out, and then I'll be
here and I'll take a little bitmore.
I think a lot of times we needbecause we're so connected, I
don't think a week is enough.
A lot of times, just a weekhere, a week there, I think if
we can push to two weeks causeyou've had that experience, jack
, where you're like it reallytakes maybe three days or so to
(18:55):
really unplug Before your brainis in vacation mode, even right,
Right and and then you know so.
so then hopefully get 10, 10more days.
I'd love to see our summerSummer's a different rhythm here
and we work really hard kind ofduring the school year and we
work on summers, are forprojects et cetera.
But yeah, I think, I thinkchurches need to write in their
policy, especially for their,their soul or senior or whatever
(19:18):
pastor like hey, every sevenyears, it's biblical right.
Every seven days we rest.
Every seven years we kind oflet the ground go a little
fallow and you come back firedup and ready new ideas and
honestly, it was like drinkingfrom a fire hose because you
guys were after it.
This was great.
You did a great job this summerleading.
I hope you got some good, goodrest as well.
So, yeah, yeah, it'll be coming.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
I had a surgery over that break so I had actually
kind of was forced into aboutapproximately two weeks of rest
against my will.
Well, I would say another thing.
Tim is like a benefit to thecongregation is not is well.
First there's the wellness ofthe worker, right Right off the
bat.
The worker benefits, but thecongregation benefits from well
(19:59):
healthy workers, right.
But in addition to that is itteaches the community to be less
personality oriented in itsdependence on ministry.
It's like can we shift to a waythat we're not 100 percent
dependent on this personalitybeing the person that runs the
ministry?
Other people have to fill inthe gap and it helps to.
(20:19):
It helps to build a culture torealize like, hey, we're not,
we're, we're, we're a communityhere.
You know we are, we are acollective working in ministry
and we are not entirelydependent on a single person as
the linchpin for every singlething that we're doing in
ministry.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
If that's right is that, that mindset, right, kind
of humbling.
You know.
It's like, yeah, well, thingskind of move forward and right,
well, um, I say it this way it'slike while I'm wanted and
called here, yes, I'm not neededhere.
You know, there's a differenceI am called, I am wanted, I'm a
part of the team, but I'm notthe whole body.
And the whole body can start tooperate when a part of the body
(20:58):
takes a little bit of a breakand you come back and you're
just refreshed, refired up andready to go working from a place
of rest rather than being worndown.
Yeah, working from a place ofrest rather than being being
worn down.
Yeah, amen, all right, well,let's get into.
Let's get into the PacificSouthwest District Convention.
That was the one kind of Ipopped out of my sabbatical to
come and hang out in PalmSprings and it was I mean my
(21:18):
general observations it was areally healthy, good, good
convention.
Me too Shout out to PresidentGibson and his reelection as our
leader here in the PacificSouthwest District.
He's a magnificent, magnificentfollower of Jesus and a leader
for our district.
He really in Colcates.
(21:40):
I was listening to my dad theother day.
He used that word.
Who uses that word, dad.
Anyway, he manifests by theSpirit's power such a kind, calm
but courageous posture for usand he strikes that balance
really, really well.
He also is an advocate at thesynodical level for a number of
the topics that our districtkind of talked about that are
(22:02):
going to move on to the NationalSynodical Convention coming up
here in Phoenix in July, whichis wild.
Looking forward to seeing manyof you here next, next summer.
So, yeah, let's go through therecap of what we learned.
Jack, you put together a fewobservations.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Hit it, yeah, I mean one really, really big.
Well, let me, I'm going to talkabout the quirkiness first.
So something that struck me askind of funny and a little goofy
is that we had some very what Icall harmless resolutions and
there's people that vote noagainst it, right.
So there was a resolution aboutjust thanking prior presidents
(22:38):
for their service, right, andyou have like a dozen people
that vote no for that.
So it's like, okay, I get it.
Now there's some people herethat will vote no for everything
.
That's, their reason to be hereis to vote no against every
single resolution.
I just get 100 percent on.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Jesus is Lord.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
Could we get 100?
Speaker 2 (23:00):
percent.
I think we would.
I'd like to think we would.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
Yes, so I just thought that was a little, a
little quirky.
Another thing that I thoughtwas really quirky had a real I
mean so our president, thenautical president Harrison, was
there.
First of all, I'm you know,there's many ways I'm really
impressed with this guy and he'sgot a job that I certainly
wouldn't want to have.
It's really tough.
I can tell that he's lookingforward to retirement soon, but
(23:23):
he got up and his job was togive a statement of the state of
the synod.
He did give some of a state ofa synod.
There was a video that kind ofdid some of that, especially
talking about the state of ourschools, and then he gave a very
, very long talk about theAugsburg Confession, which is
his prerogative to do that.
It was actually a really,really good and engaging one.
(23:45):
It was excellent.
But I think people are maybeexpecting to hear more about
some of the challenges that wewere dealing with as a national
church body and what we're doingabout that, and I think that
was something that was probablystruck people is that we didn't
get quite that depth, that maybethat we were expecting Any
thoughts on that.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Yeah, I liked the presentation.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
I thought it was great.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Yeah, and I actually got up.
I was one of the first, if notthe first, I think to the mic
and said hey, president Harrison, there was nothing that you
said that I disagree with.
I mean, he went right down themiddle, which is where Lutherans
should be, on topics like well.
Worship, style, worship style,yeah, the role of women.
I think he talked even inchurch.
(24:28):
Yeah, worship style the role ofwomen, I think he talked even
in church, and it was verybalanced and very fair and very,
I think, confessional Lutheran,rooted in long gospel.
Yeah, really, really great.
So I said there was nothingthat you said that I disagree
with, but we still have somethings I think we need to work
on, and one of those areas Ithink for growth is building a
bridge of trust with a number ofour larger churches.
(24:49):
In the LCMS he attended about adecade ago, sat next to my wife,
and they had a greatconversation actually over
dinner, and he was very cordialand kind at what was then the
megachurch conference andunfortunately I don't know what
happened.
That was the first megachurchconference that I've been to, so
I thought it was fine, but Ithink he felt maybe disrespected
(25:10):
by some of the pastors, some ofthe leaders, and maybe there
was things that were said thatwere not charitable post his
gathering there and he's notbeen back to that conference
since.
And it's all about relationship, right.
If we don't spend time with oneanother, then we can develop
caricatures of one another onall ends of every topic and I
(25:31):
think it's time to build somebridges of love and care and
trust.
And I asked what do you thinkwe should do about that?
And he said we should work onit, and so I'm hopeful that we
can start to work on that.
And there's a number of in thatgroup in our large church
network, like as you'd imagine,pastors come and a lot of the
pastors that maybe had somestruggles they've retired and
I'm hopeful he can re-engagewith that group.
(25:53):
And I also said, hey, ifthere's been times that I or we
have been uncharitable in ourpodcast on topics that we're
really passionate about, wouldyou please forgive me.
I'd try to put the bestconstruction on everything and
he offered forgiveness and askedfor it from me and in the same
way, and so I thought that washealthy and and, uh, hopeful for
(26:13):
us and I got a sense in theroom that they were very happy.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
A lot of people were very happy to see that.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Right yeah, so yeah, and I was grateful to see that,
you know, maybe, while we're onthis check, I think because of
our passionate response ontopics like prior approval, the
state of our concordia is, youknow, pastoral formation.
Obviously that people can kindof develop a caricature of us
that we want to see, you know,maybe a new path or a new synod.
(26:43):
For goodness sake, I mean,nothing could be further from
the truth.
This is Unite LeadershipCollective.
We actually believe.
I was just reading, I was justreading CFW Walther.
In the 1850s, 60s, 70s.
He was working so hard to uniteLutherans.
There was a predestinationcontroversy that took place that
unfortunately led to schism inthe church.
(27:03):
But I mean, that is so far fromthe heart of Jesus and we
should do whatever it takes towork toward unity and care.
If we can't, if we can't modelit within the LCMS for goodness.
And that includes it's not asoft unity, it's a hard unity on
the truths of scripture anddealing with hard truths about
what it means to be the churchhere in a post-Christian reality
(27:25):
.
But we got to get into the roomand people that have difference
of opinion, we got to get intothe room and so we're actually
going to be.
While we're on this topic, youknow the pastoral formation
conversation is still takingplace in many different places.
There were some gatherings overthe summer.
Joe Barron represented us atone of the gatherings.
(27:47):
Well, we're going to be goingdown the formal descent process
and I'll just throw this dateout.
We'll be talking about a littlebit more, but mark your
calendar for January 6 and 7 inLas Vegas, and Jack, you'll be
there.
I'll be there just in noon tonoon, january 6 through 7.
Faith Lutheran is hosting us andwe're going to have we're going
(28:08):
to gather hopefully our goal isa hundred people and this was
in partnership with PresidentGibson.
The formal dissent process isfound in our constitution and
bylaws.
We're hoping to gather ahundred people who have
difference of opinion regardinghow we do pastoral formation.
You know from residential onlyto those of us who think it
needs to be residential andwhatever it looks like into the
(28:29):
future.
And we're going to havebiblical confessional
conversation.
I in debate, but we're going to.
We're going to take the maskoff and bring real people in
real context to have a realconversation and I'm excited
about it.
So hope you can be thereJanuary six and seven.
In in in more more informationto sign up.
We'll be coming out here in thein probably a couple months or
(28:49):
so.
So yeah, that was good.
That was good.
I think that was healing andhelpful.
I honestly don't know PresidentGibson.
I know President Gibson,president Harrison, well, I'm
sure he's listened to some ofour perspectives, but I would
love to just meet with him atsome point and I'm hoping that
President Gibson can kind oforganize that in the Lord's time
(29:09):
.
And we know we're all super,super busy.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
So, that being said, the theme of pastoral formation
was presented as an urgency inour convention, our district
convention.
There were several resolutionsaround that, especially tied to
the SMP program.
So some of the things that Ifelt well the urgency was
revealed in the data right.
So the data is now showing andwe've talked about this in prior
(29:34):
episodes that the number ofcongregations has not shrunk
much in the LCMS but the numberof small congregations has grown
and what that means is you'vehad a lot of large and
medium-sized congregations nowbecome small, maybe even
micro-sized congregations, tothe point where you know if you
(29:55):
get to under 75 people in acongregation, average weekly
attendance, there's a goodchance you're struggling to
afford one full-time worker onstaff and you probably have
about greater than half now ofLCMS congregations that are
seeing themselves in thatsituation.
So there's larger than half ofLCMS congregations that if they
(30:18):
have a vacancy now or in thefuture, they're going to really
struggle financially to pay fora full time role and attract
somebody that would want toserve in that type of context,
knowing the types of challengesthat they would have to afford
to support that person Right.
So now we have kind of a bit ofa limited supply of pastors to
begin with, and a large numberof churches that would struggle
(30:40):
to afford to pay those pastors.
That's kind of the situationwe're finding ourselves in.
So the urgency of raising uppastors is either through some
future pathways that don't existright now, or through the
current pathways.
It's extremely urgent, and so wehad some votes that reflected
those urgencies.
First of all, a vote to givethanks for alternative pathways.
(31:02):
Now, what I mean by alternativepathways, I'm talking about
recognized alternative pathwaysright now.
So this includes, you know,includes, uh, smp, um, you know,
uh, the cm, cmc, smp, right, uh, there's a hispanic uh pathway,
um.
So we gave thanks as and thatwas not a controversial vote
(31:23):
there's nobody got up and spokeagainst that, uh, that I would
say that you know, given thequirkiness that there's going to
be about 10 to 15 people thatvote no against everything.
That certainly was reflected ona lot of these, but nobody was
getting up and arguing againstit.
It was pretty much what I wouldconsider to be a very united
(31:47):
vote in favor of that generallicense to SMP pastors who have
served faithfully in their localcontext for 10 or more years,
without the necessity to doadditional schooling.
So what are your thoughts onthat?
Tim that passed with.
There was not a single personthat got up and spoke against
that, so what are your thoughtson that and what the potential
(32:09):
might be for that?
Speaker 2 (32:10):
I think it's helpful.
There's nothing in the bookWe'll talk about this more.
There's really nothingbiblically or confessionally
that gives kind of a rationalefor a different type of a pastor
or a lower grade of pastor.
And I get why we did SMPbecause it was for a specific
ministry and their requirementsfor their education are about
(32:35):
40% of an MDiv.
I get that.
But if a guy's been servingfaithfully and the district
president, circuit visitor andthe pastor that they've been
supervised by, say man, thisguy's been wonderful, he's shown
the character of Christ, andthe district president and the
congregations are saying he'sneeded in this different context
, why would we not give himgeneral ordination status?
(32:56):
So I'm hoping at the synodicalconvention that this can be a
topic that we unite on becausethere's a number of guys that
have been serving faithfullythat could serve in various
contexts and I don't seebiblically what would be the
struggle there.
Back to your point about theneed in a lot of our smaller
congregations.
What would be the strugglethere?
Back to your point about theneed in a lot of our smaller
congregations.
You know, bivocational is alsogoing to be a definite, a
(33:17):
definite need and if I could,you know, snap my fingers.
I've not talked about this fora while and I think that that
was appropriate and this is Idon't think this is
controversial.
If I could snap my fingers, wewould.
We would move the SMP to an MDFof some sort, with restrictions
, age, stage, the context andand I'm hopeful that more
(33:41):
district presidents can get getcloser connected to this kind of
conversation, because ourdistricts are in different, very
different contexts.
I mean the needs of PresidentGibson here in the PSD are
different than a lot of ourMidwest needs, and maybe that's
too broad of a brush, but, man,I mean we're a much more urban
and suburban context here in thePSD than a number of our
(34:02):
Midwest congregations.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
So anyway, and the reality Tim is.
The reality is the future ofthe LCMS will be depending on
like whether we like it or not.
This is just a matter ofpracticality.
It will be depending on likewhether we like it or not.
This is just a matter ofpracticality.
It will be staffed by morebivocational, co-vocational
workers.
It's going to just have to dothat, given that there's so many
small congregations, unlessyou're comfortable with the idea
of shutting these congregationsdown and that's like.
(34:24):
I mean that's the otheralternative.
Like you know, there is achance that you may see an
exodus in some of these churchesthat says, ok, well, if this
system is not going to give us apastor, then we may have to
join another system that givesus that.
That's a.
That's a harsh reality and Idon't want to see that happen.
Hopefully that doesn't happen,but that's kind of a reality
(34:45):
that we're dealing with.
I think President Gibsonrecognizes us.
That's something we recognizein our own research on this
issue and recognizes us.
That's something we recognize inour own research on this issue,
one of the things I recommendedto the floor committee this
wasn't something that was votedon but the seminaries are
offering the residential programtuition free.
Can we do something similarwith SMP?
Can we bring the tuition costdown so that it's more
(35:08):
comparable to other onlineprograms that are out there that
might be competing with it?
Right?
So it's certainly.
It certainly seems thatdistricts could do that, even if
the national body doesn't wantto do that, and I think that's
something that should beexplored to make it, especially
when you think about thechurches that need to depend on
that.
They may struggle to afford,you know, eleven to twelve
thousand dollars a year to getsomebody through that program,
(35:30):
thousand dollars a year to getsomebody through that program.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Well, shout out to President Harrison.
He gave one of the messages atthe National Youth Gathering, of
which all three of my kids allin high school were at the
National Youth Gathering, hadjust a marvelous time, and he my
son actually told me yeah,President Harrison said we need
a thousand church workers, Ineed a thousand of you to get.
(35:54):
So it's definitely something heand other leaders are
recognizing.
We need leaders at alldifferent levels in the LCMS for
our current realities and ourfuture needs as well.
And also a shout out to SetApart to Serve.
I know that SAS is Set Apart toServe, is moving in that
direction, trying to raise upthe next generation of leaders,
and we strongly promote that aswell.
There's just going to be aliminal space right now where
there's we're going to need torely on guys you know our age
(36:17):
and older, Jack, to help ourchurches stabilize and kind of
start to grow into a new seasonso that we have pulpits and
schools for the next generationof leaders in the LCMS.
So that's all I have to sayabout pastoral formation.
I don't think I said anythingremarkably controversial there.
We're going to be talking aboutit, though, at the national,
national convention, and thatshould be, that should be fun.
(36:38):
What else?
Speaker 3 (36:39):
And everything we're saying is things being openly
spoke about at conventions.
We're not exactly yeah, we'renot going off any paths here.
I don't think.
The other item that came up wasthe conversation around
Lutheran identity.
Yeah, what is Lutheran identity?
So we had a resolution on thattopic.
(37:03):
We approved a resolution thatdefines Lutheran identity keyly
around scripture and confessionright, and being clear.
That also means other externalthings are not what defines
Lutheran identity, namelyworship style, vestments, stuff
like that.
Right, they can be beneficial,they can be great, but this was
done.
I mean, some of the things thatwe talked about is like we've
got multi-ethnic, we have manymulti-ethnic congregations in
(37:27):
the Southwest District.
We've got Korean churches.
We've got Hispanic churches.
Not all of them share the sameconnection to a more Germanic
style of worship and yet at thesame time, they are
confessionally Lutheran, theyadhere to the Lutheran
confessions, they preach theword, they administer the
sacraments.
So that was passedoverwhelmingly.
(37:48):
There were a couple people thatspoke out and said, no, it
should also include worshipstyle, liturgy, right, but by
and large, for every person thatwas speaking against it, which
was just a couple, there wasmany more people speaking in
favor and it passedoverwhelmingly.
Any thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 (38:04):
No, I mean, this is what the Augsburg Confession
says.
You know that we're not goingto define ourselves by external,
external things.
It was one of the majorstruggles with the Catholic
church 500 years ago, jack thatwe were organizing around things
that were, you know, counter toor maybe even against the
(38:24):
gospel, putting people backunder their weight and curse of
the law.
And it can be.
It can be anything, it can, youknow, it can be a worship style
or or it can be a certain wayin which we exercise our
Lutheran reality in our, becausewe all got quirks in our
congregations.
But I think the major part inso one of our quirks is God is
(38:47):
good or we hold hands.
You know, when we give thepost-communion dismissal, the
body and blood of our Lord JesusChrist, strength and preserve,
we take it like I'm not going togo to another Lutheran
congregation and say you've gotto take, you've got to take that
person.
They may think it's weird, youknow, in one hand maybe kind of
this is what Christ Greenfielddoes, right, and every
(39:07):
congregation has these kind ofAdiaphora ways that kind of
bring a heightened sense of thisis who we are and there's
nothing wrong with that in ourlocal congregations.
But to mandate those things andthat includes vestments or even
(39:28):
a very, very narrowunderstanding, of all of these
elements in the liturgy have tobe included in this way.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
You know divine service in a specific order,
exactly as it's laid out in thehymnal Right.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Yeah, no the early Lutheran reformers were
adamantly against putting.
Because we're putting ourselvesback under the law If we
subscribe to these things thatscripture and confessions do not
say are mandatory.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
The reason for that vote is that there is a movement
within the LCMS of people thatdefine confessional Lutheranism
as also adherence to the hymnalright.
So I've seen this actuallyposted online where it's like a
Venn diagram and says, okay,this is the definition of a
confessional Lutheran isscriptural inerrancy, adherence
(40:10):
to the Lutheran confessions andhymnal Right.
So that was like the thirdthing that was added and unless
you overlap those three thingsand you're not considered a
confessional Lutheran, which Itook major, major objection to
when I saw.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
So I think that's kind of where this vote was
coming into, is addressing thatthought.
Is our hymnal fantastic?
Yes, I love our hymnalfantastic.
Yes, I love our hymnal, yeah,love, love the songs.
But but to say it has to, hasto be this way is disrespectful
to how the liturgy has evolvedover the centuries.
I mean, there's been massiveevolution right um in in the
divine service and.
But we can't agree.
It is the divine service wherethe word is preached and the
(40:51):
sacraments are rightlyadministered, that that is God
serving us, right and so, and itcan take a variety of different
forms.
I love the divine service, onethrough four Vespers Matins.
I mean it's great, it's great.
But to put ourselves back underthis is this has to be in all
contexts, is is inappropriate,it's not Lutheran.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
So, tim, let's let's maybe give some final thoughts
about what we were thankful for.
One of the things that came upin the convention is Gibson gave
a report that there are 50 menright now in our district that
are going through some sort ofrecognized pathway towards
ordination.
I thought that was anoutstanding number.
I give praise and thanks toJesus for that and I'm really
proud.
I'm really proud of that effort.
(41:32):
The other things that came up Ireally loved Mike's, president
Gibson's vision on land andproperty development.
They're being very innovativewith that.
I think they are reallytrailblazers and what they're
doing with you know, this isthis is true, and in every case
that the district ends up withland for maybe a ministry that
(41:52):
goes, goes under, is no longerfeasible.
What do they do with that land?
Is it sold and turn into atrust fund or do they redevelop
it for ministry purposes?
Right, and they've been tryingto be very creative with
redeveloping it for ministrypurposes.
They're also starting to.
I love this.
He's starting to think like theold school district where it's
like can we buy land in placesthat are being developed so that
(42:14):
10 years from now, a church isplanted in that land?
That's amazing.
And, president Gibson, if you'dlike anybody to partner with
you in that, let us know.
We would be more than happy topartner in that process, because
the place that we're living inis the exact definition of that
type of growth that we need totry and get ahead of.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
Any more thoughts on that, any other kind of things
that just came out of thereporting that you were giving.
I get the hesitancy to do thatbecause if you don't have a
viable congregation in arespective area and or planters
who have proven themselves asfaithful to start and sustain
(42:53):
and grow a local church, likethat's risky for the district to
get into a land game Right.
And at the same time there are,with the urbanization of
America, like it or dislike it,it just is what it is.
Like we're booming here inMaricopa County, a thousand
people new coming in everysingle week.
That it makes a lot of sense insome of our areas growing maybe
(43:14):
San Diego areas and things likethat.
But you just got to find viablepartners to execute on that and
I think we're one of them hereat Christ Greenfield, one of
many in our district.
And so, yeah, I'm hopeful and Ilike the way we're thinking
about revenue generationconnected to the property as
well.
Like you buy 30 acres, youdevelop 15 acres for a church
(43:37):
and a school School ministrywill boom here in Arizona.
It is booming here in Arizonaand then you develop some sort
of a mixed use maybe lowerincome or senior adult living
space and you have some revenuegeneration.
We know there are our partnersacross our synod who have,
(43:58):
within four years or so,developed revenue generation
that helps go right back intothe ministry.
It makes a lot of sense and I'mlooking forward to partnering
with our district in that effort, god willing.
So anything more there, jack.
I mean it was my final takeawayfrom our gathering.
It's collegial, it's kind, andI think I was reading some
(44:20):
reports from other districtconventions.
I know not all of them probablyare as collegial and kind in
their discussion.
I mean there are otherresolutions you know to to
really speak against maybe whatthe ULC has done in in lay
leadership development, and no,I'm serious about that that's
(44:40):
true.
I know that there are someresolutions that are speaking
against a center for missionalpastoral leadership, you know,
and so those, those kind ofprobably got a little bit more
heated in those days.
But I'm hoping that as we moveinto the national convention,
that our rhetoric just softensand that we enter in listening.
If you come in with arespective idea, could you hold
(45:02):
that idea with an open hand andsay, god, I could be wrong on
this and I want to be like that.
Some of my maybe assumptionsabout a person or a group of
people, you know, I thinkgenerally we all want the same
thing.
We want a healthy, thriving,confessional, conservative
Lutheran synod.
And we're in the canoeing.
(45:26):
The mountain space, right.
The need for adaptive leadershipwe don't know exactly how to
get there.
To the Pacific Ocean, right.
We don't know, it's going torequire some change, it's going
to be hard and we're going toneed to be kind and respectful
and we're going to needcourageous leaders to move us
toward that unknown, unknownfuture.
And here's the thing, jack, Imean it's eternities.
(45:47):
I'm sorry to get so like youknow, this is.
We do this because eternity isat stake.
Right, if we don't, if we don'tstart new churches and help
churches grow and thrive andrevitalize and do those things
and start more schools to reachthe next gen with.
Like people are not going tohear the gospel and and come to
the saving knowledge of whoJesus is and spend eternity with
(46:07):
them, new heavens and new earthon the last day, like.
That's why we do what we do andI believe the LCMS in
particular.
We have the pure gospel in ourunderstanding of scripture and
the confessions.
I don't shy away from that.
It's so good.
So let's figure out our stuffinternally and mobilize for
mission collectively.
Anything more there, jack?
Speaker 3 (46:27):
I mean the way I like to think it through and the way
I would encourage kind of ournational body to be thinking
this through, is kind of twoquestions Like Jesus talks about
the posture of leaving behindthe 99 found sheep to reach the
one sheep Right, and he talksabout it multiple times in
(46:47):
different contexts in scripture,right, so what do we as the
LCMS, what are we willing tosacrifice to reach lost sheep?
What are we not willing tosacrifice to reach lost sheep
right?
These are very, very, veryvalid questions that need to be
asked as a collective nationalbody and as local congregations.
For me, like that answer, likeI'm willing to sacrifice a lot.
(47:09):
There's a lot of things that Ilove, that I'd be willing to
sacrifice to reach a lot.
There's a lot of things that Ilove that I'd be willing to
sacrifice to reach lost sheep.
There's some things that can'tbe sacrificed.
Biblical truth is not somethingwe can sacrifice to do that
Right, but that should be thething that drives our heart is
reaching lost sheep, and that'swhat I care about and I think
that's what a lot of people whowe I know, who we collaborate
(47:32):
collaborate with.
That's what's informing theirheart, and so I think if we come
together with that posture wecan.
We can come up with reallygreat answers to those questions
, but it's a messy process right, yeah, yeah, definitely In this
world you will have trouble,take heart and overcome the
world on the way to, on the wayto eternity, until the trumpet
sounds and Jesus comes back.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
It's, it's messy.
There's some good signs, though, I think, for us in the LCMS
and I think, just generally inthe church, I think I'm seeing a
lot of young people that are onfire, that are eager to grow,
that want depth, theologicaldepth, that would love to be
about our confessional Lutheranidentity today.
(48:14):
It's a historic.
What we have is historic.
It's not a Johnny-come-lately,it's not dependent on any one
personality, it's dependent uponChrist, and the Reformation
just kind of re-centered us onthe gospel of Jesus Christ and
God's work for us.
Passive faith, extra nos, allof it, man, it's what the world
(48:34):
needs.
It moves people.
I get to be a chaplain at anevangelical school because I'm a
coach.
So every Thursday, a footballcoach right Every Thursday,
before games, I get to bring adevotion Gosh.
I use all of our gospel handlesand I don't shy away from it.
The appropriate distinctionbetween law and gospel, uh.
(48:56):
Alien and proper righteousness,like these, uh, two kinds of
righteousness, uh, you know.
Or alien and proper work of ofGod, right To kill and to make
alive, and so I get to bring alot of these kinds of
distinctions.
I just took them through lament, you know, and the the great.
(49:16):
But the turn of of god isagainst me.
But no, I god is still faithful, he's for me and so, yeah, I
think there's a lot of us thatwant, and even when I bring
those teachings, baptism, lord,supper, the real presence of
christ, into an evangelical likewe're going to be interviewing,
uh, brian wolfmuller.
You know he came out of acharismatic evangelical
background.
There is a hunger for the waywe articulate the faith and
hopefully we can figure out oursociological and very practical
(49:38):
struggles today and unite toreach more people with the
gospel and not just to make youknow non-denom people Lutheran
though I think I would love tosee that take place but to reach
the lost with the saving gospelof Jesus.
So this is lead time.
Please like, subscribe, commentwherever it is you take of
Jesus.
So this is lead time.
Please like, subscribe, commentwherever it is you take this in
.
Hopefully this was a helpfulconversation.
It was obviously very, verypractical, started out with some
(50:01):
governance, moved into theconvention and we pray that it
was helpful and that the joy ofJesus is your strength as you
unite to reach people with thegospel this day, it's a good day
.
Go make it a great day.
Your strength as you unite toreach people with the gospel.
This day, it's a good day.
Speaker 1 (50:14):
Go, make it a great day.
Wonderful work, Jack.
To our channel, then go totheuniteleadershiporg to create
your free login for exclusivematerial and resources and then
(50:37):
to explore ways in which you cansponsor an episode.
Thanks for listening and staytuned for next week's episode.
This is Lead Time.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Welcome to Lead Time, Tim Allman here with Jack
Kalberg.
This is our first podcast backfrom sabbatical and I am so
excited, Jack.
How was your summer, man?
Let's just start there.
It's been a minute since folkskind of reconnected with us.
It was not a slow summer aroundhere in Christ Greenfield.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Not even remotely slow and for those of you who
might not be as tightlyconnected to Christ Greenfield,
in our story we've been goingthrough a season of change.
Over the summer we didsomething that I probably would
not recommend for people, but itwas probably the right call in
our specific situation.
We did an entire reorg of oursenior staff.
On the day that Tim left forsabbatical he gave the staff a
(00:47):
PowerPoint presentation and saidhere's the new org chart.
Have fun.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Peace out Now to be fair, that was following like 90
days of consultation and stuff.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Yeah, the way it played out was interesting.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
But yeah, I don't the way we, where we ended up, was
good, you know we'll just startthere.
I mean, but yeah, I don't theway we, where we ended up was,
was good, you know, we'll juststart there.
I mean, anytime you're in a, ina ministry and we have a pretty
strict policy governance.
Not many churches probably haveas strict of a policy
governance kind of policy base,probably for a number of
churches our size.
But we have the permission andreally the expectation from our
(01:25):
board and therefore thecongregation.
As the congregation grows,evolves, the family ministry
grows and evolves.
You got to take a look at howyou're operating consistently.
Who's in the room to make whatdecisions, and we are our senior
executive staff had gotten kindof larger and it let us.
You know there's there's justsocial dynamics in a room when
you have about 13 to 20 people,you're going to have 2 to maybe
(01:51):
3 voices that are louder and noteverybody feels like they can
speak.
So that was one of the reasons.
But our consultant said we weremaybe becoming at that level, a
little bit more finance focusedmaybe a little bit to systems.
And I've been in the last twostaff meetings and it's been
entirely ministry and then wegot to talk money, we got to
(02:13):
talk systems, but the rightpeople need to be in the room to
talk that and future vision.
Yeah, future vision, and we'dlose half the staff a lot of
times with the conversations wewere having and we'd lose half
the staff a lot of times withthe conversations we were having
.
So, yeah, I mean it was kind oftough, because you never want
to do things that kind ofdisappoint people, but full
transparency.
I wrote a letter to each one ofour teammates and said, hey, we
(02:36):
need you on the team.
You're very, very valuable.
Thanks for playing your roleand understanding this need to
get tighter.
So we went from about 15 or soin the senior executive down to
eight and then kind of adifferent rhythm of meetings.
We have about an hour and ahalf meeting and then we bring
the rest of our team in for kindof an overview Q&A and anybody
(03:00):
from our staff can come on tothat meeting just to make sure
that there's a good flow ofinformation.
And we also this may be, thismay be something that folks are
like whoa, that's kind of wild.
Everybody on our team now andthe executive staff reports to
Jack and Jack is my one directreport and then we're going to
have to do a podcast, justhonestly, on our board
governance.
I think there's a lot to sharethere.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
So yeah, any kind of takeaways over how it went?
Yeah, because that's a veryinteresting observation.
Like you and I have beenteaching some with some some
other classes on some schoolsystems about leadership and
mission, and one of the themesthat comes up with people who
are preparing for ministry orpastoral roles like a lot of
times these problems go back tothe governance model that
(03:44):
they're working in, and there'sa lot of times these problems go
back to the governance modelthat they're working in and
there's a lot of churches thatif they're operating in the old
council style model, it's goodfor certain things and but it
also creates a lid on theorganization.
Eventually, what do you thinkit's good?
Speaker 2 (03:59):
for Just pause right there.
What do you think the oldcouncil model is good for?
Speaker 3 (04:08):
I think it's good for small churches that really want
to put a focus on inclusion andvolunteerism, so like that.
That's the original thought ofthe council model.
So you know, think about backin the day when, when this is
like back in the day when theLCMS was partnering with the
ELCA to do church planting, andthey would say, ok, we're
planting a church here andyou're planting a church here,
and when they're thinking aboutplanting a church in the area,
their expectation is going togrow to about 250 people and
(04:30):
that's about as much as thatchurch is ever going to grow to,
because that's how much onepastor can handle, probably for
a congregation.
And they're not thinking aboutreally big churches, right.
They're thinking about local.
You know smaller communitychurches, more of what you might
see in the typical.
You know Midwest right, thatmaybe seats 150, something like
that, right, and if you got twoservices full, you know that's
(04:55):
probably what they're plantingand so the council model handles
that totally fine.
And if you're in a region where,let's say, it's a good
Christendom model where peoplesee themselves as part of the
priesthood of all believers andactive participants in the
church, but what it does, is itkind of, you know, at least in
the version that we walkedthrough, you know the version
(05:16):
that I saw, it kind of divorcedthe pastor from the business of
the church and that wasintentional.
And I guess really the questionis is that the right call?
Should you?
And that was intentional?
And I guess really the questionis is that the right call?
Should you say that the pastoronly does ministry and he's not
involved in any of the business,that say, kind of divorced from
some of the strategic,analytical, operational parts of
(05:39):
the church?
Or is it more important tobuild a ministry model where all
of those things are thought ofas ministry really Right, and
then ultimately supervised by apastor?
So I would say, for a churchthe size of the churches that
they were intending to plant,the governance was a good model.
You can sustain a church thatbig and you can create, buy in
and when you think about like aserve team we talk about serve
(06:00):
teams and a leadership pathway,like you have a version of that
like a church with a schoolboard right, has people serving
and leading and in itshealthiest version there's a
pathway and a pipeline to getpeople into those board and
committee roles right, but itdoesn't scale.
(06:41):
At a certain point in time youend up having a council and that
council becomes like your defacto executive team.
But they're all at puttingtogether social events and
cooking hot dogs and getting youknow and it's very difficult
for that person to be makingreally tough staffing decisions
and really hard budgetingdecisions and really difficult
decisions about the debt of theorganization.
Right, they like they werethere to cook hot dogs and
(07:04):
invite people to.
You know what I mean.
That was their expertise, right.
And so, yeah, I would say forthe smaller church, where some
of those business decisions arelower stakes decisions, that's
fine.
But when you get into a big,complicated church with
multi-million dollar budgets,then it gets really difficult
for that and there is a shiftinto a more professional church
(07:25):
model.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Well, let me pause and give a shout out to the book
of Acts, the deacon model.
So the apostle says it's notgood.
They started to build a teamright To handle a lot of the
business of the church, the careof orphans and widows and the
marginalized, and obviously thatobviously included financial
(07:46):
oversight.
And I don't think, though, wewould be wise to think the
deacons were completely divorcedfrom the apostles as the
ministry went out.
There's no way they wereintimately connected to all of
the ministry but their primaryfocus was Word and Sacrament.
Now, what happens, I think, jack, as you get to a certain size
say past 250, and we're justmoving right into our governance
(08:07):
.
Hold on, we're going toactually be talking about the
Pacific Southwest DistrictConference convention coming up
here really soon.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Sometimes we go on a rabbit trail and we have to talk
it out.
So we have to figure it out.
So, what can?
Speaker 2 (08:19):
happen if a congregation grows.
You probably have and I'm goingto paint with a broad brush
here.
You probably have one of twotypes of pastor a pastor who
says you know what?
Speaker 3 (08:31):
I'm okay being passive, kind of on the sideline
and letting the church justkind of visitations.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
I'll preach, yeah, that's it yeah, exactly, and
other people can worry about it,right, yeah, and I guess that
can kind of work, I think.
I think the congregation isprobably going to hit a lid if
that's the pastor's approach.
The second is the pastorprobably starts to maneuver
(08:55):
behind the council's back, maybein partnership with some of the
council, but he's kind of exofficio at that meeting.
If he's driven, he's probablygoing to figure out other ways
to build social capital andtrust and be able to move
forward with consensus, maybewith and without some of the
people that are on that council.
And that gets very, very messy.
That obviously leads to parkinglot conversations and maybe we
(09:18):
got some pastors right now whoare in that situation and I pray
for you, man.
It's a tough spot to be and Iremember one story being in a
council meeting.
So we moved from a councilmodel to a policy-based
governance model.
Ish, when I first got here andyou and I were working, I
(09:38):
remember going into one of ourboard meetings and and having
having a member of the boardwant to go line by line through
you know hundreds of line itemsto say why did this line item
overspend by maybe a hundred ora thousand, I don't know, and
this they didn't spend and sothey wanted to.
I mean it was exhausting, jack,wasn't it?
(10:00):
I mean I look back, I almosthave PTSD from some of those
meetings.
I mean they were long.
Me too, and we met monthly, somonthly equals management.
Anytime a group of people meetmonthly, they're going to want
to get it under the hood to anextraordinary degree.
But it was like who gets toreally make what decisions at
the end of the day?
It was very, very complex andso we made the choice shout out
(10:22):
to Paul Zills to go down.
We've been last seven years orso down the policy, strict
Carver policy governance modelwhere the board knows their
roles.
They speak for the owners ofthe congregation, speak for the
entire congregation.
One point of accountabilitythrough myself.
And then I and our team treatthe members of the congregation
(10:47):
and I don't let some peoplebristle at this.
It is what it is and it fitsactually in our Lutheran
understanding as customers orconsumers of word and sacrament
Right.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
All for the sake of right.
What's that?
Beneficiaries?
Of beneficiaries, beneficiaries, right and they're benefiting
from this service, right, butthey also they have two roles,
both to be a beneficiary and anowner.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
So the board is going to engage with them as owners.
They're going to see if thepolicies that we've set, the
ends that we've set, we reallythe goals that we've set for the
ministry are still the accurategoals, and then they're going
to monitor.
The board will monitor am Istaying within the said
policy-based or strict policy,not just policy-based strict
(11:32):
policies that limit what I'msupposed to do or not do?
Right, and that's very, verypointed.
And we then developed thesemonitor reports that we give to
the board on a quarterly basisthat show where we're in
compliance and where we'rehonestly out of out of
compliance and by what datewe'll be in compliance.
That's a very, very broad, highbrush of what our, our model is
(11:55):
.
If you want to have aconversation with us
uniteleadershiporg, just reachout.
We'll give you honest opinion.
There's, uh, jim galvin is alsodoing governance consulting.
Right now he's in the LCMS andJim and then Paul Zills is also
another consultant that we'vebeen with for a number of years.
Anything more to say there,jack, and I would say you know
better system for us.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
What's the right governance for you.
It has to do a little bit withwhat stage of growth and what
your long term ministryambitions are.
Right, yeah, and I wouldn'tnecessarily recommend going to a
strict policy model right offthe bat.
If you, as your first jumpagain, that's all contextual.
It may depend on the type ofteam you built, but I think it
(12:38):
actually was kind of a logicalstep of what we did, moving into
policy ish governmentgovernance and then going into
the full one, because it got usa chance to, it, did improve
certain things.
So it solved a bunch ofproblems and it created other
problems.
And I guess the other thing islike, no matter what governance
system you're in, it's going tobe hard.
Like there's there's difficulty, I agree, and this is this is I
(13:03):
call this the X, the XP slashexecutive director motto is you
pick your problems Right.
Call this the XP slashexecutive director motto is you
pick your problems right.
So every set of governance hasbenefits to it and problems
associated with it.
And as you pick a path, youknow you're owning those
benefits and you're also owningthe problems that go along with
that.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
And the problem for policy governance is man.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
You have to have like a really great administrative
team to be able to put thesereports together, because they
are thick and stout.
And you have to have like areally great administrative team
to be able to put these reportstogether, because they are
thick and stout.
And you also have to be, youknow, have to be confident that
you can recruit the right peopleto serve in that board.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Exactly yeah.
So it's getting the rightcompetencies of board members.
That's one thing you need tomake sure of.
And then your administrative,your ability to gather data,
because it can't just be well,I'm a good guy Like people, like
me, you know.
No, show me the dollars, showme the money, jerry I mean I'm
(13:58):
going back to Jerry Maguire Likeit has to be based in facts, in
hard data, right, jack?
And for the first five years orso, we felt like we were
failing, because there was acertain percentage of the policy
, of the governance policies,we're like we're going to get
there.
We're not there yet.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
in there, yeah, and you know it's never 100 percent.
You know, I would say like ifyou get under the hood of even
your healthiest ministries,you're going to find at least 20
percent of something that'sdysfunctional, right, yeah, so
that's, that's just like thetruth.
And what you're reporting does,is it like, blatantly exposes
what that is.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Right.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Which is good, it's accountability and we need to be
working on those things, and soyou know what we do.
Our culture here is we embracecontinuous improvement,
challenge Right.
We have hard conversations, wereceive hard, hard feedback and
we commit to get one percentbetter every day.
That's a culture that we try tobuild here, amen, amen.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Hey, let's.
We didn't really talk about mysabbatical.
It was fun.
Yeah, a lot of time with familyand national parks.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Yeah, what was your favorite?
Speaker 2 (14:57):
part of it.
I mean just life goes so fast,jack, yeah, it's astonishing
Been here 12 years and my kidswere six and four.
You know six, five and fourwhen we moved here, and now
they're 18, 17 and 16.
And to have all of them drivingby the way, pray for me to have
(15:17):
those those sweet moments withthem, having more adult kind of
future focused conversations notall of it, a lot of it's just
fun and hanging out and the.
The cool thing is they stilllike to be.
I mean, they like to be withtheir friends, don't get me
wrong, but they still like tohang out with mom and dad and,
um, those days go so fast.
So, yeah, our trip to thenational parks were amazing.
(15:40):
A yellowstone god's creation inthe west here is is
unbelievable.
The state of arizona has, inutah, have some amazing park,
zion and Bryce Canyon, and soYellowstone, grand Tetons.
It was just a really, reallysweet time.
And and then the only kind ofwork I did was working on
finishing my book, which is nowin kind of formatting, some
final editing, and we we hadthought we were going to release
(16:03):
it in the fall because it'skind of kind of ready, but we're
going to be ramping up uh forfebruary 2 release.
February 2nd is going to be thedate, um, and I I hope, I hope
you guys buy it and find it,find it useful and it'll be
published through the ulc.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Yeah it's our first ulp.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Actually, you know, leadership, publishing our first
book of god willing many.
We got some others in thehopper.
I think you're going to beworking on some and other other
team members here are going tobe working on some, and I got a
fictional project that I'mworking on, this, pastor Paul.
I won't say a whole lot aboutthat and so just kind of fun.
I think a lot of our writing isgoing to be honest.
The tone we wanted to be honest, straightforward, accessible,
(16:45):
but also a little bit of levity.
We take ourselves so seriouslyand the mission of God is
advancing and it's the HolySpirit's work, and so I hope
it's a book speaking ofConfessing Jesus' Mission that
people will read.
And even if you disagree withsome of our conclusions, we
agree on word and sacramentgoing forth forth that more and
(17:07):
more people need the gospel ofJesus Christ.
So on the front end of the bookit's kind of a quasi academic
missiology from a missiologicalwork from a Lutheran perspective
and kind of standing on theshoulders on some others who
have done some some great work.
So yeah, and then then we teachsome of our principles.
At the very end of the bookit's kind of a cliff notes
(17:28):
version of some of our teaching,just to kind of wet people's
whistle a little bit and getthem, get them pumped to go
deeper with us.
What are you gonna say, jack?
Speaker 3 (17:33):
So kind of as you, as you're coming back now, what
would you say like what would bethe benefit for a church to
adopt a sabbatical policy forits pastors or its all of its
staff, its directors?
What would be your thoughts onthe benefits, on that, why they
should consider that?
Speaker 2 (17:48):
so ridiculously connected in our culture today
and pastors, you know, there'salways another meeting, another
problem, another, you know,person who needs help and it can
just become and I wasn't atthis point I could, could have
gotten to that point justbecomes overwhelming.
Right, I need a sabbaticalduring this season because of
(18:10):
some of the stuff we've talkedabout on this podcast, right,
and just kind of setting itaside and letting it go,
releasing it to Jesus.
So I think every congregationshould have a rhythm of
sabbatical for their pastor, forother executive directors, and
whether it's a full, I took 10weeks.
You know that may be toward thelonger end of getting away,
even if it's just a month, likeMichael Pastor, michael or other
(18:34):
associates like, take June off,go hang out, and then I'll be
here and I'll take a little bitmore.
I think a lot of times we needbecause we're so connected, I
don't think a week is enough.
A lot of times, just a weekhere, a week there, I think if
we can push to two weeks causeyou've had that experience, jack
, where you're like it reallytakes maybe three days or so to
(18:55):
really unplug Before your brainis in vacation mode, even right,
Right and and then you know so.
so then hopefully get 10, 10more days.
I'd love to see our summerSummer's a different rhythm here
and we work really hard kind ofduring the school year and we
work on summers, are forprojects et cetera.
But yeah, I think, I thinkchurches need to write in their
policy, especially for their,their soul or senior or whatever
(19:18):
pastor like hey, every sevenyears, it's biblical right.
Every seven days we rest.
Every seven years we kind oflet the ground go a little
fallow and you come back firedup and ready new ideas and
honestly, it was like drinkingfrom a fire hose because you
guys were after it.
This was great.
You did a great job this summerleading.
I hope you got some good, goodrest as well.
So, yeah, yeah, it'll be coming.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
I had a surgery over that break so I had actually
kind of was forced into aboutapproximately two weeks of rest
against my will.
Well, I would say another thing.
Tim is like a benefit to thecongregation is not is well.
First there's the wellness ofthe worker, right Right off the
bat.
The worker benefits, but thecongregation benefits from well
(19:59):
healthy workers, right.
But in addition to that is itteaches the community to be less
personality oriented in itsdependence on ministry.
It's like can we shift to a waythat we're not 100 percent
dependent on this personalitybeing the person that runs the
ministry?
Other people have to fill inthe gap and it helps to.
(20:19):
It helps to build a culture torealize like, hey, we're not,
we're, we're, we're a communityhere.
You know we are, we are acollective working in ministry
and we are not entirelydependent on a single person as
the linchpin for every singlething that we're doing in
ministry.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
If that's right is that, that mindset, right, kind
of humbling.
You know.
It's like, yeah, well, thingskind of move forward and right,
well, um, I say it this way it'slike while I'm wanted and
called here, yes, I'm not neededhere.
You know, there's a differenceI am called, I am wanted, I'm a
part of the team, but I'm notthe whole body.
And the whole body can start tooperate when a part of the body
(20:58):
takes a little bit of a breakand you come back and you're
just refreshed, refired up andready to go working from a place
of rest rather than being worndown.
Yeah, working from a place ofrest rather than being being
worn down.
Yeah, amen, all right, well,let's get into.
Let's get into the PacificSouthwest District Convention.
That was the one kind of Ipopped out of my sabbatical to
come and hang out in PalmSprings and it was I mean my
(21:18):
general observations it was areally healthy, good, good
convention.
Me too Shout out to PresidentGibson and his reelection as our
leader here in the PacificSouthwest District.
He's a magnificent, magnificentfollower of Jesus and a leader
for our district.
He really in Colcates.
(21:40):
I was listening to my dad theother day.
He used that word.
Who uses that word, dad.
Anyway, he manifests by theSpirit's power such a kind, calm
but courageous posture for usand he strikes that balance
really, really well.
He also is an advocate at thesynodical level for a number of
the topics that our districtkind of talked about that are
(22:02):
going to move on to the NationalSynodical Convention coming up
here in Phoenix in July, whichis wild.
Looking forward to seeing manyof you here next, next summer.
So, yeah, let's go through therecap of what we learned.
Jack, you put together a fewobservations.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Hit it, yeah, I mean one really, really big.
Well, let me, I'm going to talkabout the quirkiness first.
So something that struck me askind of funny and a little goofy
is that we had some very what Icall harmless resolutions and
there's people that vote noagainst it, right.
So there was a resolution aboutjust thanking prior presidents
(22:38):
for their service, right, andyou have like a dozen people
that vote no for that.
So it's like, okay, I get it.
Now there's some people herethat will vote no for everything
.
That's, their reason to be hereis to vote no against every
single resolution.
I just get 100 percent on.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Jesus is Lord.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
Could we get 100?
Speaker 2 (23:00):
percent.
I think we would.
I'd like to think we would.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
Yes, so I just thought that was a little, a
little quirky.
Another thing that I thoughtwas really quirky had a real I
mean so our president, thenautical president Harrison, was
there.
First of all, I'm you know,there's many ways I'm really
impressed with this guy and he'sgot a job that I certainly
wouldn't want to have.
It's really tough.
I can tell that he's lookingforward to retirement soon, but
(23:23):
he got up and his job was togive a statement of the state of
the synod.
He did give some of a state ofa synod.
There was a video that kind ofdid some of that, especially
talking about the state of ourschools, and then he gave a very
, very long talk about theAugsburg Confession, which is
his prerogative to do that.
It was actually a really,really good and engaging one.
(23:45):
It was excellent.
But I think people are maybeexpecting to hear more about
some of the challenges that wewere dealing with as a national
church body and what we're doingabout that, and I think that
was something that was probablystruck people is that we didn't
get quite that depth, that maybethat we were expecting Any
thoughts on that.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Yeah, I liked the presentation.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
I thought it was great.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Yeah, and I actually got up.
I was one of the first, if notthe first, I think to the mic
and said hey, president Harrison, there was nothing that you
said that I disagree with.
I mean, he went right down themiddle, which is where Lutherans
should be, on topics like well.
Worship, style, worship style,yeah, the role of women.
I think he talked even inchurch.
(24:28):
Yeah, worship style the role ofwomen, I think he talked even
in church, and it was verybalanced and very fair and very,
I think, confessional Lutheran,rooted in long gospel.
Yeah, really, really great.
So I said there was nothingthat you said that I disagree
with, but we still have somethings I think we need to work
on, and one of those areas Ithink for growth is building a
bridge of trust with a number ofour larger churches.
(24:49):
In the LCMS he attended about adecade ago, sat next to my wife,
and they had a greatconversation actually over
dinner, and he was very cordialand kind at what was then the
megachurch conference andunfortunately I don't know what
happened.
That was the first megachurchconference that I've been to, so
I thought it was fine, but Ithink he felt maybe disrespected
(25:10):
by some of the pastors, some ofthe leaders, and maybe there
was things that were said thatwere not charitable post his
gathering there and he's notbeen back to that conference
since.
And it's all about relationship, right.
If we don't spend time with oneanother, then we can develop
caricatures of one another onall ends of every topic and I
(25:31):
think it's time to build somebridges of love and care and
trust.
And I asked what do you thinkwe should do about that?
And he said we should work onit, and so I'm hopeful that we
can start to work on that.
And there's a number of in thatgroup in our large church
network, like as you'd imagine,pastors come and a lot of the
pastors that maybe had somestruggles they've retired and
I'm hopeful he can re-engagewith that group.
(25:53):
And I also said, hey, ifthere's been times that I or we
have been uncharitable in ourpodcast on topics that we're
really passionate about, wouldyou please forgive me.
I'd try to put the bestconstruction on everything and
he offered forgiveness and askedfor it from me and in the same
way, and so I thought that washealthy and and, uh, hopeful for
(26:13):
us and I got a sense in theroom that they were very happy.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
A lot of people were very happy to see that.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Right yeah, so yeah, and I was grateful to see that,
you know, maybe, while we're onthis check, I think because of
our passionate response ontopics like prior approval, the
state of our concordia is, youknow, pastoral formation.
Obviously that people can kindof develop a caricature of us
that we want to see, you know,maybe a new path or a new synod.
(26:43):
For goodness sake, I mean,nothing could be further from
the truth.
This is Unite LeadershipCollective.
We actually believe.
I was just reading, I was justreading CFW Walther.
In the 1850s, 60s, 70s.
He was working so hard to uniteLutherans.
There was a predestinationcontroversy that took place that
unfortunately led to schism inthe church.
(27:03):
But I mean, that is so far fromthe heart of Jesus and we
should do whatever it takes towork toward unity and care.
If we can't, if we can't modelit within the LCMS for goodness.
And that includes it's not asoft unity, it's a hard unity on
the truths of scripture anddealing with hard truths about
what it means to be the churchhere in a post-Christian reality
(27:25):
.
But we got to get into the roomand people that have difference
of opinion, we got to get intothe room and so we're actually
going to be.
While we're on this topic, youknow the pastoral formation
conversation is still takingplace in many different places.
There were some gatherings overthe summer.
Joe Barron represented us atone of the gatherings.
(27:47):
Well, we're going to be goingdown the formal descent process
and I'll just throw this dateout.
We'll be talking about a littlebit more, but mark your
calendar for January 6 and 7 inLas Vegas, and Jack, you'll be
there.
I'll be there just in noon tonoon, january 6 through 7.
Faith Lutheran is hosting us andwe're going to have we're going
(28:08):
to gather hopefully our goal isa hundred people and this was
in partnership with PresidentGibson.
The formal dissent process isfound in our constitution and
bylaws.
We're hoping to gather ahundred people who have
difference of opinion regardinghow we do pastoral formation.
You know from residential onlyto those of us who think it
needs to be residential andwhatever it looks like into the
(28:29):
future.
And we're going to havebiblical confessional
conversation.
I in debate, but we're going to.
We're going to take the maskoff and bring real people in
real context to have a realconversation and I'm excited
about it.
So hope you can be thereJanuary six and seven.
In in in more more informationto sign up.
We'll be coming out here in thein probably a couple months or
(28:49):
so.
So yeah, that was good.
That was good.
I think that was healing andhelpful.
I honestly don't know PresidentGibson.
I know President Gibson,president Harrison, well, I'm
sure he's listened to some ofour perspectives, but I would
love to just meet with him atsome point and I'm hoping that
President Gibson can kind oforganize that in the Lord's time
(29:09):
.
And we know we're all super,super busy.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
So, that being said, the theme of pastoral formation
was presented as an urgency inour convention, our district
convention.
There were several resolutionsaround that, especially tied to
the SMP program.
So some of the things that Ifelt well the urgency was
revealed in the data right.
So the data is now showing andwe've talked about this in prior
(29:34):
episodes that the number ofcongregations has not shrunk
much in the LCMS but the numberof small congregations has grown
and what that means is you'vehad a lot of large and
medium-sized congregations nowbecome small, maybe even
micro-sized congregations, tothe point where you know if you
(29:55):
get to under 75 people in acongregation, average weekly
attendance, there's a goodchance you're struggling to
afford one full-time worker onstaff and you probably have
about greater than half now ofLCMS congregations that are
seeing themselves in thatsituation.
So there's larger than half ofLCMS congregations that if they
(30:18):
have a vacancy now or in thefuture, they're going to really
struggle financially to pay fora full time role and attract
somebody that would want toserve in that type of context,
knowing the types of challengesthat they would have to afford
to support that person Right.
So now we have kind of a bit ofa limited supply of pastors to
begin with, and a large numberof churches that would struggle
(30:40):
to afford to pay those pastors.
That's kind of the situationwe're finding ourselves in.
So the urgency of raising uppastors is either through some
future pathways that don't existright now, or through the
current pathways.
It's extremely urgent, and so wehad some votes that reflected
those urgencies.
First of all, a vote to givethanks for alternative pathways.
(31:02):
Now, what I mean by alternativepathways, I'm talking about
recognized alternative pathwaysright now.
So this includes, you know,includes, uh, smp, um, you know,
uh, the cm, cmc, smp, right, uh, there's a hispanic uh pathway,
um.
So we gave thanks as and thatwas not a controversial vote
(31:23):
there's nobody got up and spokeagainst that, uh, that I would
say that you know, given thequirkiness that there's going to
be about 10 to 15 people thatvote no against everything.
That certainly was reflected ona lot of these, but nobody was
getting up and arguing againstit.
It was pretty much what I wouldconsider to be a very united
(31:47):
vote in favor of that generallicense to SMP pastors who have
served faithfully in their localcontext for 10 or more years,
without the necessity to doadditional schooling.
So what are your thoughts onthat?
Tim that passed with.
There was not a single personthat got up and spoke against
that, so what are your thoughtson that and what the potential
(32:09):
might be for that?
Speaker 2 (32:10):
I think it's helpful.
There's nothing in the bookWe'll talk about this more.
There's really nothingbiblically or confessionally
that gives kind of a rationalefor a different type of a pastor
or a lower grade of pastor.
And I get why we did SMPbecause it was for a specific
ministry and their requirementsfor their education are about
(32:35):
40% of an MDiv.
I get that.
But if a guy's been servingfaithfully and the district
president, circuit visitor andthe pastor that they've been
supervised by, say man, thisguy's been wonderful, he's shown
the character of Christ, andthe district president and the
congregations are saying he'sneeded in this different context
, why would we not give himgeneral ordination status?
(32:56):
So I'm hoping at the synodicalconvention that this can be a
topic that we unite on becausethere's a number of guys that
have been serving faithfullythat could serve in various
contexts and I don't seebiblically what would be the
struggle there.
Back to your point about theneed in a lot of our smaller
congregations.
What would be the strugglethere?
Back to your point about theneed in a lot of our smaller
congregations.
You know, bivocational is alsogoing to be a definite, a
(33:17):
definite need and if I could,you know, snap my fingers.
I've not talked about this fora while and I think that that
was appropriate and this is Idon't think this is
controversial.
If I could snap my fingers, wewould.
We would move the SMP to an MDFof some sort, with restrictions
, age, stage, the context andand I'm hopeful that more
(33:41):
district presidents can get getcloser connected to this kind of
conversation, because ourdistricts are in different, very
different contexts.
I mean the needs of PresidentGibson here in the PSD are
different than a lot of ourMidwest needs, and maybe that's
too broad of a brush, but, man,I mean we're a much more urban
and suburban context here in thePSD than a number of our
(34:02):
Midwest congregations.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
So anyway, and the reality Tim is.
The reality is the future ofthe LCMS will be depending on
like whether we like it or not.
This is just a matter ofpracticality.
It will be depending on likewhether we like it or not.
This is just a matter ofpracticality.
It will be staffed by morebivocational, co-vocational
workers.
It's going to just have to dothat, given that there's so many
small congregations, unlessyou're comfortable with the idea
of shutting these congregationsdown and that's like.
(34:24):
I mean that's the otheralternative.
Like you know, there is achance that you may see an
exodus in some of these churchesthat says, ok, well, if this
system is not going to give us apastor, then we may have to
join another system that givesus that.
That's a.
That's a harsh reality and Idon't want to see that happen.
Hopefully that doesn't happen,but that's kind of a reality
(34:45):
that we're dealing with.
I think President Gibsonrecognizes us.
That's something we recognizein our own research on this
issue and recognizes us.
That's something we recognize inour own research on this issue,
one of the things I recommendedto the floor committee this
wasn't something that was votedon but the seminaries are
offering the residential programtuition free.
Can we do something similarwith SMP?
Can we bring the tuition costdown so that it's more
(35:08):
comparable to other onlineprograms that are out there that
might be competing with it?
Right?
So it's certainly.
It certainly seems thatdistricts could do that, even if
the national body doesn't wantto do that, and I think that's
something that should beexplored to make it, especially
when you think about thechurches that need to depend on
that.
They may struggle to afford,you know, eleven to twelve
thousand dollars a year to getsomebody through that program,
(35:30):
thousand dollars a year to getsomebody through that program.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Well, shout out to President Harrison.
He gave one of the messages atthe National Youth Gathering, of
which all three of my kids allin high school were at the
National Youth Gathering, hadjust a marvelous time, and he my
son actually told me yeah,President Harrison said we need
a thousand church workers, Ineed a thousand of you to get.
(35:54):
So it's definitely something heand other leaders are
recognizing.
We need leaders at alldifferent levels in the LCMS for
our current realities and ourfuture needs as well.
And also a shout out to SetApart to Serve.
I know that SAS is Set Apart toServe, is moving in that
direction, trying to raise upthe next generation of leaders,
and we strongly promote that aswell.
There's just going to be aliminal space right now where
there's we're going to need torely on guys you know our age
(36:17):
and older, Jack, to help ourchurches stabilize and kind of
start to grow into a new seasonso that we have pulpits and
schools for the next generationof leaders in the LCMS.
So that's all I have to sayabout pastoral formation.
I don't think I said anythingremarkably controversial there.
We're going to be talking aboutit, though, at the national,
national convention, and thatshould be, that should be fun.
(36:38):
What else?
Speaker 3 (36:39):
And everything we're saying is things being openly
spoke about at conventions.
We're not exactly yeah, we'renot going off any paths here.
I don't think.
The other item that came up wasthe conversation around
Lutheran identity.
Yeah, what is Lutheran identity?
So we had a resolution on thattopic.
(37:03):
We approved a resolution thatdefines Lutheran identity keyly
around scripture and confessionright, and being clear.
That also means other externalthings are not what defines
Lutheran identity, namelyworship style, vestments, stuff
like that.
Right, they can be beneficial,they can be great, but this was
done.
I mean, some of the things thatwe talked about is like we've
got multi-ethnic, we have manymulti-ethnic congregations in
(37:27):
the Southwest District.
We've got Korean churches.
We've got Hispanic churches.
Not all of them share the sameconnection to a more Germanic
style of worship and yet at thesame time, they are
confessionally Lutheran, theyadhere to the Lutheran
confessions, they preach theword, they administer the
sacraments.
So that was passedoverwhelmingly.
(37:48):
There were a couple people thatspoke out and said, no, it
should also include worshipstyle, liturgy, right, but by
and large, for every person thatwas speaking against it, which
was just a couple, there wasmany more people speaking in
favor and it passedoverwhelmingly.
Any thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 (38:04):
No, I mean, this is what the Augsburg Confession
says.
You know that we're not goingto define ourselves by external,
external things.
It was one of the majorstruggles with the Catholic
church 500 years ago, jack thatwe were organizing around things
that were, you know, counter toor maybe even against the
(38:24):
gospel, putting people backunder their weight and curse of
the law.
And it can be.
It can be anything, it can, youknow, it can be a worship style
or or it can be a certain wayin which we exercise our
Lutheran reality in our, becausewe all got quirks in our
congregations.
But I think the major part inso one of our quirks is God is
(38:47):
good or we hold hands.
You know, when we give thepost-communion dismissal, the
body and blood of our Lord JesusChrist, strength and preserve,
we take it like I'm not going togo to another Lutheran
congregation and say you've gotto take, you've got to take that
person.
They may think it's weird, youknow, in one hand maybe kind of
this is what Christ Greenfielddoes, right, and every
(39:07):
congregation has these kind ofAdiaphora ways that kind of
bring a heightened sense of thisis who we are and there's
nothing wrong with that in ourlocal congregations.
But to mandate those things andthat includes vestments or even
(39:28):
a very, very narrowunderstanding, of all of these
elements in the liturgy have tobe included in this way.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
You know divine service in a specific order,
exactly as it's laid out in thehymnal Right.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Yeah, no the early Lutheran reformers were
adamantly against putting.
Because we're putting ourselvesback under the law If we
subscribe to these things thatscripture and confessions do not
say are mandatory.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
The reason for that vote is that there is a movement
within the LCMS of people thatdefine confessional Lutheranism
as also adherence to the hymnalright.
So I've seen this actuallyposted online where it's like a
Venn diagram and says, okay,this is the definition of a
confessional Lutheran isscriptural inerrancy, adherence
(40:10):
to the Lutheran confessions andhymnal Right.
So that was like the thirdthing that was added and unless
you overlap those three thingsand you're not considered a
confessional Lutheran, which Itook major, major objection to
when I saw.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
So I think that's kind of where this vote was
coming into, is addressing thatthought.
Is our hymnal fantastic?
Yes, I love our hymnalfantastic.
Yes, I love our hymnal, yeah,love, love the songs.
But but to say it has to, hasto be this way is disrespectful
to how the liturgy has evolvedover the centuries.
I mean, there's been massiveevolution right um in in the
divine service and.
But we can't agree.
It is the divine service wherethe word is preached and the
(40:51):
sacraments are rightlyadministered, that that is God
serving us, right and so, and itcan take a variety of different
forms.
I love the divine service, onethrough four Vespers Matins.
I mean it's great, it's great.
But to put ourselves back underthis is this has to be in all
contexts, is is inappropriate,it's not Lutheran.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
So, tim, let's let's maybe give some final thoughts
about what we were thankful for.
One of the things that came upin the convention is Gibson gave
a report that there are 50 menright now in our district that
are going through some sort ofrecognized pathway towards
ordination.
I thought that was anoutstanding number.
I give praise and thanks toJesus for that and I'm really
proud.
I'm really proud of that effort.
(41:32):
The other things that came up Ireally loved Mike's, president
Gibson's vision on land andproperty development.
They're being very innovativewith that.
I think they are reallytrailblazers and what they're
doing with you know, this isthis is true, and in every case
that the district ends up withland for maybe a ministry that
(41:52):
goes, goes under, is no longerfeasible.
What do they do with that land?
Is it sold and turn into atrust fund or do they redevelop
it for ministry purposes?
Right, and they've been tryingto be very creative with
redeveloping it for ministrypurposes.
They're also starting to.
I love this.
He's starting to think like theold school district where it's
like can we buy land in placesthat are being developed so that
(42:14):
10 years from now, a church isplanted in that land?
That's amazing.
And, president Gibson, if you'dlike anybody to partner with
you in that, let us know.
We would be more than happy topartner in that process, because
the place that we're living inis the exact definition of that
type of growth that we need totry and get ahead of.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
Any more thoughts on that, any other kind of things
that just came out of thereporting that you were giving.
I get the hesitancy to do thatbecause if you don't have a
viable congregation in arespective area and or planters
who have proven themselves asfaithful to start and sustain
(42:53):
and grow a local church, likethat's risky for the district to
get into a land game Right.
And at the same time there are,with the urbanization of
America, like it or dislike it,it just is what it is.
Like we're booming here inMaricopa County, a thousand
people new coming in everysingle week.
That it makes a lot of sense insome of our areas growing maybe
(43:14):
San Diego areas and things likethat.
But you just got to find viablepartners to execute on that and
I think we're one of them hereat Christ Greenfield, one of
many in our district.
And so, yeah, I'm hopeful and Ilike the way we're thinking
about revenue generationconnected to the property as
well.
Like you buy 30 acres, youdevelop 15 acres for a church
(43:37):
and a school School ministrywill boom here in Arizona.
It is booming here in Arizonaand then you develop some sort
of a mixed use maybe lowerincome or senior adult living
space and you have some revenuegeneration.
We know there are our partnersacross our synod who have,
(43:58):
within four years or so,developed revenue generation
that helps go right back intothe ministry.
It makes a lot of sense and I'mlooking forward to partnering
with our district in that effort, god willing.
So anything more there, jack.
I mean it was my final takeawayfrom our gathering.
It's collegial, it's kind, andI think I was reading some
(44:20):
reports from other districtconventions.
I know not all of them probablyare as collegial and kind in
their discussion.
I mean there are otherresolutions you know to to
really speak against maybe whatthe ULC has done in in lay
leadership development, and no,I'm serious about that that's
(44:40):
true.
I know that there are someresolutions that are speaking
against a center for missionalpastoral leadership, you know,
and so those, those kind ofprobably got a little bit more
heated in those days.
But I'm hoping that as we moveinto the national convention,
that our rhetoric just softensand that we enter in listening.
If you come in with arespective idea, could you hold
(45:02):
that idea with an open hand andsay, god, I could be wrong on
this and I want to be like that.
Some of my maybe assumptionsabout a person or a group of
people, you know, I thinkgenerally we all want the same
thing.
We want a healthy, thriving,confessional, conservative
Lutheran synod.
And we're in the canoeing.
(45:26):
The mountain space, right.
The need for adaptive leadershipwe don't know exactly how to
get there.
To the Pacific Ocean, right.
We don't know, it's going torequire some change, it's going
to be hard and we're going toneed to be kind and respectful
and we're going to needcourageous leaders to move us
toward that unknown, unknownfuture.
And here's the thing, jack, Imean it's eternities.
(45:47):
I'm sorry to get so like youknow, this is.
We do this because eternity isat stake.
Right, if we don't, if we don'tstart new churches and help
churches grow and thrive andrevitalize and do those things
and start more schools to reachthe next gen with.
Like people are not going tohear the gospel and and come to
the saving knowledge of whoJesus is and spend eternity with
(46:07):
them, new heavens and new earthon the last day, like.
That's why we do what we do andI believe the LCMS in
particular.
We have the pure gospel in ourunderstanding of scripture and
the confessions.
I don't shy away from that.
It's so good.
So let's figure out our stuffinternally and mobilize for
mission collectively.
Anything more there, jack?
Speaker 3 (46:27):
I mean the way I like to think it through and the way
I would encourage kind of ournational body to be thinking
this through, is kind of twoquestions Like Jesus talks about
the posture of leaving behindthe 99 found sheep to reach the
one sheep Right, and he talksabout it multiple times in
(46:47):
different contexts in scripture,right, so what do we as the
LCMS, what are we willing tosacrifice to reach lost sheep?
What are we not willing tosacrifice to reach lost sheep
right?
These are very, very, veryvalid questions that need to be
asked as a collective nationalbody and as local congregations.
For me, like that answer, likeI'm willing to sacrifice a lot.
(47:09):
There's a lot of things that Ilove, that I'd be willing to
sacrifice to reach a lot.
There's a lot of things that Ilove that I'd be willing to
sacrifice to reach lost sheep.
There's some things that can'tbe sacrificed.
Biblical truth is not somethingwe can sacrifice to do that
Right, but that should be thething that drives our heart is
reaching lost sheep, and that'swhat I care about and I think
that's what a lot of people whowe I know, who we collaborate
(47:32):
collaborate with.
That's what's informing theirheart, and so I think if we come
together with that posture wecan.
We can come up with reallygreat answers to those questions
, but it's a messy process right, yeah, yeah, definitely In this
world you will have trouble,take heart and overcome the
world on the way to, on the wayto eternity, until the trumpet
sounds and Jesus comes back.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
It's, it's messy.
There's some good signs, though, I think, for us in the LCMS
and I think, just generally inthe church, I think I'm seeing a
lot of young people that are onfire, that are eager to grow,
that want depth, theologicaldepth, that would love to be
about our confessional Lutheranidentity today.
(48:14):
It's a historic.
What we have is historic.
It's not a Johnny-come-lately,it's not dependent on any one
personality, it's dependent uponChrist, and the Reformation
just kind of re-centered us onthe gospel of Jesus Christ and
God's work for us.
Passive faith, extra nos, allof it, man, it's what the world
(48:34):
needs.
It moves people.
I get to be a chaplain at anevangelical school because I'm a
coach.
So every Thursday, a footballcoach right Every Thursday,
before games, I get to bring adevotion Gosh.
I use all of our gospel handlesand I don't shy away from it.
The appropriate distinctionbetween law and gospel, uh.
(48:56):
Alien and proper righteousness,like these, uh, two kinds of
righteousness, uh, you know.
Or alien and proper work of ofGod, right To kill and to make
alive, and so I get to bring alot of these kinds of
distinctions.
I just took them through lament, you know, and the the great.
(49:16):
But the turn of of god isagainst me.
But no, I god is still faithful, he's for me and so, yeah, I
think there's a lot of us thatwant, and even when I bring
those teachings, baptism, lord,supper, the real presence of
christ, into an evangelical likewe're going to be interviewing,
uh, brian wolfmuller.
You know he came out of acharismatic evangelical
background.
There is a hunger for the waywe articulate the faith and
hopefully we can figure out oursociological and very practical
(49:38):
struggles today and unite toreach more people with the
gospel and not just to make youknow non-denom people Lutheran
though I think I would love tosee that take place but to reach
the lost with the saving gospelof Jesus.
So this is lead time.
Please like, subscribe, commentwherever it is you take of
Jesus.
So this is lead time.
Please like, subscribe, commentwherever it is you take this in
.
Hopefully this was a helpfulconversation.
It was obviously very, verypractical, started out with some
(50:01):
governance, moved into theconvention and we pray that it
was helpful and that the joy ofJesus is your strength as you
unite to reach people with thegospel this day, it's a good day
.
Go make it a great day.
Your strength as you unite toreach people with the gospel.
This day, it's a good day.
Speaker 1 (50:14):
Go, make it a great day.
Wonderful work, Jack.
To our channel, then go totheuniteleadershiporg to create
your free login for exclusivematerial and resources and then
(50:37):
to explore ways in which you cansponsor an episode.
Thanks for listening and staytuned for next week's episode.
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