Lead Time
Lead Time
Worship Wars: Exploring Music, Ministry, and More with Rev. Dr. Jim Marriott
Jim Marriott, a committed musician, theologian, and pastor passionately reminisces about his lifelong journey with music and ministry. He shares about his childhood surrounded by church musicians, his love for the organ, and how his role as a director of music arts at Concordia Seminary was influenced by his work as a parish musician.
Intrigued by the 'worship wars'? We delve into Jim's exploration of this complex issue during his PhD program in liturgical theology. He enlightens us about the role of culture and music in Christian worship and the need to focus on Word and Sacraments. With Jim’s guidance, we navigate the complexities of cultural influences on worship music, challenge the false assumptions of Western society regarding the sacred and the secular, and underline the importance of understanding cultural influences on particular practices.
Tying it all together, we discuss the challenging yet rewarding journey of Jim from Concordia Seminary to Concordia Texas and the relationship breakdown between Concordia University System and the leadership of Synod and Concordia Texas. We also celebrate the diversity in worship, the importance of Lutheran songwriters, and the work of The Center for Worship Leadership and the Worship Arts Leader Initiative. Don't miss this riveting conversation with Jim, as he shares his insights into the complexities of church governance, his role as an associate pastor at Faith Lutheran Church, and his vantage point on the Synod Convention.
Join the Lead Time Newsletter! (Weekly Updates and Upcoming Episodes)
https://www.uniteleadership.org/lead-time-podcast#newsletter
Visit uniteleadership.org
Leigh Time is a podcast of the Unite Leadership Collective hosted by Tim. Ollman and Jack Calliver. The ULC envisions the future in which all congregations fully equip the priesthood of all the believers 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 3:Welcome to Leigh Time, tim Ollman, here with Jack Cowberg. What a great day it is to have one of my long-time friends, a classmate from Concordia Seward back in the day Now, concordia, nebraska, 2004 graduate, one of the kindest and gifted. You're almost like Vanna White here, lovely and talented, jim Marriott, hanging out with us today. Jim is currently serving at Concordia, texas, the head of their theology department, and we're going to have a lot of fun. But when I got to know you initially, there was this young guy up in the organ loft in Weller Hall, I believe Is it. Am I saying that it wasn't it in Weller?
Speaker 2:That's right At Concordia.
Speaker 3:Nebraska, and you were and are a marvelous organist. How did you fall in love with the organ? I'd love to just kick it off talking and talking music, jim. Welcome to lead time, dude. Thanks for hanging out with us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, thanks for having me. It's so good to hear you and see you, tim. I love the chances that we have to hang out and I have never, ever, been compared to Vanna White before, so that's brand new. So thank you for that. You're welcome. One person at one point they said I looked like Tom Cruise and I thought that was the best thing ever, but now. I've got a new pie with Vanna White.
Speaker 2:Cruise and Vanna so this is good, yes, good, yeah, so the organ. I come actually from a family of church musicians. My grandfather was a church organist All of his life, played into his 90s for a German church in the Wisconsin Synod in Milwaukee, wisconsin, and he was just a wonderful church organist. His father was a pastor, so he grew up in the church, so I just do this lineage of pastors and church musicians. My uncle is the campus organist at Emory University in Atlanta up until his retirement, and so I fell in love with the organ very early on in my career, just from family. I started piano lessons when I was four, started playing for church services when I was in fourth grade and started taking organ lessons when I was a freshman in high school and had my first every Sunday organ job when I was a sophomore in high school. So it was an early love for me and I've done it for a long time. Now I'm getting older, we all are, and yeah, so I've loved it for all of my life.
Speaker 3:So you took your first call right out of Concordia, nebraska, and you went and served in a parish, right? Could you tell a little bit about that and what you loved about being a full-time musician at a parish?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's right. So my first call was to Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Jacksonville Beach, florida. The best part of that church well, I shouldn't say the best part, but one great part about that church it was 14 blocks from the beach, so that's a real blessing for our first call, yeah, and got to learn how to do music in a parish, lead a choir and build relationships. And I learned pretty quickly that ministry and y'all know this well that ministry is not about the tasks but it's actually about the relationships and building relationships with people. So I learned that and learned to love the people at Bethlehem Lutheran in Jacksonville Beach, and that set me up for the other places that I would serve and have served in my career.
Speaker 3:So you were in the parish for what? 10, 12 years or so.
Speaker 2:Yes, so I jumped around, which is not how I would have scripted it, but each church was a new blessing and a new challenge. So I was in Jacksonville for three years and then I served a church in Rochester, michigan, for two years and that's probably where I did the most music. I was doing church and school music. I had seven choirs and 12 rehearsals every week so it was a pretty daunting music job. It was a busy job but I loved it, loved the relationships there. Then served at Trinity in Lyle, illinois, for six years. I was the director of music there and that was all before going to Concordia Seminary and serving as the director of music arts there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'd love to hear that story. I love my time at Concordia Seminary in St Louis, but I've never worked there. Actually, I take that back. I worked on Grounds one summer, sweated my face off between first and second year working on Grounds, I think making like six bucks an hour, but it was whatever.
Speaker 4:I'm good to know, Tim. I'll let our grounds crew know. Oh, please don't.
Speaker 3:I stunk. I'm not very good with handy things. I think I messed up. Actually I remember going over it. My most formative memory of that summer working Grounds was scraping the you know what out of one of the blades on a sidewalk, because it was one of those where you got to control the big driving lawn mower with two, and I was learning and failed royally and I got reprimanded by a long timer who edited it. Yeah, most formative memory. Anyhow, I haven't worked, though, as a professor at the seminary. What was that like for you? Tell us some stories of that time at Concordia Seminary.
Speaker 2:So, Tim, I'm sure that it was Gail that probably gave you a hard time. It was Gail as the head of the Grounds. Yeah, it's right. Yeah, oh, Gail's wonderful yeah.
Speaker 3:Wow, very pointed, very pointed.
Speaker 2:She was. She takes her job very seriously. She's a fantastic edit. Yeah, so we have so many great stories to tell from our time at Concordia Seminary.
Speaker 2:The most precious time was the last two years that we were there, when I got to live on campus, and so you talk about being a grounds worker. Well, we would have students that would shovel our sidewalk when it was snowing and icing and then we get to love on them. We served ice cream every Monday night. We called it Monday at the Marriottes, where, for the whole campus community, we'd have somewhere between 50 and 100 students and students families that would come and eat ice cream in our backyard. We actually started that during COVID because we couldn't gather inside and so campus community was really taking a hit because we couldn't gather together, and so we asked permission to do this in our backyard. And it's so funny now thinking back. But I wore gloves and a mask and I was the only one that handled the ice cream and I would bring it out to people and I'd wash my hands in between each serving. But we got to love on the campus community and we were loved by the campus community and I really cherished my time serving at Concordia Seminary.
Speaker 3:My job there was, yeah, teaching yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I was the director of music arts and the job was twofold. I describe it that I did music and I taught theology. So I did the music for the seminary and I taught the liturgical theology, the worship courses. So I was the organist choir director and got to do a lot of music. But I really didn't teach a lot of music. Most people thought that I taught music at the seminary but music's not a significant portion of the curriculum at all. But liturgical theology is the theology of worship and so I taught that, had a hand in forming a lot of the courses that were being taught there at that time and really pouring into pastors and future pastors with how they would lead their communities in worship. And it was a precious time. I loved every bit of it, loved what I was teaching. It fit my dissertation and my doctoral work very well. It was really a gift.
Speaker 3:You're a lifelong learner. I was so impressed because you entered into Concordia Seminary and you actually pursued. You got your Reverend Doctor, Jim Marriott. You got your Master of Divinity while you were also on the faculty there. Tell a little bit about that story, buddy.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So that was a really neat opportunity to actually become a pastor while I was there, and the opportunity was that most of the faculty members actually all of the faculty members at Concordia Seminary are ordained pastors. So as I was on that track to be on the faculty, I was encouraged to pursue my ordination and that's what I did, and one of the best parts about that is I got to learn the curriculum at the seminary very thoroughly. Many of the professors who taught at the seminary had gone through previous versions of the curriculum, but I got to experience this new version that we had just revised. So I was able to integrate my teaching and my classroom with all of the other courses that were being taught, and it was really. It was very enriching for me and for the students as well.
Speaker 2:The other cool thing about that is I got to take classes with the students that I was teaching, so we'd go from one classroom where I was the professor to another classroom where I was a colleague and a student alongside, and that really galvanized relationships in a very unique way. I always approached it in a. I approached the classroom relationally anyway, and being able to approach that time very relationally with the students was. It was a lot of fun, a lot of really treasured friendships that came from that, even as I was a professor to all of them.
Speaker 3:I mean, that's a metaphor for ministry Jim right, you both teach and you learn, and you do it in community right and you may have a certain area of expertise which I'd like to lean into now as it relates to worship and the history of worship and things. But when we become an expert in one discipline we realize how little we know about other disciplines. And just sparks that curiosity mindset to learn with people, not to teach from above but to teach from below in many respects. Anything to add to that, jim.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, just to. I often hear people distinguish theologians as people who have their doctorates in theology. Let's say and I've always kind of approached it differently that all of us are theologians. Anyone who is making a theological expression, anyone who is living out their faith, is a theologian, and that was really reinforced for me in the classroom.
Speaker 2:I was always learning from my students and I was always learning with my students, and that's carried over to the university teaching that I do now at Concordia, Texas. It's carried over to being a parish pastor at Faith Georgetown, where I'm now the associate pastor All of that. I'm always learning from people and growing with them, and I think that's an important posture for all of our leaders to have, that we're always learning and growing. We're never done learning and growing, and that's what I like about some of the other the importance of continuing education for pastors as well and some of the shortcomings of our seminary formation itself is that it's four years and done, three years and done, and a lot of pastors get out and they stop learning Like. We're always learning. We're always doing this together and I've had a unique opportunity to learn throughout my life, both in the academy and just in everyday life, learning from people and growing with them.
Speaker 3:That's so good, one of the paradigm shifts that I've been praying for as it relates to because you know I have strong opinions, jim, about formation and whatnot and the need for workers, but we make it super hard to get in and then super easy easy to stay in once you receive the degree.
Speaker 3:Right, could the paradigm be? It's easier, if you will, to enter into a community of formation and then that formation lasts a longer period of time and in many respects it's harder because of all of the ongoing ed requirements and the character kind of requirements in relationship to those who are supervising us. It's harder, if you will, to stay, and I don't know exactly what that looks like, but I do know this that it means you're in community, you're with people, you're under authority. You know, and I pray that more of our pastors that are leaving our seminaries would have that sort of a humble mindset to never stop learning and to recognize, hey, you're always under the authority of Christ and then you're always under the authority of the church. Like, the church is gonna continue, but leaders in certain roles may not may not always continue in those spaces. Anything more to add about. There is a system and a structure that I think we need to analyze in the LCMS right now toward that end. What do you think?
Speaker 2:Jim, yeah, I'm right with you and we've talked about this a number of times, and the thing that I love most about the model that you're advocating for and the questions that you're asking and that's probably the better way to say it you're posing a lot of questions for us, even more than you're advocating for a particular model.
Speaker 2:Sure, and I appreciate the questions, the lifelong learning I think is a real shortcoming of for all church workers, whether it's pastors or church musicians or Christian educators that we need a clear structure for lifelong learning and for mentorship we need. The world is changing very quickly. The access to information is like never before, and we need to be constantly sharpening our tools to be able to engage our various contexts while also holding true to the things that are the, you know very words of eternal life. So we have to be able to do that together, and so I don't know if it's laziness or if it's a lack of access, or if it's lack of accountability or what, but we've got to be able to address it with a value-driven system that values community and that values lifelong education.
Speaker 3:Anything to add there, Jack?
Speaker 4:No, I was just kind of thinking about that. That's exactly right. I think you've said this before, you know lower the threshold, raise the bar right. That's kind of like the analogy there. It should be easy to start, should be continuously challenging to stay and to do what you're doing, like I think you know. There should be a rhythm of continual challenge for growth in what we're doing, to be better at ministry, to be better at our vocations, to be to do this in community where somebody is continuing to mentor us and we get an opportunity to mentor others. I see that very much as the biblical model of discipleship and especially discipleship for people that are serving in vocational ministry roles.
Speaker 3:Amen, amen. So help us get better today, Jim. Help us learn. Give us your area of expertise around your PhD and then how that impacts your ministry today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cool. So I can't help people learn how about that, but I can offer ideas.
Speaker 1:I wanna learn, Jim. Yeah, control your thoughts. There you go.
Speaker 2:So my, you know, when I was a young academic, I entered the PhD program to write a dissertation on the worship wars and I wanted to solve the problem of the worship wars. So you know, here I was real idealistic at the time. And so I entered a PhD program in liturgical theology with an emphasis on the intersection of theology and culture, niche field called inculturation or contextualization. And so I did quite a bit of study around culture and cultural theory Certainly a lot of study around liturgical theology and was able to bring that together to try to give the church a different framework for talking about Christian worship structures and Christian worship resources.
Speaker 2:Because you know, like, in the worship wars, especially when I started writing my dissertation, music was really the scapegoat and the focus it was. So you might say, yeah, music was the catalyst and also the scapegoat. So you'd have churches that would have different styles of worship and the only thing that changed was the music. You know, like that, so when they talk about style, it's only the music that's changing. They're doing everything else the same, for better and worse, you know, but it was just. That was the value, that's the model. And then you know, you'd have music as the scapegoat where, if something is, you know the implication that contemporary worship, let's say, is unfaithful was a music-driven accusation.
Speaker 4:Music was the scapegoat or the accusation that's traditional. I think it still is in many cases, right that conversation's going on with a lot of folks.
Speaker 2:We're still, you know, pressing it. It's kind of an interesting thing because the now here's my academic side. Right, the church has moved on from that worship war. So, like the most of the academic conversations in the church now are not taking seriously the worship wars. They're much more interested in the influence of the global south and you know some of these wider cultural issues. Our individual congregations still have that conversation quite a bit. You know, and it's the same stereotype with traditional worship. You know that the organ is irrelevant and stodgy and no one plays the organ, no one listens to organ music. So you know that of course must mean that the organ is not useful for leading. You know congregational worship, and that's just not true, you know like it did. So you know there are a lot of bad stereotypes that were out there around music and the value of music. Music became the scapegoat of a lot of different things.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:I think now what did you find?
Speaker 3:Go ahead, Jim. Go ahead, Jack, I'll let you go. I wanted to hear about international worship styles too, and if you moved into contextualization and the power of, because I think there is not enough charity as it relates to worship and diverse contexts. I think as Americans we have more charity for diverse worship in, you know, the global South and maybe not as much charity for how the global South and those respective communities have descended upon a number of our different urban centers in America today. Anything more to add there, Jim?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was actually quite a bit of the premise that I was making is that we have a lot of compassion for contextuality in non-Western circles, but we haven't figured out how to deal with the contextual diversity that exists within the United States, whether it's suburban subcultures, urban subcultures, multi-ethnic subcultures that exist in our cities, things like that. And when it comes to theology, we conflate too easily music and the other rituals that are actually delivering the promises of forgiveness and sins, life and salvation. So, like I mean, we as Lutherans, theologically, are grounded in word and sacrament ministry, the proclamation of the word, the administration of the sacraments. These are the means by which the promises of the gospel are delivered to the world. I mean, this is the way and Christ has ordained it. The Holy Spirit works on the church to accomplish it. So through the proclamation of the word, through the administration of the sacraments, we deliver, we receive forgiveness and sins, life and salvation. That's what we're doing. So there were some churches that were minimizing those gifts in order to lift up music and other churches that were falsely or inappropriately judging a context because they used various kinds of music but still were doing Word and Sacrament Ministries. So my whole project was to get us focused on keeping Word and Sacraments central and then realizing the cultural influences that come on all of our worship practices.
Speaker 2:I mean quite honestly, and it's a slippery slope, and culture is a big mess. I mean this is the easiest way to say it, because even the preaching of the Word should you preach from the pulpit? Should you preach from the floor? What rhetorical style are you using? What sermon structure? Dave Schmidt at the seminary would be real big on sermon structure.
Speaker 2:What's the pastor wearing? Is the pastor wearing a robe? Is the pastor wearing a Hawaiian shirt? These things matter but they actually are not the proclamation of the Word. They are cultural influences on the proclamation of the Word. So they do matter.
Speaker 2:You can't just say it doesn't matter. You can wear whatever because it does matter. But you have to measure the cultural influence on the particular practice. And just because you're preaching in a Hawaiian shirt doesn't mean that you're not preaching the gospel. There was a lot of negatives there. I mean you can preach the gospel wearing a Hawaiian shirt and so this is the whole point. How do we measure the cost of cultural influences and how do we navigate that together as a community? And then that reframes the whole thing so you can sing, you can do Word and Secondary Ministry with a drum set, with percussion as the primary musical catalyst for a congregation. They do it in Africa all the time and so we're very patient with rhythm and percussion in Africa. But in some of our contexts the second that you put a drum set in the sanctuary in Lutheran congregation in the United States, it gets very uncomfortable. Well, those are cultural associations, cultural assumptions. They do matter. I mean that stuff does matter but we have to be able to distinguish how it matters and what its influence is.
Speaker 4:So how would you articulate how it matters, Because I've got a lot of interest in this. Thank you for acknowledging drummers. I'm a drummer myself, and just a little bit of my background.
Speaker 4:I'm a retired percussionist with the US Army Band and I love to be a participant in our worship team. So I love both our traditional and our contemporary services and the way I've always seen it is like the most important thing about the music is actually what we're saying in the music. The lyrics are the most important thing about it and it's not necessarily the style. But then there's also, like you said, a culture where if you brought a drum set into a certain environment, that's not helping worship, that's just creating a stumbling block for people because of their background, and I totally get that. At the same time, you may be trying to do ministry for people that have like, where the culture is very contemporary, and you're trying to reach these people and that's probably the most appropriate way of providing a worship service for them is to use that style of music. So why don't you talk about that? At what point does music selection become detrimental to worship? Is where I'd like to yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:Well, maybe the easiest answer there at what point does the music selection become detrimental to worship? Is when the music selection, or conversations around music, supersede conversations around proclaiming the word and administering the sacraments, receiving the promises of God and faith, and that plays out in any variety of ways. So the well-meaning person that leaves church and says I got nothing out of that today, and what they often are complaining about is, well, they didn't know the songs and they didn't like the musical style and they didn't understand the pastor's sermon. He talked over their heads or whatever, and they don't know anybody. But it's not true that they didn't get anything out of worship.
Speaker 2:What was your expectation Like when we came to receive the promises of God and faith? You receive the forgiveness of sins, you receive the promise of life and salvation, and that's what we take into the world, that drives our witness, our vocation. So we get in a real problem when we elevate music above the things that actually deliver the promises of God and faith, which is the preaching of the word and the administration of the sacraments. So from there then, I would teach my students that all culture is redeemable, but culture is not neutral. All right. So all culture is redeemable, but culture is not neutral. So our musical genres are value laden inherently, which is why let's just you know a generation I go two generations ago rock and roll was so problematic because it was value laden. It had societal values associated with it that were very hard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know sex, drugs and rock and roll, right, you know I mean you have that, and then, all of a sudden, you're trying to do that kind of music in the church. Well, this is not new for the church, though, because the pipe organ was first used in, you know, with kings and in the royal courts. It was not first used in the church and then it was brought in, so it was.
Speaker 4:It's initial use was secular.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely right, interesting. And then it was brought into the church and then, you know, you could make the association that you know, an instrument that was used to praise kings is now being used to praise the king of kings, but it also was. I mean, this is, it comes directly from society or from, and even the paradigm of sacred versus secular is a really tricky thing to parse out. Like you know, western society is one of the very few in the history of the world that distinguishes, you know, like, sacred and secular in the way that we do. Where sacred is on Sunday at 11 o'clock, it's spiritual, it's, you know, emotional, it's individualistic, and secular is in the material world, it's, you know, 24, seven, it's more corporate, it's what people see and like. So we have all these really weird false assumptions that we've been, you know, kind of raised and inculcated into in Western society. I don't want to get too far off the mass here.
Speaker 3:This is fascinating. This is really good. I love it. I love it.
Speaker 2:You know, it's like with music stuff, it all comes back to music. You know like we make these really crazy false assumptions about music and musical genres. Now there are bad songs out there. Let's just, let's just own that right. There's some bad songs. There are songs with really dysfunctional words that theologically aren't doing what we need them to do, but that exists. You know, like we have hymns in our hymnal that are not the most theologically solid, that we quite frankly can't get rid of because people like them so much. You know the hymnal would not sell.
Speaker 4:Do you want to give an example? No, I do not. The risk of being controversial. Don't want to be insinatory, I do not Thanks, jim, you wouldn't, you wouldn't.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, I think a paradigm for this is the great commandment To love God more. And before we love God, we recognize we're loved by God. So that is theology. And then holding our love for neighbor with this open, charitable, you know, and theology is the most important thing, what God says about us and our response in worship to how much he loves us unconditionally by grace, through faith, that is the most important thing. And making sure word and sacrament are delivered so forgiveness of sins, life and salvation happen. The game set match, that is it. But then the way it gets lived out, we need to have wisdom. Sociologically, it's a very important thing what I hear in cultureation. We need to have wisdom then, and how that gets distributed in our respective contexts. And I'm just praying for more charity with the diversity of context today, that we would keep the main thing, the main thing delivering word and sacrament, and then recognizing there's a whole host of different cultures that may have nuanced expressions of that one foundational truth. And that's kind of arguing for, jim, is that fair summary?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and just maybe, to use one more metaphor illustration, you think about language. So, in the use of different languages and proclaiming the gospel in different languages, like, which language is the language of the church? Whether there's not one right Now? The second you translate from Greek or Hebrew or from the historic Latin into these different languages. There's a loss there. Someone's making a decision about how to translate that, so it's never Even German and English when the Exactly right.
Speaker 2:And culturally that matters. Like you're using a different thing, but we would be foolish as a church to be proclaiming the gospel in Greek to everyone we meet. Right now. No one speaks Greek. That's the enculturation balance. How do you acknowledge that there is a loss? I mean, there is a loss culturally when you translate things. There's a loss when you use new cultural paradigms and idioms. But there's also a gain, and it's not just a gain of relevance. It's actually the expansion of the tradition itself that the proclamation of the gospel goes forward through the church and every time in place, and it's very profound.
Speaker 3:So good. I think there's some overlap here with Paul's words around meat Eating meat, not eating meat. As it relates to songs and style of songs. Today and I'll use case in point At the Synod Convention and we're going to talk about this kind of second half of the podcast sure, at the Synod Convention the style of worship was remarkably, there was chanting, it was very traditional, it was divine, it was Vespers, mattens, divine Service 1, 2, and 3, chanted words of institution which I love, actually Divine Service, setting 3.
Speaker 3:And for the sake of our brother or sister who may have never and may have some Jesus could be kept from being delivered to them if we make a choice to bring a heavy rock and roll drum set or a guitar or an electric guitar heaven forbid into that space, like that would be so distracting for them. So at those types of gatherings and I think then district presidents have to know a little bit more, be a little bit more sensitive and maybe there's a little bit more enculturation, like in the PSD district convention and conference like we'll have a little bit more of a variety of worship styles because we have so many ethnicities, so many cultures represented in our district, but that would be maybe unwise to do at Synod Convention Any kind of parallel, though, to Paul and the use of meat for a brother who may be stronger or weaker, jim.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So again, I don't want to be too pointed or inflammatory here, but the weaker brother argument falls a little flat for me in places like Synod Convention, because this is the place where, like those that are really invested are yeah, it's the same thing. At Concordia Seminary I mean quite honestly my leadership. There. I was working to teach the diverse, not exclusively the diversity I mean, my goodness, 90% of what we did came from the hymnal but to teach diversity and contextual practice in order to prepare people to go to places and be able to navigate culture and contextually do ministry. So just respectfully, I would suggest that the decisions that are made liturgically at convention are not for the weaker brother or a meat-no-meat thing. I actually think that there is a different agenda and a different framework for decisions there, and I mean that respectfully.
Speaker 3:I was putting the best construction on it, jim, I was putting the best construction.
Speaker 1:Which is good.
Speaker 4:I do have to say I dig that Ukrainian folk song hymn that they did. I thought, that was really cool.
Speaker 2:And that's a lovely demonstration of, and in the worship services there were a number of times where we sang in Spanish and we had our Hispanic ministry leaders contributing musically and I thought that was very lovely. And at the convention there were also times where there was diverse instrumentation. They had guitars, leading things, piano, organ things like that, and different brass instruments. So there was a musical diversity that was there. I do think that when it comes to worship bands, let's just say, and that kind of diversity, I really respect the work that is being done through the Center for Worship Leadership at Concordia, irvine, and the Worship Art Leader Initiative, the summit that's coming up this October that's going to be in St Louis. The work that they're doing. Really, they are able to nuance the conversation, to keep theology central and also to diversify instrumentation while also cultivating new songs, or Lutheran songs, I mean, quite frankly, there are some From the CCLI Top 100, there are some songs that we really should not be singing and we need to be able to understand that and be aware of that, because some of the theological implications of them is not even cultural implications, but some of the theological implications are just things that do not resonate with who we are as Lutherans, but what we need to do is resource our Lutheran songwriters to write songs in those musical genres and paradigms.
Speaker 2:And that's what I really respect about the Center for Worship Leadership as we find ways to do things together. So that's just at convention, let's say, or in our district gatherings. That would be a real place of growth. And challenge is, how do we invite Kip Fox and Blake Flatley and some of our other Lutheran songwriters to be Matt Preston, who works with you guys to be modeling how to do that type of leadership? I think that would really strengthen us together and that's the type of thing that I think would be strong for us as a denomination and would point us inter-culturally too.
Speaker 2:So that way then, when we have the Ukrainian choir singing, it's not tokenism, then we're not putting them on display. We're doing this together, we share this together, which is we were starting to press that very well at the convention, with our Hispanic singing and Spanish together and doing some of those things together. I think that's really important.
Speaker 3:Amen, and we're doing it. The songs coming out from that group, man, they are strong, we're singing them, we're starting to yeah, fantastic, probably four or five of them. If anybody wants to listen, you could go to the Christ Greenfield app and you could download the five songs that were just recently released, all put together in collaboration with that group. So so exciting. So you've transitioned now to Concordia, texas. You've been there just about a year, is that right, jim?
Speaker 2:Just over a year.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Just about just over a year and I'd love to hear your perspective, your story and man, what a fascinating time to enter into Concordia Texas and your evolution now into the head of their theology department. That's wonderful. And then you find yourself in this like you've worked and I'm Jake Bestling, you know a longtime friend and partner in the gospel with you. Now you work so hard to like become ordained and now as a rostered church worker, that's, you have to be called by someplace else, or, yeah, it's just very complex and just very sad.
Speaker 3:In general, and my thoughts, as I get yours too from convention as it relates to Concordia Texas, there's it was a relational breakdown first and foremost that occurred between Concordia University System and the leadership of Synod and leadership at Concordia Texas and therefore, if it's a leadership, communication, relationship breakdown, there's mutual responsibility. We tried to bring a number of resolutions that just said hey, let's work to get back together and let's have mutual confession. Absolution be our guide, our true north. And there was. I don't, I don't really get it. I don't know why there was this sense of just blood in the water and someone has to. You know that's what it felt like as the resolution to pass 703, past 7030, something like that, a lack of recognition of the nuance of the story, having just heard President Christian get, get forward and share his perspective and the kind of the mutual, mutual struggle that took place.
Speaker 3:So again, as I said on the floor, I'm praying that Concordia Texas comes back into the LCMS. I I love that all of our Concordia presidents are excited about maybe excited too strong of an adjective, but good with a seven dash 04 and that maybe there's more safety and protection for CTX's border regions as well as the border regions on the left hand kingdom, items that need to take place. So yeah, entering in what's, what's your perspective? How closely? Because in all Jim, you and I have not talked about this a whole lot. I've been praying for you, I've been praying for Jake and others that I know at CTX, don and Christie as well. So yeah, your, your perspective on what happened at Synod and Convention and CTX moving forward.
Speaker 2:Sure. So thanks for that and thanks for your prayers and thanks for those who are listening for the support that they've offered for the whole church as we navigate all of this. So maybe a couple of things. First, I took the call to Concordia Texas knowing that they were in the midst of these governance conversations and, you know, working through a process of trying to renegotiate the governance structure. So I wasn't surprised by it and I knew I knew enough about it to know what I was getting into when I came to Concordia Texas and I still came very willingly.
Speaker 2:I love what I'm doing at Concordia Texas. I would also and you didn't mean to say it quite this way, tim, but I just always try to clarify people when they say that depending on one's perspective, I suppose. But for me my perspective is we have not left the LCMS. I mean, I'm still a roster church worker in good standing who is serving as an associate pastor at Faith Lutheran Church in Georgetown. I just reaffirmed my confessional subscription, you know, as I took my, as I was installed and went through the right of installation. So I'm a confessional Lutheran who is pastor in Georgetown, texas, and also has the vocation of professor at Concordia University, texas and Concordia University of Texas, for their part, is committed to the Lutheran confessions and to a relationship with the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. Our leadership, our members of LC-MS congregations, our board of regents, members of LC-MS congregations were committed to that type of relationship and structure. For me to speak about the governance issues would be out of place right, because I'm the chair of the theology department. I'm not on the board of regents, I'm not part of our administration and I've not been part of those conversations, so I just want to stay in my lane on that. I can speak to the character of the people that are involved, that everybody is trying to do their very best to navigate a very, very difficult complex situation and to keep the values at the highest level. So, valuing a governance structure that enables us to be successful as a university, valuing our confessional commitment to the LC-MS and letting that guide especially the theological decisions that are happening at our institution, I think those things are really strong and Concordia Texas is doing their very best to do that and I'm honored to be part of it. It's been very good for me.
Speaker 2:I love my role as the chair of the theology department. I love being able to teach the Old Testament and the New Testament and Lutheran doctrine, lutheran confessions, theology of worship all the theological classes I get to teach. I love mentoring our church music students and I love being bivocational and being able to be a pastor of a local congregation. That's a really good fit for me. I don't know what the rest of our church workers will do and each one of them is navigating that individually. That's what we were counseled to do by the district president is to navigate that with his leadership. So that's what we're trying to do. So I would just lift up Concordia, texas, as a really it's just a fun place to serve. It's a wonderful place, great student community, great Christian community, and I'm committed to being a thoroughgoing Lutheran at Concordia University, texas, and I'm thankful for the opportunity to serve there.
Speaker 3:You know, I love that response and I love the charitable nature in the midst of the controversy, and even you and this took some courage writing a letter and kind of sharing your experience as one who's been, you know, obviously, in the parish and then at Concordia Seminary and now there you just speak to the character of the leaders there and I have found my time with Don and Christie to be just fantastic. And then there was some legalities. You know, a lot of times at the Synod Convention we end up saying things like I love that you stay in your lane and I want to stay in, like my lane too. But like the amount of people that just robustly I don't know if they've looked at all the bylaws and all the lawyers speak and all of that but like, say, just out of hand, they stole the university from the Synod. You know there were so many people who were seeing that I was like I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I just kind of have to leave it at that. Go ahead, jim.
Speaker 2:Well and again staying in my lane as well as I can. I thought that was in many ways the wrong, for I don't know what the better forum is for working it out, but I thought that was really the wrong forum for, you know, working that out. I don't think it contributed one bit to a reconciliation process. You were advocating for that. Some of the amendments were really advocating for reconciliation. I definitely think that reconciliation is the next step forward and the best step forward. But you know, I don't know it was, and I got the sense that the majority of our delegates really have the best interest of Concordia and the best interest of the Synod in mind. They're not the ones that are up in arms about Concordia stealing anything, or you know. And yet you know, because this is the resolution that's before us. The resolution passes that uses Concordia University of Texas of breaking the commandments that it broke.
Speaker 2:I don't think that that's a fair allegation against Concordia Texas and I don't know what it's going to accomplish. I think the issue is much more complex than what the resolution that was passed represents, and I do. You know we're a funny bunch, you know, as a church body and also as a society. And just again, without being inflammatory, we've seen in our national politics that the news station that you watch many times informs your perspective on policies and I'll own that. The news station that I watch is, you know, informs me on what's going on. So some of it is access to information and I think people heard, you know, a particular bit of information that informed their perspective and I'm not sure that their perspectives were well and were comprehensively informed.
Speaker 2:How about that? I don't think people actually know what's really going on. I work at Concordia Texas and I don't know what's actually going on. So the very fact that you know the Senate and convention was put, you know, in a position where they had to vote on a resolution that was advocating for a governance structure that you know I mean this is 10 years or more in the making of a conversation and to have it come to that resolution I thought overall was just, it was a loss for our church body and Concordia Texas has their part in that. So I'm not I am not blaming the Senate for Concordia Texas's culpability in this. I mean we certainly have culpability in the process.
Speaker 2:But I think that overall, the resolution is a loss for us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean we talk about Concordia, texas in 703, you know pretty much 100% of the blame is there. And then and then, to speak to complexity, you've got a 26 front and back page, seven, dash oh four resolution about the relationship of the Concordia University system, connected to all the different Board of Regents, and 26 pages. You expect, like the delegation, to work through all the fine tooth details of that resolution connected to all the lawyers speak. That is kind of behind, a lot of that. So just speaking to you should have, you should hold your opinions about this topic very loosely because it's a very, very complex thing that hopefully can be solved by Confession, absolution, mutual reconciliation. Then if lawyers need to get involved, they're going to do, they're going to do their thing, but that's again. That's outside of my, my pay grade right now. This is very, very complex and we should, we should hold our opinions very, very loosely and not not openly 100% disparage Concordia Texas. You have forsaken our Confession. I just don't see it. I don't.
Speaker 3:Maybe there are some things around the culture and I leaned into this with Don and Christie when we chatted. I mean certain use of language, it's kind of trigger language, is that? Is that always necessarily wise. Dei, diversity, equity, inclusion, type, type, language Well, I don't know, it's in, it's in your context. We got to have definition of the words and once you get definition of the words then we can. Okay, I can see, I can see where you're coming from in your respective context. But man, those we've. We got triggered around Concordia big time and when we get triggered, we we don't speak from a place of love and charity and kindness and curiosity, it's just a fight or flight, reactivity that takes place, and you kind of see that especially on the interwebs. Anything more to add to that, jim? Yeah.
Speaker 2:And the only thing would be to to champion the people involved. You know so, like Don Christian, as the leader of the institution, and you know leaders have to be leaders, you know. But now I don't want the public perception of him. How about this? The public perception of what? You know? How people may esteem him is not the way that I esteem him, and that's because I know him and even Matt Harrison, who I disagree with on a number of different things. I hold him as a brother in Christ and he is a strong, strong leader who has done his very best to lead our church body, which is a really, really difficult job, and so I I I hold him in high regard in that. And Christie Kirk, as our provost and our leader, I hold her in high regard and, if we can, as the church continued to hold you know that was what was missing for me in the convention conversations largely.
Speaker 2:There were many people that were doing this and you were one of them, tim holding us in high regard. But you know, if we can hold each other in high regard and in Christian love, love covers a multitude of sins. You know what I mean. That's, that's the Lord's word for us, and we must always take that posture of love first. And there were a number of times in the convention and in those conversations where love could have been the first thrust and it was not. And I think that's where we lose, that's where the conversations fall apart.
Speaker 3:Yep, it's Satan's playground man, Jack. Anything to add as we're coming to the close.
Speaker 4:No, I remember learning from a wise old man in the church. He said hey, you know, we're a very Germanic denomination in the way that we deal with things, as we argue very robustly during the day and then at night we have a few beers and we make up. And he said, the problem is we're not drinking together anymore. Right, I think that's right. I think you can drink water.
Speaker 2:You can drink water, you can drink some wisdom to that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Just while we're not breaking bread the lack of relationship. Yeah, no totally, totally get it and in social media and technology in general has not brought us closer together. I think it's fabricated us even further so yeah, this has been so much fun, Jim. If people want to connect with you, how can they do so, brother?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm a pretty good follow. On Facebook. We post a lot about ice cream and about our travels and things like that, so we try to use Facebook for a cheerful purpose, but I love connecting with people on social media and you can also email me, jim Mariad at Concordiaedu. I'd love to connect and tell you more about what we're doing at Concordia.
Speaker 3:Man, I feel joy and kindness and compassion every time I get to hang out with you. Just enjoy. The Lord Jim is all over your life as a husband and a father and as a leader within the church.
Speaker 3:It's an honor to call you a friend and brother in Christ. This is lead time sharing, it's caring. Please like, subscribe, comment wherever it is you're taking this in, whether it's YouTube, spotify, itunes, wherever it is. That goes a long way in getting the word out to have. This is what the United Leadership Collective is all about to have just charitable conversations cross-culturally, especially within Lutheran Church, missouri Synod, that the joy of the Lord and the fruit of the Spirit would be seen in us. Why Not just for us? It's for the sake of the world that as they watch us, they would look right through us and see the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. His name is Jesus. It's a good day. Go and make it a great day. We'll be back next week with another episode of Lead Time. Thanks so much, jim. Thanks, jack.
Speaker 2:Thank you guys.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to Lead Time, a podcast of the United Leadership Collective. The ULC's mission is to collaborate with the local church to discover, develop and deploy leaders through biblical Lutheran doctrine and innovative methods To partner with us in this gospel message. Subscribe to our channel, then go to theuniteletorshiporg to create your free login for exclusive material and resources and then to explore ways in which you can sponsor an episode. Thanks for listening and stay tuned for next week's episode.