The State of the LCMS: Insights from the New Pew Research Study

The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod faces significant challenges based on the latest Pew Research Center findings, with declining prayer frequency, weekly worship attendance, and scripture reading. Tim and Jack offer candid insights into the demographic shifts and spiritual trends affecting LCMS congregations nationwide.

• LCMS demographics show an aging trend with only 19% of households having children, down from 28% a decade ago
• Lutherans maintain strong marriage rates with 69% of members married compared to 50% nationwide
• Weekly worship attendance has dropped from 47% to 34%, significantly below the national average
• Only 27% of LCMS members read scripture weekly, while 55% seldom or never engage with the Bible
• Members reporting regular spiritual peace has plummeted from 63% to 43%, with those reporting no peace doubling
• The church body is becoming more politically homogeneous with 66% identifying as Republican
• Strategic recommendations include prioritizing young family outreach, developing leadership pathways, emphasizing spiritual disciplines, and maintaining gospel-centered messaging

We must engage the community by offering Christ's peace in a troubled world, building bridges between our traditions and today's needs, and creating spaces for genuine spiritual growth in an increasingly anxious society.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Lead Time.
Welcome to Lead Time, timAllman, here with Jack Kauberg.
It is a beautiful day to bealive.
I pray the joy of Jesus isfueling you for a day of
learning, curiosity on the grandadventure of following Jesus
out into our community to reachpeople with the gospel.
Jack, how are you doing,brother?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
I'm doing well.
It's a beautiful time to be inArizona, unless you have really
bad allergies, like I do.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Yeah, you're struggling to get by day by day,
spring has sprung and yeah,yeah, we have all these non,
well, yeah, non-native plantsthat have been brought in here,
and so, yeah, the allergens arestrong.
We have grass year-round hereYep, in here, and so, yeah, the
allergens are strong.
We have grass year-round here,yeah, green grass, rye grass

(00:49):
that dies out when it gets towinter, grass that dies out
anyway yeah, I have allergies to, to grass and stuff like that.
But you want to be outside, butthen it just makes it a little.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
A little kind of like a paradox.
You want to be outside, butthen the allergies get you yeah,
yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
So, uh, kleenex at the ready.
Nonetheless, I pray that,wherever you are, I mean maybe
spring for you.
It looks like I hope you'regetting outside.
To be quite honest, we need tomove, we need to go on walks, we
need to be out in natureexperiencing the beauty.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Sunlight is good.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Right, exactly, and really, if we're taking care of
the body, then it leaves us opentoward creative solutions to
troubling strategicopportunities for growth.
Right, there's alwayschallenges in the local ministry
and today we're going to talkabout challenges for us as
members of the Lutheran ChurchMissouri Synod.
Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.
The content today is going tofocus on the state of the LCMS,
and this is insights from thenew Pew Research study that just

(01:54):
came out.
So, for those that areunfamiliar with Pew Research,
Jack tell us a little bit aboutPew Research Center for
Religious Landscape Study.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Yeah, so this was a study that was conducted.
It was during the 23, 24 yeartime frame and they surveyed
36,000 respondents, or 36.9thousand respondents.
They were adults in the US justto get a sense of what the
religious landscape looks like,and this is roughly.

(02:21):
They're doing this.
It seems like they're doingthis about every 10 years now,
so this is last time they'redoing this.
It seems like they're doingthis about every 10 years now,
so this is last time they didthis was in 2014.
So you actually have someinteresting comparative data
between how things are doing nowversus how they were 10 years
ago, and it's pretty fascinatingto see some of the trends.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
It is.
So we're going to walk throughthe report.
Current membership of the LCMS1% of roughly 1% of US adults.
Let's get into some of thedemographic insights.
So location 58% of LCMS memberslive where Jack.
This is not going to surprisemuch of anybody Shocker the

(02:56):
Midwest.
Yep 58%.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
Yeah, yeah, lutheranism is not the majority
in Arizona, that's for sure, orCalifornia.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
Oh my goodness.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
California, east Coast.
I mean, if you just look aroundthe rim of, you've got pockets
obviously in Texas where churchplanning has been huge.
But by and large I mean theupper Northwest, upper Northeast
to Arizona, here, california ingeneral we are very much in the

(03:28):
minority in the religiouslandscape.
To be sure, let's talk aboutdemographics, an aging
membership, so we have an agingtrend and declining youth, so
we're getting older.
At the same time we're notgetting younger.
Share a little bit there, jack.
So we're getting older.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
I mean people are getting older.
At the same time we're notgetting younger.
Share a little bit there, jack.
So we're getting older.
I mean people are getting olderevery year, but the people that
are sticking with LCMS, theytend to be.
There's the way we say agingout, right, and I would say
we're probably not retaining asmany young people as we should.
So the overall population istrending older 19%.
This is fascinating 19% of LCMShouseholds have children in them

(04:07):
right now.
10 years ago that was 28%, sothat's about a nine percentage
point decline.
That's huge.
And so we've joked a little bitabout some of the research
coming out of LCMS Inc.
Talking about the fact thatthere's fewer families having
children.
Well, that's true.
I don't know that there's lessof a desire to have children.

(04:29):
There might be some of that aswell, but you definitely have an
aging demographic where peopleare too old to be having
children.
Right, that represent ourchurch body.
So there's some there'sdefinitely some, you know
legitimacy in the concern thatwe're having fewer people to
replace ourselves.
Of course, we can't rely ondemographics alone to grow our
church body, but it definitelyis the case that we are aging

(04:50):
out.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
Yeah, well, for sure, and I think you know there have
been leaders who have said wejust need to have more babies.
It's not that we just need tohave more babies, but we need to
have more babies, right.
Yeah, I mean, I'm encouraging,I'm right now with I'm a dad of
three teenagers and I've hadthis conversation more than once

(05:12):
Find a good and, I would say,lutheran, conservative,
biblically-based spouse.
Get married 22, 23.
Try to figure out life together, and not that you have to do it
exactly like we did it, but wehad, you know, three kids in our
20s, right, and we had someenergy and things, and now we're

(05:36):
moving into a new stage of life, like we need to replace
ourselves.
I think we need to have thatkind of conversation with our
kids that, yeah, two, three,four kids, like that's, that's
wonderful, or more fruitful andmultiply.
Be fruitful and multiply Likeyeah and I think, I think
there's a tendency in the LCMSfor people to think that those
of us that have a strongmissional zeal don't acknowledge

(06:00):
the demographic decline rightnow.
No, no, no.
We definitely acknowledge itand our young people should get-
.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
If anything, it adds urgency to the issue.

Speaker 3 (06:07):
For sure, for sure.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
It adds urgency In terms of being outwardly focused
and realizing we're not goingto replace ourselves just by
having families.
We have to look externally andsee the wider community as a
source of future members of thechurch.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
Yeah, so an aging membership means a smaller
number of younger families.
It means fewer future leaders,impacting our sustainability and
growth as a church body.
Second, strong commitment tomarriage.
Sixty nine percent of LCMSmembers are married, compared to
50 percent in the general USpopulation.
Anything to say there, jack?

Speaker 2 (06:40):
So we are a church body that values family, say
there, jack.
So we are a church body thatvalues family.
We value family, we valuechildren, even though, as we've
seen, our demographics are agingout.
They're aging out and stayingmarried.
That's great, that's awonderful trend.
I think that's something thatwe can highlight as a win, for

(07:01):
our denomination is that we dotend to maintain healthy
marriage and relationships andwe see ourselves really entering
into the vocation of husbandand wife really, really well.
So that's a win.
It is a win.
We need to keep it up and thatis something that we can build
on.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
Well, and we have lower divorce rates and fewer
unmarried cohabitating coupleswithin the LCMS.
So that's great.
Where's an opportunity forgrowth?
Right, there's always a shadowside to a strength.
Right Is how do we engage?
And we're in activeconversation as a congregation
right now, too.
Young adults, pre-married.
Adolescence is elongated, right, Adulting is taking.

(07:38):
So how do we engage thepre-married 20 something year
olds in early thirties right now.
Any comments there, Jack?

Speaker 2 (07:44):
Yeah, a lot of people are waiting until their 30s to
get married and have kids.
I'm a case study of that.
I didn't get that.
We didn't have kids until wewere mid-30s.
You know, if I were to do itall over again, I would do it
younger.
Now that I'm dealing with ateenager and don't have the
knees to keep up with him, youknow, I would say like Tim, I

(08:05):
would echo your advice to dothat kind of stuff in your 20s.
If I could do it all over again, that's what I would do.
But I think that is somethingthat we build on.
It's a strength that we buildon and we have to figure out.
Like you said, the shadow sideis because we kind of think of
marriage as the norm.
Are we good at ministeringpeople that aren't married Right

(08:25):
?
Do people who are unmarriedfeel like they're insiders in
the church?
Do they belong in the church ordoes the church?
Well, I'm just going to say itoutright here.
You know, when I was a memberof Christ Greenfield, I really
felt like I didn't have that.
I really didn't identify withthe other people here until I
had kids, because we were such akid-oriented ministry and

(08:46):
that's great, that's somethingthat we celebrate, but there is
kind of what I call the donuthole there.
How do we minister to thepeople that are single or
married with no kids right,pre-kids, and that's more and
more of the population now.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:01):
Well, I think it's just acknowledging it and then
finding leaders.
This is probably our bestattempt right now finding
leaders who are in that seasonof life, who will set up space
for whether it's small groups,it's gathering, it's setting up
at the local restaurants,whatever, so that people can
find folks that are in a similarseason.

(09:22):
And well, our LDS neighbors dothis pretty well, right.
They have young adult likewards, right, and it's kind of
you may think it's a littlestrange, I mean, I kind of think
it's strange they're doing this, expecting you to find your
spouse there.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
Find your spouse, yeah exactly, exactly right and
I think this could be astrategic time for us to do that
.
You let's bring back.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
Walter League that was a major part of that.
Anyway, let's get on toeducation level.
A higher proportion of collegeeducated individuals,
particularly with postgraduatedegrees, are in the LCMS, and we
have a lower percentage ofmembers with only a high school
education or less.
Any takeaways there on howhighly educated many of our
members are, jack.

Speaker 2 (10:03):
Lots of smart folks in the LCMS.
And, of course, Lutherans valueprimary education.
They value extended education.
You can see that with the factthat we've got so many Concordia
universities, that we put sucha high value on all of our
pastors having MDiv degrees.
Right, we see this in Lutherhimself, who's considered to be

(10:24):
the father of public education,believe it or not, because he
wanted everybody to be literateto read the Bible.
So I think that is somethingthat is culturally embedded into
Lutheranism.
So that's an area of strengthit is.
I think one of the ways that weengage the country is probably
through our strong educationalsystems Facts.

Speaker 1 (10:43):
I mean our schools are the backbone of our ministry
.
Two-thirds at least of our.
Concordia plan members are inour schools.
We do preschool all the waythrough university and seminary
very, very well.
Now the shadow side to thisstrength is that you could
develop a pharisaical,legalistic kind of approach

(11:04):
Tower, the tower mentality thatif you're lower income, working
poor, homeless etc.
That God is not for you.
Both things can be true at thesame time and I think we're kind
of living in an environmentwhere you can have a ministry
that is inclusive of a lot ofhighly educated people and those

(11:24):
that are there can buildbridges of love and care and
understanding with those thatare in a different socioeconomic
place, recognizing that inChrist Galatians 3.28, there is
no more Jew, greek, slave, free,young, old, rich or poor.
We are all one in Jesus Christ.
But we could have a little bitof ego to us as it relates to
our education Anything there,jack.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
No, I agree, you develop what we call an egghead
mentality, right?
And you know, I think a lot ofour pastors are really great
academics and, you know, arethere real practical skills that
go beyond the academics interms of really strong EQ skills
that always match our strongacademics and maybe sometimes,

(12:10):
yes, and maybe sometimes no?
Right, and that's an issue Alot of times in other church
bodies they're raising up peoplebased on their character and
how well they relate to eachother, right, more so than
academics, and there's a pro anda con to that.
There's a shadow side to toeach other, right, more so than
academics, and there's a pro anda con to that.
There's a shadow side to thatas well, right?
So, yeah, I know what are yourthoughts about that, the fact

(12:32):
that we have such a strong sortof academic approach I'm getting
into, like, the pastoralformation side of things Very,
very, very, very academic, right?
Well, it's rigorous.

Speaker 1 (12:44):
Yeah, very, very, very academic, right?
Well, it's rigorous, yeah, veryrigorous.
It should be rigorous andcharacter should be assessed at
every stage of that journey, andthat's why the combination of
not just content but character,craft, the doing of ministry,
all that needs to be kind ofintertwined in the process, or
else the leader could come outwith a big head right Thinking

(13:07):
they're the center.
I was talking to a pastorrecently and he goes.
I basically was trained andthis is not in either of our
seminaries and I'm going toleave the seminary.
It was an international student.
But he says I was basicallytrained to have the pastor me.
But he says I was basicallytrained to have the pasture me
be the sun around whicheverybody else kind of orbits,

(13:28):
and if I don't say it it's notvalid.
And he goes.
Now that I've got out in theparish he goes.
I need a lot of help and thatparadigm is not working.
And he was asking with allhumility, kind of how do I set
up a place where I'm developingother leaders?
So we talked, we talked thatthrough and, um, it just could

(13:50):
feel like if you set up thetower mentality, it's lonely at
the top right and the pastorcould be seen as the top dog,
you know educationally, and hespent a lot of time and money
putting that in into place.
And then you get out and uh, ifyou're in a and uh, if you're
in a, you, if you're in a lowerincome, maybe it's rural or
you're in a, maybe an urban kindof mission start and you come
in like thinking you're a bigdeal because you got a master,

(14:12):
divinity or something like that,like there's gonna be so many
people.
They're like nah, nah, thatdoesn't mean much of anything
here.
So yeah, humility.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
I mean think about how many jobs are degree
dependent.
I mean, if you're a doctor or alawyer, you need a degree,
right.
But a lot of jobs that I'veheld in my lifetime was way more
about the competency than itwas about the degree that I had.
A degree might get you aninterview but it's not going to
guarantee that you're gettinghired.
There's a lot of other factorsthat go into that.

(14:43):
Can you do that?
That's right.
So I'm not saying that todenigrate the value of education
.
I believe very highly on it.
We're a church body that reallyencourages continuing education
.
But you can that can turn intoa tower mentality and that's not
always healthy.

Speaker 1 (15:01):
For the leader most especially.
Definitely not for theorganization of the church, but
it hurts the leader.
All right, let's move on Fromdemographics.
Let's get into segment two onbeliefs and practices.
We have a declining prayerfrequency in the LCMS.
Talk about that, jack.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
Yeah, so daily prayer dropped.
So back in 2014, the number ofpeople that said that they
prayed daily was 64%, and that'sdropped to 54%.
So about a 10 percentage pointdrop, and this is an issue.
I mean we are not sending ourconcerns to the right address,

(15:39):
and you know, prayer is a partof our liturgy.
Anyone who comes to a Lutheranworship service is going to be
embedded in a lot of prayer,which is really, really good.
But worship is not meant to beonce a week.
Worship is something we doevery day and prayer is part of
that.

Speaker 1 (15:56):
So having a daily rhythm of prayer is very, very
important, yeah you wonder onthat if, like the way you define
prayer, I think often it's verynarrow, right?
Uh, I was talking to my friendChris Pavala Pastor Chris Pavala
, and he's going to be on heresoon talking about prayer.

(16:16):
There's a he's kind of leadinga a prayer revolution, prayer
reformation, you know,reformation of prayer, right,
and and kind of de-stigmatizingwhat prayer is, because I think
a lot of times then it's youknow, okay, I remembered, and
now, okay, I'm closing my eyes,holding my hands, and he's like
we should just have some handles, like I am praying for that

(16:37):
this happens, dot, dot, dot.
Like I'm offering my entirelife, this relationship, even
this very moment as we'rerecording this podcast, to the
God of the universe and if hedoesn't show up and show off,
like this is going to gosideways.
So I desperately need your help.
Is it defined as prayer, that,or is it like did you take your
one minute a day?
I'm just curious on the staff,like how are they asking people

(17:00):
this question?
I don't know Anything morethere.

Speaker 2 (17:03):
We can go down a deep theological hole talking about
the purpose and intent andbenefit of prayer.
I mean my personal view is thatprayer is about your own
transformation.
You pray because it's neededfor you, for your own
transformation and yourrelationship of God.
We start off by saying yourwill be done right and realizing

(17:24):
that God's will is greater thanour own will and that's part of
our prayer, right In the Lord'sprayer.
And then realizing that God isultimately the source of
everything good in our lives andthat we're depending on him.
And even though, like we haveall these anxieties and all
these concerns to have God beour one true God, we have to
send that to the right address,right.

Speaker 1 (17:44):
That's right.
And then it just moves us togratitude.
Right, I have so many things.
It's all undeserved, even thislife.
I have this breath that I take,the relationships that I get to
be in man, it's all gravy, it'sall gift and all I get to do
for the forgiveness of sins,life and salvation that's mine
by faith in Jesus.

(18:04):
The invitation is simplygratitude.
That's prayer, right, directingeverything that's good to God.
Obviously the negative stuff,but, yeah, I think we narrowly
understand, too narrowlyunderstand, prayer.
It starts with gratitude.
If you need a prayer acronym,you know praise, repent, ask,
yield, whatever acronym helpsyou to kind of orient or using

(18:26):
the petitions of the Lord'sPrayer.
All of these are very, veryhelpful.
I would say in the LCMS wedon't have a strong advocacy for
expository prayer right.

Speaker 2 (18:43):
Yeah, talk more about that.

Speaker 1 (18:44):
Well, we have a lot of written prayers, colics that
are beautiful, right, that areconnected to the church calendar
, and have we demystified inmany respects what it means when
Paul says to pray withoutceasing?
You know, and I think, think, Idon't think we like our pastors

(19:07):
modeling extemporaneous prayerfor their people and inviting.
This is always I mean, I'vebeen a pastor now gosh, 17, 18
years and why, why is there thisweird thing?
Like we've been talking in ameeting, jack, you know, or
about this, that or the other,but then and somebody may be
like super passionate,articulate around this issue,
and when I were to ask them,could you just bring that to the

(19:29):
lord in prayer, it's like theirheart rates are not, you know,
like what?
Yeah, I don't really get that.
What?

Speaker 2 (19:34):
is that jack?
Do you have any idea?
Well, it takes practice.
I mean it's.
I would say, praying in a smallgroup is like public speaking,
you know, and which is one ofthe greatest fears that I mean
people are more scared of publicspeaking than I think skydiving
is in terms of, like, theamount of anxiety that it
creates in people, and so Iunderstand why.
But I will say this I agree, wecan.

(19:57):
You know, it can become toomechanical.
Prayer can be become toomechanical.
But let me share thisfascinating story.
So I was with my mother-in-lawon her deathbed, really, and
Marta was urging me to sharesome gospel with her in her
final moments.
And I'm talking to her and I'mgiving her encouragement and I

(20:19):
can't really tell that she evenunderstands a single thing that
I'm saying.
And then I said, ok, we'regoing to do the Lord's Prayer.
And I started doing the Lord'sPrayer.
The moment I did that, shezoned in on that like a laser
beam, because she had heard itso many times in her life that
that became something that shecould hold on to in that moment,
which was really beautiful.
And I've heard other stories,like pastoral stories, about

(20:40):
that, where gosh, another pastorI talked to at the summer camp
family camp I went to, it hadthe same thing.
He was with his mother-in-lawon her deathbed, completely
unresponding, him and his spouse.
They were doing the Lord'sPrayer.
All of a sudden three peoplewere doing the Lord's Prayer.
Isn't that wild how that typeof liturgy gets into our.

(21:01):
It just gets into our soul, itjust bores in there and it
becomes something that we canrely on.
I can think of times where Ifelt like terrified, you know,
being on a plane that was likereally bad turbulence, boom,
lord's prayer.
All of a sudden calm.
You know what I mean.
So there's a, there's somebeauty to that and I think you
can go deep with that and Ithink there's also the benefit

(21:23):
of like the liturgical sort ofbaking it into you.
Right, that it's just you don'teven have to think about it.

Speaker 1 (21:29):
And that's Luther's, not just the Lord's Prayer, but
Luther's morning and eveningprayer.
Many people have memorizedthose.
They're very, very hopeful andso, yeah, well, I was not saying
anything against written ormemorized prayers or.
Lord's Prayer.
For sure Like we need to besaying it consistently and using
it as a springboard for our ownpetitions, our own prayers of

(21:50):
gratitude and request.

Speaker 2 (21:53):
And real quick, though I think this is an area
where a lot of Lutheran churchescould be stronger and I want to
highlight I feel like this isan area of success.
In our own congregation, tim,we have a very, very vital,
vibrant prayer ministry and Idon't know that every church has
thought as intentional aboutsetting up a ministry, a serving

(22:13):
team of people that serve thecongregation through prayer and
actually highlight that as aserving opportunity, because
prayer is not meaningless.
Prayer is extremely vital andwe got a ton of people that are
participating at that in ourchurch, and so I think, if you
know, that is one way thatpeople can start thinking about
adding more vitality to thechurch is creating a very active

(22:36):
prayer ministry.
Amen.

Speaker 1 (22:39):
Yep If you want more information just email either of
us.
We'd love to get you connectedto those that are leading that,
what it looks like and how itgets executed in a week in, week
out, not just Sunday in Sundayout, but weekly, a day in, day
out basis, yeah, so, all right,good, we need more prayer in the
church.
Useful, useful, all right.
Let's move on to churchattendance.
Weekly attendance declined inthe LCMS from 47% of our members

(23:03):
worshiping weekly in 2014, nowto 34% worshiping weekly.
And I have seen this, we'veseen this.
I think every church is now.
I mean, you can grow right nowin your membership, but your
weekly attendance may staypretty flat right, because
people are just worshiping lessfrequently.

(23:23):
An average worshiper for us, aregular worshiper and I don't
like this at all, but it is whatit is is once a month.
Like we count them as a regularworshiper.

Speaker 2 (23:34):
It used to be twice a month, right, and you see that
in the stats, you know 47% wouldbe about twice a month right
Now.
34% is probably about I mean,let's call it every third week.
You know, that's kind of whatwe would equate to in terms of a
practice.
But yeah, about once a month, Iwould say the vast majority of
people would label themselves asregular worshipers if they come

(23:56):
once a month, which I don'tagree with.
I don't think that's regular,but I'm thankful that we at
least get the once a month toengage with people, and
obviously a lot of people dothat more than once a month.
But yeah, that's something thatchurches need to work on.

Speaker 3 (24:11):
Yeah, and I think that online worship is a part of
that.

Speaker 2 (24:14):
Um, you know, they can say, oh, I can just stay in
my jammies and get the samething, right, but obviously
you're not getting the Lord'sSupper in the same way.
So that's an issue.
And the same amount, it's notthe same community building,
right?
The same communal experience.

Speaker 1 (24:30):
No, and some may say, well, you should stop doing
online worship.
Then, well, I mean, it is whatit is Like your front door is
people getting to look in onyour internet, on the website
and and seeing services so thatthey don't know you're not weird
or whatever Like so it just athing.
I, the council, is not to stopdoing that.
The council is to encouragepeople into in-person worship.

(24:52):
Really, I think our worshipingcommunity is a third, third,
third.
So a third of the people arelike every if they're in town,
they're there.
The other third is like theonce a month or so, and the
other third are made up of a mixbetween new, you know, first,
second, third time guests andyour less frequent folks, like
the husband that comes with hiswife just to get her off his

(25:13):
back every quarter or something,something like that you know.
So we should encouragein-person worship.
Unfortunately, we are behind inthe LCMS, the national average.
The national average is 37%.
We're at 34%.

Speaker 2 (25:29):
One thing about.
Just another note on onlineworship.
That is becoming more and morethe front porch of the church.
A lot of times people will havechecked out your online worship
a few times I'm hearing as manyas four times before they'll
set foot in the church now.
So if you don't have a reallygood, decent online worship

(25:49):
experience for people, you maybe missing the boat in terms of
actually trying to get peoplefrom the community to come to
your church and try you out.

Speaker 1 (25:57):
Now some people say that denominations in general
are in decline.
Some people say thatdenominations in general are in
decline.
That is true.
In the US, there are two churchbodies that are actually
growing, and obviously we don'talign theologically, but there

(26:24):
are probably some practicalthings in terms of leadership,
development, church plantingstrategies that these two
denominations the Assemblies ofGod and PCA, the Presbyterian
Church in America.
They're growing faster than thenational increase in population
.
So PCA is a smaller church body, only 940 churches.
Another stat, though, isAnandanam is growing at a 1%
increase.
As we're declining over thattime, go ahead, jack.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
That's a little misleading.
That's a one percentage pointincrease in terms of the
population, which equates toseveral million people.
So they've gone from like fivepercent six percentage points of
the population to sevenpercentage points, which is
actually a sizable like increaseover a 10 year period.
So we're seeing rapid increasein what we call non-denom even

(27:01):
though it still remains a smallpercentage of the LCMS, but
that's about seven times biggerthan LCMS.

Speaker 1 (27:07):
Yeah, yeah, sometimes I think we have an over, we
overestimate our significance.
Right, there are other churchbodies and the non-denom world
are growing and yeah, so why doyou think that?

Speaker 2 (27:20):
would be.
I'm going to just speculate onthis a little bit here.
Why do you think that would be?
I'm just I'm going to justspeculate on this a little bit
here.
Why would you suspect thatthese two church, uh, um, these
two expressions are growing?

Speaker 1 (27:31):
uh, I mean, I think they don't have as many
restrictions, um, as muchhistory, like I love our history
, right, our heritage, but thehistory can also be a part of
the death of us in that we don'tdo things that way Right, and I
think in the non-denom world weinteract with a number of these

(27:52):
leaders Like they build a bench, local serve, lead, coach,
direct.
Like these churches are nailingit in terms of raising up
leaders internally, all the wayup to pastor, the way they
engage technology, the way theyare able to create attractive
and people bristle at this, butit just is what it is Attractive
brands that meet felt needs.

(28:13):
They just generally are betterat it than many denominational
churches.
And we're we're.
We're right in the thick of ithere, like people in the LCMS
may look at Christ Greenfieldand think we're like a really
big church or whatever.
Nah, I mean, we areexponentially smaller than many
of the multi-site churches herein the East Valley and really

(28:34):
the Phoenix Metro and everymetro has probably a similar
type of story.
They're just crushing it atscale, they're doing way better
at church planting.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
I think that's kind of the two things that I see in
both of those streams is theheavy emphasis on church
planting.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
Yeah, all right, cool , we have opportunities for
growth.
On church attendance, let'smove into this one.
This is really a drag.
Okay, scripture reading In theLCMS, only 27% of our members
read scripture weekly,significantly down from past
years.
We were at 36% readingscripture weekly back in 2014.

(29:15):
55% seldom or never readscripture, which is up from 39%
in 2014.
This is rough, jack.
Any comments there?

Speaker 2 (29:26):
Yeah, I mean, what we're seeing is, in our church
body, a rise in biblicalilliteracy, and that is rough,
especially for a conservativeLutheran church body to see a
rise in biblical illiteracy.
That is like holy smokes.
What is going on here?
If anything, we should bedominating in these stats, but

(29:48):
we're falling behind theBaptists right now at 50%.
So we really and I've just madesome comments on here A lot of
times I agree strongly with theview that our Orthodox Lutheran
exposition of scripture is right, but I think and I think most

(30:10):
members here would agree thatit's right, but they're not as
good at defending theirpositions in a conversation.
A typical lay Lutheran is notas good at defending their
positions than a lay Baptistwould be, simply on the basis
that they are not in the wordand that they're actually not
actually examining.
You know what?
What does this say and whatdoes this mean and how does it
apply to me?
And that's really rough.

Speaker 1 (30:31):
I mean scripture alone, jack, like that's.
This is the heart.

Speaker 2 (30:34):
We're the whole people basis of our denomination
Right.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
Yeah, the whole reformation was based on that
this is a shout out to one of myfavorite professors back in the
day who now teaches at GrandCanyon University, Reverend Dr
Paul Robby.
He gets very passionate, hegoes.
I sometimes wonder, Allman, ifwe're reading the Bible.

Speaker 2 (30:58):
Are we reading?
Unfortunately, no.
So, tim, what do you think Imean?
What could local churches do inorder to encourage more
biblical literacy?
And it needs to be beyond, likethe Bible readings and Sunday
Like I think what's happening isa lot of people we do a Bible
reading on Sunday.

(31:18):
I'm done.
You know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (31:19):
Yeah, so you could do in your Lenten study right now,
right, and I don't if you're apericope, whatever I create a
Bible reading plan connected tothe sermons that you're going to
be preaching and have it be adaily, a daily Bible reading
plan.
Right now we're walking throughthe gospel of Mark.

(31:41):
This has been one of our habitswe look at a gospel on the way
to the cross, right, and sowe've got a daily Bible reading
plan that mirrors a lot of thetopics that we're going to be
going deeper on on Sunday, right, and that's not.
I guess it takes some intention, some planning, I guess.
But my goodness, let's do itfor God's people At the very

(32:02):
least.
There's so many Bible readingplans that are out there.
Read through the Bible.
In a year, you know, or twoyears have.
Give Bibles, give Bibles away.
Like, if we're going to buysomething as a church, maybe you
strategically buy a whole bunchof a whole bunch of, you know,
esv Bibles at cost and just havethem.

(32:23):
I had two guys come up hererecently, jack, which we need to
do this?
Have Bibles at our welcomecenter.
We could get a whole fewcaseloads of them.
If you don't have a Bible oryou want to give a Bible away,
come and get it.
If there's an action item forus at Christ Greenfield, this
should happen right now.
An action item for us at ChristGreenfield Like this, this

(32:43):
should happen right now, youknow.
So a member came up said youknow, I come down from the North
and I don't.
I didn't bring.
I got like two or three Biblesat home but I didn't bring my
Bible.
Do you have a Bible that Icould have here?
We walked back into sure, wegot a whole.
We got a whole bunch of them,you know.

(33:05):
So, yeah, just encourage it,talk about it.
And I mean the recent study.
This blew people's minds when Idropped this data a few weeks
ago and this was from I'm goingto draw a blank, you can look it
up.
If you just Google or look onGrok AI, where did the four
times a week or more Biblereading study come from?
You'll find it Exponentially.
This study said exponentialmental, emotional, physical,
spiritual health comes when youopen up the words four times as

(33:28):
likely Right Discipleshipconversations grow exponentially
if you just read the Bible fourtimes or more.
So, a pastor, you could sharethat study, that research.
People were taking out theirphones.
It was bonkers.

Speaker 2 (33:40):
So yeah, let's get into the word.
Major transformation tied tofrequently reading the Bible,
not just once a week, but yousaid, four times a week or more
Seemed to be a criticalcatalytic point for people in
terms of transformation.
For sure?

Speaker 1 (33:56):
All right, let's keep moving here.
We got more to talk about myinternet's running a little bit
slow.
There we go, all right.
Segment three spiritualwell-being and social beliefs.
Spiritual peace.
So weekly spiritual peaceexperienced by LCMS members
declined from 63% in 2014 to 43%in 2023.

(34:19):
What that's rough A 23% declinein people experiencing peace
connected to the Prince of Peace, jesus, and a doubling of the
number of people that say theyhave no spiritual peace
whatsoever.

Speaker 2 (34:36):
So it was.
Sadly.
It was at 11% 10 years ago.
Now it's 20%.

Speaker 1 (34:43):
No, it's doubled.
What I don't even know.
How are we functioning?
I mean, this is just one signthat anxiety, depression, mental
health crisis like we are at amajor, major breaking point
right now as it relates tomental health.
So if you're not speaking aboutmeeting people where they are
mental health, so if you're notspeaking about meeting people
where they are counseling, care,pastoral care, prayer over

(35:04):
people, you know setting upspaces for grief sharing and you
know economic, if you'rewalking through a lost job like
how are we caring for oneanother?

Speaker 2 (35:16):
The church should care about that, setting space
for people who have no peace 20%, man, that's rough and we're
getting at to what I'm startingto call lag measures.
So let's call going to worship,praying and reading the Bible
as lead measures.
Now we're seeing the lagmeasures.
A lack of spiritual peace,isn't that wild?

Speaker 1 (35:33):
Yeah Well, let us not give up getting together.
There's no silver bulletoutside of Christ and community,
right?
So how consistently?
If you're listening to this andyou're like, yeah, I listen to
lead time so much and I just getangry or anxious, we're trying
not to make all of our podcastsabout that, but flee to your

(35:56):
local church, flee to yourpastor for prayer and run into
the arms of Jesus, who is thePrince of Peace, get into the
Word of God.
Spiritual habits are really,really helpful.

Speaker 2 (36:10):
Join a small group or a Bible study.

Speaker 1 (36:11):
Join a small group, move your body.
All of these things will giveus peace.
Resilience, really, jack, iswhat we need to pray for more.
The church should be the mostresilient group of people.
Why?
Because we know the ultimateend of this story Jesus comes
back to raise the dead, make allthings new, and we get to
experience the inbreaking of thekingdom of heaven right now.

(36:32):
How, through the word, throughthe spirit, through the body of
Christ, the living manifestationof the presence of Jesus
through his people.
So let us not give up meetingtogether, as some are in the
habit of doing, but evermore, asyou look eagerly for that day,
gather to remind one another,right, I mean, the scriptures
were given to us so that wecould remind one another when

(36:55):
despair, anxiety, fear, worry,doubt come.
We're not alone.
There's a God who's radicallyin love for us and we know that
through the person of his son,jesus.
So this is one of the toughestthe scripture reading and the
spiritual peace.
No peace man.
The church has to care aboutthat.
Any closing comments there,jack?

Speaker 2 (37:14):
No, there's deep hurting in this country, and
we're not immune to it.
As Lutherans here, we have tobe on guard, and the time for
both pastors, but also pastorsraising up people to be
spiritual caregivers is moreurgent than it's ever been.

Speaker 1 (37:31):
Well, that's that's a great point.
So, um, we have a spiritualcare team here that's made up of
20, over 20 people who are, youknow, in prayer.
A lot of them are also on thatprayer team.
It's overled by one of ourpastors, michael Hyden.
They get together monthly forongoing conversation around

(37:51):
those that are experiencing deephurt, grief how are we
connecting with them?
And ongoing training forbecoming better at sitting with
and weeping with those who weepand mourn.
So, yeah, the church needs tobe a respite place for the weary
and those that are experiencinganxiety, who need the peace of
Jesus.
All right, let's get into thenext topic social conservatism.

(38:14):
This is not surprising.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
Not surprising.

Speaker 1 (38:18):
The LCMS is becoming more conservative.
Say more there, Jeff.

Speaker 2 (38:21):
More conservative, yeah, so I would say more
conservative across the wholespectrum of things.
It's becoming more conservativein terms of the style of
worship that you know.
I would say, 10 years as a, youstill see lots of congregations

(38:42):
that are in that, but there'sprobably more of a national
trend to unify around moretraditional liturgical
expressions and politicallyconservative, and this was
fascinating.
So, yeah, the percentage ofpeople that we're we call
tolerant of I'm trying to comeup with the right word here

(39:06):
accepting of homosexuality hasdecreased.
So it used to be 56 percent,now it's 50 percent.
So there was more tolerance ofthat.
Now I'm not saying you shouldbe tolerant of that, more
tolerance of that.
Now I'm not saying you shouldbe tolerant of that, or you know

(39:26):
, I think there's a lot thatgoes into the word, describing
what tolerant means, right, butwe are seeing a shift socially,
politically and I would say,liturgically, in a more orthodox
direction towards conservatism.
This was interesting in thepolitical affiliation.

Speaker 1 (39:45):
Well, hold on, jack.
Before we move on, before wemove to politics.
Uh, this is fascinating.
Uh, belief in hell is up to 75%, that's, that's kind of so 25%
of our members it was less.
25% of our members still don'tbelieve in in hell.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
Okay, of our members, it was less.
25% of our members still don'tbelieve in hell.
That's scary.

Speaker 1 (40:08):
Yeah, there should be urgency.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
Yeah, compared to the broader society, lcms is more
conservative.
On the topic of homosexuality,as an example, general
acceptance in society was 67%and that doesn't mean that
everybody's like pro-gaymarriage or whatever, but in
terms of just like cool,whatever, do what you do, you do
you about 67%, and that numberis much lower in the LCMS, and

(40:31):
that's no surprise, right.

Speaker 1 (40:33):
Yeah, and to pause right there.
I mean, this is a potentialtoward, and not just in
institutions but in the localchurch, and not just in
institutions but in the localchurch.
The potential for us to becomelegalistic and pharisaical
exists in the LCMS right.
And so go back to the book howthe Light Shines Through by Chad

(40:54):
Lakees.
If you want a handbook onwalking the middle road of Jesus
on this Jack, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (41:01):
We had Kishnick on a while ago and he had some of his
critiques of our nationalchurch body and he mentioned the
Romanization of our clergy andI believe that this is going to
trigger a lot of people.
I believe that that is anactual trend.
What we're looking at is morecentralization, more focus on

(41:21):
unity of orthodoxy in terms ofexpression for worship.
You know, gosh, I would sayjust in that tighter sort of
more structured way of doingthings, rather than being very
at peace with morecongregational model of doing
things.
We're seeing that as a trend aswell, and you could say that

(41:43):
that's an outpouring of what wecall conservatism in our church
body.
That's just my own analysis onit.
People may get upset of that.
Take on it, but I think that isdefinitely a take of what's
going on here.
Tim, you've seen trends interms of more conservative
student bodies with some of ourseminaries.
I mean, these are just somepersonal observations that
you've made.

(42:03):
These are not scientific by far, um observations.
Any thoughts on that?

Speaker 1 (42:10):
Well, it's just, it's true, and I think it's a normal
reactivity to secularizationtoday is to control what you can
.

Speaker 3 (42:19):
It's a snapback.

Speaker 1 (42:20):
Yeah, it's a snapback .
You can control what you cancontrol and we can control the
snapback.
You can control what you cancontrol and we can control the
liturgy, the appropriate doing,and then we end up finding our
identity.
This is, I think, more of whatit is.
We end up finding our identity,and this is where Pharisaism or
legalism can come in and whatwe do, how well we do it, rather
than our identity as baptizedchildren of God, and there is no

(42:42):
mandate, while I think we couldhave conversations, should have
conversations about in thisgeneration, of what it means to
be confessional Lutheran in theLCMS a best practice, if you
will, for liturgical sharing.
You're not going to get closeto I don't know what the stat is
probably 50% of our churcheswho have some form of modern

(43:03):
worship.
You're not going to get them tostop, and so we should be
honest about where we'vepotentially erred, as it relates
to maybe singing songs thatwere not the greatest.
It was too me-focused or notnarrative-focused,
gospel-centered, jesus-centered,it may be more emotive, etc.

(43:26):
And so shout out to theSongwriters Initiative.
They're just understanding thetimes and they're working with a
number of different professorsto help write great new songs
for the church and hit them upon YouTube Songwriters
Initiative.
You're not going to change someof these just by mandating.
You should stop doing it likethat's not.
That's not going to work.

(43:46):
Can some of our practices becomebetter, more Lutheran, more
distinct in the marketplace ofthe wider?
You know a lot of songs, a lotof singing, a lot of long
preaching Like I think we havesomething of value to offer
connected to our liturgy.
But we better not move toward afair.
It better look exactly like itlooks in rural Iowa, in Phoenix,

(44:07):
arizona.
There's going to be room forand this is going to Dr
Bierman's Dr Bierman's Adiaphoraconversation.
The formula of Concord speaksvery clearly about becoming wed
toward the mandates of manrather than what God has said in
scripture.
Anything more to say there,jack, we might as well just go
head first into it, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:28):
Well, I'll just say this Lutheran worship has 500
years of tradition and sometimeswe pretend that there's only
450 years and we delete the last50, right, or you know, the
last 20 or whatever that is like.
We don't want the last 20 yearsto be a part of it, we want the
stuff that's before the 20years and we call that the

(44:49):
Lutheran tradition for worship.
But in reality, the spectrum ofLutheran worship he used the
word Lutheran worship aswherever Lutherans are
worshiping, period, and I agreewith that definition.
And certainly there's what youwould see as the norm is some
liturgical elements being bakedinto that because it's so good
for people.
We talked about the Lord'sPrayer as an example.
How does worship help to bakecertain things into us which is

(45:12):
really, really good?
But that doesn't mean that ithas to be done with robes or
without robes, or you know thesmells and the bells and all
that kind of stuff.
Not that anything of those arewrong.
A lot of times those things aregreat, but do they?
You know, really the questionis does it serve the community
to communicate the gospelwithout distraction and get

(45:32):
there?
You know, that's really theultimate, the ultimate goal here
.
If such a large number of thepopulation is coming from a
non-denom background.
I'm not saying that we becomenon-denom, but can you show
hospitality to people that don'thave a Roman Catholic
background in their worshipstyle?
Right, how do you showhospitality to that group?
And that's really at the coreof it.

(45:54):
It is.

Speaker 1 (45:56):
Yeah, yeah.
What's Bierman in his Adiaphoravideo, which we could link that
for people if they haven't?

Speaker 2 (46:03):
seen it.
It talks about not being Idon't know if he wants us
linking to him or not, but we'llsee.

Speaker 1 (46:07):
He's coming on.
He's going to be on the podcast.
So, yeah, it's cool, but hetalks about not being frivolous
on one end.
What's the other end offrivolity as we talk about
Adiaphora?

Speaker 2 (46:23):
Adiaphora Narrow.
Yeah, narrow, narrow andfrivolous yeah, I thought those
were beautiful handles for usand I don't know that we handle
that tension as well as we could.
I would encourage this.
The convention's coming up, seehow many overtures come out
that have the word heterodox putinto it, right, not that those
things shouldn't be talked about, but is there a bunch of
overtures with the wordheterodox on them?
How many of them are going tohave the word mission in them?

(46:44):
Right, or outreach, or planting, you know that kind of thing.
So look at that in terms oflike, count the number of
overtures that have those typesof phrases in it and see what
the culture of our church bodyis.

Speaker 1 (46:57):
There is no question.
In the LCMS today we have anarrowing potential, so use this
.
Many people listen to us anddon't like you or I, and that's
okay, we don't all have to.
I'd hope we could be brothersand sisters in the faith.
But you're listening and you'regetting.
If this conversation triggersyou, that means you may have a

(47:18):
narrowing potential.
You may be imbalanced toward anarrow.
The interesting thing is, forthose of us that have been
Lutheran liturgical also haveexperienced some, you know,
modern forms of worship.
The group that's in the churchsongwriters initiative, like
none of them, are saying youshould stop doing what you're

(47:38):
doing in the Midwest traditional.
But there's a lot of people inthe Midwest which a lot of
our're doing in the Midwesttraditional.
But there's a lot of people inthe Midwest which a lot of our
members are in the Midwest,those crazy people down in
Arizona doing crazy.
You know, like, if that, ifthat is your gut response to
this whole conversation, tryingto move toward the middle, not
going cause.
This is Adiaphora.
You can't.
You can't argue that worship isis not in terms of the narrow

(48:01):
forms that we take, right, thatit's not already out for the
formula of concord.
It's very, very clear aboutthis and so, yeah, maybe we need
to take that anxiety to thePrince of Peace Jesus.

Speaker 2 (48:14):
Or maybe we need to be more legalistic about not
being legalistic, I don't knowWell.

Speaker 1 (48:19):
I don't know, yeah, I don't know.
All right, well, let's move on.
Uh, this last one's not gonnasurprise anybody either.

Speaker 2 (48:26):
uh, political affiliation 66 percent of lcms
members identify as republicanor republican leaning, compared
to uh 46 percent nationally now,yeah, there is a trend, and
this is there does seem to be atrend of that being a thing

(48:47):
happening in the last few yearsthat there's more people
starting to identify asRepublican, but more so in
church bodies, and especiallythe LCMS has become very much
more Republican leaning.
What's interesting is some ofthe stats from before had a much
larger number of peopleidentifying as independent, and
basically the independents havedisappeared almost entirely from

(49:09):
our church body.
So there was slightly morepeople leaning Democrat and a
whole lot more people leaningRepublican.

Speaker 3 (49:17):
So Democrats have grown too in the LCMS.

Speaker 1 (49:20):
What's that?
Democrats have grown in theLCMS too 30% A little bit.

Speaker 2 (49:24):
A little bit, yeah, but what's completely vanished
is the sort of none orindependence.

Speaker 1 (49:30):
Well, that's just consistent with our culture,
right.

Speaker 2 (49:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:33):
The word of the year in 2024, polarization.
Yep polarization you demonDemocrats or the righteous
republicans like, let's watchourselves there.
We definitely have to watchourselves in terms of, yeah, who
are we doing ministry with andfor?
We bring word and sacrament toall different types of people

(49:54):
and we do not worship theemperor or any kind of president
.
You know, and I think it'sreally easy if we only get the
right guy and then sin is goingto be taken care of.
Give me a break.
Jesus is the only answer.
Go ahead, jack.

Speaker 2 (50:06):
So these stats don't surprise me at all, and I think
that's probably consistent withwhat we would see at Christ
Greenfield 65%, maybe even morethan that.
And at the same time, the urgefor what we would urge pastors
and churches to do is to saywe're not a political
organization.
For what we would urge pastorsand churches to do is to say
we're not a politicalorganization, we're not here to
get people aligned with anypolitical party.
We put Christ front and center.

(50:28):
Let's follow Christ and thenlet Christ be informing all the
other decisions that we do.
Right, yeah, so any thoughts onthat in terms of how we engage
politically?
I mean, we, we did.
We got into this spicy electionseason, tim you and I, we did a
session about politics.
It wasn't a, it wasn't aworship service.
It was sort of a midweek kindof what do we call it?

(50:51):
It was a panel discussion panelwhere people could talk about
not what to think, but how tothink right.
How do we think?
How do we use our Christianlens to think about issues of
politics right?
And the answer is it's notabout having a strong affinity
with a party per se.

(51:12):
It's about being at peace,knowing that government has a
function that you're beingcalled to vote.
That's something that you'rebeing called to do in the
society, that not everybody getsto do in other countries, and
how do you steward thatresponsibility for the sake of
your neighbor?

Speaker 1 (51:28):
Yep and political homogeneity can impact church in
the best use of the word hereinclusivity, outreach strategies
and member engagement if wecome too tightly identified and
churches have gone off on thisright.
I mean our ELCA neighbors.
They're definitely, as you lookat them, politically liberal

(51:53):
and theologically liberal right,that's one side.

Speaker 2 (51:55):
And then the other side might be in some of the
non-denom churches, wherethey'll bring in Republican
guest speakers and they'llessentially preach, you know, or
give a political statement on aSunday morning, which I've
never heard happen in an LCMSchurch.
So good for us in that area.
But think about you know again,think about that from a lens of

(52:15):
hospitality.
If you're making your serviceabout politics, you're basically
telling Democrats you're notwelcome here, right, and that's
not the position that we have.
The position is sinners belongin church, whether you're a
Republican or a Democrat.
Right, that's where you belongis in church, hearing the gospel
, hearing, confession andabsolution.

Speaker 1 (52:36):
Yeah, and is this messy?
Yeah, totally, Because we'repeople of the way of Jesus and
so we can talk about certainpolitical issues like life, like
sexuality right and love foryour neighbor, God's love for

(52:58):
the world and I love yourstatement sinners belong in
church, and if you are not inagreement on some of those or
have a difference of opinion,this is still a place where you
can come in here, receive theword of God, be reminded of your
sin and be reminded of the workof your savior.
Like you know, that's themiddle way that we have to walk

(53:19):
right now, and there's nothingagainst like we're going to be
at a.
Our church is going to berepresented at a right for life
rally here soon.
It's not like that's woo,that's like the main thing, that
, no, but it's.
It's a part of our biblicalneighboring work is to care
about things that are connectedto scripture, that are hurting
people in terms of knowing whoGod is and how much he loves
them.

Speaker 2 (53:41):
So, yep, it's not an affirmation of sin.
It's a confession of sin, isreally what it boils down to,
and it's a hospitality.

Speaker 1 (53:47):
Let's all come together and confess our sin
right, that's what Lutherans do,so we have opportunities for
growth in the Lutheran ChurchMissouri Synod, to be sure.
Recommended path forward,segment four I love this and I
don't know if you came up withthis or these are great, great
points, so I'll let you go downour recommended path forward, so

(54:08):
proactive outreach programstargeting young families.

Speaker 2 (54:12):
I believe that churches that are going to have
the most influence in America inthe future are the ones that
are most successful at reachingyoung families period, and it's
also young families that areprobably the most in desire to
be in connection with church.
There's such a mess trying toraise a family, tim Like

(54:34):
especially sorry, my phone'sgoing off here Especially, you
know if you're a first timeparent or you're just newly
newly married.
You're trying to figure outthings that you didn't realize.
You know you didn't realize howdifficult it is to give your
life away to become a husband ora father or a wife or a mother
Like the the.
The amount of sacrifice is hugeand the stress that it creates

(54:57):
is huge, and having a strongspiritual community that
surrounds you and supports youis a huge opportunity.

Speaker 1 (55:04):
No, couldn't agree more.
Next one intentional leadershipand discipleship pathways for
young adults and for youth.
Talk about that.

Speaker 2 (55:13):
Yeah.
So, as we said, the definitionof youth is expanding because
you got a lot of people thatdon't leave home till, like,
maybe, their late twenties.
We have to be rethinking aboutthat.
I think that the mostsuccessful youth ministries are
the youth ministries that engagetheir youth to be leaders,
co-leading the youth program,right.

(55:34):
So can you have one of youryouth?
Can you disciple them so thatthey're actually able to get
there and give a talk about aparticular topic or testimony
about a particular topic, andthink about how that impacts
that community of youth whenthey see people being raised up
to do that, that they arecontributors rather than just

(55:54):
consumers.
I think that's really what itboils down to is creating a
contributor versus consumermentality in your youth and
young adult ministries.

Speaker 1 (56:03):
Well, I wouldn't be a pastor if it weren't for DCE
Tim Lindeman who allowed me totake part in formation, in
discipleship conversations,teaching a small little Bible
study.
Tim, you take the first 15minutes of this and then I'll
kind of keep it going from there.
That was huge for me my juniorand senior year in high school
and then you go off to college.

(56:24):
I got to be youth and youthleadership.
You know, at Concordia Seward Igot many opportunities before I
ever went to the seminary totalk about Jesus to see do I
like it and do I have thepotential to be somewhat good at
it, you know, and there werepeople who said, yeah, don't get

(56:48):
the big ad, but you gotpotential to go and be a
communicator of the gospel.
That was huge, so good stuff.
Another strategic emphasis onspiritual formation practices
prayer, scripture reading,spiritual support groups, small
groups more there, jack.

Speaker 2 (56:54):
Yeah, so can you invite your community to like?
And basically, this is where wehave to think of church as
platform.
Right, that the success for themember is to do these things.
The church then has to think ofitself as a platform to help
facilitate the members doingthis type of thing.

(57:15):
So you know, setting up smallgroups Guess what happens in
small groups?
Prayer, bible reading, right,serving, supporting each other.
You know all of these thingsthat we want to happen.
So you start with small groups.
Get people into small groups.
You're a facilitator, you're aplatform for small groups, and
then you can do additional toolsfor people in their individual

(57:35):
rhythms.
A lot of churches are seeingsuccess by creating
congregational Bible readingplans and having that tied to
their app or some othertechnology.
Or you know, texting people totry and lower the lift on that.
Because you know, if I don'tknow anything about the Bible,
where do I start?
Do you tell people to go toGenesis and read the Bible
through, or do you curate a morehospitable experience for

(57:58):
people that might be new on thattopic?
So that's where we have tothink platform right.
How do I help the person win intheir strategy to do this?
So you're encouraging peopleand you're giving them the tools
to do that and for us.

Speaker 1 (58:10):
The app is a major part of that platform.
Right, we have a ChristGreenfield app where certain
next step invitations areclearly given toward leaders,
small group and beyond.
So, yeah, huge, All right.
Last two here Clearprioritization of
gospel-centered messaging overpolitical identification we kind

(58:30):
of talked about that.
A fair amount.

Speaker 2 (58:32):
Well, this is what we don't want the LCMS to be.
We don't want the LCMS to bethe place to go because it's
quote unquote conservative.
We want the LCMS to be theplace that people go because we
have the gospel.
That's the reason why peoplewant to be.
You know that is the rightreason to be attracted.
Now, that may be.
You know there is a politicaltrend of attractiveness towards

(58:54):
conservative church bodies.
That may be the reason whyyou're seeing the rise of
Nandenam, because a lot of themare very conservative.
So you know that may be a pieceof the whole thing.
When you're reaching out to thecommunity, we know, for example,
tim you and I have seen thisthat there is an
attractionalness to traditionalworship that didn't used to be
there, you know, a few years ago.
A lot of young families arefinding that very attractive.

(59:16):
But at the heart of it is youridentity is not conservative.
Your identity is gospel.
Your identity is mission.
Your identity is outreach.
Your identity is priesthood ofall believers, right, and so
that's the key thing there, andyou know the types of decisions
that people make.
That's the fruit of your faithand that is not the thing that

(59:40):
is.
You know that is not the coreof what it means to be church.

Speaker 1 (59:43):
So we want proactive outreach.
We want intentional leadershipand discipleship, invitations,
pathways.
We want to be inviting peopleinto spiritual formation
practices prayer, scripturereading, et cetera.
We want to be a gospel-y.
We're gospel-y in the world,right, Right and then final.
We're engaging thoughtfully andlovingly on social issues that

(01:00:03):
maintain doctrinal integritywhile compassionately connecting
with broader communities.
Final, final point there, herewe are pro-life.

Speaker 2 (01:00:10):
As a church, we believe we should be protecting
the unborn.
That's not the first messageyou're going to hear about us,
but we believe the Bible is trueand so we honor the
commandments and as part ofengaging the community, loving

(01:00:33):
your neighbor means loving theunborn, and so we're mobilizing
people to do that.
We've partnered with localorganizations on that and
there's many other opportunitieswhere you can say you know how
can the church be immobilized tolove their neighbors in a way
that's authentically biblicalRight, and on one hand, there's
a lot of freedom in that webelieve in Christian freedom.

(01:00:54):
On the other hand, there's alot of truth that balances that
and helps us guide us in thetypes of programs that we
programs and organizations thatwe partner with, and I think it
means a lot to see that a churchactually engages in some of
these activities and doesn't seeitself completely divorced from
it 100%.

Speaker 1 (01:01:13):
So my closing comment , if I could pray for one thing
for every church and member ofan LCMS congregation, is that
the word of God would be ourdriving force.
Because when you read the wordof God, especially as God's love
story to get all of his kidsback, god is on a mission from

(01:01:36):
the very beginning of time,since our active rebellion,
through Abraham, isaac and Jacob, through the nation of Israel,
through a repenting message ofthe prophets, to focus us on the
person and work and way ofJesus.
Don't neglect the way of Jesus,how he invited other people to

(01:01:56):
come alongside him, how heascended after his crucifixion
and resurrection and the descentof the Holy Spirit.
That would have a mighty workin our church body.
The Holy Spirit only worksthrough the Word.
Right, this is like deepLutheran theology.
We're not, you know, we'reextra-nosed people.
The Word descends to us, theWord changes us by the Spirit's
power.
It crushes, kills and raises upto newness of life, and then

(01:02:20):
you cannot help.
I love this in the book of Acts.
Look at how the world is beingturned upside down by this small
group of people who areradically.
They're radical in theirallegiance to the only King.
His name is Jesus.
Jesus is Lord.
You can take my life, but mylife.
I've already been crucifiedwith Christ.
I no longer live.
I live in the one who gave hislife for me.

(01:02:42):
So if every member had thatsort of a missional zeal to let
the word of God read them likediscern us, crush us and raise
us up daily to new life by thespirit's power, everything, like
all the conversations thatwe're having in the LCMS about a
narrowing, controlling, wewould move to abundance.

(01:03:02):
Like you can't even imagine thedreams to reach people with the
gospel would be so, sopersuasive and invasive into our
community that, like everybody,every institution would have to
take notice.
Like we have to raise up morepeople to bring the gospel to
folks, and it starts withgetting into the word of God.

(01:03:23):
So final final thoughts fromyou though, jack.

Speaker 2 (01:03:27):
No, I think you you you shared some very
inspirational words right nowand I would just encourage
people to not get down and outon some of these numbers.
Societies go through thesetypes of transitions and I see
it as an opportunity.
Like there's more people thatneed to hear the gospel, the.

(01:03:49):
The harvest is plentiful, theworkers are few, so let's get
busy raising up workers.

Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
So let's also pray to the Lord of the harvest, the
Lord of the harvest baby toraise up workers.

Speaker 3 (01:03:59):
So this is a lead time.

Speaker 1 (01:04:01):
Please like, subscribe, comment wherever it
is that you take these podcastsin.
Thank you to Pew Research forgiving us this data.
It's very, very helpful Datajust kind of grounds us.
Data doesn't cripple us, itgrounds us in our present
reality and allows usstrategically as local leaders
and district leaders, nationalleaders to make strategic

(01:04:22):
changes to reach more people.
With the gospel, it's a goodday.
Go and make it a great day.
Thanks so much, jack, good work.

Speaker 3 (01:04:27):
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