July 16, 2025 • 51 mins
What if the greatest untapped mission field in the LCMS isn’t overseas—but in your preschool?
Dr. Douglas Krengel joins Pastor Tim to reveal jaw-dropping findings from his LCMS-wide research on early childhood ministries—and the shocking disconnect between pastors and preschool directors. With over 76,000 kids in LCMS early learning centers and most pastors having zero training in early childhood education, are we missing the Reformation right under our noses?
They dive deep into:
The controversial "homophily effect" that divides our churches
Why many pastors still view early childhood ministry as “women’s work”
How we’re failing to speak the #1 mission language today: Modern Mom
The domino effect a thriving pastor-director relationship can unleash
This episode pulls no punches. It’s time for LCMS leaders to wake up—and start learning from the very people we’ve overlooked.
👉 Like, share, and comment to move the mission forward.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the Tim Allman Podcast.
It's a beautiful day to bealive, pray, the joy of Jesus is
with you, that you're gettingyour water in, that you're
moving your body it is a templeof the Holy Spirit and that
you're buckled up.
Maybe you're in your car andready to interact and learn.
Today it's a great day to learn.
I get to learn today with DrDouglas Andrew Kringle.
(00:25):
He is an organizationalleadership guru guy.
He designed and carried out amixed methods research project
with Dr Shirley Morgenthaler incooperation with the Texas
District in the LCMS.
He's served as a guestinstructor at Concordia Seminary
.
He's taught a lot of classeslike teaching the faith at
(00:45):
Concordia Seminary.
He's taught a lot of classeslike teaching the faith.
He's been a part of the SMPprogram training pastors and has
been an online instructor in avariety of different
organizations, but today he'sbeen a manager of a large staff
and today I'm just going to lethim tell his kind of ministry
story.
There's a lot for Dr Kringle toshare, and so I'm going to let
(01:05):
you kind of lead us where we'regoing today as we get into your
research, really, really excitedabout this.
How are you doing, though, drKringle?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Doing very well, pastor Allman.
Thank you, tim, for having meon your show.
It was a blessing to have youon our show on Engaging Truth
earlier in the year and thankyou for this opportunity.
I believe both of us were atBest Practices Ministry
Conference in Phoenix this lastyear.
It was a great conference.
It really helped me frame someof my research that I have done
(01:33):
Well.
I finished the research in 2019.
One of the books was this bookby Joseph Barron, the Ends of
the Lutheran Church, missouriSynod, and he was kind enough to
allow me a signed copy and readover the book.
I think it's a really helpfulbook and kind of wakes us up to
see where we're at.
There were a number of things atBest Practices Ministry
(01:55):
Conference that were, I wouldsay, a waving of the hand, a
signaling that we really need toengage.
I would like to think that myresearch was engaging in that
topic six years ago.
So the ideas I would put it ishow can we thrive?
What do we have?
What are the resources we dohave?
I know President David Davishere in the Michigan District of
(02:17):
the Lutheran Church MissouriSenate.
He just put out a really nicesmall essay asking the same
thing.
Let's look at what we do have.
So what is that guy's name onTV?
Bear Grimm, is it?
He's a survivalist.
You know this guy, bear Grills.
Push him out of an airplane, heparachutes into some desert
somewhere, and it's always thesame deal.
(02:38):
He looks around for water,shelter, so forth.
He's looking at the resourceshe has.
He's not saying man, am I in aterrible state?
So I would invite us to reframeour conversation today about
let's look at what we do have.
What are we deeply blessed with?
And that's what brings me toearly childhood education and
(02:58):
care in the Lutheran ChurchMissouri Synod, because we have
thousands, well over a thousand.
Let me see what the number is1,714 early childhood centers
across 6,000 congregations, andthis is either the largest
branch of early Christianeducation or Lutheran education,
(03:18):
both, or it's close to it.
The numbers vary year to year.
Close to it, the numbers varyyear to year.
For some reason I can't findthe numbers for the year 2022-23
.
There's a missing set.
But the year 2021-22, therewere 76,800 early childhood
students, and that's incomparison with elementary
(03:39):
school, which was 67,977.
Both are excellent, wonderfulministries.
We're thankful for educationand we have a great legacy.
So what if this is the case.
So here's the Lutheran ChurchMissouri Senate and here's the
rest of the world.
Where does this happen?
And let's find out where thathappens.
(04:00):
My educated guess is it happensin early childhood education
and care, most in the LutheranChurch Missouri Senate, and
that's why we should start therefor our conversation.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Hey, I love it.
Well, we're going to get there.
What did you like about theends of the LCMS by Joe Barron?
He was a vicar of mine.
He was at Christ Greenfield wayback in the day about a decade
ago or so.
So any two or three points thatJoe kind of brought out before
we get into your research.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
First of all, he's an economist.
He loves his statistics.
He's showing mathematicallywhere we're at.
I think that objectiveperspective was very helpful.
I was hoping to do the same inmy research in my own way.
But also, the end of the bookis not at all about the end of
the LCMS.
It's all about thriving, it'sall about revitalization.
And while the title was catchy,it might be maybe there should
(04:47):
have been two books, one for thefirst half and one for the
second, because he certainlydoes engage in what can we do as
we with the resources we have.
So that's, and his presentation, his live presentation, was
excellent.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
He's a great dude.
I love Joe.
He's like a third cousin ofmine.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah, well, he used the example of having.
He shares it in the book, so Iguess it's okay to talk about.
He has arthritis.
This was how do I cope withwhat I have?
And he used that as a model forus as a church body and maybe
it could apply to otherdenominations too.
(05:28):
But our church body, theLutheran Church Missouri Synod,
may have some arthritis.
And how should we go aboutstill serving the Lord even
though we have these limitations?
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Well, let's be honest here, Doug.
I mean, our greatest asset areour people.
It's not the buildings, it'sthe people and the people sent
on mission to reach more peoplewith the gospel.
This is our ultimate call and,I agree with you, one of the
best.
And there may have been a pastornow 17 years and maybe there
was a season where I was lessthan intentional about engaging
(06:02):
the families who don't have achurch home connected to our
early learning centers.
We know there's well over 50%of the families in our school.
We're serving about 150students in our early learning
center, coupled with about 300,over 300 in our K-8.
But the mission field isexponential there and we're
(06:23):
seeing with the power ofinvitation for these young
families.
They would love a widercommunity and if they're
entrusting their kids to you,maybe they would entrust
themselves to you through wordand sacrament coming to worship.
So we're seeing a lot of youngfamilies now with a lot of
intention and invitation.
We're not a weird group ofpeople.
We just gather consistently tohear the goodness of God, his
(06:44):
love for us, receive His bodyand blood.
If you've not been baptized,please be baptized.
And so partnering why wouldpastors not want to partner with
the early learning it makes somuch sense.
It is the lowest hanging fruit,I would say, for our missional
opportunities in the LCMS, to besure.
So what did you find in termsof pastor and preschool director
(07:04):
relationship?
What was your hypothesis?
What did you find?
Let's go into that, okay.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
So, we have what's called a dyad relationship
between two people in manycircumstances and, using the
Lutheran Church Missouri Synodtheological categories of
minister, ordained, ministered,commission, many times the
pastor has some oversight of theoverall ministry.
Now this would put him insomewhat of a hierarchical
(07:31):
position.
I'm not saying that's the best,I'm just saying that it's often
the case.
So we used a research tool fromorganizational leadership
called Leader Member ExchangeTheory.
Leader Member Exchange Theoryis not new.
You can find the Oxford book onleader-member exchange theory.
The Academy of Management is abig purveyor of that in our
(07:53):
country.
So, applying that, we wouldhave the pastor as kind of the
leader and he has a member witha preschool director.
Now this, what we would call avertical relationship or
hierarchical, is one of thedescriptors for this diet, but
it's also most often mixedgendered and it's also often
(08:16):
what's called asymmetrical.
So we were studying non-randompairings.
I did not create these pairingsin the lab.
These are found in theirnatural environment, if you will
.
These were in Texas.
We surveyed all the pastorsthat had a preschool director
and surveyed all the matchingpreschool directors and then
also interviewedpastor-preschool director pairs
(08:38):
independent of each other.
That's where this informationis coming from.
There's a huge lack of research.
There's a paucity of researchin anything to do with church
and preschool, even though it'sthis great connectivity.
So what did we find?
We found that pastors reallydon't understand the early
childhood ministry.
There's very, very, extremelylittle pastoral education when
(09:01):
it comes to what I callfoundational education or
educare, a combination ofeducation and care, and then
this is reciprocally.
The early childhood directorsrarely have a master's degree in
theology from ConcordiaSeminary or something like that.
So because of this, what we callpersonal demography, they miss
(09:22):
each other.
They're not like each other.
So the technical term for thisis the homophily effect.
The homophily effect sayspeople who are like each other,
like each other.
Let me repeat it People who arelike each other, like each
other.
If I here I'm going to be 60here in May I was with another
(09:43):
gentleman my age, my ethnicity,with my educational background,
if you were a betting man, morethan likely I would form a high
quality relationship with thatindividual than someone who's
very disliked me when it comesto personal demography.
So the research shows fromcorporate world this can be
(10:03):
overcome.
People who are extremelydifferent can overcome if we
stop focusing on the surfacelevel similarity and we get into
what's called deep levelsimilarity.
For me, deep level similarityis we're here to save souls with
the gospel of Jesus Christ,that everyone might enjoy heaven
eternally by grace throughfaith in Jesus.
(10:25):
That's our deep levelsimilarity.
If we can focus on that, thenwe can overcome this homophily
effect.
So when it comes to a directorand a preschool director and a
pastor, they have very differentsurface level demography.
They're not like each other andthis, I believe, is a holding
back, kind of like a beaver dam,if you will.
(10:47):
It's stopping up but God meansfor us to have as a great
blessing.
So if we could engage withleader-member exchange and do
this very purposefully, we canovercome the homophily effect.
We can have high-qualityprofessional relationships which
in turn will engage thechurches and the preschools,
(11:07):
which in turn will have a dominoeffect through the Senate and
preferably for many people tohear the gospel.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Doug, this is great man.
I'm so excited you got my mindgoing in so many different
directions.
Let's go in the Jesus direction.
I mean, this is what Jesus did.
He came and moved past surfacelevel similarities based on the
law.
I'm thinking of Jesus'interaction with the Pharisees.
And why aren't your discipleswashing hands?
(11:36):
You know, like everyone else.
Well, we have this oraltradition.
We've developed a surface level, but Jesus is going deep.
Jesus is always going to theheart level.
He knows the heart and he wasable to because he knows the
heart that our hearts are filledwith sin, our hearts are hard,
our hearts are filled withunbelief.
We need a brand new heart.
We need faith in something thatis higher, or you could say
(11:59):
even more foundational for allof sin and falling short of the
glory of God.
And I'm coming for not just Jew.
This was the big Jewish problemin the Old Testament.
They forgot their ultimatemission.
They were sent to the nations.
They were not just to findpeople who are just like them.
They were to go after the pagan, the least, the lost, the
lonely, the outsider, and bringthem near.
And we see that modeled sobeautifully in the life story of
(12:20):
Jesus.
Why are you chatting with thatwoman at that.
Well, man, that's what thedisciples say in John 4.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
His father wasn't traveling Aramean, right?
Yeah, that way back.
Abraham wasn't from Judea,that's it.
He was from Ur, the Chaldees.
Right, he was the pagan,exactly.
Could it be?
This is a dunkringalism, atheory that the reason why
Israel is where Israel is isbecause it's the only place on
(12:49):
the face of the earth thatconnects three continents?
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Oh yes, I think that's why, If that's the case,
then it's an illustration.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
The geography is an illustration of God's desire,
his heart for all peopleeverywhere, of God's desire, his
heart for all people everywhere.
He does not want the homophilyeffect to stop up the church to
back us up and I believe if wecould activate this one
professional relationship, thepastor-director relationship, we
would engage.
The number one thing that'sblocking us, which is not
(13:20):
outside statistics For usresearch types, we call that
exogenous data.
Exogenous data is data outsideof our organization, For example
, birth rate.
We've heard about birth rate.
The birth rate in our currentchurch as it stands today is
lower than it was Now.
This is what disturbs me aboutthat is that it stops there and
(13:41):
no one says there's an exogenousstatistic, an endogenous, which
is inside the organization.
There are things inside theorganization that are in our
care that we can address thatwould also affect this, despite
the fact that some of thisoutside statistics are the way
they are.
So this very much disturbs mebecause it sounds like victim
(14:02):
mentality to me Sounds like oh,earth rates down, throw up our
hands, you know, just can'tserve the Lord anymore.
This is not what I think peoplemean to say.
It's certainly not the casebecause we can address these
endogenous issues.
The number one endogenous issueinternal to our organization
that's stopping up, this beingmultiplied, is pastors relating
(14:27):
to preschool directors.
If this could be addressed andwe can form high quality
professional relationships, thenI do think we would free up a
domino effect.
You noted that we have a lot ofchildren in our care.
We also have a lot of workersin our care.
I know in my past we've had 36,40 employees, not everyone a
committed follower of Christ.
(14:48):
I'm afraid Some needed peopleon our payroll.
Now, if you have 1,714 of theseplaces, I bet you there's at
least 1,714 souls who are beingpaid by our church to be an
early childhood teacher aid andthey need to know Christ.
So why isn't there somesociological things?
(15:12):
You mentioned earlier, ofcourse, the theological, the sin
.
Now, if you're coming to theconversation, you're not a big
believer in sin.
You don't know that realityfrom the Bible, because the
biblical reality is verydifferent than our world's
reality, right?
So we believe.
There's a God, there'stemptation, there's sin, there's
a conscience, there'srepentance, there's forgiveness,
(15:34):
there's salvation.
Christ died on the cross,Christ rose, he ascends and
reigns.
This reality is not shared withthe world in which we live.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
So that's a large thing to overcome, but if we can
have high quality professionalrelationships especially think
of a Russian doll and Russiandoll, remember those dolls.
You have the teeny bitty doll,then another one, another, one,
another one, so that certainlyour relationship with the Lord
Jesus Christ is at the core ofthe core of the church.
Now, as far as sociologicallyor organizational management
(16:06):
type of thing, what twoprofessionals could we affect in
a positive manner to energizethe church?
And this is this professionalrelationship between the pastor
and the director.
They're both paid professionals, and if that relationship,
though, gets stuck or isn'tmaturing or they just ignore
each other, then I'm afraid theorganizations they represent,
(16:28):
the sub parts of the church, thepreschool, they don't work as
well as they could.
So this has been brought out byother researchers that when we
were at our, we were well over2000 early childhood centers
just in our church body.
We were well over 2,000 earlychildhood centers just in our
church body, and now it'sdeclined by 500.
(16:48):
Different centers have closedsince its peak.
This should not be able tocontinue.
We need to engage verypurposefully.
The larger context, if I may, isa church, is a world that has
been affected by somethingcalled the rights of the child.
This came out from the UnitedNations back in 89, and it says
(17:14):
that all children in the worldhave the right to education,
including early learners.
We're talking about the kind ofkids in our preschools.
And all the nations of theworld at the United Nations, I
think have received this, butAmerica America has not United
States of America.
So the places that took thatseriously, like England,
australia, the Czech Republicthey redid their entire
(17:34):
educational system, the way theyeducated educators in order to
highly esteem early childhood.
Now we're seeing a little bitof this in North Carolina and
Oklahoma esteem early childhood.
Now we're seeing a little bitof this in North Carolina and
Oklahoma.
They're having where allchildren of younger age have
early childhood available.
President Obama he had a heartfor this had billions of dollars
(17:58):
he wanted to set aside.
I don't think it actually everhappened, but it was intended.
Here in the church, though,while we do want good things for
all children, we want literacy,we want numeracy for everybody,
we would like them to know ourLord and Savior, jesus Christ,
and if we continue by allowingthe pastor and the director not
to get along so well most of thetime, many times and we let
(18:18):
this huge investment of thechurch not be fully thriving,
then we'll lose this opportunityto share the gospel with the
earliest children, the childrenwhose minds are most wide open.
That's why here we have themost recent reporter.
I have a big article in hereabout higher education.
(18:38):
If you go back to the back page, here's the early childhood.
I think the early childhoodshould be on the front page.
It's the highest level ofeducation and it's also the base
of the pyramid.
Right that we learned.
First, we were at one placetaking care of children 18
months old, at one place sixmonths old.
(19:00):
So the biology of it is theneurological system.
You can read this man's book.
I'm not commending it to you,I'm just noting it.
This is his Robert Sapolsky.
Did I say it right?
This is his word determined.
He's a top notch professor atStanford.
(19:21):
What he does for a living is hestudies monkey brains.
Now he has another book calledBehave, and between the two
books, behave and Determined, wehave a whole theory of how
people develop.
He has nothing to do with theBible, completely rejects that.
It's all predetermined by genesand by environment.
But even he will say this, thatif you want to know.
(19:43):
The number one thing that willaffect a child in their
development it is mom.
Does mom want the child?
Does mom, is she happy thatthat child even exists?
So I think that actually undoessome of his theory and is
saying there's more to life herethan just genes and environment
.
There is what I would call God.
(20:06):
God intervenes, there'ssomething supernatural in the
development of human beings.
This is how God's made us.
So one of the realities is thatwe have a conscience.
We're born with a conscienceand we have a soul, and this is
very important.
What would happen if the worldis scrubbed of early childhood
development centers who have aconnection with the Bible?
(20:28):
Not good, and so perhaps I'mover exaggerating, but maybe not
helping us move againsttribalism in the LCMS.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
I've been talking about this for some time and
your homophilies theory isHomophily effect.
I thought homophily first timeI've heard that, but it's so
true.
Like attracts like.
And Jesus came to move usbeyond liking to loving the
other, the different, the leastof the lost, the lonely.
Whatever you've done for thelittlest and least of these, my
(21:07):
brothers, you've done unto me.
And women and children in theNew Testament had very little to
no social status, no socialstanding, and yet Jesus welcomed
them.
You couldn't be much other thanthe pagan, the woman or the
small child.
And today, I think in the LCMS,pastors like to be around,
(21:28):
pastors that agree on just abouteverything, especially the
liturgy.
And we need to agree thereneeds to be order.
But does that order that hasfound this is?
It's passive faith Like, whatdo you have that you did not
receive?
So there's no grounds here.
The Apostle Paul says forarrogance, for hubris, for pride
(21:48):
, that I've found now myappropriate tribe Right.
And then I justify myself-righteousness based on the
people that I associate with,and that's an ever increasingly
small circle of people.
And frankly, doug, I find itremarkably boring because I
don't want everybody to beexactly like me.
So I want to go to thepreschool director who sees a
little child and helps meunderstand about mental
(22:12):
neurological development in theearliest years as their little
bodies are coming together.
And I want to go and learn withthe professor who studied a
discipline for an exceptionalamount of time.
I want to learn and learn withthe professor who studied a
discipline for an exceptionalamount of time.
I want to learn with those thathave been in the bureaucratic
hierarchies of the synod what'stheir perspective on the church.
Like that is the posture of ourpodcast here, and what I've
(22:32):
found is that there are some inour tribe, the LCMS, that won't
talk to one another because wehave a nuanced and, I would say,
lower level not foundational,but a lower level kind of
difference of opinion based onour context, not the confessions
and yet it's just fascinatingthat folks won't talk to one
(22:52):
another.
Because I may disagree with you.
This is my environment, doug,and I want everybody to
experience.
We have robust debate andchallenge in our team meetings.
Just yesterday I'm in a meetingand our executive staff and I
had to say, after a certainconversation had gone on for
like 15 minutes, you know Istepped out.
I had a little bit of a risk.
(23:13):
I was like I'm mildlyfrustrated about the
conversation and the directionit's going right now.
That's what leaders do, andthen and then I pull, pull back,
let people kind of respond tothat and let the dust settle and
then tell stories.
We ended this meeting afterkind of a little bit of a.
You know, I don't say I'mmildly frustrated at every staff
meeting, you know, becausewe're united, we're together.
(23:33):
But let the dust settle andthen we closed off with stories
in our various pockets of theministry, our family and
ministries, where God is doingamazing things, and it was like
the best meeting ever, like ourmeetings should be like great
movies and we're participatingin them.
We're not passive in it, right,we're in it, and so I pray for
pastors that have curiosity tofirst go and learn, rather than
(23:56):
teach, from our early learningdirectors, from our principals,
from all of our commissionministers for goodness sake, by
all of the laity.
We have so much to learn and Ithink because we are such a
learner, we're so focused ondegrees and then positional
leadership.
This could lead us not everyone, but could lead us to a place
(24:18):
of pride that very, veryrobustly damages a united
mission church, school, earlylearning center and then our
united mission to make Jesusknown that you belong here, you
can come here with all of yoursin Sinners are welcome in
church, All of your stuff, allof your unbelief, and you're
going to find a God here and agroup of people who are centered
(24:40):
in the way of Jesus, who willlove you and welcome you and go
on the journey of learning moreand more, because that journey
never ends right, and it won'teven end into eternity, for
goodness sake, doug right, we'realways going to be creature,
not creator.
And so, yeah, that rant is done.
I guess it's just a prayer forour foundational truths to be?
Speaker 2 (25:02):
what orient us?
What?
Let the rant continue.
Because a conflict, accordingto bruce hartung he's a
psychologist good stress is good, that having stress and
organization conflict is to beaccepted.
Remember, jesus had conflictwith his own disciples, whom he
himself selected.
You know he's all knowing godhe himself selected.
(25:22):
You know he's all-knowing God,he's omniscient.
And yet he had a conflict withdisciples who were looking for
status.
They were looking for status.
Remember the Sons of Thunder.
They send in their number onetool to get what they want their
mom.
They send mom in to talk toJesus.
I want this.
I want to be at your right andyour left, so send mom in to
talk to Jesus.
I want this.
(25:42):
I want to be at your right andyour left, so send mom in.
She'll get it done.
And I agree, moms are powerfulagents.
And this is another one of thethings I wanted to talk to.
This is an article by DrGieschen, and when you're
talking about another resourcewe have, we have tremendous
exegetes, pastor Gieschen, hewrote the Value of Children
According to the Gospels.
He did this in the October 2013version of Concordia
(26:06):
Theological Quarterly and I wantto say thank God for this
article.
This is fantastic and we shouldlisten to our exegetes.
Listen to Horace Hummel, listento Reed Lessing.
All the exegetes in theConcordia Commentary Series all
agree that children are valuedby the Lord Jesus Christ and are
important.
There's no one who disagreeswhen it comes to the exegetes.
(26:26):
The Bible is clear.
Read about let the littlechildren come unto me and hinder
them not, for such is thekingdom of God.
Read about it's better if youhad a millstone wrapped around
your neck and thrown into theheart of the sea.
Jesus is saying some of hishardest words.
Now, if I understand correctly,professor Gibbs translates that
he believes it's a specialneeds child that Jesus is
(26:50):
talking about there, which Ithink reads terrific.
I found that very helpful formy own ministry.
Now, if we're going to talk tokids, the next thing, the next
thing we don't talk about, iswho has the kids, and it's not
mom and dad all the time anymore.
It's not even a coin flipBecause of the way divorce is
and the divorce rate is, andearly in marriages when children
(27:12):
are still young, sometimes nomarriages at all, sometimes
pregnancies on purpose to have achild without a marriage.
All these things come togetherwhere mom is more likely to have
the child in her direct carethan dad.
So that's the reality.
I didn't say this is great, I'mjust saying that is the case.
Go down to your local familycourt and ask the judge how many
(27:35):
moms versus dads they place thechildren in custody in a
divorce, and it won't be a 50-50, not even close.
So because of that, the churchhas a second thing it needs to
learn about is it needs to learnhow to speak modern mom as a
missional language, because momhas the car keys, mom has the
(27:55):
will, mom is.
There's a lot of tremendousliterature out there on
motherhood today.
Motherhood at Leave it toBeaver back then.
How many US senators were womenat the time in the 50s?
Now today, tremendous number ofladies who are senators, who
are congresswomen.
(28:15):
That's fantastic, that's great.
But we who have early childhoodcenters I'm talking about the
largest Christian churches,people around the Bible that
have early childhood centers arethe Roman Catholic Church, the
Southern Baptist Convention, theLutheran Church, missouri Synod
.
Now what's something that's incommon with those three church
bodies?
(28:36):
They only have male clergy.
So the pastors.
And I'm not saying we should dosomething different, I'm just
saying we need to learn how tospeak modern mom.
Preschool is a social way ofsaying to her we value you so
much, you need a partner asyou're going to work so hard for
your family and we want topartner with you.
(28:56):
But it can't stop at preschool.
So we as pastors will never be,us male pastors in the Lutheran
Church, missouri Senate, willnever be native speakers of
modern moms.
So I actually interviewed themoms in my preschool in Houston,
actually Cypher, the northwestside of Houston.
I was there 13 years and boy,they see things.
(29:18):
When mom comes into a spacewhere she's going to let her
child be cared for, she becomeshypervigilant.
So I am not a hypervigilantperson.
My wife points that out to meon a regular basis.
Last night I forgot to put thegarage door down.
Doug, did you notice?
He didn't even close the garagedoor, apparently not too
vigilant.
But when mom comes into earlychildhood center she sees the
(29:41):
security camera.
One of the moms insisted thething that was important to her
was how it smelled, how thechurch smells, how the preschool
smells, and to her it needed tobe a specific kind of this is
clean, this is safe, this is.
It smells good, wow.
So I've tried to give a coupleof presentations on learning to
(30:05):
speak modern mom, but going tothe ladies and saying please
teach me, because I don't havethat.
They taught me a little Greek,a little Hebrew at the seminary,
glad for that, maybe a littleGerman every once in a while I
could order a bratwurst maybe,but I have no idea about modern
mom and that's the number onemissional language in our church
(30:25):
.
So this humility and coming tothe preschool director and
others saying I need to learnhelps a lot and there's a lot to
learn.
Here's a book called theImportance of being Little what
Young Children Really Need fromGrownups by Erica Christakis.
Notice that the concept of thatis very similar to this book
(30:48):
the most important years,pre-gidenger and the future of
our children.
So we have something in commonas a whole church body with
modern moms.
We believe what those books say, that these kids are super
important.
We believe it maybe morebecause God shares with us.
Life is important, life even ofthe littlest children.
(31:12):
We're a church body whobaptizes everybody, including
infants.
This shows that we valueintrinsically human life.
That's a whole differentphilosophical way of educating
someone if you value themwithout condition.
Where you remember I was talkingabout the right of the child
back to the United Nations.
(31:33):
That's not how they value kids.
It was the economists, theactuaries.
They crunched the numbers andthey found out that if they
invest in early childhood, thatwill give them reprieve from
investing in prisons.
I think I saw on the news todaydown in like Columbia or
something we're shippingprisoners out to a foreign
country that they can take40,000 prisoners.
(31:54):
That's very expensive.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
It's also sad, hey yeah, no, this is good.
Doug, thank you for yourpassion for this topic.
You kind of teased at, we justgot you know 10 more minutes or
so.
Could you give us two or threetips on speaking modern mom?
I mean, humility is obviouslythe number one tip.
It's like go in and ask andlearn and be curious.
But what else?
(32:17):
If you want to help us speak,give us a little TED Talk on
speaking modern mom there.
Doug Glad to do it and, ofcourse.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
First step I'm not a mom, Never been a mom.
I know I need this language andI'd like to be some information
.
So go to your local mom,confess yourself.
If you're like me person, andbe a learner.
Be a learner.
Then, when we're learning, momis again hypervigilant.
(32:46):
So it's we need to be caringfor things like bathrooms and
changing centers.
Did my husband have a place tochange the baby in the bathroom?
Is there a place for mychildren in worship?
Do they welcome the presence ofchildren as a blessing in this
place?
Is our not only our childvalued, but is our family valued
(33:07):
?
Am I valued?
So those are some of the things.
Others is that I asked theladies do I really, as a church,
have to invest in a web pageand a Facebook page and an
Instagram page?
Yes, they almost lost theirmind when I asked that question
Like what are you talking about?
So for some of us who grew upin a pre-social media context,
(33:30):
it seems optional.
It is not optional Today.
The average pastor is me, myage, I'm the average demography.
We did not grow up with acomputer in our household.
Back in the 70s and early 80s,we certainly did not have a cell
phone.
So churches may be asking do wereally need this?
(33:51):
And mothers live around theirphone because it is this massive
tool to help them organizeeverything.
And for some of them they haveto organize everything because
they're by themselves trying toraise, sometimes multiple
children.
So also a great amount ofempathy, a great amount of value
for the calling of motherhood.
(34:13):
So we had a six Sunday series onmotherhood and the story of
salvation.
And if you listen to the Bible,boy, there's a lot of
motherhood stories in there,like Hannah and her story.
Her heart was torn because shecouldn't have a child.
We have so many people whodon't want the children they
have.
It's refreshing to hear fromthe Bible where ladies were
(34:36):
thrilled, almost dying, yes, tohave a child.
This, of course, all the way tothe celebration of the Virgin
Mother in February, the way tothe celebration of the virgin
mother In February.
There's a celebration of herthat was listed this year and
that was the conclusion.
All that to say, motherhood'simportant, equally important to
fatherhood.
If you read Luther and hislarge catechism, motherhood is a
(34:56):
holy vocation.
So here are some of theplatforms to coming to a mother
in a much different posture thanhair past door.
Hi, I have this special degreefrom a special university and
I'm kind of a source of kind ofa big deal.
What was that?
What was it called the Newsmanor something like that?
(35:17):
There was a funny movie aboutan anchorman.
Anchorman yeah, anchorman, yeah,yeah, and he goes up to the
anchor woman and he says youknow, I'm kind of a big deal
People know me.
That's not going to work.
So let me refer to a book here.
I didn't bring this book withme, but it's called the Trillion
Dollar Mom.
It's like 25 years old, cameout of Northwestern University.
(35:40):
It's a marketing book, it's nota theological book.
So they were saying that it's atrillion dollar mom because the
marketers weren't marketing towomen back in the two like 99.
So this book was saying there'sa trillion dollars out there.
If we could just connect andfocus on mom as a target market
instead of just that.
Here's the advertisement.
I think it just really sums itup.
(36:02):
This is, I think, for likeCarvana or an alternative car
buying system.
So the scene starts of a younglady in her 30s comes into a
traditional car show floor.
She goes up to the mostexpensive car right in the
middle of the show floor andsays to these salesmen all men,
I want to buy this car.
And all the salesmen are likebro culture, they're talking
(36:25):
together, they're chatting heybro, what's going on?
And all this and they don'trespond.
No one responds.
She's invisible, invisible,completely invisible.
So, being a very quick-wittedyoung lady, she brings out a bro
culture puppet.
Hey, bro, what's going on?
Man, can I buy this car?
And now all the guys engagewith the puppet, not the lady.
(36:49):
And then the screen flips toCarvana, or whoever this company
was, and it's a young lady whohas driven a brand new car to
the client's household ishanding her the keys, convenient
.
Another lady helping a ladyTotally against bro culture.
So what happens if the church,accidentally maybe we look to a
(37:13):
young mother like we're broculture over here, the pastors
and the elders all huddledtogether and she says I'm
spending five, six $7,000 a yearright down the hallway at your
early childhood center and she'scompletely invisible to us.
We never meet her, we never sayhi to her.
That is off-putting and thatwould cause someone to go
(37:34):
looking for some alternative.
I'm afraid that's what'shappening.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Hey, the church has a number of opportunities for
growth, always and as the worldhas become more and more secular
you could say pre-Christian nowI think we have opportunities
on the feminine front and themasculine front.
There's a lot of research and Ijust wanted to make that
statement because I could seegetting comments like we need
the church needs lessfeminization and more
(38:00):
masculinity because we're losinga lot of our, especially our,
young men.
There's a lot of research goingon with our lack of dating in
the early years today and anumber of women maturing and
this kind of speaks to thesingle mom dilemma, I think in
many respects, and the young menfor a variety of reasons.
I think it's pornography hassomewhat of a hold on many young
(38:24):
men.
You've got, obviously, socialmedia and the gaming culture
that are here today and maybethe church not casting vision
for a number of our young men torise up as leaders, not only in
the church but obviously in thehome and in the marketplace
that a lot of our young womentoday are looking around.
Where did all the men, wheredid all the men go?
(38:46):
There's a number of women outthere influencing that are
wondering where, where are theguys?
Where are the leaders.
We need them and there's ageneration it feels like that
are that are missing right now.
Any take on that, doug?
Speaker 2 (38:57):
So my father before me went to a Lutheran Church
Missouri Synod school outside ofChicago, st John's in Forest
Park, and his kindergarten was50 children in one classroom in
kindergarten, taught by a man.
My father did not have a femaleteacher until he was in high
school.
Now, today that script iscompletely flipped.
(39:17):
I just came back from theIndiana Association for the
Education of the Young Child.
This is a branch of theNational Association for the
Education of the Young Child.
This is a branch of theNational Association for the
Education of the Young Child andthey do have a breakout group
for men in early childhoodeducation A very rare breed.
I don't mean to be rude but Ineed to go to the restroom.
Went to the restroom Nobody'sin the restroom but one other
(39:38):
guy.
He made a comment Isn't itgreat to come to these women's
only conferences Because therestroom's basically empty for
the guys?
I was like, oh, I didn't thinkof it that way.
But all to point out that wepastors who have preschools
could be the influence.
I have found myself on severaloccasions being the man that's
(40:01):
in the world of some young boys,because all our teachers we had
36, 40 early childhood teachers, all ladies, and their mom.
They live with their mom, onlytheir mom, and so I've had
circumstances where I get reportfrom mom.
You know, is it okay that mychild, my little boy, is
pretending to be a pastor?
(40:22):
He's at home, he's pretendingto give sermons and sing songs
and do the prayers like you doin chapel.
Is that something we shouldencourage?
Well, thank God that he hasthat in his life.
So I would suggest that whatI've been saying and even if the
church did speak, modern mom,it is not an invitation to be
(40:44):
either male or female.
It's an invitation to be thepeople of God at this time in
history, united together and nottrying to play a status card of
some sort.
We've had this challenge.
This is one other book.
This is not a new one eitherthe Introduction of the
(41:04):
Foundations of LutheranEducation by William Reichel,
and he talks about this.
Just a brief quote teacherswere almost clergy and almost
laypersons.
Their theological statusremained unclear throughout the
history of the Senate.
I think there's still a lot ofpeople, male or female, that are
(41:25):
struggling with how statusplays out within the Lutheran
Church Missouri Synod.
And status is a verychallenging, endogenous thing,
something inside the church, tohaving the pastor leave his
office and walk down to theEarly Childhood Center.
There is something about workingwith young children and I don't
mean to upset our listeners butsome people call it women's
(41:47):
work.
You take care of young children.
There was a pastor Froebel inthe German days you're talking
about in the 1800s and it was abig debate amongst the men who
were going to be teaching theearly childhood.
Early childhood was a largedebate amongst male teachers and
pastors back in the 1800s.
William Leahy, one of thefounding fathers.
(42:09):
He wrote some very early work.
Some of his earliest pastoralwork was about early child
education and care.
But somehow we forget all thisand I'm afraid the pastors often
choose just to stay.
You know the women stay overthere and I don't want to put it
in anyone's mouth but I'mafraid some people think of it
(42:30):
as women's work wherehistorically that is inaccurate
and biblically and theologicallyLuther would not say in his
fourth commandment that Dad, youcan just excuse yourself from
the family.
No, the catechism says as thehead of the household should
teach, and it says that veryseriously.
But it doesn't go on to saywhat about when there is no
father?
And we have a lot of thosehouseholds with no father, and
(42:54):
the word still needs to becelebrated.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
Doug, this has been so much fun.
You're a gift to the body ofChrist.
I'm gonna have to have you backon.
There's a lot more that can besaid on this topic.
I'm praying for unity aroundthe grounding principles of what
it means to be first wrapped upin our identity as children of
God, baptized in the name of thetriune God, and then humility
(43:20):
that moves us toward one anotherrather than further away from
one another, that we wouldrecognize.
Being with everyone who is justlike us is a product of our sin
nature, and that is somethingthat Jesus came to eradicate and
to show us, not just throughthe cross, but through his very
life and through the life of theearly church, that the gospel
(43:40):
is meant to cross every knownboundary because the days are
too short.
Jesus is coming back to makeall things new, and you're
speaking to the culture in ourchurches.
This is the grassroots, this isthe foundation of what it means
to be ordered.
I'm in a present place.
I'm looking out at my courtyard.
There's a preschool class andone of our teachers and she's
(44:02):
walking four little ones tochapel here getting ready to go,
and I get to be a part of I'min that community and that's.
It's a beautiful, it's abeautiful thing.
Some pastors have lamented, youknow, school ministry.
It's so hard, you know.
And some guys are like, ah, I'dlove to be in a place where
there's no school, or they werein a school and it was messy
(44:24):
because there's more staff andmore emotion.
You know, whatever Like I, justI just need to be in a place.
Or the church it's like this isthe church on mission, shaping
the hearts and minds of Jesus.
How did we ever think, likebifurcate, that what goes on
Monday through Friday is notlike the living manifestation of
the body of Christ doing itswork to train up the next
generation?
It's just bonkers to me, youknow.
(44:45):
And our schools are one of thegreatest treasures that we have
next to our Catholic friends.
I mean, the LCMS has a treasure, not just in our universities
and seminaries, which areabsolutely a treasure, but at
these where vision gets to becast, and we want we can talk
about this next time.
Vision needs to be cast foryoung people and this is the
shout out to Set Apart to Servein our synod where young people
(45:08):
get to see a normal man or anormal woman engaged in various
ministry and say I see I maybecould do that, I maybe could do
that.
So fan into flame the youngpreacher right who goes home and
is the evangelist many timesfor parents who are far from the
Lord.
That's how it works.
Mom, dad, you hear about Jesus.
Let me tell you about whatJesus has done.
(45:29):
And out of the mouths of babesfour and five years old, the
gospel works, the Holy Spiritworks.
So yeah, we need more schools.
We need more pastors whopromote the value of our
Lutheran schools.
So good.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
Closing comment Doug, the bottom of the pyramid is
early childhood education andcare.
We're going to build up.
We're mature and mature andmature.
Right now there's a very highmatriculation rate.
The base of the pyramid,statistically, is early child
education and care.
We need to engage that.
What if?
I would just say, don't mean tobe making things even worse.
(46:04):
I believe the Lord raised up areformation in World War II that
we didn't see and thatreformation was an early child
education and care and without apope, without any direction,
thousands and thousands ofindividual congregations around
the world invested millions ofdollars per church in facilities
and staff to take care of youngkids.
(46:25):
It was not at all centrallyorganized and God raised us up
in the church.
In the Lutheran Church MissouriSynod, we went from maybe 100
or so to 2,100 churches in amatter of decades.
That's a hand of God, miracle.
But I'm afraid, because it'swomen's work or something like
that, we didn't see it anddidn't give it its due, not as
(46:48):
we should.
Before that goes away, let'sengage, let's see what God,
let's celebrate that.
So when God works, he doesn'twork always through one
headquarters or anotherheadquarters.
He does what he does right.
John 3, jesus tells us.
The Holy Spirit's like the windblows where he will.
And he blew.
On early childhood, rosie theRiveter had to go to work during
(47:11):
World War II.
The US government paid forfully accredited educators to
take care of the child whileRosie worked.
And then Rosie, her husband,came home from war, world War II
, and she stayed home.
But she had learned somethingshe wanted I could do some work
outside of the house.
And this.
Out of this terrible, difficultcircumstance, grew this
(47:32):
fantastic aspiration to haveearly child education and care
in not just the church, in thecorporate world there are some.
If you go to Shell Oil's worldheadquarters you might find an
early childhood center theretoday, because it's a basic
necessity.
So God has raised up areformation.
What if we followed his lead?
Even though maybe our personaldemography at surface level
(47:56):
doesn't line up, if we connectwith that deep level meaning of
the gospel of Jesus Christ?
We're all here to share thegood news of Jesus Christ and we
see where this number oneconnectivity is.
Let's start where we alreadyhave, like Bear Grylls or
whatever his name is on the TV.
Let's start with the resourceswe have and do that in support
(48:18):
of each other.
I really do think churches thatdon't have schools or early
childhood centers could supportschools and early childhood
centers if they chose.
We could partner together,reverend.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
Dr Krangel, man, you're the bombcom.
You win the award for the mostbook references in one hour
podcast that I've, and I quotebooks, man, but you put me to
shame.
I got to get reading.
I got to get reading.
There's always always more toread.
So if people want to connectwith you, doug, how can they do
so?
Speaker 2 (48:46):
My personal email is K-R-E-N-G-E-L.
That's how you spell KringleKringleD at gmailcom.
You certainly can use that.
You can find me on LinkedIn.
I don't recall the the exactaddress.
Maybe you could put it up onthe webpage or something.
And then I also have a researchgate.
If you go to research gate, putin Douglitz Kringle, you can
(49:07):
find that.
Again, it's K-R-E-N-G-E-L.
Glad to share.
It's been a joy to visit withthe Texas District and the
Michigan District's Early ChildEducators Conference.
What I've been finding is thatthe men, the pastors and others,
others, aren't attending.
It's really.
(49:29):
These topics have been verycelebrated by the ladies and
mostly it's ladies who pick themup, but the actual purpose was
quite the opposite that we wouldhave men and women.
So let's mention the PacificSouthwest District.
You can't find me find them.
That's the Pacific SouthwestDistrict of the Lutheran Church,
missouri Synod.
Mary Wolfenbarger there has puttogether training specifically
for pastors and preschooldirectors not just Mary, but
(49:51):
those people, jen Marmaduke andPastor John Corollas at Shepherd
of the Desert.
There they're just doing thisin a great way.
So please reach out to them.
They actually have a workshopyou can physically attend and
they have online resources.
I don't know of anything likeit other than in the Pacific
Southwest Well it's a greatdistrict, doug.
Speaker 1 (50:14):
That's my district.
So, yeah, shout out to Mary andeveryone.
So so exciting.
This is the Tim Allman podcast.
Please like, subscribe, commentwherever it is you take in our
Unite Leadership CollectivePodcast.
Comments really help move theconversation forward in the
Jesus direction.
He is coming back to make allthings new.
We're recording this the weekbefore Holy Week and there's a
(50:35):
resurrection reality.
We hope for that and we want asmany young and old people to
bend the knee to Jesus, bebaptized in his name and
experience eternal life solelythat comes through through him
and him alone.
Jesus loves you.
It's a good day.
Go make it a great day, doug.
Thank you so much, brother.
Speaker 2 (50:50):
Thank you, tim, appreciate it, god bless.
Welcome to the Tim Allman Podcast.
It's a beautiful day to bealive, pray, the joy of Jesus is
with you, that you're gettingyour water in, that you're
moving your body it is a templeof the Holy Spirit and that
you're buckled up.
Maybe you're in your car andready to interact and learn.
Today it's a great day to learn.
I get to learn today with DrDouglas Andrew Kringle.
(00:25):
He is an organizationalleadership guru guy.
He designed and carried out amixed methods research project
with Dr Shirley Morgenthaler incooperation with the Texas
District in the LCMS.
He's served as a guestinstructor at Concordia Seminary
.
He's taught a lot of classeslike teaching the faith at
(00:45):
Concordia Seminary.
He's taught a lot of classeslike teaching the faith.
He's been a part of the SMPprogram training pastors and has
been an online instructor in avariety of different
organizations, but today he'sbeen a manager of a large staff
and today I'm just going to lethim tell his kind of ministry
story.
There's a lot for Dr Kringle toshare, and so I'm going to let
(01:05):
you kind of lead us where we'regoing today as we get into your
research, really, really excitedabout this.
How are you doing, though, drKringle?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Doing very well, pastor Allman.
Thank you, tim, for having meon your show.
It was a blessing to have youon our show on Engaging Truth
earlier in the year and thankyou for this opportunity.
I believe both of us were atBest Practices Ministry
Conference in Phoenix this lastyear.
It was a great conference.
It really helped me frame someof my research that I have done
(01:33):
Well.
I finished the research in 2019.
One of the books was this bookby Joseph Barron, the Ends of
the Lutheran Church, missouriSynod, and he was kind enough to
allow me a signed copy and readover the book.
I think it's a really helpfulbook and kind of wakes us up to
see where we're at.
There were a number of things atBest Practices Ministry
(01:55):
Conference that were, I wouldsay, a waving of the hand, a
signaling that we really need toengage.
I would like to think that myresearch was engaging in that
topic six years ago.
So the ideas I would put it ishow can we thrive?
What do we have?
What are the resources we dohave?
I know President David Davishere in the Michigan District of
(02:17):
the Lutheran Church MissouriSenate.
He just put out a really nicesmall essay asking the same
thing.
Let's look at what we do have.
So what is that guy's name onTV?
Bear Grimm, is it?
He's a survivalist.
You know this guy, bear Grills.
Push him out of an airplane, heparachutes into some desert
somewhere, and it's always thesame deal.
(02:38):
He looks around for water,shelter, so forth.
He's looking at the resourceshe has.
He's not saying man, am I in aterrible state?
So I would invite us to reframeour conversation today about
let's look at what we do have.
What are we deeply blessed with?
And that's what brings me toearly childhood education and
(02:58):
care in the Lutheran ChurchMissouri Synod, because we have
thousands, well over a thousand.
Let me see what the number is1,714 early childhood centers
across 6,000 congregations, andthis is either the largest
branch of early Christianeducation or Lutheran education,
(03:18):
both, or it's close to it.
The numbers vary year to year.
Close to it, the numbers varyyear to year.
For some reason I can't findthe numbers for the year 2022-23
.
There's a missing set.
But the year 2021-22, therewere 76,800 early childhood
students, and that's incomparison with elementary
(03:39):
school, which was 67,977.
Both are excellent, wonderfulministries.
We're thankful for educationand we have a great legacy.
So what if this is the case.
So here's the Lutheran ChurchMissouri Senate and here's the
rest of the world.
Where does this happen?
And let's find out where thathappens.
(04:00):
My educated guess is it happensin early childhood education
and care, most in the LutheranChurch Missouri Senate, and
that's why we should start therefor our conversation.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Hey, I love it.
Well, we're going to get there.
What did you like about theends of the LCMS by Joe Barron?
He was a vicar of mine.
He was at Christ Greenfield wayback in the day about a decade
ago or so.
So any two or three points thatJoe kind of brought out before
we get into your research.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
First of all, he's an economist.
He loves his statistics.
He's showing mathematicallywhere we're at.
I think that objectiveperspective was very helpful.
I was hoping to do the same inmy research in my own way.
But also, the end of the bookis not at all about the end of
the LCMS.
It's all about thriving, it'sall about revitalization.
And while the title was catchy,it might be maybe there should
(04:47):
have been two books, one for thefirst half and one for the
second, because he certainlydoes engage in what can we do as
we with the resources we have.
So that's, and his presentation, his live presentation, was
excellent.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
He's a great dude.
I love Joe.
He's like a third cousin ofmine.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah, well, he used the example of having.
He shares it in the book, so Iguess it's okay to talk about.
He has arthritis.
This was how do I cope withwhat I have?
And he used that as a model forus as a church body and maybe
it could apply to otherdenominations too.
(05:28):
But our church body, theLutheran Church Missouri Synod,
may have some arthritis.
And how should we go aboutstill serving the Lord even
though we have these limitations?
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Well, let's be honest here, Doug.
I mean, our greatest asset areour people.
It's not the buildings, it'sthe people and the people sent
on mission to reach more peoplewith the gospel.
This is our ultimate call and,I agree with you, one of the
best.
And there may have been a pastornow 17 years and maybe there
was a season where I was lessthan intentional about engaging
(06:02):
the families who don't have achurch home connected to our
early learning centers.
We know there's well over 50%of the families in our school.
We're serving about 150students in our early learning
center, coupled with about 300,over 300 in our K-8.
But the mission field isexponential there and we're
(06:23):
seeing with the power ofinvitation for these young
families.
They would love a widercommunity and if they're
entrusting their kids to you,maybe they would entrust
themselves to you through wordand sacrament coming to worship.
So we're seeing a lot of youngfamilies now with a lot of
intention and invitation.
We're not a weird group ofpeople.
We just gather consistently tohear the goodness of God, his
(06:44):
love for us, receive His bodyand blood.
If you've not been baptized,please be baptized.
And so partnering why wouldpastors not want to partner with
the early learning it makes somuch sense.
It is the lowest hanging fruit,I would say, for our missional
opportunities in the LCMS, to besure.
So what did you find in termsof pastor and preschool director
(07:04):
relationship?
What was your hypothesis?
What did you find?
Let's go into that, okay.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
So, we have what's called a dyad relationship
between two people in manycircumstances and, using the
Lutheran Church Missouri Synodtheological categories of
minister, ordained, ministered,commission, many times the
pastor has some oversight of theoverall ministry.
Now this would put him insomewhat of a hierarchical
(07:31):
position.
I'm not saying that's the best,I'm just saying that it's often
the case.
So we used a research tool fromorganizational leadership
called Leader Member ExchangeTheory.
Leader Member Exchange Theoryis not new.
You can find the Oxford book onleader-member exchange theory.
The Academy of Management is abig purveyor of that in our
(07:53):
country.
So, applying that, we wouldhave the pastor as kind of the
leader and he has a member witha preschool director.
Now this, what we would call avertical relationship or
hierarchical, is one of thedescriptors for this diet, but
it's also most often mixedgendered and it's also often
(08:16):
what's called asymmetrical.
So we were studying non-randompairings.
I did not create these pairingsin the lab.
These are found in theirnatural environment, if you will
.
These were in Texas.
We surveyed all the pastorsthat had a preschool director
and surveyed all the matchingpreschool directors and then
also interviewedpastor-preschool director pairs
(08:38):
independent of each other.
That's where this informationis coming from.
There's a huge lack of research.
There's a paucity of researchin anything to do with church
and preschool, even though it'sthis great connectivity.
So what did we find?
We found that pastors reallydon't understand the early
childhood ministry.
There's very, very, extremelylittle pastoral education when
(09:01):
it comes to what I callfoundational education or
educare, a combination ofeducation and care, and then
this is reciprocally.
The early childhood directorsrarely have a master's degree in
theology from ConcordiaSeminary or something like that.
So because of this, what we callpersonal demography, they miss
(09:22):
each other.
They're not like each other.
So the technical term for thisis the homophily effect.
The homophily effect sayspeople who are like each other,
like each other.
Let me repeat it People who arelike each other, like each
other.
If I here I'm going to be 60here in May I was with another
(09:43):
gentleman my age, my ethnicity,with my educational background,
if you were a betting man, morethan likely I would form a high
quality relationship with thatindividual than someone who's
very disliked me when it comesto personal demography.
So the research shows fromcorporate world this can be
(10:03):
overcome.
People who are extremelydifferent can overcome if we
stop focusing on the surfacelevel similarity and we get into
what's called deep levelsimilarity.
For me, deep level similarityis we're here to save souls with
the gospel of Jesus Christ,that everyone might enjoy heaven
eternally by grace throughfaith in Jesus.
(10:25):
That's our deep levelsimilarity.
If we can focus on that, thenwe can overcome this homophily
effect.
So when it comes to a directorand a preschool director and a
pastor, they have very differentsurface level demography.
They're not like each other andthis, I believe, is a holding
back, kind of like a beaver dam,if you will.
(10:47):
It's stopping up but God meansfor us to have as a great
blessing.
So if we could engage withleader-member exchange and do
this very purposefully, we canovercome the homophily effect.
We can have high-qualityprofessional relationships which
in turn will engage thechurches and the preschools,
(11:07):
which in turn will have a dominoeffect through the Senate and
preferably for many people tohear the gospel.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Doug, this is great man.
I'm so excited you got my mindgoing in so many different
directions.
Let's go in the Jesus direction.
I mean, this is what Jesus did.
He came and moved past surfacelevel similarities based on the
law.
I'm thinking of Jesus'interaction with the Pharisees.
And why aren't your discipleswashing hands?
(11:36):
You know, like everyone else.
Well, we have this oraltradition.
We've developed a surface level, but Jesus is going deep.
Jesus is always going to theheart level.
He knows the heart and he wasable to because he knows the
heart that our hearts are filledwith sin, our hearts are hard,
our hearts are filled withunbelief.
We need a brand new heart.
We need faith in something thatis higher, or you could say
(11:59):
even more foundational for allof sin and falling short of the
glory of God.
And I'm coming for not just Jew.
This was the big Jewish problemin the Old Testament.
They forgot their ultimatemission.
They were sent to the nations.
They were not just to findpeople who are just like them.
They were to go after the pagan, the least, the lost, the
lonely, the outsider, and bringthem near.
And we see that modeled sobeautifully in the life story of
(12:20):
Jesus.
Why are you chatting with thatwoman at that.
Well, man, that's what thedisciples say in John 4.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
His father wasn't traveling Aramean, right?
Yeah, that way back.
Abraham wasn't from Judea,that's it.
He was from Ur, the Chaldees.
Right, he was the pagan,exactly.
Could it be?
This is a dunkringalism, atheory that the reason why
Israel is where Israel is isbecause it's the only place on
(12:49):
the face of the earth thatconnects three continents?
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Oh yes, I think that's why, If that's the case,
then it's an illustration.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
The geography is an illustration of God's desire,
his heart for all peopleeverywhere, of God's desire, his
heart for all people everywhere.
He does not want the homophilyeffect to stop up the church to
back us up and I believe if wecould activate this one
professional relationship, thepastor-director relationship, we
would engage.
The number one thing that'sblocking us, which is not
(13:20):
outside statistics For usresearch types, we call that
exogenous data.
Exogenous data is data outsideof our organization, For example
, birth rate.
We've heard about birth rate.
The birth rate in our currentchurch as it stands today is
lower than it was Now.
This is what disturbs me aboutthat is that it stops there and
(13:41):
no one says there's an exogenousstatistic, an endogenous, which
is inside the organization.
There are things inside theorganization that are in our
care that we can address thatwould also affect this, despite
the fact that some of thisoutside statistics are the way
they are.
So this very much disturbs mebecause it sounds like victim
(14:02):
mentality to me Sounds like oh,earth rates down, throw up our
hands, you know, just can'tserve the Lord anymore.
This is not what I think peoplemean to say.
It's certainly not the casebecause we can address these
endogenous issues.
The number one endogenous issueinternal to our organization
that's stopping up, this beingmultiplied, is pastors relating
(14:27):
to preschool directors.
If this could be addressed andwe can form high quality
professional relationships, thenI do think we would free up a
domino effect.
You noted that we have a lot ofchildren in our care.
We also have a lot of workersin our care.
I know in my past we've had 36,40 employees, not everyone a
committed follower of Christ.
(14:48):
I'm afraid Some needed peopleon our payroll.
Now, if you have 1,714 of theseplaces, I bet you there's at
least 1,714 souls who are beingpaid by our church to be an
early childhood teacher aid andthey need to know Christ.
So why isn't there somesociological things?
(15:12):
You mentioned earlier, ofcourse, the theological, the sin
.
Now, if you're coming to theconversation, you're not a big
believer in sin.
You don't know that realityfrom the Bible, because the
biblical reality is verydifferent than our world's
reality, right?
So we believe.
There's a God, there'stemptation, there's sin, there's
a conscience, there'srepentance, there's forgiveness,
(15:34):
there's salvation.
Christ died on the cross,Christ rose, he ascends and
reigns.
This reality is not shared withthe world in which we live.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
So that's a large thing to overcome, but if we can
have high quality professionalrelationships especially think
of a Russian doll and Russiandoll, remember those dolls.
You have the teeny bitty doll,then another one, another, one,
another one, so that certainlyour relationship with the Lord
Jesus Christ is at the core ofthe core of the church.
Now, as far as sociologicallyor organizational management
(16:06):
type of thing, what twoprofessionals could we affect in
a positive manner to energizethe church?
And this is this professionalrelationship between the pastor
and the director.
They're both paid professionals, and if that relationship,
though, gets stuck or isn'tmaturing or they just ignore
each other, then I'm afraid theorganizations they represent,
(16:28):
the sub parts of the church, thepreschool, they don't work as
well as they could.
So this has been brought out byother researchers that when we
were at our, we were well over2000 early childhood centers
just in our church body.
We were well over 2,000 earlychildhood centers just in our
church body, and now it'sdeclined by 500.
(16:48):
Different centers have closedsince its peak.
This should not be able tocontinue.
We need to engage verypurposefully.
The larger context, if I may, isa church, is a world that has
been affected by somethingcalled the rights of the child.
This came out from the UnitedNations back in 89, and it says
(17:14):
that all children in the worldhave the right to education,
including early learners.
We're talking about the kind ofkids in our preschools.
And all the nations of theworld at the United Nations, I
think have received this, butAmerica America has not United
States of America.
So the places that took thatseriously, like England,
australia, the Czech Republicthey redid their entire
(17:34):
educational system, the way theyeducated educators in order to
highly esteem early childhood.
Now we're seeing a little bitof this in North Carolina and
Oklahoma esteem early childhood.
Now we're seeing a little bitof this in North Carolina and
Oklahoma.
They're having where allchildren of younger age have
early childhood available.
President Obama he had a heartfor this had billions of dollars
(17:58):
he wanted to set aside.
I don't think it actually everhappened, but it was intended.
Here in the church, though,while we do want good things for
all children, we want literacy,we want numeracy for everybody,
we would like them to know ourLord and Savior, jesus Christ,
and if we continue by allowingthe pastor and the director not
to get along so well most of thetime, many times and we let
(18:18):
this huge investment of thechurch not be fully thriving,
then we'll lose this opportunityto share the gospel with the
earliest children, the childrenwhose minds are most wide open.
That's why here we have themost recent reporter.
I have a big article in hereabout higher education.
(18:38):
If you go back to the back page, here's the early childhood.
I think the early childhoodshould be on the front page.
It's the highest level ofeducation and it's also the base
of the pyramid.
Right that we learned.
First, we were at one placetaking care of children 18
months old, at one place sixmonths old.
(19:00):
So the biology of it is theneurological system.
You can read this man's book.
I'm not commending it to you,I'm just noting it.
This is his Robert Sapolsky.
Did I say it right?
This is his word determined.
He's a top notch professor atStanford.
(19:21):
What he does for a living is hestudies monkey brains.
Now he has another book calledBehave, and between the two
books, behave and Determined, wehave a whole theory of how
people develop.
He has nothing to do with theBible, completely rejects that.
It's all predetermined by genesand by environment.
But even he will say this, thatif you want to know.
(19:43):
The number one thing that willaffect a child in their
development it is mom.
Does mom want the child?
Does mom, is she happy thatthat child even exists?
So I think that actually undoessome of his theory and is
saying there's more to life herethan just genes and environment
.
There is what I would call God.
(20:06):
God intervenes, there'ssomething supernatural in the
development of human beings.
This is how God's made us.
So one of the realities is thatwe have a conscience.
We're born with a conscienceand we have a soul, and this is
very important.
What would happen if the worldis scrubbed of early childhood
development centers who have aconnection with the Bible?
(20:28):
Not good, and so perhaps I'mover exaggerating, but maybe not
helping us move againsttribalism in the LCMS.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
I've been talking about this for some time and
your homophilies theory isHomophily effect.
I thought homophily first timeI've heard that, but it's so
true.
Like attracts like.
And Jesus came to move usbeyond liking to loving the
other, the different, the leastof the lost, the lonely.
Whatever you've done for thelittlest and least of these, my
(21:07):
brothers, you've done unto me.
And women and children in theNew Testament had very little to
no social status, no socialstanding, and yet Jesus welcomed
them.
You couldn't be much other thanthe pagan, the woman or the
small child.
And today, I think in the LCMS,pastors like to be around,
(21:28):
pastors that agree on just abouteverything, especially the
liturgy.
And we need to agree thereneeds to be order.
But does that order that hasfound this is?
It's passive faith Like, whatdo you have that you did not
receive?
So there's no grounds here.
The Apostle Paul says forarrogance, for hubris, for pride
(21:48):
, that I've found now myappropriate tribe Right.
And then I justify myself-righteousness based on the
people that I associate with,and that's an ever increasingly
small circle of people.
And frankly, doug, I find itremarkably boring because I
don't want everybody to beexactly like me.
So I want to go to thepreschool director who sees a
little child and helps meunderstand about mental
(22:12):
neurological development in theearliest years as their little
bodies are coming together.
And I want to go and learn withthe professor who studied a
discipline for an exceptionalamount of time.
I want to learn and learn withthe professor who studied a
discipline for an exceptionalamount of time.
I want to learn with those thathave been in the bureaucratic
hierarchies of the synod what'stheir perspective on the church.
Like that is the posture of ourpodcast here, and what I've
(22:32):
found is that there are some inour tribe, the LCMS, that won't
talk to one another because wehave a nuanced and, I would say,
lower level not foundational,but a lower level kind of
difference of opinion based onour context, not the confessions
and yet it's just fascinatingthat folks won't talk to one
(22:52):
another.
Because I may disagree with you.
This is my environment, doug,and I want everybody to
experience.
We have robust debate andchallenge in our team meetings.
Just yesterday I'm in a meetingand our executive staff and I
had to say, after a certainconversation had gone on for
like 15 minutes, you know Istepped out.
I had a little bit of a risk.
(23:13):
I was like I'm mildlyfrustrated about the
conversation and the directionit's going right now.
That's what leaders do, andthen and then I pull, pull back,
let people kind of respond tothat and let the dust settle and
then tell stories.
We ended this meeting afterkind of a little bit of a.
You know, I don't say I'mmildly frustrated at every staff
meeting, you know, becausewe're united, we're together.
(23:33):
But let the dust settle andthen we closed off with stories
in our various pockets of theministry, our family and
ministries, where God is doingamazing things, and it was like
the best meeting ever, like ourmeetings should be like great
movies and we're participatingin them.
We're not passive in it, right,we're in it, and so I pray for
pastors that have curiosity tofirst go and learn, rather than
(23:56):
teach, from our early learningdirectors, from our principals,
from all of our commissionministers for goodness sake, by
all of the laity.
We have so much to learn and Ithink because we are such a
learner, we're so focused ondegrees and then positional
leadership.
This could lead us not everyone, but could lead us to a place
(24:18):
of pride that very, veryrobustly damages a united
mission church, school, earlylearning center and then our
united mission to make Jesusknown that you belong here, you
can come here with all of yoursin Sinners are welcome in
church, All of your stuff, allof your unbelief, and you're
going to find a God here and agroup of people who are centered
(24:40):
in the way of Jesus, who willlove you and welcome you and go
on the journey of learning moreand more, because that journey
never ends right, and it won'teven end into eternity, for
goodness sake, doug right, we'realways going to be creature,
not creator.
And so, yeah, that rant is done.
I guess it's just a prayer forour foundational truths to be?
Speaker 2 (25:02):
what orient us?
What?
Let the rant continue.
Because a conflict, accordingto bruce hartung he's a
psychologist good stress is good, that having stress and
organization conflict is to beaccepted.
Remember, jesus had conflictwith his own disciples, whom he
himself selected.
You know he's all knowing godhe himself selected.
(25:22):
You know he's all-knowing God,he's omniscient.
And yet he had a conflict withdisciples who were looking for
status.
They were looking for status.
Remember the Sons of Thunder.
They send in their number onetool to get what they want their
mom.
They send mom in to talk toJesus.
I want this.
I want to be at your right andyour left, so send mom in to
talk to Jesus.
I want this.
(25:42):
I want to be at your right andyour left, so send mom in.
She'll get it done.
And I agree, moms are powerfulagents.
And this is another one of thethings I wanted to talk to.
This is an article by DrGieschen, and when you're
talking about another resourcewe have, we have tremendous
exegetes, pastor Gieschen, hewrote the Value of Children
According to the Gospels.
He did this in the October 2013version of Concordia
(26:06):
Theological Quarterly and I wantto say thank God for this
article.
This is fantastic and we shouldlisten to our exegetes.
Listen to Horace Hummel, listento Reed Lessing.
All the exegetes in theConcordia Commentary Series all
agree that children are valuedby the Lord Jesus Christ and are
important.
There's no one who disagreeswhen it comes to the exegetes.
(26:26):
The Bible is clear.
Read about let the littlechildren come unto me and hinder
them not, for such is thekingdom of God.
Read about it's better if youhad a millstone wrapped around
your neck and thrown into theheart of the sea.
Jesus is saying some of hishardest words.
Now, if I understand correctly,professor Gibbs translates that
he believes it's a specialneeds child that Jesus is
(26:50):
talking about there, which Ithink reads terrific.
I found that very helpful formy own ministry.
Now, if we're going to talk tokids, the next thing, the next
thing we don't talk about, iswho has the kids, and it's not
mom and dad all the time anymore.
It's not even a coin flipBecause of the way divorce is
and the divorce rate is, andearly in marriages when children
(27:12):
are still young, sometimes nomarriages at all, sometimes
pregnancies on purpose to have achild without a marriage.
All these things come togetherwhere mom is more likely to have
the child in her direct carethan dad.
So that's the reality.
I didn't say this is great, I'mjust saying that is the case.
Go down to your local familycourt and ask the judge how many
(27:35):
moms versus dads they place thechildren in custody in a
divorce, and it won't be a 50-50, not even close.
So because of that, the churchhas a second thing it needs to
learn about is it needs to learnhow to speak modern mom as a
missional language, because momhas the car keys, mom has the
(27:55):
will, mom is.
There's a lot of tremendousliterature out there on
motherhood today.
Motherhood at Leave it toBeaver back then.
How many US senators were womenat the time in the 50s?
Now today, tremendous number ofladies who are senators, who
are congresswomen.
(28:15):
That's fantastic, that's great.
But we who have early childhoodcenters I'm talking about the
largest Christian churches,people around the Bible that
have early childhood centers arethe Roman Catholic Church, the
Southern Baptist Convention, theLutheran Church, missouri Synod
.
Now what's something that's incommon with those three church
bodies?
(28:36):
They only have male clergy.
So the pastors.
And I'm not saying we should dosomething different, I'm just
saying we need to learn how tospeak modern mom.
Preschool is a social way ofsaying to her we value you so
much, you need a partner asyou're going to work so hard for
your family and we want topartner with you.
(28:56):
But it can't stop at preschool.
So we as pastors will never be,us male pastors in the Lutheran
Church, missouri Senate, willnever be native speakers of
modern moms.
So I actually interviewed themoms in my preschool in Houston,
actually Cypher, the northwestside of Houston.
I was there 13 years and boy,they see things.
(29:18):
When mom comes into a spacewhere she's going to let her
child be cared for, she becomeshypervigilant.
So I am not a hypervigilantperson.
My wife points that out to meon a regular basis.
Last night I forgot to put thegarage door down.
Doug, did you notice?
He didn't even close the garagedoor, apparently not too
vigilant.
But when mom comes into earlychildhood center she sees the
(29:41):
security camera.
One of the moms insisted thething that was important to her
was how it smelled, how thechurch smells, how the preschool
smells, and to her it needed tobe a specific kind of this is
clean, this is safe, this is.
It smells good, wow.
So I've tried to give a coupleof presentations on learning to
(30:05):
speak modern mom, but going tothe ladies and saying please
teach me, because I don't havethat.
They taught me a little Greek,a little Hebrew at the seminary,
glad for that, maybe a littleGerman every once in a while I
could order a bratwurst maybe,but I have no idea about modern
mom and that's the number onemissional language in our church
(30:25):
.
So this humility and coming tothe preschool director and
others saying I need to learnhelps a lot and there's a lot to
learn.
Here's a book called theImportance of being Little what
Young Children Really Need fromGrownups by Erica Christakis.
Notice that the concept of thatis very similar to this book
(30:48):
the most important years,pre-gidenger and the future of
our children.
So we have something in commonas a whole church body with
modern moms.
We believe what those books say, that these kids are super
important.
We believe it maybe morebecause God shares with us.
Life is important, life even ofthe littlest children.
(31:12):
We're a church body whobaptizes everybody, including
infants.
This shows that we valueintrinsically human life.
That's a whole differentphilosophical way of educating
someone if you value themwithout condition.
Where you remember I was talkingabout the right of the child
back to the United Nations.
(31:33):
That's not how they value kids.
It was the economists, theactuaries.
They crunched the numbers andthey found out that if they
invest in early childhood, thatwill give them reprieve from
investing in prisons.
I think I saw on the news todaydown in like Columbia or
something we're shippingprisoners out to a foreign
country that they can take40,000 prisoners.
(31:54):
That's very expensive.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
It's also sad, hey yeah, no, this is good.
Doug, thank you for yourpassion for this topic.
You kind of teased at, we justgot you know 10 more minutes or
so.
Could you give us two or threetips on speaking modern mom?
I mean, humility is obviouslythe number one tip.
It's like go in and ask andlearn and be curious.
But what else?
(32:17):
If you want to help us speak,give us a little TED Talk on
speaking modern mom there.
Doug Glad to do it and, ofcourse.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
First step I'm not a mom, Never been a mom.
I know I need this language andI'd like to be some information
.
So go to your local mom,confess yourself.
If you're like me person, andbe a learner.
Be a learner.
Then, when we're learning, momis again hypervigilant.
(32:46):
So it's we need to be caringfor things like bathrooms and
changing centers.
Did my husband have a place tochange the baby in the bathroom?
Is there a place for mychildren in worship?
Do they welcome the presence ofchildren as a blessing in this
place?
Is our not only our childvalued, but is our family valued
(33:07):
?
Am I valued?
So those are some of the things.
Others is that I asked theladies do I really, as a church,
have to invest in a web pageand a Facebook page and an
Instagram page?
Yes, they almost lost theirmind when I asked that question
Like what are you talking about?
So for some of us who grew upin a pre-social media context,
(33:30):
it seems optional.
It is not optional Today.
The average pastor is me, myage, I'm the average demography.
We did not grow up with acomputer in our household.
Back in the 70s and early 80s,we certainly did not have a cell
phone.
So churches may be asking do wereally need this?
(33:51):
And mothers live around theirphone because it is this massive
tool to help them organizeeverything.
And for some of them they haveto organize everything because
they're by themselves trying toraise, sometimes multiple
children.
So also a great amount ofempathy, a great amount of value
for the calling of motherhood.
(34:13):
So we had a six Sunday series onmotherhood and the story of
salvation.
And if you listen to the Bible,boy, there's a lot of
motherhood stories in there,like Hannah and her story.
Her heart was torn because shecouldn't have a child.
We have so many people whodon't want the children they
have.
It's refreshing to hear fromthe Bible where ladies were
(34:36):
thrilled, almost dying, yes, tohave a child.
This, of course, all the way tothe celebration of the Virgin
Mother in February, the way tothe celebration of the virgin
mother In February.
There's a celebration of herthat was listed this year and
that was the conclusion.
All that to say, motherhood'simportant, equally important to
fatherhood.
If you read Luther and hislarge catechism, motherhood is a
(34:56):
holy vocation.
So here are some of theplatforms to coming to a mother
in a much different posture thanhair past door.
Hi, I have this special degreefrom a special university and
I'm kind of a source of kind ofa big deal.
What was that?
What was it called the Newsmanor something like that?
(35:17):
There was a funny movie aboutan anchorman.
Anchorman yeah, anchorman, yeah,yeah, and he goes up to the
anchor woman and he says youknow, I'm kind of a big deal
People know me.
That's not going to work.
So let me refer to a book here.
I didn't bring this book withme, but it's called the Trillion
Dollar Mom.
It's like 25 years old, cameout of Northwestern University.
(35:40):
It's a marketing book, it's nota theological book.
So they were saying that it's atrillion dollar mom because the
marketers weren't marketing towomen back in the two like 99.
So this book was saying there'sa trillion dollars out there.
If we could just connect andfocus on mom as a target market
instead of just that.
Here's the advertisement.
I think it just really sums itup.
(36:02):
This is, I think, for likeCarvana or an alternative car
buying system.
So the scene starts of a younglady in her 30s comes into a
traditional car show floor.
She goes up to the mostexpensive car right in the
middle of the show floor andsays to these salesmen all men,
I want to buy this car.
And all the salesmen are likebro culture, they're talking
(36:25):
together, they're chatting heybro, what's going on?
And all this and they don'trespond.
No one responds.
She's invisible, invisible,completely invisible.
So, being a very quick-wittedyoung lady, she brings out a bro
culture puppet.
Hey, bro, what's going on?
Man, can I buy this car?
And now all the guys engagewith the puppet, not the lady.
(36:49):
And then the screen flips toCarvana, or whoever this company
was, and it's a young lady whohas driven a brand new car to
the client's household ishanding her the keys, convenient
.
Another lady helping a ladyTotally against bro culture.
So what happens if the church,accidentally maybe we look to a
(37:13):
young mother like we're broculture over here, the pastors
and the elders all huddledtogether and she says I'm
spending five, six $7,000 a yearright down the hallway at your
early childhood center and she'scompletely invisible to us.
We never meet her, we never sayhi to her.
That is off-putting and thatwould cause someone to go
(37:34):
looking for some alternative.
I'm afraid that's what'shappening.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Hey, the church has a number of opportunities for
growth, always and as the worldhas become more and more secular
you could say pre-Christian nowI think we have opportunities
on the feminine front and themasculine front.
There's a lot of research and Ijust wanted to make that
statement because I could seegetting comments like we need
the church needs lessfeminization and more
(38:00):
masculinity because we're losinga lot of our, especially our,
young men.
There's a lot of research goingon with our lack of dating in
the early years today and anumber of women maturing and
this kind of speaks to thesingle mom dilemma, I think in
many respects, and the young menfor a variety of reasons.
I think it's pornography hassomewhat of a hold on many young
(38:24):
men.
You've got, obviously, socialmedia and the gaming culture
that are here today and maybethe church not casting vision
for a number of our young men torise up as leaders, not only in
the church but obviously in thehome and in the marketplace
that a lot of our young womentoday are looking around.
Where did all the men, wheredid all the men go?
(38:46):
There's a number of women outthere influencing that are
wondering where, where are theguys?
Where are the leaders.
We need them and there's ageneration it feels like that
are that are missing right now.
Any take on that, doug?
Speaker 2 (38:57):
So my father before me went to a Lutheran Church
Missouri Synod school outside ofChicago, st John's in Forest
Park, and his kindergarten was50 children in one classroom in
kindergarten, taught by a man.
My father did not have a femaleteacher until he was in high
school.
Now, today that script iscompletely flipped.
(39:17):
I just came back from theIndiana Association for the
Education of the Young Child.
This is a branch of theNational Association for the
Education of the Young Child.
This is a branch of theNational Association for the
Education of the Young Child andthey do have a breakout group
for men in early childhoodeducation A very rare breed.
I don't mean to be rude but Ineed to go to the restroom.
Went to the restroom Nobody'sin the restroom but one other
(39:38):
guy.
He made a comment Isn't itgreat to come to these women's
only conferences Because therestroom's basically empty for
the guys?
I was like, oh, I didn't thinkof it that way.
But all to point out that wepastors who have preschools
could be the influence.
I have found myself on severaloccasions being the man that's
(40:01):
in the world of some young boys,because all our teachers we had
36, 40 early childhood teachers, all ladies, and their mom.
They live with their mom, onlytheir mom, and so I've had
circumstances where I get reportfrom mom.
You know, is it okay that mychild, my little boy, is
pretending to be a pastor?
(40:22):
He's at home, he's pretendingto give sermons and sing songs
and do the prayers like you doin chapel.
Is that something we shouldencourage?
Well, thank God that he hasthat in his life.
So I would suggest that whatI've been saying and even if the
church did speak, modern mom,it is not an invitation to be
(40:44):
either male or female.
It's an invitation to be thepeople of God at this time in
history, united together and nottrying to play a status card of
some sort.
We've had this challenge.
This is one other book.
This is not a new one eitherthe Introduction of the
(41:04):
Foundations of LutheranEducation by William Reichel,
and he talks about this.
Just a brief quote teacherswere almost clergy and almost
laypersons.
Their theological statusremained unclear throughout the
history of the Senate.
I think there's still a lot ofpeople, male or female, that are
(41:25):
struggling with how statusplays out within the Lutheran
Church Missouri Synod.
And status is a verychallenging, endogenous thing,
something inside the church, tohaving the pastor leave his
office and walk down to theEarly Childhood Center.
There is something about workingwith young children and I don't
mean to upset our listeners butsome people call it women's
(41:47):
work.
You take care of young children.
There was a pastor Froebel inthe German days you're talking
about in the 1800s and it was abig debate amongst the men who
were going to be teaching theearly childhood.
Early childhood was a largedebate amongst male teachers and
pastors back in the 1800s.
William Leahy, one of thefounding fathers.
(42:09):
He wrote some very early work.
Some of his earliest pastoralwork was about early child
education and care.
But somehow we forget all thisand I'm afraid the pastors often
choose just to stay.
You know the women stay overthere and I don't want to put it
in anyone's mouth but I'mafraid some people think of it
(42:30):
as women's work wherehistorically that is inaccurate
and biblically and theologicallyLuther would not say in his
fourth commandment that Dad, youcan just excuse yourself from
the family.
No, the catechism says as thehead of the household should
teach, and it says that veryseriously.
But it doesn't go on to saywhat about when there is no
father?
And we have a lot of thosehouseholds with no father, and
(42:54):
the word still needs to becelebrated.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
Doug, this has been so much fun.
You're a gift to the body ofChrist.
I'm gonna have to have you backon.
There's a lot more that can besaid on this topic.
I'm praying for unity aroundthe grounding principles of what
it means to be first wrapped upin our identity as children of
God, baptized in the name of thetriune God, and then humility
(43:20):
that moves us toward one anotherrather than further away from
one another, that we wouldrecognize.
Being with everyone who is justlike us is a product of our sin
nature, and that is somethingthat Jesus came to eradicate and
to show us, not just throughthe cross, but through his very
life and through the life of theearly church, that the gospel
(43:40):
is meant to cross every knownboundary because the days are
too short.
Jesus is coming back to makeall things new, and you're
speaking to the culture in ourchurches.
This is the grassroots, this isthe foundation of what it means
to be ordered.
I'm in a present place.
I'm looking out at my courtyard.
There's a preschool class andone of our teachers and she's
(44:02):
walking four little ones tochapel here getting ready to go,
and I get to be a part of I'min that community and that's.
It's a beautiful, it's abeautiful thing.
Some pastors have lamented, youknow, school ministry.
It's so hard, you know.
And some guys are like, ah, I'dlove to be in a place where
there's no school, or they werein a school and it was messy
(44:24):
because there's more staff andmore emotion.
You know, whatever Like I, justI just need to be in a place.
Or the church it's like this isthe church on mission, shaping
the hearts and minds of Jesus.
How did we ever think, likebifurcate, that what goes on
Monday through Friday is notlike the living manifestation of
the body of Christ doing itswork to train up the next
generation?
It's just bonkers to me, youknow.
(44:45):
And our schools are one of thegreatest treasures that we have
next to our Catholic friends.
I mean, the LCMS has a treasure, not just in our universities
and seminaries, which areabsolutely a treasure, but at
these where vision gets to becast, and we want we can talk
about this next time.
Vision needs to be cast foryoung people and this is the
shout out to Set Apart to Servein our synod where young people
(45:08):
get to see a normal man or anormal woman engaged in various
ministry and say I see I maybecould do that, I maybe could do
that.
So fan into flame the youngpreacher right who goes home and
is the evangelist many timesfor parents who are far from the
Lord.
That's how it works.
Mom, dad, you hear about Jesus.
Let me tell you about whatJesus has done.
(45:29):
And out of the mouths of babesfour and five years old, the
gospel works, the Holy Spiritworks.
So yeah, we need more schools.
We need more pastors whopromote the value of our
Lutheran schools.
So good.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
Closing comment Doug, the bottom of the pyramid is
early childhood education andcare.
We're going to build up.
We're mature and mature andmature.
Right now there's a very highmatriculation rate.
The base of the pyramid,statistically, is early child
education and care.
We need to engage that.
What if?
I would just say, don't mean tobe making things even worse.
(46:04):
I believe the Lord raised up areformation in World War II that
we didn't see and thatreformation was an early child
education and care and without apope, without any direction,
thousands and thousands ofindividual congregations around
the world invested millions ofdollars per church in facilities
and staff to take care of youngkids.
(46:25):
It was not at all centrallyorganized and God raised us up
in the church.
In the Lutheran Church MissouriSynod, we went from maybe 100
or so to 2,100 churches in amatter of decades.
That's a hand of God, miracle.
But I'm afraid, because it'swomen's work or something like
that, we didn't see it anddidn't give it its due, not as
(46:48):
we should.
Before that goes away, let'sengage, let's see what God,
let's celebrate that.
So when God works, he doesn'twork always through one
headquarters or anotherheadquarters.
He does what he does right.
John 3, jesus tells us.
The Holy Spirit's like the windblows where he will.
And he blew.
On early childhood, rosie theRiveter had to go to work during
(47:11):
World War II.
The US government paid forfully accredited educators to
take care of the child whileRosie worked.
And then Rosie, her husband,came home from war, world War II
, and she stayed home.
But she had learned somethingshe wanted I could do some work
outside of the house.
And this.
Out of this terrible, difficultcircumstance, grew this
(47:32):
fantastic aspiration to haveearly child education and care
in not just the church, in thecorporate world there are some.
If you go to Shell Oil's worldheadquarters you might find an
early childhood center theretoday, because it's a basic
necessity.
So God has raised up areformation.
What if we followed his lead?
Even though maybe our personaldemography at surface level
(47:56):
doesn't line up, if we connectwith that deep level meaning of
the gospel of Jesus Christ?
We're all here to share thegood news of Jesus Christ and we
see where this number oneconnectivity is.
Let's start where we alreadyhave, like Bear Grylls or
whatever his name is on the TV.
Let's start with the resourceswe have and do that in support
(48:18):
of each other.
I really do think churches thatdon't have schools or early
childhood centers could supportschools and early childhood
centers if they chose.
We could partner together,reverend.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
Dr Krangel, man, you're the bombcom.
You win the award for the mostbook references in one hour
podcast that I've, and I quotebooks, man, but you put me to
shame.
I got to get reading.
I got to get reading.
There's always always more toread.
So if people want to connectwith you, doug, how can they do
so?
Speaker 2 (48:46):
My personal email is K-R-E-N-G-E-L.
That's how you spell KringleKringleD at gmailcom.
You certainly can use that.
You can find me on LinkedIn.
I don't recall the the exactaddress.
Maybe you could put it up onthe webpage or something.
And then I also have a researchgate.
If you go to research gate, putin Douglitz Kringle, you can
(49:07):
find that.
Again, it's K-R-E-N-G-E-L.
Glad to share.
It's been a joy to visit withthe Texas District and the
Michigan District's Early ChildEducators Conference.
What I've been finding is thatthe men, the pastors and others,
others, aren't attending.
It's really.
(49:29):
These topics have been verycelebrated by the ladies and
mostly it's ladies who pick themup, but the actual purpose was
quite the opposite that we wouldhave men and women.
So let's mention the PacificSouthwest District.
You can't find me find them.
That's the Pacific SouthwestDistrict of the Lutheran Church,
missouri Synod.
Mary Wolfenbarger there has puttogether training specifically
for pastors and preschooldirectors not just Mary, but
(49:51):
those people, jen Marmaduke andPastor John Corollas at Shepherd
of the Desert.
There they're just doing thisin a great way.
So please reach out to them.
They actually have a workshopyou can physically attend and
they have online resources.
I don't know of anything likeit other than in the Pacific
Southwest Well it's a greatdistrict, doug.
Speaker 1 (50:14):
That's my district.
So, yeah, shout out to Mary andeveryone.
So so exciting.
This is the Tim Allman podcast.
Please like, subscribe, commentwherever it is you take in our
Unite Leadership CollectivePodcast.
Comments really help move theconversation forward in the
Jesus direction.
He is coming back to make allthings new.
We're recording this the weekbefore Holy Week and there's a
(50:35):
resurrection reality.
We hope for that and we want asmany young and old people to
bend the knee to Jesus, bebaptized in his name and
experience eternal life solelythat comes through through him
and him alone.
Jesus loves you.
It's a good day.
Go make it a great day, doug.
Thank you so much, brother.
Speaker 2 (50:50):
Thank you, tim, appreciate it, god bless.
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