September 2, 2025 • 56 mins
Across the LCMS and beyond, the average congregation hovers around 50 in worship. Why is this the case—and what can be done about it?
In this Lead Time conversation, Tim Ahlman sits down with Rev. David Patterson (Institute of Lutheran Theology) to dig into the deeper issues behind church decline and revitalization. Together they explore:
- The real indicators of a congregation’s health (it’s not money or attendance).
- Why many churches remain “stuck” despite good intentions.
- How Ephesians 4 points to a path forward—knitting the body together in Christ.
- The role of humility, unity, and truth-telling in revitalization.
This is a candid look at the challenges facing Lutheran congregations today—and the hope that still exists for renewal through the Spirit of God.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
This is good time, and Jack is working, doing his
executive director stuff, andtoday I get the privilege of
hanging out with a brother thatI met about a year ago, a
Reverend David Patterson.
He is the Dean for the Centerof the Word, connected to the
Institute for Lutheran Theology,and we'll let him tell a little
bit of his ministry story,though.
How are you doing, though,david?
Thanks for being on Lead Timebuddy.
(00:47):
Oh, I'm doing quite well.
Thanks, tim for having me.
It's great.
Yeah, we're going to have agood time.
So tell folks a little bit ofyour background.
I know you were in the ELCA andI've had a number of guests.
Obviously we've been connectedto the Luther House of Studies
for some time and Chris Kroganand Sarah there at LHOS.
But I think you have a littlebit of a similar story.
To set the context, when Ifirst became a pastor this goes
(01:10):
back about 17 years ago or so Ihad been in for one year when I
think it was a really, reallypoor decision from the ELCA to
put culture currents you knowthe same level, if not above,
scripture right, and so I, you,walk through that struggle and
honestly, at that time wewelcomed many people into church
(01:33):
an LCMS church, bethlehemLutheran in Lakewood, colorado
who looked at what was going onand just said I can't, I can't
do this anymore.
And I think then the ILT storykind of came around the same
time as well.
So tell that ministry story,david, if you would.
What a joy to be with you, sure.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
I had a very roundabout route, if you will,
to ministry.
I hadn't actually intended toend up there.
I was working in developmentaleducation primarily, and after
my grant teaching position hadended I had an opportunity to
(02:11):
return to school and I went tothe Lutheran Bible Institute of
Seattle and I did a degree inbiblical studies and at that
point I was thinking about well,maybe I should go on to
seminary, you know, and Ientered because I was a member
of the ELCA at the time.
I started the candidacy processup there and in my first
(02:36):
meeting with the candidacy teamthey in no uncertain terms said
that because I'm disabled, Iwould never have any opportunity
to be a pastor and I shouldjust give up.
So at that point it was.
It felt like kind of a blow.
But I had the opportunity.
I actually started working inthe library there at LBI and it
(03:00):
was really.
I really enjoyed it.
So I applied and was acceptedat the University of Washington
where I pursued a Master ofLibrary and Information Science.
But in the meantime, until theprogram started, I went ahead
and completed a Certificate ofProfessional Studies in
Cross-Cultural Ministriesfocusing on global evangelism.
(03:20):
After I finished, my Master ofLibrary and Information Science
was right after 9-11.
And I had the opportunity toserve as a military librarian a
civilian position, I mean, howcould someone like me work for
the military?
But I was given the opportunity.
(03:41):
I spent six years working as anAir Force librarian and after
that, after my service, withworking alongside our men and
women in uniform, I spent acouple of years working as a
(04:09):
public librarian in CentralOregon and just serving as
teaching the adult forum classin my local ELCA congregation.
And that was when that bigdecision in the ELCA came down
about gay marriage and gayordination and my entire
congregation was reallystruggling with it.
And as I was trying to help themaddress what they were facing,
what we were all facing together, I came to the realization that
(04:30):
I needed to continue some moretheological education of my own,
because it'd been a few years.
So I started looking around foran opportunity.
Where could I study withoutnecessarily uprooting myself
completely which was ratherironic for me but in a way that
I could afford, with really,really good theologians that I
(04:54):
could trust?
And I came across this justemerging school.
It was just about to roll outits first Masters of Divinity
cohort.
It was called the Institute ofLutheran Theology.
So I reached out and I had aconversation with their
president, dennis Bielfeld, andwe spent a little bit talking
(05:18):
about the school itself.
But we ended up spending a lotof time talking about the
library and at the end of theconversation he asked to fly me
out to South Dakota to take alook at what they were building,
to see if I could give themsome advice.
And so, february, in the middleof an ice storm, I flew out to
South Dakota and I spent threedays with the team there at ILT
(05:44):
and talking about their library,but also talking about their
programs and what led to theformation of ILT, which grew out
of the Word Alone movement thatbegan years before, right about
(06:21):
2000, with the ELCA's call tocommon mission, where they began
to set aside their notions ofthe priesthood of all believers
in favor of an ecclesiasticalhierarchy.
So at the end of those the twodays with looking over the
library and talking with thestaff, at the last dinner Dr
Bielfeld asked me to walk outinto the parking lot with him.
It's freezing, it's after darkFebruary in South Dakota, and he
(06:44):
says, david, I don't know whyI'm telling you this, there's no
way we could afford for you tocome out here.
There is, I have.
We have no way to support you,but I know in my heart God is
calling you to come and workwith ILT.
So my wife and I spent a coupleof days praying about it,
(07:06):
talking with one another,seeking God's will, and called
back and said, yeah, we have noidea, but we're headed out there
.
And it took us a couple ofmonths to close things down in
Oregon.
But in April we were moving toSouth Dakota.
(07:36):
But within a couple months, whatwas interesting or actually was
just a few weeks later westarted attending a local LCMC
congregation just outside ofBrookings, where the school is
located, and within a couplemonths of our starting their
pastor resigned and they broughtin an interim who only had a
limited amount of availability.
Because I worked for ILT and Ihad a degree in biblical studies
and a certificate incross-cultural missions, I
(07:56):
volunteered to help out, becauseyou know when you're in a
church that's what you'resupposed to do.
And I started helping out,doing visitation in the nursing
home and with shut-ins andwhenever the interim pastor
wasn't available, I would dopulpit supply.
A tiny little rural parish itactually was in the middle of
(08:17):
farmland.
There is no actual largercommunity around it.
You got to go 10 miles to getto the nearest town.
Anyway, on two days before AshWednesday, that pastor the
interim pastor sends an emailsaying that they would never be
(08:38):
back.
They were done and I sent aquick email to the president of
the congregation.
I said I know you've got to bepanicking right now.
The worst thing you can do isto try to jump into any kind of
have a knee-jerk reaction or tryto just figure it out.
(09:00):
And we're going into Lent.
I said I'm here, I'm not goinganywhere, I'm a member of the
congregation.
I'll fill in if you want me to.
We'll just get through theprocess together.
Let's get through Lent, let'sget through Easter and then
we'll start a call process.
After we get through that wecan think with clearer heads.
He agreed, and so I beganactually a preaching series
(09:26):
through Lent on the nature ofthe call, because I'm thinking
I'm getting the congregationready to go and begin their call
process.
We get through the first, weget through Easter and I meet
with the council and they tellme that they've been meeting
(09:46):
throughout Lent and they'vedecided God's calling me.
Okay, I tried saying no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
And in the end I insisted theygo through a six month process,
call process and consider othercandidates.
We got to the end of thatsix-month process and the
(10:09):
congregation called me, so I wasordained on September 11, 2011.
I served that congregation forfive years, at which time I
surrendered that call.
I returned back full-time.
My first parish was entirelybivocational.
(10:32):
I continued working at ILT, butwe were in the middle of our
first accreditation process andthe work was continuing to grow
at ILT and it was time.
So I surrendered that call andI returned to ILT full-time.
But I was only there six monthsfull-time when I was asked to
(10:54):
do pulpit supply for a yokedparish about 45 minutes away,
and it was during the firstservice that the news broke that
the pastor was resigning.
This is a trend, david.
So later that week thepresidents of the two
(11:14):
congregations came together andasked me to be the interim until
they could go through a callprocess.
And these were NALCcongregations, they weren't LCMC
, and so, yeah, I started, andalmost right after they asked me
to submit my name as well forconsideration.
So I did.
At the end of the call processthey called me, so I was
(11:38):
colloquied into the NALC and Iserved until 2020.
And during that same time Icompleted another master's in
theology.
By the time 2020 came around andthe height of the lockdowns I'd
been through multiple spinesurgeries which left me
(12:00):
partially paralyzed, about 60%paralyzed and in a wheelchair
and I don't know what you knowabout rural South Dakota, but
being in a wheelchair it's verydifficult to parish ministry.
So my wife and I figured outthat it was really time for my
parish ministry to end and toreturn full-time to ILT, at
(12:23):
which point I was given the roleof the dean for ILT Center for
the Work, because we've justcontinued to grow through the
whole time and I'm overseeingthe library, all of our IT
services, which is basicallyeverything we do as a fully
online institution registrar,learning support, all of our
(12:43):
publishing and media productions, including our new journals.
We're rolling out a book press,our grant and research writing,
video production and our newCenter for Congregational
Revitalization, which is callednow Momentum, a network for
(13:03):
church revitalization.
But that's kind of my journey.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Hey, thanks for sharing David, and I love your
servant heart.
That's the heart of Jesus inyou to say here I am, send me,
I'm eager and ready to serve.
So praise be to God.
There are a number of folksthat have strong opinions
regarding different modes oftheological formation, and I'm a
(13:29):
product of residential seminaryeducation and went straight
through, was married at 22, andthen three great years in St
Louis and a vicarage year in themiddle and in Florida, and it
was wonderful for me.
I'm also a guy that's been ableto mentor many, many Vickers
(13:50):
over the years that are goingthrough the residential program
and I've also then been able tomentor many who have gone
through different programs in inthe LCMS, certified, certified
programs.
But there are there are folksthat have very, very strong and
maybe sometimes incorrect, and Idon't and I'm not even going to
say what some I type of a modelstill theologically rigorous,
(14:32):
you know, online learningexperiences, but coupled with
mentoring and learning face toface with mentors who are on the
ground, not just pastors butothers who are seeking to shape
the character and the craft offuture ministers of the gospels.
What are some of the rumors,misnomers that you've heard
about online education thatyou're just like oh, I don't
know if that's exactly true,maybe not in our experience at
ILT.
I'll just let you kind of shareyour heart regarding what I
(14:55):
would say.
What is the ultimate need?
It's more workers for theharvest right.
The fields are ripe under theharvest and we need to send out
more, more laborers.
And the final thing everythingthat I've said is not against
residential education.
There's no, I've never saidanything against.
It's a both and conversation.
(15:16):
Can we utilize technology in ahelpful way to, to partner with
congregations to meet theirneeds for more word and
sacrament laborers in theharvest?
So any any misnomers that you'dlike to clarify about what ILT?
Speaker 3 (15:32):
does and does not do, david, sure, sure.
What's the biggest thing?
Ok, we don't make pastors, wedon't.
We don't form pastors, butneither do brick and mortar,
traditional residential programs.
They don't.
This is the categorical errorthat people make most often is
thinking that seminaries,theological schools, form
(15:54):
pastors.
They don't, and that'sincredibly.
That's fundamentally againstany Lutheran notion of what it
means to be formed as a pastor.
The only one who can form apastor is the word of God
himself.
Okay, we don't do it.
The real question you have toask yourself is how is that
(16:16):
person being formed?
Now?
Traditionally residential brickand mortar was the way that
pastors were educated not formed, educated and it wasn't
necessarily because it was best,it was what there was.
The only other way you could dotheological education would be
(16:41):
correspondence.
You know letters back and forth, and here's some materials and
read it.
The problem most people havewhen thinking about online
education is in their mind,that's the connection they're
making.
They're thinking that's what itmust be like.
It's totally disconnected,people are on their own and
there's no serious quality tothe education Today.
(17:05):
That can't be further from thetruth and, in fact, almost every
theological school in NorthAmerica today is, in one form or
another doing online education,not at the level we're doing.
They began during the lockdowns, and the Association of
Theological Schools, which isthe foremost accrediting agency
and the same agency thataccredits not only us but the
(17:28):
Concordia schools as wellacknowledges the validity of
online theological education.
The problem is, most of themdon't know how to do it well.
We've been doing it for over 15years.
How to do it well, and we'vebeen doing it for over 15 years.
(17:53):
The real issue that people tryto make about brick and mortar
education is you're right therewith your faculty and your
fellow students.
Well, that's true, but to dothat, you have to leave your
congregation, and the biggestflaw of the traditional brick
and mortar model is it has tocreate an artificial substitute
(18:13):
for the actual congregationalbodies that the student is
leaving, and to do sodramatically increases the cost
of theological education.
Typically, a traditionalseminary student has to relocate
four times during theirseminary education in order to
(18:33):
complete it.
They move from their home tothe school, they move from their
school to their vicarage, theymove from the vicarage back to
the school and then they move totheir first parish Over four
years and they have to absorbthe cost for all of it.
It's huge the way we dotheological education at ILT.
We bring our students from allaround the world, while they
(18:56):
remain in their congregationswith their families, together,
everyone face to face witharguably the greatest faculty in
North America, who arethemselves located all around
the world.
We have faculty all across NorthAmerica, we have them in Europe
, we have students in Asia, inAfrica, all over the place, and
(19:20):
we all gather at the same time,face-to-face face, and we study
together, we share together, wepray together, we worship
together, while remaininggrounded in our local
communities.
And here's the interestingthing about that you have to ask
where do you want your pastorsand leaders planted and taking
(19:41):
root?
Because a seminary the wordseminary actually comes from the
Latin seminarium, which meansliterally seedbed.
What we do at ILT is we leaveour students planted in the soil
in which they need to grow thelocal church and then we bring
the piece that is entrusted tous, that's, the education piece,
(20:04):
understanding that theformation isn't done by us or
any seminary.
It's done by the Word of GodHimself to serve in a specific
context.
We just want to leave them inthat context for that to happen.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Yeah well, I appreciate your work and, for
those that are unaware of kindof the reach of ILT right now,
and you're partnering with manyof us in the LCMS through the
Center for Missional PastoralLeadership and we're producing
some, that group is producingsome classes and it's going to
(20:41):
work and complement one anotherin a beautiful way.
And I think I heard that inLCMS congregations there are 22,
24 students or so set to joinILT through the Center for.
Missional, pastoral Leadership,and there are numerous places.
Kairos University is anotherplace where you know it's an
open handed posture to developpartnerships and we can.
(21:05):
We all come under the banner ofconfessional Lutheran theology
and we're not going to shy awayfrom that.
But we can work together andlearn together and and still
keep some of our distinctions ineach one of our denominations,
because there are somedistinctions.
I think we agree on far morethan is our distinctions, but
(21:26):
nonetheless I could go women'sordination, things like that but
we can still partner and worktogether in the work of
theological.
I like the distinction,theological education.
Who forms us?
It's a word of God.
It's a word of God in my localcontext.
That's ultimately where I wasformed.
I had to learn at the feet of,yes, wonderful theologians.
(21:47):
But also I was an associatepastor at a large church and
school.
So, david Languish, he had toteach me, he had to help form me
as a young whippersnapperpreacher.
You know, I had a lot, stillhave a lot to learn.
And the fact that formation everends I think that's a misnomer,
that it ends after the fouryears and then you kind of have
figured it out.
(22:07):
Oh, my goodness, I feel so badsometimes for going down a
little rabbit trail here, david,but for the young pastor who
gets in maybe a rural Midwestcongregation and a circuit that
may not be as healthy we callour gatherings together a
circuit that may not be ashealthy.
Some may be vacant pulpits andhe and maybe his young family
(22:29):
are just there and they got tofigure it out.
Obviously he's going to needwise mentors, elders and other
leaders who come alongside himto shape him.
How do I understand the budget?
What is all this?
The fact that formation, wethink, kind of concludes at a
degree, at the completion of adegree, is very much a misnomer.
So I appreciate thatdistinction between formation
(22:51):
and education.
Anything else to say on thattopic, david?
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Well, it's one of the interesting things about how
ILT came into being in the firstplace.
In the midst of all thecontroversies in the ELCA, the
midst of all the controversiesin the ELCA, dr Bielfeld was
asked to explore the need forwhat was defined back then as a
(23:16):
Lutheran house of studies.
And as he looked at thelandscape, what he came back
with, and which led to theformation of ILT, was there was
a need for a place, a big tent,where people from different
perspectives, from the moststaunchly conservative to the
(23:41):
most radically liberal andprogressive, can come up against
each other, not in polemic, notassaulting one another, not
attacking one another, butlistening to their ideas.
A place where faculty can teachand each have their own
perspective, yes, but all havingto remain open for the
(24:04):
conversations to happen, so thatour students can rub up against
each other steal upon steal,where these ideas can be put to
the test rather than simplybeing pushed by any
denominational party.
That was the whole point.
Ilt needed to be fullyindependent, fully autonomous
(24:25):
and fully accredited, so that wecould support LCMS students in
the way they need to besupported never judging them,
never critiquing them, allowingtheir ideas to speak for
themselves, but having toconfront ideas and perspectives
(24:47):
that are different from theirown.
The same way we do with LCMCstudents and NALC students and
free Lutheran students as well,as we have students outside our
traditional Lutheran mooringsglobal Methodists, anglicans,
(25:09):
evangelicals from across and webring the ideas together and
they have to rub up against eachother and their own
preconceptions.
They have to question those andsubmit all under the word of
God.
Yeah, Amen.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
You've heard of CFW Walther right.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Yeah, I've read him widely Right, His a lot of work
on church fellowship and histime in the mid and late 19th
century.
He had this big dream ofbringing all confessional
Lutherans together from,bringing all confessional
Lutherans together from and thatwas a big dream because you had
folks from Germany and Englandand Sweden and all all different
(25:49):
sorts of cultural backgroundsand he had these big, big dreams
.
Now he he maintained you knowhe had to write against unionism
and syncretism and those typesof things, but he had very much
an open hand toward otheracademics beyond Lutheran.
I just read today he welcomedDL Moody Moody Bible College.
(26:11):
He welcomed DL Moody and calledhim a really good, really good
friend and appreciated a lot ofwhat Moody offered and they had.
They were able to rub up someof their theological differences
together.
But it was a model for thestudents to say, hey, you're
going to get out.
How do you treat your Catholicneighbor, your evangelical
neighbor, Like?
And how do you treat yourfellow Lutherans who may have
(26:33):
some differences in opinionregarding how they look at
scripture and some of ourpractices Like?
That's just real life, Like tolive in a bubble, like that.
Now, there's nothing there,nothing wrong, you know,
necessarily, with having allLCMS, you know, educators, I
think it's probably reallyreally helpful, Absolutely, and
residential is really reallyhelpful.
(26:54):
But to say that that's going tobe, that's going to be the
standard you're always going tobe with folks from your tribe,
it's just.
Nothing could be further fromthe truth.
And I'm just thinking this pastSunday we have a meet the pastor
that we do a couple times amonth and we had 12 people that
came who have been worshipingwith us the last few weeks or so
.
They wanted to hear a littlebit more about who we are and I
(27:15):
had to answer, and our team hadto answer, Lutheran distinctive
questions.
You had some folks that werecoming out of mainline
denominations and evangelicalcircles and even a couple young
ladies who were coming out ofthe LDS community, the
Latter-day Saint community,Mormon community.
So I mean, that's just, that'sjust real life.
And how do you speak to them insuch a way that they can
(27:36):
understand hey, we're Christian,we're gospel people, we just
want to tell people about Jesusand we also take the sacraments
very seriously and you knowthings, things like that.
So, yeah, what do you thinkabout that, David?
Speaker 3 (27:47):
Can I tell you a little story about the Lutheran,
the importance of the Lutheranperspective.
I had an evangelical ask meabout this.
What is this Lutheran thing?
I said okay, let me tell you astory.
Imagine you went to visit theGrand Canyon for the first time
never been there before, driveand you get to the Grand Canyon
(28:07):
for the first time never beenthere before, drive.
And you get to the Grand Canyon, you go and you go to the
visitor center.
You go into the visitor centerto the person at the desk and
you say listen, I've never beento the Grand Canyon before.
I want to take in the glorythat is the Grand Canyon In all
its splendor.
Where do I go?
And that person pulls out a mapand says well, you can go here
and you can go here, you, all ofthese looking, uh, lookout
(28:28):
spots.
So you, you leave and you'regoing, scratching your head,
going, I don't have a clue.
And as you're walking back toyour car, uh, the janitor walks
up to you and says do you wantto know a secret?
And he opens up that little mapand he takes out a pen and he
marks a little spot there, ifyou drive to that spot, and you
get out and look, that's the onespot where you can see the
(28:50):
entire Grand Canyon in all itsglory.
It doesn't mean that all theseother spots aren't great and
they have wonderful perspectives, but there's only one spot
where you can see the wholething.
So go there, so the you getback in your car, you drive to
that one spot, you get out andthere are people mulling around
there and you look out and youjust see everything.
(29:13):
That is the Lutheran perspectivein Lutheran denominations today
.
Though and I'm not picking outany one, it's all of them, those
other people mulling around atthat lookout point.
(29:33):
They're all staring at theirfeet.
They're all enamored with theplace from which they're looking
rather than looking out at thesplendor of the entire classical
Christian tradition.
This is what the Lutheranperspective brings.
It presents the Christianmessage in all of its glory and
splendor, but we all spend toomuch time staring at our feet
(29:58):
rather than looking out at theglory in front of us.
That's the great thing aboutthe Lutheran perspective and the
fundamental problem with mostLutheran denominational bodies
today.
All of them, I'm not pickingout any one of them.
We are so enamored with havingthe best position that we spend
(30:19):
all our time staring at our feet.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Well, I kind of agree , and let's take it out.
The message is in the hand of asower.
the seed is meant to be the seedof the gospel save your faith
through the life, death,resurrection, ascension work of
Jesus, his love, how deeplyloved we are and how we're
reminded of that love throughthe cross, through our baptism,
(30:42):
and that we're reminded of theforgiveness of sins through the
Lord's Supper, and that wedeeply love the Word of God.
And we take the Word of Godvery, very, very seriously today
.
And we have some wonderfulhandles for understanding the
Word of God law, gospel,saint-sinner, two kinds of
righteousness from Luther, Imean all sorts of wonderful
(31:04):
theological principles that Ithink we ought to share with the
wider evangelical world,Catholic world.
It's very, very helpful.
I get to be the chaplain at akind of interdenominational
school, gilbert Christian HighSchool, for our football team.
And a little side note, I'venever been invited to speak at
their chapel because they thinkI'm going to talk about infant
(31:26):
baptism or something like that,which I may if the scripture is
talking about it.
But anyway, I've never beeninvited to chapel.
But I get to do the weeklydevotional for the young man and
I'll tell you what.
It's kind of covert Lutheranism.
It's just like oh, how shouldwe understand this?
Well, this is the law, this isthe gospel.
It's super, super fun.
All right, I wanted to get.
(31:46):
Let's shift gears here a littlebit.
Could hang there for the restof our time.
We've got about 30 minutes.
I wanted to give you theopportunity to share about your
Lilly Grants and some of yourwork in church revitalization.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
So tell us about your pursuit of two wonderful Lilly
Grants for ILT.
Well, sure, well, almost a yearago, we began developing two
distinct proposals for Lillygrants.
The first one was a conceptpaper for the Lilly Foundation
on developing a large scalecollaboration grant for a Center
for CongregationalRevitalization.
The idea was to create anentity that could work with a
variety of other bodies andbring them together, each
carrying part of the solutionfor struggling congregations,
and that ILT and itsundergraduate college, christ
College, and its graduate school, the Christ School of Theology,
(32:47):
would provide educationopportunities, opportunities to
equip lay leaders and pastorsfor a variety of contexts, while
providing a whole assortment ofservices with other
organizations who will help workwith congregations to build a
strong network of congregationssupporting one another,
(33:10):
encouraging one another, holdingone another accountable and
helping them identify forthemselves what are the issues
that they are confronting andhow to most effectively address
them.
Confronting and how to mosteffectively address them.
And then, at the same time, weapplied for an individual
implementation grant with Lillythat would allow us to pursue
(33:34):
specifically the the elements ofthis very large project that
ILT itself would be taking on.
Now what I can tell you is thatthe first grant, which is the
(33:55):
most difficult grant to receivefrom Lilly.
It's the most challenging.
We weren't invited in the endto pursue the formal proposal
and I haven't heard back yet onthe second grant, so that's
still out there.
But here's the thing whether weget the grant or not and this
is something a lot of peopledon't understand the vast
(34:18):
majority of grant proposals yousubmit will fail always.
If you receive one in every 10grants that you submit for,
you're considered an incrediblysuccessful grant writing
operation.
You will, in fact.
Success is found most often inhow you fail in grant writing,
(34:41):
and for us, this process allowedus to take what were some
theoretical ideas that DrBielfeld and I and a few members
of our board were playingaround with, and it forced us to
get serious and say how wouldwe actually make this happen?
(35:01):
Let's put a plan that couldactually work.
Now, whether we get the grantsor not is far less relevant,
because we've done the work andwe now have a plan that could
actually work, that could havereal impacts in congregations.
So we're not waiting around.
We know the Lord.
(35:23):
He put this together, so he'sgoing to provide the means one
way or another, you know, and itmight be through some grant.
We're undertaking a full yearof grant writing this year to
support the work that we'retaking on.
We're not stopping.
But it may not just be thatWe've got board members who are
(35:44):
coming in saying you know, I'mnot waiting, I'm cutting a
significant check.
We've got other larger donorswho are looking at supporting
this.
There may be people listeningtoday who are going yeah, I need
to be a part of what they'redoing.
I'm going to come and supportit.
We don't know.
All we know is that the Lordhas given this piece to us and
(36:07):
we're going to move forward withit.
And as we have continued to dothat work, we have met with many
different passionateindividuals who want to be part
of this work, including you guysthere.
You guys there, you have beendoing some phenomenal work on
(36:30):
your own with Unite LeadershipCollective and we have just had
so many other partners that wantto come out and be a part of
this, groups like Church DoctorMinistries, the Merrill Center,
the League of Rural Churches,dirt Roads Network, pastoral
Leadership Institute.
We've had large congregations.
There's the Shepherd of theDesert out in Scottsdale,
(36:51):
lutheran Church of the Master inOmaha.
We've got the Center forMissional and Pastoral
Leadership, the Center forWesleyan Studies.
We've just had all of thesegroups who say, yeah, we've got
to do this and we want to be apart of it.
Groups who say, yeah, we've gotto do this and we want to be a
part of it, and so we can't waitfor someone to just write us a
million dollar check.
We have to be good stewards ofwhat God has given us now and
(37:13):
trust that he will provide themeans.
So it's been just a phenomenalexperience.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Yeah, so fun.
Love your passion for it.
So let's get into the detailsin revitalization.
Tell us about the Center forCongregational Revitalization
and how does it serve as a typeof clearinghouse for the
Institute for Lutheran Theology?
Ilt work for churchrevitalization.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
I actually really like that name is to equip and
connect congregations forforward movement, guiding them
to face current realities withcourage, renew their spiritual
(37:55):
and missional vitality andmultiply disciples who impact
their communities with thegospel in the context of their
unique denominational identity.
We've got Tim has five coreobjectives.
Number one is to face the factswith faith.
(38:17):
If you are in a strugglingcongregation, well, there's
reasons for that.
There are reasons that thingsthat are going on in your
congregation and in yourcommunity that's got you in the
position you're in.
You've got to face those.
You've got to deal with them.
You've got to honestly assessthe spiritual health of your
community and of yourcongregation and the leadership
(38:38):
capacity that you have.
You need to face the brutalfacts in a safe environment.
We want to do that.
We want to help build asustainable outreach where we
can equip churches with thetools and training for engaging
their local communities inculturally relevant,
(38:58):
gospel-centered ways.
We want to help developcommunity profiles and mission
field maps to focus outreachefforts where they'll do the
most good.
We want to share proven modelsand have congregations network
together to share proven modelsof outreach with one another.
(39:19):
We want to help renewcongregational life.
We want to providerevitalization roadmaps tailored
to each congregation's context.
We want to help them strengthentheir worship life, their
leadership, health and theirmember engagement.
We want to encourage spiritualrenewal through prayer, through
catechesis and throughmission-focused preaching.
(39:41):
We want to work withcongregations to multiply their
disciples and their leaders.
We want to do this by helpingthem train leaders to lead small
groups, to teach the faith andprovide pastoral care wherever
it's needed.
We want to be able to fosterthriving networks between
congregations and we want tohelp them measure and share the
(40:05):
impact within theircongregations and all across
North America.
So well, I mean, hey, this isthat's the organizational pieces
.
So it's just, it's an exciting.
It's an exciting thing to be apart of.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Yeah, so you?
You say it's grounded in thefourth chapter of Ephesians.
Yes, and are we talking theapest model here?
Are you into apostle, prophet,evangelist, shepherd, teacher?
Speaker 3 (40:31):
I absolutely am, but it goes beyond that.
It goes beyond that becausewhen a lot of people, when they
focus on the apest, they takeverses 11 and 12 and they put in
isolation of everything else orthey take it out of its context
.
It's incredibly important.
But the key piece to understandwhen we look at the fourth
(40:52):
chapter of Ephesians is we arededicated to equipping
congregations to grow and act asone whole body and to send that
body, joined, into thecommunity, to speak the truth in
love and build itself up inthat love by joining new members
(41:13):
onto it.
Here's the when we, when you'relooking at the APEST, if you
will, those four critical roles.
What most people are so focusedon is the apest and most of
them lose sight of what, in manyways, is the most critical word
(41:36):
in that passage.
It's actually translated inmost English translations today
as equip.
Problem is it doesn't meanequip.
Okay, the he and he gave theapostles, the prophets, the
evangelists, the shepherds andteachers to equip the saints for
the work of ministry, for thebuilding up of the body of
(41:58):
christ.
That word equip doesn't occuranywhere else in all of
scripture.
The word is catartismon and theclosest word you'll find to it
in Scripture is in the Gospel ofMatthew, where the disciples
are sitting beside the shore ofGalilee mending their nets.
But if you look outside ofScripture, it's actually a very
(42:22):
common word in ancient Greek.
It is used most commonly inmedical texts, which is
interesting because Ephesians 4,what is it dealing with?
The body.
That word, kathartismon, is theword that is used to describe
the setting and splinting of abroken bone, so the bone can
(42:45):
knit together, of a broken bone,so the bone can knit together.
So if we were to simplytranslate that word literally,
then it says and he gave theapostles, the prophets, the
evangelists, the shepherds andteachers to knit together as one
the saints for the work ofministry.
And what's that work ofministry?
(43:06):
For the building up of the bodyof Christ.
It's taking this saint here andthis saint here and not making
them super saints or not,setting specific people aside
and everyone else just kinds ofmulls around and does it.
No, it's about knitting themtogether as one and then that
one united body goes out intotheir community to bring Jesus
(43:29):
Christ to them.
I mean, the roles are criticalfor that, but it's that one key
concept that's essential to thewhole thing.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Well, yeah, in an American culture where we're so,
I think people read that andthey think it's to equip me.
Pastor, come and serve me,equip me like help me find my
own spiritual gifts and stuff.
And I guess you know it is foryou individually but it never
stays for you, it's for us.
You know we are so hyperindividualistic.
(44:00):
Scriptures written in a waythat out in that communal world
I can't, I have no concept ofmyself as an island unto myself.
I only know myself based on myunique gifts that add to the
health of the entire body.
And obviously 1 Corinthians 12and Romans, chapter 12, paul
doubles down on the need for thebody of Christ to move together
as one.
Where would I be apart from thehands of the faith, etc.
(44:23):
Like we have to have all partsof the body working together and
is not necessarily, it feels,like for Jesus or for the
Apostle.
Paul is like a pipe dream, butwe know you're going to be
divided because you're sinful.
No, like this is the number oneway that we bring the witness
and love of Christ out into theworld.
Look at how they love oneanother.
Yes, this has been one of my bigkind of soapboxes, I guess for
(44:45):
a while kind of soapboxes, Iguess for a while if we can't
handle our own stuff and our owndenominations and between
denominations and disagreeagreeably, if we don't have the
character and love of Christthat confronts and challenges
sin and with a heart that leadsto repentance and love and unity
for the sake of the mission ofGod, if we can't start with,
like, the basics.
This is just in baseball termswe learn how to hit, we learn
(45:07):
how to field and catch, like, ifwe don't understand the basics,
we're not going to win, and theHoly Spirit wants us that.
We need to win more people.
That's the ultimate call.
God wants all to be saved andcome to a knowledge of him.
So, yeah, let's, let's work atand I love that we're, we need
to be broken together, together.
It's a beautiful image becausein my brokenness this is the way
(45:27):
of the cross, just to kind of,in my brokenness, in my
suffering, in my sorrow, in mywant, in my need, even in my sin
, recognizing that then I cometogether with other broken
sinners, united to bring people,the only one who can make them
whole, and that's Jesus, thecrucified and risen one.
Speaker 3 (45:43):
That's the key, because nobody, no person, not a
pastor, not at the head of adenomination, no person has the
answer.
The only one who has the answeris Jesus Christ himself, into
who is the head and we're togrow into him.
And as Ephesians 4, 7 says butgrace was given to each one
(46:04):
according to the measure ofChrist's gift.
None of us has the whole thing.
We've each been given graceaccording to the measure of
Christ's gift in us, and it isonly when we unite together as
the body of Christ, with Christas the head, that we can serve
(46:27):
as we are called to serve.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Yeah, so good.
So since you've been down thispath of revitalization for a
while, I have some thoughts.
What are some of the main needsof congregations that are
looking at revitalizing?
In the LCMS we've got themajority of our congregations
worship around 50 or less, youknow, and I think in many
mainline denominations and inmany different Lutheran
(46:50):
denominations I bet the statsare similar.
So what are some of those needstop three needs or so of
churches in need ofrevitalization David.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
Okay, okay, you know what I can tell you.
All kinds of things they shoulddo, and people have been trying
to say that tell people andthey're typically people from
the ivory tower telling thefolks in that little Italy rural
congregation, at micro church.
This is what you should do andyou will be great.
(47:19):
And you know what's true aboutall of them.
They're wrong, because theanswer isn't what we think it is
.
We think that we can come inwith a solution and we'll fix
the problem, and if you justfollow our patented eight steps,
you will be no.
No, you wanna know what thethree most important things are
(47:41):
that churches need?
We'd love to hear that.
Number one.
Number one we need to walk in amanner worthy of the calling to
which we have been called.
Ephesians 4.1.
That's what we are called.
That's what we're called to do.
We must, together, walk in amanner worthy of the calling to
(48:01):
which we are called in ourcommunity.
What is that?
We need to walk with allhumility and gentleness, with
patience, bearing with oneanother in love, eager to
maintain the unity of the spiritin the bond of peace.
This is what we have to do.
What's God's chosen means forus to do that?
(48:22):
That's number two.
Well, we were just talkingabout that.
And he gave the apostles, theprophets, the evangelists, the
shepherds and teachers to knittogether the saints for the work
of ministry, for the buildingup of the body of Christ, until
we all attain to the unity offaith and the knowledge of the
son of God.
That's number two.
(48:43):
Number three what's the purpose?
What's the purpose for all ofthis?
Ready Rather, speaking thetruth in love, we are to grow up
in every way into him.
Who is the head, into Christ,from whom the whole body, joined
and held together by everyjoint with which it is equipped,
(49:06):
when each part is workingproperly, makes the body grow so
that it builds itself up inlove.
It says it right there.
It's not rocket science.
There's no special person who'sgoing to have the answer.
The answer is given to all ofus in his word.
That's it.
Now, are there things that canbe done to help a congregation
(49:30):
make use of fulfilling its roleas body?
Well, sure, sure, but if youdon't have this, the rest of it
doesn't matter, because we don'trevitalize congregations.
You want to know what thevitality of a congregation is.
It's not in the number ofpeople in the parish.
I don't care if it's five or5,000.
(49:52):
A church can be equally dead.
It has nothing to do with that.
I don't care how much money isin the plate, I don't care if
it's five cents or five milliondollars.
That is not an indicator of thevitality of the congregation.
It is in one thing and onething only.
It is in the Holy Spirit thatenlivens, that propels us out to
(50:14):
live and act as the body ofChrist in our community.
Remember, remember, I can, Ican remember a dinner where
there were only 13 peoplesitting around a table and they
changed the world.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
Facts that he's talking about the Lord's Supper.
If you miss out, that's so good, david.
Well, I couldn't agree more,man.
It was about because I wasabout a revitalization work here
and there was never one silverbullet outside of Jesus and love
, yes, listening to one another,weeping with those who weep.
(50:46):
There were tears of past hurtsand loss and trust that needed
to be rekindled.
And then there was hope,something that felt like a new
day.
The place we're at doesn't haveto be the place we always are.
We don't have to be stuck, andhere's why the Holy Spirit is
here and we get to play a smallpart in God's big mission to go
(51:09):
reach and save people, young andold, and he's given us his
means, obviously word andsacraments and each other and
the gifts that we have, and solet's embrace the adventure of
going on this wonderful journeywith Jesus as our head.
There's not much else.
We teach at the ULC, a lot ofdifferent tactics and principles
(51:29):
and strategies and things likethat, but those tactics and
strategies, they're constantlyevolving.
You can't be any one of thosethings.
Right, it's got to be keepingJesus at the center and love at
the center Can.
Speaker 3 (51:40):
I tell you a little story.
This totally changed the way Iunderstand the life in a
congregation and what ministrywas, and it was my first
deathbed visit, and a lot ofpeople don't believe me when I
tell them this.
By my nature, I am an extremeintrovert, ok, bordering on
(52:04):
agoraphobia.
My nature is to be terrified tobe around other people, ok.
And so as such, visitation hasalways been incredibly difficult
for me.
But my first deathbed visit Igot a call two in the morning.
A member of the congregationwas in a nursing home, had a
heart attack, was being rushedto the hospital and was not not
(52:24):
going to make it hospital andwas not going to make it.
And I get in the car and I'mheaded out to the hospital and
all of a sudden I have to pullover.
I'm so terrified that I'mgetting violently ill on the
side of the road and I closedthe door and I'm sitting there
and I heard I kid you not Iheard a voice say drive, that's
(52:49):
all it said drive.
And so I drove and I foundmyself at the emergency room
door and I heard that voice sayget out.
So I got out and my legs werelike lead.
I couldn't move.
And the voice said walk.
Voice said walk.
(53:14):
And I began to walk and step bystep by step, and all of a
sudden it wasn't me anymore.
There was someone else at workand it was Jesus Christ.
And it was the most incredibleprivilege of my life to watch
Jesus minister to that family inthat time of need, and it has
never left me.
Pastors don't do the work ofministry.
Neither does anyone in thecongregation.
(53:35):
The work is done by JesusChrist himself, and anyone who
thinks that's a metaphor doesn'tknow what they're talking about
.
I don't care how many peopleare in that congregation,
because it says wherever two ormore are gathered in my name,
I'm there with them.
That's not a metaphor, that'snot some sort of image.
(53:56):
That's the truth.
And who could?
Who among us would think thatJesus couldn't do it?
He can do whatever he wants todo, and if he wants to change
the world with two people, he'sgoing to change the world with
two people.
And for congregations tounderstand that and to realize
that when they are serving, asGod has given them that little
(54:19):
thing that he's equipped themwith, he will do incredible
things.
All they have to do is comealong with him, because he's the
one who's doing it.
He's the one who's there.
Speaker 2 (54:29):
Hey, david, this has been such a joy.
I think we're just going toland it right there.
I got other things, we'll haveyou back.
We can talk about other things,but your love and your
sacrificial servant heart to sayhere am I send me and we didn't
, we didn't?
You mentioned your disabilityand things like that.
The Lord uses it all, doesn'the?
(54:51):
And and you're, you're a brightlight and praying for the work
of ILT, the Center for MissionalPastoral Leadership.
We have people want to connectwith you, david, and your
ministry.
How can they do so?
Speaker 3 (55:04):
If they want to reach out to me, just they can give
me an email me at dpatterson, atIOT, dot.
Edu and if they're interestedin taking some classes with us,
I'll connect them to all thepeople they need to talk to.
I'm happy to talk with themabout anything we're doing that
(55:26):
way.
If they'd like to learn moreabout momentum and our work
there, I'm happy to talk withthem about that.
If they just want to talk withsomeone and pray with someone,
it doesn't matter, I'm here forthem.
Whatever they need, I'm herefor them.
Speaker 2 (55:41):
I love it.
This is lead time.
Please like and subscribe, ifyou would do me the favor and
send this to a friend who needssome encouragement and maybe I'm
going to listen to some of yourstuff.
But then when you go on thepastoral formation stuff and
education stuff, I'm going tomaybe skip that because you're
like, but then move to the finallike 20 minutes of this
conversation, deep work in theword, connected to Ephesians,
(56:02):
chapter four.
It was a lot of fun.
I'm going to take a quip.
Doesn't necessarily just meandiscipleship one on one.
It means being broken andbinded back together by by Jesus
himself as the united body ofChrist.
It was so good.
It's a good day.
Go make it a great day.
We'll be back next week withanother fresh episode of Lead
Time.
Thanks so much, reverend DavidPatterson.
(56:23):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (56:25):
You've been listening to Lead Time, a podcast of the
Unite Leadership Collective.
The ULC's mission is tocollaborate with the local
church to discover, develop anddeploy leaders through biblical
Lutheran doctrine and innovativemethods To partner with us in
this gospel message.
Subscribe to our channel, thengo to theuniteleadershiporg to
create your free login forexclusive material and resources
(56:47):
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.
Thanks for listening and staytuned for next.
This is good time, and Jack is working, doing his
executive director stuff, andtoday I get the privilege of
hanging out with a brother thatI met about a year ago, a
Reverend David Patterson.
He is the Dean for the Centerof the Word, connected to the
Institute for Lutheran Theology,and we'll let him tell a little
bit of his ministry story,though.
How are you doing, though,david?
Thanks for being on Lead Timebuddy.
(00:47):
Oh, I'm doing quite well.
Thanks, tim for having me.
It's great.
Yeah, we're going to have agood time.
So tell folks a little bit ofyour background.
I know you were in the ELCA andI've had a number of guests.
Obviously we've been connectedto the Luther House of Studies
for some time and Chris Kroganand Sarah there at LHOS.
But I think you have a littlebit of a similar story.
To set the context, when Ifirst became a pastor this goes
(01:10):
back about 17 years ago or so Ihad been in for one year when I
think it was a really, reallypoor decision from the ELCA to
put culture currents you knowthe same level, if not above,
scripture right, and so I, you,walk through that struggle and
honestly, at that time wewelcomed many people into church
(01:33):
an LCMS church, bethlehemLutheran in Lakewood, colorado
who looked at what was going onand just said I can't, I can't
do this anymore.
And I think then the ILT storykind of came around the same
time as well.
So tell that ministry story,david, if you would.
What a joy to be with you, sure.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
I had a very roundabout route, if you will,
to ministry.
I hadn't actually intended toend up there.
I was working in developmentaleducation primarily, and after
my grant teaching position hadended I had an opportunity to
(02:11):
return to school and I went tothe Lutheran Bible Institute of
Seattle and I did a degree inbiblical studies and at that
point I was thinking about well,maybe I should go on to
seminary, you know, and Ientered because I was a member
of the ELCA at the time.
I started the candidacy processup there and in my first
(02:36):
meeting with the candidacy teamthey in no uncertain terms said
that because I'm disabled, Iwould never have any opportunity
to be a pastor and I shouldjust give up.
So at that point it was.
It felt like kind of a blow.
But I had the opportunity.
I actually started working inthe library there at LBI and it
(03:00):
was really.
I really enjoyed it.
So I applied and was acceptedat the University of Washington
where I pursued a Master ofLibrary and Information Science.
But in the meantime, until theprogram started, I went ahead
and completed a Certificate ofProfessional Studies in
Cross-Cultural Ministriesfocusing on global evangelism.
(03:20):
After I finished, my Master ofLibrary and Information Science
was right after 9-11.
And I had the opportunity toserve as a military librarian a
civilian position, I mean, howcould someone like me work for
the military?
But I was given the opportunity.
(03:41):
I spent six years working as anAir Force librarian and after
that, after my service, withworking alongside our men and
women in uniform, I spent acouple of years working as a
(04:09):
public librarian in CentralOregon and just serving as
teaching the adult forum classin my local ELCA congregation.
And that was when that bigdecision in the ELCA came down
about gay marriage and gayordination and my entire
congregation was reallystruggling with it.
And as I was trying to help themaddress what they were facing,
what we were all facing together, I came to the realization that
(04:30):
I needed to continue some moretheological education of my own,
because it'd been a few years.
So I started looking around foran opportunity.
Where could I study withoutnecessarily uprooting myself
completely which was ratherironic for me but in a way that
I could afford, with really,really good theologians that I
(04:54):
could trust?
And I came across this justemerging school.
It was just about to roll outits first Masters of Divinity
cohort.
It was called the Institute ofLutheran Theology.
So I reached out and I had aconversation with their
president, dennis Bielfeld, andwe spent a little bit talking
(05:18):
about the school itself.
But we ended up spending a lotof time talking about the
library and at the end of theconversation he asked to fly me
out to South Dakota to take alook at what they were building,
to see if I could give themsome advice.
And so, february, in the middleof an ice storm, I flew out to
South Dakota and I spent threedays with the team there at ILT
(05:44):
and talking about their library,but also talking about their
programs and what led to theformation of ILT, which grew out
of the Word Alone movement thatbegan years before, right about
(06:21):
2000, with the ELCA's call tocommon mission, where they began
to set aside their notions ofthe priesthood of all believers
in favor of an ecclesiasticalhierarchy.
So at the end of those the twodays with looking over the
library and talking with thestaff, at the last dinner Dr
Bielfeld asked me to walk outinto the parking lot with him.
It's freezing, it's after darkFebruary in South Dakota, and he
(06:44):
says, david, I don't know whyI'm telling you this, there's no
way we could afford for you tocome out here.
There is, I have.
We have no way to support you,but I know in my heart God is
calling you to come and workwith ILT.
So my wife and I spent a coupleof days praying about it,
(07:06):
talking with one another,seeking God's will, and called
back and said, yeah, we have noidea, but we're headed out there
.
And it took us a couple ofmonths to close things down in
Oregon.
But in April we were moving toSouth Dakota.
(07:36):
But within a couple months, whatwas interesting or actually was
just a few weeks later westarted attending a local LCMC
congregation just outside ofBrookings, where the school is
located, and within a couplemonths of our starting their
pastor resigned and they broughtin an interim who only had a
limited amount of availability.
Because I worked for ILT and Ihad a degree in biblical studies
and a certificate incross-cultural missions, I
(07:56):
volunteered to help out, becauseyou know when you're in a
church that's what you'resupposed to do.
And I started helping out,doing visitation in the nursing
home and with shut-ins andwhenever the interim pastor
wasn't available, I would dopulpit supply.
A tiny little rural parish itactually was in the middle of
(08:17):
farmland.
There is no actual largercommunity around it.
You got to go 10 miles to getto the nearest town.
Anyway, on two days before AshWednesday, that pastor the
interim pastor sends an emailsaying that they would never be
(08:38):
back.
They were done and I sent aquick email to the president of
the congregation.
I said I know you've got to bepanicking right now.
The worst thing you can do isto try to jump into any kind of
have a knee-jerk reaction or tryto just figure it out.
(09:00):
And we're going into Lent.
I said I'm here, I'm not goinganywhere, I'm a member of the
congregation.
I'll fill in if you want me to.
We'll just get through theprocess together.
Let's get through Lent, let'sget through Easter and then
we'll start a call process.
After we get through that wecan think with clearer heads.
He agreed, and so I beganactually a preaching series
(09:26):
through Lent on the nature ofthe call, because I'm thinking
I'm getting the congregationready to go and begin their call
process.
We get through the first, weget through Easter and I meet
with the council and they tellme that they've been meeting
(09:46):
throughout Lent and they'vedecided God's calling me.
Okay, I tried saying no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
And in the end I insisted theygo through a six month process,
call process and consider othercandidates.
We got to the end of thatsix-month process and the
(10:09):
congregation called me, so I wasordained on September 11, 2011.
I served that congregation forfive years, at which time I
surrendered that call.
I returned back full-time.
My first parish was entirelybivocational.
(10:32):
I continued working at ILT, butwe were in the middle of our
first accreditation process andthe work was continuing to grow
at ILT and it was time.
So I surrendered that call andI returned to ILT full-time.
But I was only there six monthsfull-time when I was asked to
(10:54):
do pulpit supply for a yokedparish about 45 minutes away,
and it was during the firstservice that the news broke that
the pastor was resigning.
This is a trend, david.
So later that week thepresidents of the two
(11:14):
congregations came together andasked me to be the interim until
they could go through a callprocess.
And these were NALCcongregations, they weren't LCMC
, and so, yeah, I started, andalmost right after they asked me
to submit my name as well forconsideration.
So I did.
At the end of the call processthey called me, so I was
(11:38):
colloquied into the NALC and Iserved until 2020.
And during that same time Icompleted another master's in
theology.
By the time 2020 came around andthe height of the lockdowns I'd
been through multiple spinesurgeries which left me
(12:00):
partially paralyzed, about 60%paralyzed and in a wheelchair
and I don't know what you knowabout rural South Dakota, but
being in a wheelchair it's verydifficult to parish ministry.
So my wife and I figured outthat it was really time for my
parish ministry to end and toreturn full-time to ILT, at
(12:23):
which point I was given the roleof the dean for ILT Center for
the Work, because we've justcontinued to grow through the
whole time and I'm overseeingthe library, all of our IT
services, which is basicallyeverything we do as a fully
online institution registrar,learning support, all of our
(12:43):
publishing and media productions, including our new journals.
We're rolling out a book press,our grant and research writing,
video production and our newCenter for Congregational
Revitalization, which is callednow Momentum, a network for
(13:03):
church revitalization.
But that's kind of my journey.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Hey, thanks for sharing David, and I love your
servant heart.
That's the heart of Jesus inyou to say here I am, send me,
I'm eager and ready to serve.
So praise be to God.
There are a number of folksthat have strong opinions
regarding different modes oftheological formation, and I'm a
(13:29):
product of residential seminaryeducation and went straight
through, was married at 22, andthen three great years in St
Louis and a vicarage year in themiddle and in Florida, and it
was wonderful for me.
I'm also a guy that's been ableto mentor many, many Vickers
(13:50):
over the years that are goingthrough the residential program
and I've also then been able tomentor many who have gone
through different programs in inthe LCMS, certified, certified
programs.
But there are there are folksthat have very, very strong and
maybe sometimes incorrect, and Idon't and I'm not even going to
say what some I type of a modelstill theologically rigorous,
(14:32):
you know, online learningexperiences, but coupled with
mentoring and learning face toface with mentors who are on the
ground, not just pastors butothers who are seeking to shape
the character and the craft offuture ministers of the gospels.
What are some of the rumors,misnomers that you've heard
about online education thatyou're just like oh, I don't
know if that's exactly true,maybe not in our experience at
ILT.
I'll just let you kind of shareyour heart regarding what I
(14:55):
would say.
What is the ultimate need?
It's more workers for theharvest right.
The fields are ripe under theharvest and we need to send out
more, more laborers.
And the final thing everythingthat I've said is not against
residential education.
There's no, I've never saidanything against.
It's a both and conversation.
(15:16):
Can we utilize technology in ahelpful way to, to partner with
congregations to meet theirneeds for more word and
sacrament laborers in theharvest?
So any any misnomers that you'dlike to clarify about what ILT?
Speaker 3 (15:32):
does and does not do, david, sure, sure.
What's the biggest thing?
Ok, we don't make pastors, wedon't.
We don't form pastors, butneither do brick and mortar,
traditional residential programs.
They don't.
This is the categorical errorthat people make most often is
thinking that seminaries,theological schools, form
(15:54):
pastors.
They don't, and that'sincredibly.
That's fundamentally againstany Lutheran notion of what it
means to be formed as a pastor.
The only one who can form apastor is the word of God
himself.
Okay, we don't do it.
The real question you have toask yourself is how is that
(16:16):
person being formed?
Now?
Traditionally residential brickand mortar was the way that
pastors were educated not formed, educated and it wasn't
necessarily because it was best,it was what there was.
The only other way you could dotheological education would be
(16:41):
correspondence.
You know letters back and forth, and here's some materials and
read it.
The problem most people havewhen thinking about online
education is in their mind,that's the connection they're
making.
They're thinking that's what itmust be like.
It's totally disconnected,people are on their own and
there's no serious quality tothe education Today.
(17:05):
That can't be further from thetruth and, in fact, almost every
theological school in NorthAmerica today is, in one form or
another doing online education,not at the level we're doing.
They began during the lockdowns, and the Association of
Theological Schools, which isthe foremost accrediting agency
and the same agency thataccredits not only us but the
(17:28):
Concordia schools as wellacknowledges the validity of
online theological education.
The problem is, most of themdon't know how to do it well.
We've been doing it for over 15years.
How to do it well, and we'vebeen doing it for over 15 years.
(17:53):
The real issue that people tryto make about brick and mortar
education is you're right therewith your faculty and your
fellow students.
Well, that's true, but to dothat, you have to leave your
congregation, and the biggestflaw of the traditional brick
and mortar model is it has tocreate an artificial substitute
(18:13):
for the actual congregationalbodies that the student is
leaving, and to do sodramatically increases the cost
of theological education.
Typically, a traditionalseminary student has to relocate
four times during theirseminary education in order to
(18:33):
complete it.
They move from their home tothe school, they move from their
school to their vicarage, theymove from the vicarage back to
the school and then they move totheir first parish Over four
years and they have to absorbthe cost for all of it.
It's huge the way we dotheological education at ILT.
We bring our students from allaround the world, while they
(18:56):
remain in their congregationswith their families, together,
everyone face to face witharguably the greatest faculty in
North America, who arethemselves located all around
the world.
We have faculty all across NorthAmerica, we have them in Europe
, we have students in Asia, inAfrica, all over the place, and
(19:20):
we all gather at the same time,face-to-face face, and we study
together, we share together, wepray together, we worship
together, while remaininggrounded in our local
communities.
And here's the interestingthing about that you have to ask
where do you want your pastorsand leaders planted and taking
(19:41):
root?
Because a seminary the wordseminary actually comes from the
Latin seminarium, which meansliterally seedbed.
What we do at ILT is we leaveour students planted in the soil
in which they need to grow thelocal church and then we bring
the piece that is entrusted tous, that's, the education piece,
(20:04):
understanding that theformation isn't done by us or
any seminary.
It's done by the Word of GodHimself to serve in a specific
context.
We just want to leave them inthat context for that to happen.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Yeah well, I appreciate your work and, for
those that are unaware of kindof the reach of ILT right now,
and you're partnering with manyof us in the LCMS through the
Center for Missional PastoralLeadership and we're producing
some, that group is producingsome classes and it's going to
(20:41):
work and complement one anotherin a beautiful way.
And I think I heard that inLCMS congregations there are 22,
24 students or so set to joinILT through the Center for.
Missional, pastoral Leadership,and there are numerous places.
Kairos University is anotherplace where you know it's an
open handed posture to developpartnerships and we can.
(21:05):
We all come under the banner ofconfessional Lutheran theology
and we're not going to shy awayfrom that.
But we can work together andlearn together and and still
keep some of our distinctions ineach one of our denominations,
because there are somedistinctions.
I think we agree on far morethan is our distinctions, but
(21:26):
nonetheless I could go women'sordination, things like that but
we can still partner and worktogether in the work of
theological.
I like the distinction,theological education.
Who forms us?
It's a word of God.
It's a word of God in my localcontext.
That's ultimately where I wasformed.
I had to learn at the feet of,yes, wonderful theologians.
(21:47):
But also I was an associatepastor at a large church and
school.
So, david Languish, he had toteach me, he had to help form me
as a young whippersnapperpreacher.
You know, I had a lot, stillhave a lot to learn.
And the fact that formation everends I think that's a misnomer,
that it ends after the fouryears and then you kind of have
figured it out.
(22:07):
Oh, my goodness, I feel so badsometimes for going down a
little rabbit trail here, david,but for the young pastor who
gets in maybe a rural Midwestcongregation and a circuit that
may not be as healthy we callour gatherings together a
circuit that may not be ashealthy.
Some may be vacant pulpits andhe and maybe his young family
(22:29):
are just there and they got tofigure it out.
Obviously he's going to needwise mentors, elders and other
leaders who come alongside himto shape him.
How do I understand the budget?
What is all this?
The fact that formation, wethink, kind of concludes at a
degree, at the completion of adegree, is very much a misnomer.
So I appreciate thatdistinction between formation
(22:51):
and education.
Anything else to say on thattopic, david?
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Well, it's one of the interesting things about how
ILT came into being in the firstplace.
In the midst of all thecontroversies in the ELCA, the
midst of all the controversiesin the ELCA, dr Bielfeld was
asked to explore the need forwhat was defined back then as a
(23:16):
Lutheran house of studies.
And as he looked at thelandscape, what he came back
with, and which led to theformation of ILT, was there was
a need for a place, a big tent,where people from different
perspectives, from the moststaunchly conservative to the
(23:41):
most radically liberal andprogressive, can come up against
each other, not in polemic, notassaulting one another, not
attacking one another, butlistening to their ideas.
A place where faculty can teachand each have their own
perspective, yes, but all havingto remain open for the
(24:04):
conversations to happen, so thatour students can rub up against
each other steal upon steal,where these ideas can be put to
the test rather than simplybeing pushed by any
denominational party.
That was the whole point.
Ilt needed to be fullyindependent, fully autonomous
(24:25):
and fully accredited, so that wecould support LCMS students in
the way they need to besupported never judging them,
never critiquing them, allowingtheir ideas to speak for
themselves, but having toconfront ideas and perspectives
(24:47):
that are different from theirown.
The same way we do with LCMCstudents and NALC students and
free Lutheran students as well,as we have students outside our
traditional Lutheran mooringsglobal Methodists, anglicans,
(25:09):
evangelicals from across and webring the ideas together and
they have to rub up against eachother and their own
preconceptions.
They have to question those andsubmit all under the word of
God.
Yeah, Amen.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
You've heard of CFW Walther right.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Yeah, I've read him widely Right, His a lot of work
on church fellowship and histime in the mid and late 19th
century.
He had this big dream ofbringing all confessional
Lutherans together from,bringing all confessional
Lutherans together from and thatwas a big dream because you had
folks from Germany and Englandand Sweden and all all different
(25:49):
sorts of cultural backgroundsand he had these big, big dreams
.
Now he he maintained you knowhe had to write against unionism
and syncretism and those typesof things, but he had very much
an open hand toward otheracademics beyond Lutheran.
I just read today he welcomedDL Moody Moody Bible College.
(26:11):
He welcomed DL Moody and calledhim a really good, really good
friend and appreciated a lot ofwhat Moody offered and they had.
They were able to rub up someof their theological differences
together.
But it was a model for thestudents to say, hey, you're
going to get out.
How do you treat your Catholicneighbor, your evangelical
neighbor, Like?
And how do you treat yourfellow Lutherans who may have
(26:33):
some differences in opinionregarding how they look at
scripture and some of ourpractices Like?
That's just real life, Like tolive in a bubble, like that.
Now, there's nothing there,nothing wrong, you know,
necessarily, with having allLCMS, you know, educators, I
think it's probably reallyreally helpful, Absolutely, and
residential is really reallyhelpful.
(26:54):
But to say that that's going tobe, that's going to be the
standard you're always going tobe with folks from your tribe,
it's just.
Nothing could be further fromthe truth.
And I'm just thinking this pastSunday we have a meet the pastor
that we do a couple times amonth and we had 12 people that
came who have been worshipingwith us the last few weeks or so
.
They wanted to hear a littlebit more about who we are and I
(27:15):
had to answer, and our team hadto answer, Lutheran distinctive
questions.
You had some folks that werecoming out of mainline
denominations and evangelicalcircles and even a couple young
ladies who were coming out ofthe LDS community, the
Latter-day Saint community,Mormon community.
So I mean, that's just, that'sjust real life.
And how do you speak to them insuch a way that they can
(27:36):
understand hey, we're Christian,we're gospel people, we just
want to tell people about Jesusand we also take the sacraments
very seriously and you knowthings, things like that.
So, yeah, what do you thinkabout that, David?
Speaker 3 (27:47):
Can I tell you a little story about the Lutheran,
the importance of the Lutheranperspective.
I had an evangelical ask meabout this.
What is this Lutheran thing?
I said okay, let me tell you astory.
Imagine you went to visit theGrand Canyon for the first time
never been there before, driveand you get to the Grand Canyon
(28:07):
for the first time never beenthere before, drive.
And you get to the Grand Canyon, you go and you go to the
visitor center.
You go into the visitor centerto the person at the desk and
you say listen, I've never beento the Grand Canyon before.
I want to take in the glorythat is the Grand Canyon In all
its splendor.
Where do I go?
And that person pulls out a mapand says well, you can go here
and you can go here, you, all ofthese looking, uh, lookout
(28:28):
spots.
So you, you leave and you'regoing, scratching your head,
going, I don't have a clue.
And as you're walking back toyour car, uh, the janitor walks
up to you and says do you wantto know a secret?
And he opens up that little mapand he takes out a pen and he
marks a little spot there, ifyou drive to that spot, and you
get out and look, that's the onespot where you can see the
(28:50):
entire Grand Canyon in all itsglory.
It doesn't mean that all theseother spots aren't great and
they have wonderful perspectives, but there's only one spot
where you can see the wholething.
So go there, so the you getback in your car, you drive to
that one spot, you get out andthere are people mulling around
there and you look out and youjust see everything.
(29:13):
That is the Lutheran perspectivein Lutheran denominations today
.
Though and I'm not picking outany one, it's all of them, those
other people mulling around atthat lookout point.
(29:33):
They're all staring at theirfeet.
They're all enamored with theplace from which they're looking
rather than looking out at thesplendor of the entire classical
Christian tradition.
This is what the Lutheranperspective brings.
It presents the Christianmessage in all of its glory and
splendor, but we all spend toomuch time staring at our feet
(29:58):
rather than looking out at theglory in front of us.
That's the great thing aboutthe Lutheran perspective and the
fundamental problem with mostLutheran denominational bodies
today.
All of them, I'm not pickingout any one of them.
We are so enamored with havingthe best position that we spend
(30:19):
all our time staring at our feet.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Well, I kind of agree , and let's take it out.
The message is in the hand of asower.
the seed is meant to be the seedof the gospel save your faith
through the life, death,resurrection, ascension work of
Jesus, his love, how deeplyloved we are and how we're
reminded of that love throughthe cross, through our baptism,
(30:42):
and that we're reminded of theforgiveness of sins through the
Lord's Supper, and that wedeeply love the Word of God.
And we take the Word of Godvery, very, very seriously today
.
And we have some wonderfulhandles for understanding the
Word of God law, gospel,saint-sinner, two kinds of
righteousness from Luther, Imean all sorts of wonderful
(31:04):
theological principles that Ithink we ought to share with the
wider evangelical world,Catholic world.
It's very, very helpful.
I get to be the chaplain at akind of interdenominational
school, gilbert Christian HighSchool, for our football team.
And a little side note, I'venever been invited to speak at
their chapel because they thinkI'm going to talk about infant
(31:26):
baptism or something like that,which I may if the scripture is
talking about it.
But anyway, I've never beeninvited to chapel.
But I get to do the weeklydevotional for the young man and
I'll tell you what.
It's kind of covert Lutheranism.
It's just like oh, how shouldwe understand this?
Well, this is the law, this isthe gospel.
It's super, super fun.
All right, I wanted to get.
(31:46):
Let's shift gears here a littlebit.
Could hang there for the restof our time.
We've got about 30 minutes.
I wanted to give you theopportunity to share about your
Lilly Grants and some of yourwork in church revitalization.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
So tell us about your pursuit of two wonderful Lilly
Grants for ILT.
Well, sure, well, almost a yearago, we began developing two
distinct proposals for Lillygrants.
The first one was a conceptpaper for the Lilly Foundation
on developing a large scalecollaboration grant for a Center
for CongregationalRevitalization.
The idea was to create anentity that could work with a
variety of other bodies andbring them together, each
carrying part of the solutionfor struggling congregations,
and that ILT and itsundergraduate college, christ
College, and its graduate school, the Christ School of Theology,
(32:47):
would provide educationopportunities, opportunities to
equip lay leaders and pastorsfor a variety of contexts, while
providing a whole assortment ofservices with other
organizations who will help workwith congregations to build a
strong network of congregationssupporting one another,
(33:10):
encouraging one another, holdingone another accountable and
helping them identify forthemselves what are the issues
that they are confronting andhow to most effectively address
them.
Confronting and how to mosteffectively address them.
And then, at the same time, weapplied for an individual
implementation grant with Lillythat would allow us to pursue
(33:34):
specifically the the elements ofthis very large project that
ILT itself would be taking on.
Now what I can tell you is thatthe first grant, which is the
(33:55):
most difficult grant to receivefrom Lilly.
It's the most challenging.
We weren't invited in the endto pursue the formal proposal
and I haven't heard back yet onthe second grant, so that's
still out there.
But here's the thing whether weget the grant or not and this
is something a lot of peopledon't understand the vast
(34:18):
majority of grant proposals yousubmit will fail always.
If you receive one in every 10grants that you submit for,
you're considered an incrediblysuccessful grant writing
operation.
You will, in fact.
Success is found most often inhow you fail in grant writing,
(34:41):
and for us, this process allowedus to take what were some
theoretical ideas that DrBielfeld and I and a few members
of our board were playingaround with, and it forced us to
get serious and say how wouldwe actually make this happen?
(35:01):
Let's put a plan that couldactually work.
Now, whether we get the grantsor not is far less relevant,
because we've done the work andwe now have a plan that could
actually work, that could havereal impacts in congregations.
So we're not waiting around.
We know the Lord.
(35:23):
He put this together, so he'sgoing to provide the means one
way or another, you know, and itmight be through some grant.
We're undertaking a full yearof grant writing this year to
support the work that we'retaking on.
We're not stopping.
But it may not just be thatWe've got board members who are
(35:44):
coming in saying you know, I'mnot waiting, I'm cutting a
significant check.
We've got other larger donorswho are looking at supporting
this.
There may be people listeningtoday who are going yeah, I need
to be a part of what they'redoing.
I'm going to come and supportit.
We don't know.
All we know is that the Lordhas given this piece to us and
(36:07):
we're going to move forward withit.
And as we have continued to dothat work, we have met with many
different passionateindividuals who want to be part
of this work, including you guysthere.
You guys there, you have beendoing some phenomenal work on
(36:30):
your own with Unite LeadershipCollective and we have just had
so many other partners that wantto come out and be a part of
this, groups like Church DoctorMinistries, the Merrill Center,
the League of Rural Churches,dirt Roads Network, pastoral
Leadership Institute.
We've had large congregations.
There's the Shepherd of theDesert out in Scottsdale,
(36:51):
lutheran Church of the Master inOmaha.
We've got the Center forMissional and Pastoral
Leadership, the Center forWesleyan Studies.
We've just had all of thesegroups who say, yeah, we've got
to do this and we want to be apart of it.
Groups who say, yeah, we've gotto do this and we want to be a
part of it, and so we can't waitfor someone to just write us a
million dollar check.
We have to be good stewards ofwhat God has given us now and
(37:13):
trust that he will provide themeans.
So it's been just a phenomenalexperience.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Yeah, so fun.
Love your passion for it.
So let's get into the detailsin revitalization.
Tell us about the Center forCongregational Revitalization
and how does it serve as a typeof clearinghouse for the
Institute for Lutheran Theology?
Ilt work for churchrevitalization.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
I actually really like that name is to equip and
connect congregations forforward movement, guiding them
to face current realities withcourage, renew their spiritual
(37:55):
and missional vitality andmultiply disciples who impact
their communities with thegospel in the context of their
unique denominational identity.
We've got Tim has five coreobjectives.
Number one is to face the factswith faith.
(38:17):
If you are in a strugglingcongregation, well, there's
reasons for that.
There are reasons that thingsthat are going on in your
congregation and in yourcommunity that's got you in the
position you're in.
You've got to face those.
You've got to deal with them.
You've got to honestly assessthe spiritual health of your
community and of yourcongregation and the leadership
(38:38):
capacity that you have.
You need to face the brutalfacts in a safe environment.
We want to do that.
We want to help build asustainable outreach where we
can equip churches with thetools and training for engaging
their local communities inculturally relevant,
(38:58):
gospel-centered ways.
We want to help developcommunity profiles and mission
field maps to focus outreachefforts where they'll do the
most good.
We want to share proven modelsand have congregations network
together to share proven modelsof outreach with one another.
(39:19):
We want to help renewcongregational life.
We want to providerevitalization roadmaps tailored
to each congregation's context.
We want to help them strengthentheir worship life, their
leadership, health and theirmember engagement.
We want to encourage spiritualrenewal through prayer, through
catechesis and throughmission-focused preaching.
(39:41):
We want to work withcongregations to multiply their
disciples and their leaders.
We want to do this by helpingthem train leaders to lead small
groups, to teach the faith andprovide pastoral care wherever
it's needed.
We want to be able to fosterthriving networks between
congregations and we want tohelp them measure and share the
(40:05):
impact within theircongregations and all across
North America.
So well, I mean, hey, this isthat's the organizational pieces
.
So it's just, it's an exciting.
It's an exciting thing to be apart of.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Yeah, so you?
You say it's grounded in thefourth chapter of Ephesians.
Yes, and are we talking theapest model here?
Are you into apostle, prophet,evangelist, shepherd, teacher?
Speaker 3 (40:31):
I absolutely am, but it goes beyond that.
It goes beyond that becausewhen a lot of people, when they
focus on the apest, they takeverses 11 and 12 and they put in
isolation of everything else orthey take it out of its context
.
It's incredibly important.
But the key piece to understandwhen we look at the fourth
(40:52):
chapter of Ephesians is we arededicated to equipping
congregations to grow and act asone whole body and to send that
body, joined, into thecommunity, to speak the truth in
love and build itself up inthat love by joining new members
(41:13):
onto it.
Here's the when we, when you'relooking at the APEST, if you
will, those four critical roles.
What most people are so focusedon is the apest and most of
them lose sight of what, in manyways, is the most critical word
(41:36):
in that passage.
It's actually translated inmost English translations today
as equip.
Problem is it doesn't meanequip.
Okay, the he and he gave theapostles, the prophets, the
evangelists, the shepherds andteachers to equip the saints for
the work of ministry, for thebuilding up of the body of
(41:58):
christ.
That word equip doesn't occuranywhere else in all of
scripture.
The word is catartismon and theclosest word you'll find to it
in Scripture is in the Gospel ofMatthew, where the disciples
are sitting beside the shore ofGalilee mending their nets.
But if you look outside ofScripture, it's actually a very
(42:22):
common word in ancient Greek.
It is used most commonly inmedical texts, which is
interesting because Ephesians 4,what is it dealing with?
The body.
That word, kathartismon, is theword that is used to describe
the setting and splinting of abroken bone, so the bone can
(42:45):
knit together, of a broken bone,so the bone can knit together.
So if we were to simplytranslate that word literally,
then it says and he gave theapostles, the prophets, the
evangelists, the shepherds andteachers to knit together as one
the saints for the work ofministry.
And what's that work ofministry?
(43:06):
For the building up of the bodyof Christ.
It's taking this saint here andthis saint here and not making
them super saints or not,setting specific people aside
and everyone else just kinds ofmulls around and does it.
No, it's about knitting themtogether as one and then that
one united body goes out intotheir community to bring Jesus
(43:29):
Christ to them.
I mean, the roles are criticalfor that, but it's that one key
concept that's essential to thewhole thing.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Well, yeah, in an American culture where we're so,
I think people read that andthey think it's to equip me.
Pastor, come and serve me,equip me like help me find my
own spiritual gifts and stuff.
And I guess you know it is foryou individually but it never
stays for you, it's for us.
You know we are so hyperindividualistic.
(44:00):
Scriptures written in a waythat out in that communal world
I can't, I have no concept ofmyself as an island unto myself.
I only know myself based on myunique gifts that add to the
health of the entire body.
And obviously 1 Corinthians 12and Romans, chapter 12, paul
doubles down on the need for thebody of Christ to move together
as one.
Where would I be apart from thehands of the faith, etc.
(44:23):
Like we have to have all partsof the body working together and
is not necessarily, it feels,like for Jesus or for the
Apostle.
Paul is like a pipe dream, butwe know you're going to be
divided because you're sinful.
No, like this is the number oneway that we bring the witness
and love of Christ out into theworld.
Look at how they love oneanother.
Yes, this has been one of my bigkind of soapboxes, I guess for
(44:45):
a while kind of soapboxes, Iguess for a while if we can't
handle our own stuff and our owndenominations and between
denominations and disagreeagreeably, if we don't have the
character and love of Christthat confronts and challenges
sin and with a heart that leadsto repentance and love and unity
for the sake of the mission ofGod, if we can't start with,
like, the basics.
This is just in baseball termswe learn how to hit, we learn
(45:07):
how to field and catch, like, ifwe don't understand the basics,
we're not going to win, and theHoly Spirit wants us that.
We need to win more people.
That's the ultimate call.
God wants all to be saved andcome to a knowledge of him.
So, yeah, let's, let's work atand I love that we're, we need
to be broken together, together.
It's a beautiful image becausein my brokenness this is the way
(45:27):
of the cross, just to kind of,in my brokenness, in my
suffering, in my sorrow, in mywant, in my need, even in my sin
, recognizing that then I cometogether with other broken
sinners, united to bring people,the only one who can make them
whole, and that's Jesus, thecrucified and risen one.
Speaker 3 (45:43):
That's the key, because nobody, no person, not a
pastor, not at the head of adenomination, no person has the
answer.
The only one who has the answeris Jesus Christ himself, into
who is the head and we're togrow into him.
And as Ephesians 4, 7 says butgrace was given to each one
(46:04):
according to the measure ofChrist's gift.
None of us has the whole thing.
We've each been given graceaccording to the measure of
Christ's gift in us, and it isonly when we unite together as
the body of Christ, with Christas the head, that we can serve
(46:27):
as we are called to serve.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Yeah, so good.
So since you've been down thispath of revitalization for a
while, I have some thoughts.
What are some of the main needsof congregations that are
looking at revitalizing?
In the LCMS we've got themajority of our congregations
worship around 50 or less, youknow, and I think in many
mainline denominations and inmany different Lutheran
(46:50):
denominations I bet the statsare similar.
So what are some of those needstop three needs or so of
churches in need ofrevitalization David.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
Okay, okay, you know what I can tell you.
All kinds of things they shoulddo, and people have been trying
to say that tell people andthey're typically people from
the ivory tower telling thefolks in that little Italy rural
congregation, at micro church.
This is what you should do andyou will be great.
(47:19):
And you know what's true aboutall of them.
They're wrong, because theanswer isn't what we think it is
.
We think that we can come inwith a solution and we'll fix
the problem, and if you justfollow our patented eight steps,
you will be no.
No, you wanna know what thethree most important things are
(47:41):
that churches need?
We'd love to hear that.
Number one.
Number one we need to walk in amanner worthy of the calling to
which we have been called.
Ephesians 4.1.
That's what we are called.
That's what we're called to do.
We must, together, walk in amanner worthy of the calling to
(48:01):
which we are called in ourcommunity.
What is that?
We need to walk with allhumility and gentleness, with
patience, bearing with oneanother in love, eager to
maintain the unity of the spiritin the bond of peace.
This is what we have to do.
What's God's chosen means forus to do that?
(48:22):
That's number two.
Well, we were just talkingabout that.
And he gave the apostles, theprophets, the evangelists, the
shepherds and teachers to knittogether the saints for the work
of ministry, for the buildingup of the body of Christ, until
we all attain to the unity offaith and the knowledge of the
son of God.
That's number two.
(48:43):
Number three what's the purpose?
What's the purpose for all ofthis?
Ready Rather, speaking thetruth in love, we are to grow up
in every way into him.
Who is the head, into Christ,from whom the whole body, joined
and held together by everyjoint with which it is equipped,
(49:06):
when each part is workingproperly, makes the body grow so
that it builds itself up inlove.
It says it right there.
It's not rocket science.
There's no special person who'sgoing to have the answer.
The answer is given to all ofus in his word.
That's it.
Now, are there things that canbe done to help a congregation
(49:30):
make use of fulfilling its roleas body?
Well, sure, sure, but if youdon't have this, the rest of it
doesn't matter, because we don'trevitalize congregations.
You want to know what thevitality of a congregation is.
It's not in the number ofpeople in the parish.
I don't care if it's five or5,000.
(49:52):
A church can be equally dead.
It has nothing to do with that.
I don't care how much money isin the plate, I don't care if
it's five cents or five milliondollars.
That is not an indicator of thevitality of the congregation.
It is in one thing and onething only.
It is in the Holy Spirit thatenlivens, that propels us out to
(50:14):
live and act as the body ofChrist in our community.
Remember, remember, I can, Ican remember a dinner where
there were only 13 peoplesitting around a table and they
changed the world.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
Facts that he's talking about the Lord's Supper.
If you miss out, that's so good, david.
Well, I couldn't agree more,man.
It was about because I wasabout a revitalization work here
and there was never one silverbullet outside of Jesus and love
, yes, listening to one another,weeping with those who weep.
(50:46):
There were tears of past hurtsand loss and trust that needed
to be rekindled.
And then there was hope,something that felt like a new
day.
The place we're at doesn't haveto be the place we always are.
We don't have to be stuck, andhere's why the Holy Spirit is
here and we get to play a smallpart in God's big mission to go
(51:09):
reach and save people, young andold, and he's given us his
means, obviously word andsacraments and each other and
the gifts that we have, and solet's embrace the adventure of
going on this wonderful journeywith Jesus as our head.
There's not much else.
We teach at the ULC, a lot ofdifferent tactics and principles
(51:29):
and strategies and things likethat, but those tactics and
strategies, they're constantlyevolving.
You can't be any one of thosethings.
Right, it's got to be keepingJesus at the center and love at
the center Can.
Speaker 3 (51:40):
I tell you a little story.
This totally changed the way Iunderstand the life in a
congregation and what ministrywas, and it was my first
deathbed visit, and a lot ofpeople don't believe me when I
tell them this.
By my nature, I am an extremeintrovert, ok, bordering on
(52:04):
agoraphobia.
My nature is to be terrified tobe around other people, ok.
And so as such, visitation hasalways been incredibly difficult
for me.
But my first deathbed visit Igot a call two in the morning.
A member of the congregationwas in a nursing home, had a
heart attack, was being rushedto the hospital and was not not
(52:24):
going to make it hospital andwas not going to make it.
And I get in the car and I'mheaded out to the hospital and
all of a sudden I have to pullover.
I'm so terrified that I'mgetting violently ill on the
side of the road and I closedthe door and I'm sitting there
and I heard I kid you not Iheard a voice say drive, that's
(52:49):
all it said drive.
And so I drove and I foundmyself at the emergency room
door and I heard that voice sayget out.
So I got out and my legs werelike lead.
I couldn't move.
And the voice said walk.
Voice said walk.
(53:14):
And I began to walk and step bystep by step, and all of a
sudden it wasn't me anymore.
There was someone else at workand it was Jesus Christ.
And it was the most incredibleprivilege of my life to watch
Jesus minister to that family inthat time of need, and it has
never left me.
Pastors don't do the work ofministry.
Neither does anyone in thecongregation.
(53:35):
The work is done by JesusChrist himself, and anyone who
thinks that's a metaphor doesn'tknow what they're talking about
.
I don't care how many peopleare in that congregation,
because it says wherever two ormore are gathered in my name,
I'm there with them.
That's not a metaphor, that'snot some sort of image.
(53:56):
That's the truth.
And who could?
Who among us would think thatJesus couldn't do it?
He can do whatever he wants todo, and if he wants to change
the world with two people, he'sgoing to change the world with
two people.
And for congregations tounderstand that and to realize
that when they are serving, asGod has given them that little
(54:19):
thing that he's equipped themwith, he will do incredible
things.
All they have to do is comealong with him, because he's the
one who's doing it.
He's the one who's there.
Speaker 2 (54:29):
Hey, david, this has been such a joy.
I think we're just going toland it right there.
I got other things, we'll haveyou back.
We can talk about other things,but your love and your
sacrificial servant heart to sayhere am I send me and we didn't
, we didn't?
You mentioned your disabilityand things like that.
The Lord uses it all, doesn'the?
(54:51):
And and you're, you're a brightlight and praying for the work
of ILT, the Center for MissionalPastoral Leadership.
We have people want to connectwith you, david, and your
ministry.
How can they do so?
Speaker 3 (55:04):
If they want to reach out to me, just they can give
me an email me at dpatterson, atIOT, dot.
Edu and if they're interestedin taking some classes with us,
I'll connect them to all thepeople they need to talk to.
I'm happy to talk with themabout anything we're doing that
(55:26):
way.
If they'd like to learn moreabout momentum and our work
there, I'm happy to talk withthem about that.
If they just want to talk withsomeone and pray with someone,
it doesn't matter, I'm here forthem.
Whatever they need, I'm herefor them.
Speaker 2 (55:41):
I love it.
This is lead time.
Please like and subscribe, ifyou would do me the favor and
send this to a friend who needssome encouragement and maybe I'm
going to listen to some of yourstuff.
But then when you go on thepastoral formation stuff and
education stuff, I'm going tomaybe skip that because you're
like, but then move to the finallike 20 minutes of this
conversation, deep work in theword, connected to Ephesians,
(56:02):
chapter four.
It was a lot of fun.
I'm going to take a quip.
Doesn't necessarily just meandiscipleship one on one.
It means being broken andbinded back together by by Jesus
himself as the united body ofChrist.
It was so good.
It's a good day.
Go make it a great day.
We'll be back next week withanother fresh episode of Lead
Time.
Thanks so much, reverend DavidPatterson.
(56:23):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (56:25):
You've been listening to Lead Time, a podcast of the
Unite Leadership Collective.
The ULC's mission is tocollaborate with the local
church to discover, develop anddeploy leaders through biblical
Lutheran doctrine and innovativemethods To partner with us in
this gospel message.
Subscribe to our channel, thengo to theuniteleadershiporg to
create your free login forexclusive material and resources
(56:47):
and then to explore ways inwhich you can sponsor an episode
.
Thanks for listening and staytuned for next.
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