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Navigating the Tensions of Tradition and Innovation in LCMS - Bonus Lead Time!
In today's bonus episode, we grapple with the stimulating debates surrounding 'The Zeal of His House' and the 'Worship Wars,' or pondering the complexity of roles between the pastor and the layperson in the LCMS culture. That's just a taste of our fascinating exploration in this episode. We pull apart the often-confused terms 'traditional' and 'liturgical,' and navigate the challenging terrain between reformed theology and Lutheranism. A recent survey of LCMS members gives us further food for thought, revealing intriguing perspectives on how the Holy Spirit operates and challenging the need for strategic planning or evangelism in churches.
Ever wondered how we can reclaim the contentious terms 'missional' and 'evangelical'? Let's wrestle with these words and redefine our faith as Lutherans. We'll dive deep into the Great Commission, revealing how missional and confessional can beautifully co-exist and how Lutheranism has been at the forefront of international missions since the Reformation. Liturgical worship doesn't need to be stuck in one era - we'll explore its potential to blend both traditional and contemporary elements. We'll also reflect on the competitive spirit in Lutheran circles and contemplate a future vision for LCMS, with lessons drawn from the military's decentralized leadership model. Intrigued? Join us as we journey through the rich past, vibrant present, and promising future of LCMS.
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Leigh Time is a podcast of the Unite Leadership Collective, hosted by Tim Ollman and Jack Calliberg. The ULC envisages the future in which all congregations fully equip the priesthood of all the leavers through world-class leadership development at the local level. Leigh Time taps into biblical wisdom for practical solutions to today's burning issues. Each podcast confronts real-time struggles facing the local church in a post-Christian culture. Step into the action with the ULC at UniteLeadershiporg. This is Leigh Time.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Leigh Time, tim Ollman, here with Jack Calliberg. We just got off a wonderful retreat. We're getting back after school here at Christ Greenfield Few new teachers, so much fun. But, jack, you and I have been having and this is somewhat of a shorter, maybe bonus, episode on culture. We've been having a lot of conversation around two different topics. One is the zeal of his house.
Speaker 2:This is a recent blog that went out the week of July 24th is when we're recording this, and this is a book that was written in 1973, commemorating the 125th anniversary of the Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod and I'm gonna walk through three different kind of themes that really help shape our very, very applicable to the culture of the LCMS today. Now, but before we got into that, jack, you hang out on social media and different Lutheran sites a little bit more than I do and you're not on there a lot, but you like to get a pulse and I, frankly, I don't have that as a part of my rhythm right now. Maybe we'll, maybe not, I don't know, but you've seen a couple different themes that are shaping up the cultural conversation about who we are. I asked this question in the blog, like will the real LCMS please stand up. Who are we really? So what are you observing as you look at social media and a lot of those conversations about the real LCMS?
Speaker 3:Well, first of all, when you think about the family of people that call themselves confessional Lutherans, it's not just LCMS, but obviously LCMS has a very large voice and people who participate in LCMS churches have a very large voice in that community of people that call themselves confessional Lutherans. I would say that there is a very, very deep debate and different views that people have about two topics, and one topic would be you could call it I've heard people call this the worship wars, right, the supposed war that may exist between traditional and contemporary worship, or some people might call it liturgical in contemporary worship. The other, then, is what is the view and the role of the pastor versus what is the role in the view of the layperson, and how does that impact very important theological topics like the Great Commission? Who does it apply to? So, broadly speaking, you might call it I'm trying to think of the right word to describe that, but let's say, if you're a traditionalist, you may see and I think this is my own personal kind of observation as I'm going through school, as I'm talking with people kind of a conflation of the word traditional meaning Lutheran, contemporary meaning non-denominational or Baptist or evangelical, pentecostal, like that's what the meaning of these words are and I think a lot of issues come in that and even the word liturgical. Like Lutherans would very much identify with the word liturgical, but by no means are Lutherans the only ones that have liturgy right. And so you cannot say that just because something is liturgical, that it makes it automatically Lutheran, just like saying the word contemporary does not make something automatically not Lutheran or automatically Baptist.
Speaker 3:And so I think how we use the words is a big deal, and how we tend to conflate words kind of causes us to maybe draw divisions or dichotomies that maybe need to be there or not need to be there. I would argue that they don't need to be there, based on how we understand things. And then the other thing that was very fascinating to me is hearing some people's thoughts like I would throw out questions out there how do you encourage a congregation to be more missional? What can you do to engage people in that? And some people would say, well, no, congregation's not supposed to be missional, and I'm trying to understand that. And some of that thinking is rooted in the idea that, oh yeah, the Great Commission has given the pastors but it's not given to lay people, and that is something interesting that I try to get my head around, like where does that come from? And we're talking about a recent survey that came out. A recent survey of LCMS members.
Speaker 3:And in that survey he talks about, he uses the word non-instrumentalism that there is a probably about 10% of pastors and congregants that believe in, and he actually identifies this as a form of reformed theology not Lutheran theology, but this idea that there's nothing that we can do, the Holy Spirit does everything right. And if you take it to the extreme, then that's actually going against what we teach in Lutheranism that God works through means, right. And so at the very minimum we would say the means are God's instrument. We don't have to attribute it to ourselves, but it's still something that somebody's doing and it's an instrument that God is using.
Speaker 3:But in an extreme view, like in an extreme reformed view, you would say well, you don't even have to do that, the Holy Spirit's, you know, just doing everything right, without any people, without any work at all. And so you would hear them say we could be a church with no strategic plan whatsoever and it's not going to hurt the church, right. Or we could do no evangelism whatsoever and it's not going to hurt the church. And so these are interesting thoughts that are emerging. I don't know how long they've been around in Lutheranism, but it's just kind of interesting observations that I've been making.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's really good. You just said a lot. Some themes I think we want to drill down on is definition of terms. I think on social media this is why it's so toxic is someone can say a word like missional and that has so much baggage attached to it, like mission at all costs, where maybe compromising doctrine.
Speaker 2:Well, no, I mean, the way we would define missional is we have a missional God, a prodigal God, who is pursuing his people. He's pursuing us through his word. He's pursuing sheep that are not in his fold. Through his word, he wants to draw us near, to hear his voice of forgiveness and love, our new identity in Christ through the sacraments. And then he is calling us, inviting us to bring light to dark places, to be John 15, attached to the vine. We are branches apart from Jesus, we can't do anything, and yet the crazy thing is we are branches bearing fruit, connected to the vine, connected to the big macro story of the mission of God, from creation to recreation on the last day. So if you have a trigger word toward missional, that's what we mean the narrative of scripture connected to the work of God. That, yes, does include you and I as ambassadors of reconciliation and love into the world.
Speaker 2:Any more thoughts about just like drilling down deeper. That's why social jack can be. Social jack can be pretty divisive because we lose one. We don't have the relationship with these people that we're making comments about and we don't understand the tone. Right, we don't understand the tone.
Speaker 3:That's right, that's 100% true, and I think you know, when we engage in online debates, it's very important to bring a spirit of humility and care and compassion and patience in that, if it's going to mean anything or I don't even like the word debates, but discussions and maybe exploration of topics with people. Going back to your word mission as a loaded word, you know, I the thing that I would love is that we, as Lutherans, reclaim all of these words that should hold a deep, valuable meaning to us. And so, missional right, like Lutherans. Lutherans are the first people the first, you know, first Protestants to do international missions right, and at the very beginning of the Reformation, it was Lutherans that went out to other countries, to India, for example, that did missionary work. I've shared about some small group members that I that were part of my small group, where they came from India. They came from a Lutheran background from generations back right.
Speaker 2:And just to just to challenge that just a second, jack. I mean, the Apostles were, oh yeah, first mission.
Speaker 3:In Protestantism right and positive. Yes, since the Reformation we were the first.
Speaker 2:Our Catholic brothers and sisters have been doing a lot of missions for centuries as well. Absolutely, but for sure yes yes, we were the heart of it was getting the word out to as many people as possible. And in the early well, amid the late 16th century, we already started that mission. Mission will push, yes for sure, if you go to the Great.
Speaker 3:Commission. It's go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, holy Son, holy Spirit, and then teaching them everything that I've commanded right there's. There's nothing in that that we can't fully embrace as Lutherans. We absolutely should adore every single you know piece of that instruction, and there's nothing in that instruction that would suggest that we need to compromise any type of Orthodox teaching whatsoever. Actually, it reinforces that teach everything I've commanded right. So I would love for us to reclaim the word missional, that confessional and missional are not incompatible terms. They are complementary terms. They complement each other right.
Speaker 3:And then the same thing is true even with the word evangelical. Right, the first use of the word evangelical was applied to Lutherans. Lutherans were called evangelical before they were called Lutherans. It just means gospel-y, right, Oriented around the gospel, and who better to exemplify that than the Lutheran tradition? So a lot of the hangups we have, I think, are cultural hangups, and then a lot of the dichotomies that we create are cultural dichotomies. But when we really examine the words, it's really important, you know.
Speaker 3:So I mean, I've been worshiping with you for just about a decade now, with you serving here as pastor at Christ Greenfield, and we've always been liturgical in every single kind of setting that we've ever done. The traditional service is liturgical, the contemporary service is liturgical. There is no necessity to say that something is either liturgical or contemporary. You can be contemporary or liturgical, you can be traditional liturgical. There's no need to create a division behind that and then assign the word contemporary to a whole bunch of things that we would say, okay, these are sort of theological doctrines that we don't agree with Every single form of worship that we have. Some of it are ancient roots going way back to the very beginning of the early believers, but some of it's very modern right. There's a lot of hymns that when they came out that would have been contemporary music. A mighty fortress would have been contemporary music when Luther wrote it. So at one point in time every expression of worship that we have was a contemporary expression of worship.
Speaker 2:So yeah, worship has always been something we've kind of struggled with. I was reading Gospel DNA a few years back by Mike Newman telling the story of how the LCMS another historian who told the story of how the LCMS kind of rapidly grew and there were bishops from Germany, wilhelm Lea and others who were giving actually a very simplified understanding of what a Lutheran worship service should look like, what the liturgical structure should be. And it was. There should be singing, there should be an invocation, there should be confession, absolution, the reading and preaching of God's word. There should be prayers.
Speaker 2:I think the Lord's prayer is great A creed. That kind of connects us A lot of these communities, because they didn't always have pad, they weren't celebrating the Lord's supper consistently, so it can be at least like once a quarter, once a month, like get the sacrament to God's people and then the Aaronic benediction or some sort of other Pauline kind of blessing that sends God's people into their various vocations. That's kind of the guts, that, what that holds us together. And so the contemporary conversation I don't even like because contemporary is so like loaded to the Jesus movement and the charismatic movement. I just like modern expressions of song utilizing solid biblical Lutheran lyrics. And I think there is room for us right now, for us to write better songs.
Speaker 3:And I've been sung, because if you go out there and you listen to Christian radio, you will find modern Christian songs that are fantastic and you'll find some that have some questionable teaching in it. Right, that's just the reality of it. It's a big, big messy world that we live in. You know I'm a big fan. You know I don't feel anxious about bringing in non-lutheran songs into the church, provided that the words that we're, you know saying are valid biblical words. But I also believe that we have an opportunity for leadership to bring forward really great modern songs for worship. I think both of them are both in.
Speaker 2:The hymnol is filled with hymns from non-lutherans.
Speaker 3:Absolutely Put in this book.
Speaker 2:So could this be filled? Could this be a season, right now, as we work toward unity in the midst of our diverse contexts, for different modern instrumentalists and lyricists to come together to have more? I don't know that we need a book per se, but we do need a repository of places where songs have been well written and well then vetted for use within the wider church. I think it's we're far overdue toward that end, because modern worship is not going anywhere in a certain percentage you may say 30, 40% or so of our congregations, and that should not prohibit us from walking together as the people of God. So let me give you three points of emphasis from this book.
Speaker 2:It was so funny, jack. I was digging into my bookshelf I got this you know, pastors got bookshelves and all these but I was like what is that book? This kind of weird orange book? And I pull it out. I was like, oh, my goodness, this is an absolute gem. So the zeal of his house, five generations of the Lutheran Church, missouri Synod, from 1847 to 1972, by Elden Weishite. He was just a local pastor.
Speaker 3:And it came out as 73, which makes it one year older than I am. Yeah, right.
Speaker 2:So listen to some of these themes. I mean he does a good job early on, if you're new to the, to the story of the LCMS. He tells kind of the good, the bad and the ugly of our, our origin story, with Martin Stephan and CFW Walther stepping up to say, no, we're still the church where Word and sacrament is. Leaders are being raised up. Germany is sending over many of our pastors. Creative ways to recognize the next generation of leaders is taking place. A number of our organizations are starting to to form the Lutheran Church Extension Fund. He tells Concordia, polishing House, lutheran Hour, among others. He tells that wonderful story. But the three points that he really nailed on is one it's not, it's in our origin story to talk about and not be ashamed of growth and multiplying disciples, starting new ministries. So from 1947, this is one of the years of significant growth to the day of the book's publication in 1973, they grew from one point seven million members to three million members over 25, over 25 years. That's pretty, that's pretty phenomenal.
Speaker 3:And it wasn't just because of the birthrights right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, no, no, it was it did. No, no, no. I mean, let's be, let's be fair. Birthright did have something to do with it. Sure, and the Synod's goal. They were very, very clear about this reaching beyond just our German Lutheran roots, which they were always, you may say, pastors, and kind of bringing a prophetic word. We have to push beyond just being a congregation that set aside for Germans. That mission will push to Native Americans and to English speaking. You know those was in our DNA.
Speaker 3:This goes back to Walter and even some of the very early debates about should Lutheran education just be for church members or should it be opened up to the wider community? And even in the time of Walter, walter says you know, feed my sheep, let's open it up, let's so. Even then they were thinking not just about themselves, but how do we invite other people in? And, as an example, these schools were a great on ramp to bring more people into the LCMS community.
Speaker 2:Amen, amen. And I believe our theology is so good, Jack you and I, we agree with the Lutheran Confessions and obviously they're a correct exposition of the word of God.
Speaker 2:Praise be to God. But there's always been this pull and I believe it is of Satan to divide ourselves into two respective camps and this is the second point, and you could say, from confessional to missional, from those who believe in the priesthood of all believers and those who don't wanna lose the primacy, the centrality or necessity of the office of holy ministry. So he said these two camps were kind of hard to pinpoint exactly, and I just wanna read this quote each camp, or each side, wants to define not only their position but also the others. Yes, so this means just to draw. They weren't listening to each other. One side sees itself as theologically correct, according to Lutheran Confession, and sees the others as liberals who deny or ignore biblical truths. I don't know that that was exactly true, though.
Speaker 2:In some camps we obviously have the walkout that takes place in and through. This time there were some folks that were kind of moving into some teachings that were not faithful, but nonetheless they were kind of labeling one another, and then the other side sees itself as evangelical, pastoral, but views the opposition as rigid and legalistic. I would like to re-understand the origin of the word competition, competition To strive, not against, it's Latin, but to strive with. And so, as we lovingly have these conversations, which we could fall off on either side of the respective pendulum and lead toward heresy or lead toward legalism, we could do that and we need to stay within these boundaries of confessional and mission-minded Lutheranism. But as we have those conversations, have them in real time with people and really, really resist if they're within our camp, resist putting the worst construction on their emphasis, but listen twice as much as we speak. So it was just fascinating to me, jack, to see, oh, my goodness, this was happening then and it's still happening today. Any response to that two-camp kind of argument, jack?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I've been thinking about this psychologically. I think there is sort of a human nature element to this I was reflecting on Tim. You and I are both big into music singing and I was a percussionist in the military and studied music theory and what is the most unsettling interval? In the western music scale, the most unsettling, disturbing interval is the half step. It's actually the two notes that are closest to each other that cause the most tension in music and I think, because we use the word Lutheran confessions, that I would say just about every single person in the LCMS would very gladly say I adhere to this. Yet there are different interpretations and different expressions of that and I think it's the closeness sometimes that causes the most anxiety about the differences, that things are not perfectly in alignment, that sometimes maybe we're a half step off or a quarter step off, that people tend to feel a little bit of dissonance and they want it to resolve. They can't deal with the dissonance. We have to bring everything into harmony.
Speaker 3:Everybody has to have my interpretation, my expression, so that everything is unified and it's the same exact note, not two different notes. The funny thing is that two notes on the scale are both legitimate notes. There's nothing wrong with either notes. It's the fact that they're a half step apart that causes people anxiety, isn't that?
Speaker 2:interesting. I think what puts those notes into tune, into the appropriate harmony right, is an understanding of context, yes, and charity toward one another's context, right. Recognizing the world has changed rapidly and I want to listen to those who are in different contexts and explore what are your greatest challenges, because your greatest challenges in urban city Chicago are gonna be different than rural Wyoming.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And recognizing we can still be under the same covering, we're still in the same family of faith and I pray we have that sort of a posture as we discuss and grow together as the people of God. The last point from the book that was phenomenal was in the 1930s, jack, there was a pastoral surplus. There were more pastors than could be placed in active churches. And why should I estimate the estimates said in the 1930s there were over 300 congregations that were started by a pastoral surplus. How awesome is that. So they got out there like my goodness, I just did the seminary thing. It was okay, that was a lot, and I kind of expected to be picked up, kind of a free agent past somewhere. But that didn't happen. So what they did is we had a really, really well-formed laity as they pursued other respective vocations. But then shocker, guess what the rest of them did? Started new churches, jack, church planning was a big deal.
Speaker 2:Church planning was a huge deal, and we stand on the shoulders who have gone before us. Could you imagine a day and age where leaders in our church body are casting vision for growth and then casting a vision for a pastoral surplus, and just a leadership surplus at every level right now? Wouldn't that be absolutely amazing? And I'm not gonna go too deep into this. But that means we need to look at the way we're doing it today and say is it producing the desired result? That work then. And there is the way we're doing it today, working for the local church, not just to sustain but to start new churches. Anything to say about that pastoral surplus vision.
Speaker 3:Nothing of that requires any change in theology, but it does require thinking differently about our system, structure and culture. Right, that's right.
Speaker 3:Without compromising anything about even a single ounce of what we would believe as Lutherans. There are multiple legitimate ways to raise up new pastors that are out of the box based on how we've been doing things in the past. Now, it's great, it's wonderful that a certain model was so vibrant for a period of time, and times are changing and cultures change and what people are willing to do and unwilling to do have changed in today's times, and I've written a blog post. I always encourage people to check out the blog post that I wrote about what the LCMS can learn from the military.
Speaker 3:The military has for well over, I would say, a hundred years from that, I think 1830s established an ROTC program, and so they have these fantastic residency schools right West Point. There's no better office as far as I'm concerned, no better officer school in the world. It is the gold standard. And yet probably four out of five officers that are raised up or raised up in an ROTC program and they're not considered second class officers. They're considered the same type of officer as everybody else, because they intentionally leaned into the logistics and the decentralization of that and made it more accessible to people. So citizen soldiers becoming officers in the context of their local community, holding on to regular day jobs with the goal of becoming an officer and being commissioned in the future. Think about that In partnership with 1700 universities across the country.
Speaker 2:Yeah, pretty amazing. So, pastoral Formation Committee those of you who serve there's four of you who serve on the Pastoral Formation Committee we would love to sit down with you and to talk. I've extended the invitation and I hope you'd take me up on it, post convention obviously, to explore that model because I think that's really, really helpful for us. The world needs what the LCMS has and somehow we've made it 175 years, despite the two camps and the dissonant cords and all of the confusion and competition. The Lord of the Church has sustained us and I believe he'll sustain us if he doesn't return for another 175 years. And we need to do what we can, by the power of the spirit connected to the word, to walk with love and charity and kindness, compassion, holding our convictions, yes, strongly, strongly connected to what we believe, but always centering our beliefs on the never changing word of God and on the Lutheran confessions, rather than just a synod convention by-laws, and I'm sorry to get into that Amen no.
Speaker 2:I agree.
Speaker 2:But we just we have to start there. We can't legislate unity unless it's based on Scripture and the confession. So it's a good day. Go on, make it a great day. Jack, thanks for hanging out with me today on this wonderful contextual LCMS conversation, and sharing is caring. Please like, subscribe, comment wherever it is you're taking this in, and we'll continue to have one or maybe two conversations about how the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod can be healthy and restored to health in 2023 and beyond. We'll see you next week on Lead Time. Thanks, jack, peace.
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