Lead Time
Lead Time
Forecasting Christian Congregations in 2050 - With Rev. Dr. Chris Holder
What does the future hold for Christian congregations and pastoral formation? A stimulating conversation with Reverend Dr. Chris Holder, a catalytic church planner and lead pastor at Bethel Lutheran, paints a vivid picture of this future. We explore Unite Leadership Collective's vision of equipping the priesthood of all believers and discuss unconventional routes for formation, the merits of the cohort model, and how individual ministry context shapes this process.
Chris shares his journey to ministry, the daunting task of church planting in urban areas, and the ever-evolving challenge of identifying target audiences in rapidly changing neighborhoods. Chris also provides his vision for Christian congregations by 2050, revealing a future of smaller, multicultural churches with less political power, and discusses his experiences with Bethel Church in Dallas and the importance of theological hospitality.
Finally, we delve into the future of church collaboration and ministry, examining the ripple effects of the mega church movement and the rise of the bivocational ministry model. We also discuss the financial pressures on congregations and how Chris is working with the Luther House to nurture local bivocational leaders. We conclude with an important conversation about soul care for pastors and church leaders, highlighting the power of silence and solitude, the need for a more open dialogue about emotions, and the role confession and absolution play in spiritual formation. Join us for this insightful discussion.
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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. Jack Cowberg is not with me. He actually was flying across the country and a flight got canceled. That's the way it goes these days from time to time, but today I get the privilege and pleasure of hanging out with Reverend Dr Chris Holder. Chris is a catalytic church planner with a focus in multi-ethnic ministries in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. He currently serves as lead pastor at Bethel Lutheran in East Dallas, which has worship in English. I love this English, spanish, swahili, and then say how I don't even Kinderwanda.
Speaker 1:Is that how I say that?
Speaker 3:Kinderwanda, a language spoken in Rwanda and as well as in part of the Congo. He also leads, co-leads, a monthly gathering for purpose and for the purpose of encouraging and feeding the souls of church planners, network leaders and other mission-minded leaders in the Texas district. Welcome, chris. Thanks for hanging with me today. Buddy, how you doing?
Speaker 2:I'm good. It's my privilege to be here, looking forward to the conversation.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so let's jump right in man Lead time. We, in the season of convention, we had a lot of conversations with folks with a variety of different opinions regarding some of the hot button issues regarding the Concordia system and maybe even church worker formation, pastoral formation. So did you pay attention to the Senate convention and all? If so, what were your thoughts there? Chris?
Speaker 2:I tried not to but can't be on social media. Can I get bombarded with some of it? And there were a couple of issues that I personally had a stake in, which is what's going on with Concordia Austin, our local university here, and I have good friends with Christie Kirk, who's the provost there, and so I've been following that. I get my DCE training through them before I became a pastor, so I have an investment in that school and also some of the conversations around pastoral formation. I went through SMP so I have two vickers right now, One who leads the Spanish service, who's going through Center for Hispanic Studies, the other ones who leads our Swahili can you're on a service? Who's going through EIIT. So I'm very invested in the different alternative routes. So those two the pastoral formation and the whole Concordia things were issues that I kind of pay attention to. The rest of it not so much.
Speaker 3:Yeah, chris, thanks for that, Thanks for becoming a faculty mentor with the Kairos University system as well as in partnership with the Luther House of Study. You're just about ready to be done with that and, obviously, with the United Leadership Collective. We're hoping that one of the resolutions was assessing and analyzing. I think this was a resolution 6-04. I'll forget that eventually. But assessing, analyze the existing word and, in some cases, word and sacrament ministry formation paths that are taking place, and I believe Luther House and the Kairos Competency-Based Theological Education route should be explored with curiosity and I'm looking forward to the pastoral formation committee setting up the time to meet with us.
Speaker 3:And I think, for those who are, this is way beyond this is way beyond Christ, greenfield and really the ULC in general. There's a number of different leaders and those that have PhDs and doctorate of ministry who are saying hey, man, the fields are ripe under the harvest and we've got a number of different folks, women and men not women for pastoral ministry per se, but men too that we need to fill pulpits and we think this is a way to do it that should be explored because of the contextuality and the inexpensive nature of this formation, while not compromising rigor theological, very much conservative Lutheran teaching, and I'm praying that some of our LCMS leaders will want to get under the hood to help us make this thing even better, in the hopes of maybe bringing this to Synod and Convention three years from now. That this would be a exploratory season right now with a number of our leaders, as you've looked at. What kind of makes a competency-based education distinct, chris, and you've just gotten through the faculty mentor training. What are your thoughts about the formation process in general?
Speaker 2:I really like it and honestly I've been pleasantly surprised and pleased with some of the things that our Synod has done, even with SMP. The only thing that makes some of those challenging is the affordability. But I like the cohort model as well. I think we do a lot of things well with that and again, I'm disappointed that it seems the direction that our Synod is to want to force people to go back to three years of a master divining in person. That's the only really acceptable former pastoral training, which I find ludicrous, but it is what it is. But as far as the Luther house, I really like the competency.
Speaker 2:I feel like the real emphasis on customizing it to your ministry context, which is so important. I mean, what I'm doing in East Alice is similar to what you're doing in some ways and very different, but I like that. I like the mentor approach. I like the variety of ways to receive content that there is. With that. I feel like it's very flexible but not compromising the product at all, not compromising the content. And I feel like a lot of guys and women that are coming into ministry are coming at it with a lot of experience, a lot of real life experience, a lot of training. A lot of that needs to be accounted for, and I like the fact that people can get credit for some of their life experience. I feel like it's a total win-win.
Speaker 2:And one of the things I really frustrated with a lot of these conversations is is this replacing that? And I still think there's a place for the Master of Divinity. I think there's a place for guys to go spend three years on campus and have that experience and go on and get a PhD and all that. And I think there's a place for SMP and then the programs my guys are in. But I think there's also a place for this. I don't think it's neither, or it's that you talked about filling pulpits. I know in your area and the Phoenix area, and certainly in our district in Texas, we're trying to create new ones too, planting new ministries, so I feel like we need to. It's not either, or let's do them all, yeah, and do it all.
Speaker 3:Amen, amen, yeah, no, I think there's the what is the best right, what is the best? Castro formation program and I'm willing to say for especially those that are in our system, going through our Concordia University, I'm a system guy, right, I was in the Pre-Sem program, concordia, nebraska, and then four years at the seminary, with one year of that being Vic Ridge, which I love. I love that model. It was great for me. I would highly encourage, as I said at the convention, I highly encourage my son, if the Lord calls him into that, to go that pathway. I think it is the best.
Speaker 3:And yet we have a number. We're not talking bivocational and co-vocational right now. There was very little recognition of the need for leaders to be raised up internally and I think some of these leaders raised up internally should be general ordination pastors with a master of divinity. So the Cairo University and the Lutheran House of Studies offers a fully accredited, the same accreditation as you'd get in residential, fully accredited. And I've also had a number of SMP pastors say, wow, I just went through four years of rigorous study. Now the languages may not be as rigorous, obviously, as it is with the master of divinity, but could some of this count toward a master of divinity in partnership with Luther House and Cairo. So the answer is absolutely, absolutely. So I'm wondering if some may want to go on and add the extra rigor that it takes to get the master of divinity in partnership with the specific ministry pastor program right now.
Speaker 2:This can be a wonderful, wonderful compliment. And I'm just looking at Luther House right now and it's going through the application process, went through Center for Hispanic Studies for his ordination route and his English is good enough now and he's actually. His name is Ones Amore. He helped me form T2C2. And he's the head of the National Hispanic Convention for the LCMS and he's looking at it for the same reason, because the program he did didn't lead to a degree. So he's looking at OK, how can I get it? He still wants the master of divinity, so he's already ordained. He's already a major leader in our domination, but he still wants those credentials.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, those credentials. They do matter In our culture, and cross-culturally as well. So let's dig into your story a little bit. It was awesome, chris Samichu, in Austin a few months back. What initially impressed me is your joy, your passion for sharing the gospel and your entrepreneurial I mean, you're a serial starter. How did that develop in you, chris? Tell that story.
Speaker 2:Well, I would say Joy, I think it just comes naturally. I'm a seven on the enneagram, which is the enthusiast, you know. So yeah, I just I came kind of wired that way. But you know, as far as ministry goes, you know when I I went through, when I was about 14, 15 years old, my parents went through divorce.
Speaker 2:I'd grown up in the church of Christ, my mom's, where you go to Lutheran Church for a small season in her life, but I kind of Latched on there and the youth minister, dc, at that church was a in the pastor. There were big spiritual influences on me and but that church Moved and this was in Southwest Fort Worth and and it moved when I was like in high school Maybe even I was a college it physically moved this location To to leave its community and it was this as the community was more Hispanic and that always bothered me. I didn't know why at the time. I'm like you know, why does bother me, but it always just seemed like why are we leaving our community and that? So that I went on to become a youth ministry and In DC work and and it was doing that and then kind of when link North Texas, you know, started and then you know, the link movement started. I got involved with that and started bringing my youth there and so really started getting plugged into the city.
Speaker 2:I was doing mostly kind of suburban context, youth ministry and first season and then I really just started getting plugged into the through link and through.
Speaker 2:So I've been the students stuff in the city and just I really, you know, became my passion to see how can churches that are in changing communities and changing neighborhoods engage that in a positive way with the gospel. So that that's really kind of been by last 15 years of my ministry. My passion is to is to help facilitate that is in as many ways I can. So I helped start a mission network that I'm no longer helping lead but I I'm kind of in it. Travis Hartman and I kind of co-lead this group in North Texas and he kind of has the background and suburban church planning and I kind of have the background and working with the inner city guys and the Multicultural guys and together with with Ben Gonzalez, who's our, you know, missions guy from North Texas, we kind of lead this group that gets together monthly. So but that that's where I'm from is just that first burden I had, you know, 30 years ago, and my church I was that was like left its community.
Speaker 3:I was like why can't we just serve the people here, you know, and so, mmm, love that story and that kind of burning hot, why that there's certain stuff that happens when we're young. Right, it's crazy how God works like. For me it was the injustice of my first call and I'm 26 at the time and our church doesn't necessarily reflect the surrounding community, a lot of the working poor and homeless who are around. None of them would dare Step into, you know, into our Sunday morning worship experience. And yet there's how do we, how do we start to serve them? And that was a genesis of the table and a Thursday night meal and worship Inclusive up but not exclusive, before the working poor and homeless. So I got, I got a similar story.
Speaker 3:I want to, I want to go deeper in terms of urban Ministry. What is it about and I don't think it's, it's not a Lutheran problem, I think it's an American church problem that that makes it really really hard in a lot of these Communities, urban communities, that that shift from you just think about the radical shift in many of our urban centers from the 50s To to present day what makes it so hard for a lot of them To adjust and change who their target market is. I mean, I think there's a lot of sociology there, more than just theology. We were grieving how things have changed and, and so why don't we just go to where the people are who look like us? I think a lot of these churches made that choice, when I mean 30, 30, 40 years ago. So, yeah, thoughts on why urban ministry is so difficult and and to see churches evolve Is so difficult in your experience. Well, I think one of things that makes you know, having been involved in.
Speaker 2:I was. You know I was involved in a church plan in Frisco, texas, which is about as White suburban as you can get. But you know, I think what makes it hard for for city government is that they're not going to be able to get For city church planting in city urban revitalization. I would say my ministry is mostly less so church planting than church revitalization. But using church planting techniques and launching new ministries is yeah.
Speaker 2:I think you started a new community right. You go to a Town that was 5000 and now it's 50,000 and it's a growing suburb. It's kind of easy to identify who that community is, right. Well, where I live in East Dallas, you know we've got it's. We've got regentification happening. I live in a neighborhood that's being regentified. We've got, you know, first, second, third generation Hispanic families. Some are apartments somewhere in homes. You know the we've got it's. Just it's a very diverse. We have this, this immigrant, you know refugee group from from Africa that we've we've plugged into. But they're kind of scattered all over the place. So it's really hard to identify who the community is and and who your target audience is and who you're. Who are the new people coming into the community like you go to suburbial over, that's a brand new sub development. You know, here it's a house, there it's a house, there it's this person's moving in, that person's moving, yet so it's.
Speaker 2:I think that's a big part of it. I think. I think a lot. I Think a lot of what limits also urban ministry is is fear. I think, and I think honestly, I want to look at what. Back to the question about that, what's going on with our Senate? I think a lot of the things that we're doing is based on fear. I think the thing with Concordia, austin, is based on fear. I think they're trying to limit some of these creative ways to train pastors is based on fear and I think you know it's the unknown, like who is my neighbor? Why? I used to know right, and now now I don't. So I think it Causes people to be insular. I think it's something, a lot of it's fear-based.
Speaker 3:Hmm, yeah, so what? You've done? A lot of cry. I agree with you. You've done a lot of cross-cultural ministry work. What makes that fun and and challenging? And with the caveat that the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod is Unfortunately one of the most angle white angle white communities church bodies in in the United States context and for us to, for us to evolve, there is a very strategic opportunity for us to engage our African-American black community friends as well as our Hispanic, our Hispanic friends, if we're going to weather this radical demographic shift that the LCMS is going through right now.
Speaker 3:So talk about the joys and the challenges of our church body going cross-cultural.
Speaker 2:Well, the, uh, I went to. The joy is, I mean, you kind of get a glimpse of, of, of you know the new heavens, new earth, you get. You get a glimpse of. You know revelation seven, that kind of stuff. You get the you know every nation tribe.
Speaker 2:Uh, one of the things I, like, I've really been passionate about is, even in our denomination, one of our approaches to our primary approach to multicultural ministry has been to allow groups from other language groups or other other, even, like you know, contemporary, traditional people, but in the multicultural context, you know, use our space but be a different congregation, be a different entity, and, and I really pushed for the integrated model. So we're here, we're one Bethel, like we're, you know, and we say we have a, a contemporary, we have a, the call, the gathering, we have a traditional service in English, we have a service in Spanish, we have a service in Kenyatta, but they're all Bethel, you know it's. And the vickers we have are not vickers of the Spanish ministry, I mean that that's their, their specific ministry, but they're vickers of Bethel. So I the joy is to to get to experience the different cultures, to get to experience the different, and we did a, a Pentecost potluck this year and we had language. We had. We had each member of Bethel who wanted to sponsor a table with their cultural background and we had. You know, we had the typical German and English and and Swedish, but we also had African and Brazil and you know all these different nations represented.
Speaker 2:So you really get to to to experience variety and and you get experience learning cross-culturally, learning different cultures and learning you know the challenges. One is the language. Two, two is just the cultural sensitivities of things and understanding where people are coming from. The challenges is, you know, it's hard enough to just get an all mostly white, english speaking congregation on the same page. You add the layers of of. You know, you know like, like, like, for example, our African grew outreaches. They mostly come from like more of a Pentecostal assembly background, a God background. They grew up in refugee camps in Rwanda. It's. There's just so much cultural you know knowledge needed. So it's, yeah, it's getting everybody on the same page, getting you know, getting the congregation to, to initially buy into doing it, but also so and realizing that you're, you're, and this is one of the beauties of of of.
Speaker 2:I think the Cairo's Lutheran House model is this whole idea of well, they talk about. You know theological, you know hospitality and, and that's exactly what we have. You have to be hospitable on both. I'm here to learn, but I'm also here to teach. You know and, and so the challenge is financial. A lot of these new emerging ministries don't don't make money for the church, at least in the beginning, you know. So we're blessed. In Texas, we, you know, we have a strong district that helps provide some seed money for some of that, but not all places have that. So yeah, it's. I mean, it's not easy, it's not for the it's not for the, for the weakhearted, that's for sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, thanks for being such an example that I'd love to talk about doctrine and practice as it relates to going cross-cultural. You know, there are some stories that I've heard of LCMS missions going in to say Rwanda or some African community or maybe in Southeast Asia. And we have this desire and it can, it can smack up kind of some colonialist tendencies to come in and just kind of overlay page five and 15 of the, the old red. You know, they remember growing, growing up, and if you just do these things, then this means you're, you're Lutheran. It's kind of the, this virtue signaling of being confessionally Lutheran and and some of some of our friends cross-culturally they'll, they'll play that, they'll play that game, if you will, to get close to our church because we're Americans and it's the Lutheran Church of the Senate 200, some, you know, just about years old, and so, yeah, they.
Speaker 3:It just makes me feel sometimes the way I've heard the stories of how international missions take place and and then I think there's that tendency well, we've done it that way there, we just need to to make them more Lutheran. And Lutheran doesn't necessarily mean hey, we're going to dig into the description of the confessions. Oh, we certainly do. It also means you're going to do all of these practices just like we do in many of our rural and maybe suburban white congregations. Any thoughts about that? That dance between doctrine and practice as we go? Go cross-cultural.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you know Johannes Minxtab who was, you know, our mission guy from North Texas for for many years, and you know he's there at Shreya and and he I learned a lot from him and then worked with him a lot, and it it's it's just it's having a long, long term approach with it and it's it is doing the dance and it's it's it's expect, it's not expecting that that that group or any one group to, to become Lutheran in the sense of page 515 or whatever that means, but teaching the doctrine, realize that there's a some that that aren't going to ever buy it fully. And you know, like here we, we both baptized infants and older, and and we, we, we walk along with the families where they're at with that and you know, and it it's a dance, it is. You know and and a lot of I feel like even with our some of our African group here, that they're Lutheran because a Lutheran church has been hospitable them. They're still learning what that means doctrine. They're still learning what that means practice. So I said that's why we've, we're sending one of their leaders through the training. But we realized it may take 10 years for them to really kind of know even what it means to be Lutheran, and and then we're okay with that, and so we're just, you know, as long as we're seeing progress, as long as we're seeing a willingness for it to learn on both sides.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I think, you know, there's always the battle, and I think, in our denomination, you know, the one wing wants to get it right, the other wing wants to get it out, and I think, ideally, we want to try to do both. But realizing that you know it's messy, missions is messy, and you know it's, you know so it's. It's truly reaching people where they're at, but challenging them to, to, to move in a direction. You know, and realize that we, as Lutherans, we don't have all the answers either. So, and that's yeah for sure, we'd be humble enough to realize that.
Speaker 3:One of my prayers is, within our Synod, that we would have you talk theological hospitality.
Speaker 3:Let's say we should have contextual hospitality with those who are like you and me in some regards.
Speaker 3:Moving into lower socioeconomic, we should have more contextual hospitality, say, hey, I know this is a long, just like you say I know it's a long, I know your heart, I know what you swore to in in coming under scripture in the confessions and I trust you at the end of the day, with those who are working with cross-culturally and those who are are maybe ecclesiastical supervisors, be it district presidents or those who are at the seminary or the Synod office in general.
Speaker 3:Can we just have that, that kind of open-hearted, open-minded I? I see what you're doing, chris, in your area and I I love and trust one that you are a Lutheran who who loves our confession, and that you're doing everything possible to remain contextually hospitable with the leaders you're seeking to raise up who have come out of, who have come out of a variety of different cultures. I think that the, the, the dance, often cross-culturally is yes, there's sociology, but then that sociology is very, very intimately connected to the, say, charismatic movement in many of our global South communities. Or if you go in Latin America, in any sense the charismatic, you know, church has had a lot, a lot of predominance there.
Speaker 3:And so it it's just going to take. It's just going to take some time for for us to re-understand what it means for those leaders, especially to be Orthodox Lutherans. Anything more to add there, chris?
Speaker 2:Um, no, I I would just say that you're absolutely right. It is a dance and it and it takes time and it and it and it takes and it takes a willingness to to engage in those conversations and a lot of it is just one. I think so much of it is serving without an agenda. So, like we do, we've done a lot with public schools as as kind of a way to engage those, those relationships. I'm on the board of directors for White Rock Center of Hope, which is our like kind of local ministry. It's an ecumenical ministry in East Dallas, that that you know, that that provides food, you know clothing, you know basic, basic needs kind of stuff. And you know I think it's just living and walking amongst people that have very different life experiences and realizing that you are there to learn and teach and serve and be served and you know and have a long term goal in mind, not the short term.
Speaker 3:Hmm, amen, amen. All right, let's get a little higher level, chris, put on your church futurist hat. I like to do this from time to time, and what's amazing about human beings, chris, is that we have the capacity to vision, to think about what is going to be not just, you know, tomorrow or the next day or the next year, but even 10 years down the line, and this is one of the reasons, I think, that it differentiates us as those made in the image of God and God. God is the God that is here and he's also. He's also ahead of us, and so he wants us to to follow him into the future. So what will the normal Christian congregation look like here in America in 2050, about 27 years from now? What are you hoping, what's your vision for? What will characterize her?
Speaker 2:Well, what obviously, from my perspective, is I hope it become. It continues to become more and more multicultural and more and more a reflex. Each church would be more and more reflection of its community. I'd love to see that the church become a little bit less commuter and a little more local based. I don't know if that's really possible with, but who knows?
Speaker 2:I do think the mega church movement will always be there to some extent, but I don't sense it being the same. I think it's going to be smaller churches. I don't, I don't. I think just that what we're seeing with the celebrity pastors just fall in left and right. We've had a couple here in Dallas lately. I don't know if that is sustainable and I don't know if that's even good. I'm intrigued by the kind of the micro church movement and the home church movement. I think that's going to be a big player in it. I think we're going to definitely see more and more ministry people and leaders being biblocational. I think it's just.
Speaker 2:I don't think the church is going to have the same influence that it's had and I think it's going to continue to decrease in some ways and I think I hope the church kind of loses some of its political power and it quits caring about that.
Speaker 2:I think we have a great theology there the two kingdoms but as Lutherans that allows us to not worry so much about trying to influence legislation and trying to change people's lives.
Speaker 2:So, you know, I kind of hope in some ways and not to bring attention to myself, but I kind of hope what Bethel's doing becomes somewhat of a model for the future church where we could have multiple groups using the same facility and working together, like one of the things we're about to launch as part of our longer term strategic planning is a nice word.
Speaker 2:I never do Sunday school again, but we're doing what we're calling a joint discipleship hour with our English, spanish and African kids and children and adults from 12 to 1 on Sunday and just to house. You know, we've been frustrated for two years that our African group doesn't know what to do with their kids and we're like, well then, let's help them fix that. So, yeah, I think it's just going to be, I think it's going to be smaller bodies, I think it's going to be very lean, I think it's going to be, you know, I think it's going to be very multicultural and I think you know it's going to have to be more concerned about. You know, the things that the early church was concerned about, which is making a difference in people's lives instead of trying to sustain systems.
Speaker 3:I can only imagine. I agree with you on so many of those points. On smaller bivocational, I live and speak about the mega church. We're actually considered a mega church in the LCMS. We worship like 800 people right now and we have an online influence. But, man, I have no desire to be like the main guy of thousands and thousands of people. This is one of the main reasons we've partnered with Luther House and raising up local bivocational co-vocational leaders here is because it's way. There's a part of me, there's a shadow side of me, chris, that is like, oh, that looks good. But then I look at like the repercussions, the potential risks that you take on when one guy gets elevated in any sort of thing. But the majority of our, the majority of our multi sites here in the Nandanam multi sites here in Phoenix are video based. Preacher preaches on like Saturday night and then you know a few thousand people are coming to their respective huge auditoriums and I haven't and just watching the video. So it's not. It's not live preaching video, yeah, we have two.
Speaker 2:They'll have four or five different sites and kind of gather around a great worship team and with the sermon they're not even seen. A live sermon, you know, and in all the communities done in other ways. But yeah, no, that's that's. That's pretty common here in Dallas too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I guess it's good for now. I just wonder I wonder if it's good in the in the long run. And just again, best construction and all things. I know people are hearing, hearing the gospel, even if it's hopefully, you know, even if it's not from a log gospel perspective as we have that lens. But yeah, I think the future is, is bivocational, I think it's going to be. I think it's going to be micro churches and and multi sites.
Speaker 3:Our, our multi set approach here has live preaching and I think we're we're trying to set up a model right now and it is financially challenging. Just to be frank, where you've got, you've got one kind of key key leader, pastor, maybe the campus director could be one of those two, two titles, but then you've got a lot of serve, team members, volunteer, maybe maybe two FTE, the three or four other positions being very, very part time, trying to serve 80 to 120. That's our multi site kind of approach. Our executive director, jack, who's not on this right now, he's like we need to get up, to get up to 250. I think we could, but man, it's it's, it's hard. So, yeah, I think it is smaller and I think that the house church model is going to have a a say as well. So if even a small percentage of our respective predictions become true, chris, what systems and structures do you all see talks about systems and structures. A lot should denominational and local leaders address today. That's there.
Speaker 2:Well, I think we talked about a lot of this already. I think I think I think we need to elevate bivocational ministry, but do it in an intentional way. I think we need to be partnering with local business owners who are of faith and figuring out ways, cause one of the biggest challenges, like you know, our most of our staff at Bethel's bivocational and including our two vickers is finding work that that truly does free them to do the ministry as well. Cause a lot of the bivocational work I mean, if they're working 40 plus hours, you know, and and they can't make a staff meeting, they can't make, you know. So I think I think finding ways to, to make, but I think, just a lot of it is not. I've been, I've done training at DTS, I've been training it at Gordon Conwell. I mean I've done it from a lot of different backgrounds. So I'm, you know, and I and I feel like we don't do a good job of, of, of elevating or or I've been bivocational at various stages of my career and ministry and we don't, we don't give that proper you know attention and proper status. You know to say that that's, that's okay and actually that's, you know, like, like Paul was, you know bivocational, you know if he could do it, you know. But I think we do need to to think through what that means and how and how can we help guys find jobs or or continue in the in their work that they're doing but doing you know, like how can the church come alongside that and you know that and create that, that, those partnerships, because it's not bivocational, for in some context is really easy If you, if you're an outside salesperson and you know you have the flexibility to that, but if you know a lot, a lot of jobs require you to be, you know, kind of on site and engage, like our Hispanic minister Walker funny story he's from Brazil and his he's named Walker because his parents liked Walker Texas Ranger the show. So yeah, american name. But you know he owns his own business doing construction and remodeling, so he can be flexible, he can take a day off here and there, but but again, when he takes a day off he's not getting paid. So we've supplemented that some. So, yeah, I think that the bivocational, I do think the way we train church workers, you know, in leaders, I do think even the way we even some of the stuff that we do.
Speaker 2:This is another concern I have in our denominations that we're becoming more and more pastor centric and I don't see that as the biblical model at all and the role of women gets known to that and other things. But I think I think we need to some rethinking of what does it mean to be a pastor and what, what, what, what roles can a pastor do? What role can a decadence do? What role can a you know, can an evangelist do? What role can you know? All these, the DCEs, that we, you know, the different things, I think I think we need to rethink some of the, the, the roles and and and and how that that plays into it.
Speaker 2:And I think we, I think, I think I still think in a lot of ways we're we're very top heavy in a lot of situations and I think, honestly, we have even our own anonymity. We have these structures like districts and circuits, but we don't only work together, we don't partner. Well, I mean, like you know, why does every church have to have a copy, or why does every church have to have you know, some of these different you know, you know offices, and why can't three or four churches have a youth worker together? I just think just partnering together is kind of a lost art, and so I think I think that's what we've got, and we've got to figure those kinds of things out.
Speaker 3:Oh, man, dude. Yes, so my doctorate was in the traits and characteristics of pastors who collaborate in mission and I looked at the circuit level and just looked for stories of intentional collaboration, building systems and even scalability in our respective circuits to just be more efficient and effective together. And it doesn't. It's not ingrained in us, it's in. It actually was intended to be that way, that we would encourage one another to see each other in many respects as one church in our respective area. It doesn't mean that you all have the same brand or whatnot, but that we're intentionally working together and at best we know we're getting together monthly. We care for one another, hopefully, we're developing friendships and we care about what the respective churches are doing. But in terms of scalability, man, it just does not happen for a variety of reasons. That is a definite and I think we're almost gonna be forced, if you will, into that because of the changing communities and churches needing to be revitalized or sold and resources used to start something new. Anything else there, chris?
Speaker 2:Yeah, here in Texas we have formed some and like T2C2 was one of those and now you've done some of that there too. And we have a couple others Mosaic Network, which is kind of focusing on African, african outreach, African immigrant work. We've got expansion, so we have churches collaborating at that level to, and I think a lot of what we've done in our area, and especially in launching Hispanic ministries and some of the other multicultural ministries, have been through churches collaborating and even forming boards and working together to say, hey, instead of having one or two Hispanic ministries, could we have 10, and that kind of deal. So it can be done. But it's really just a lot of people. It's getting our egos out of the way and a lot of times we're the problem. The pastors like, no, it's my church, it's my, this it's my. You know, we gotta get past this stuff.
Speaker 3:I've had a sense that recently and the ULC is working with a number of churches here in the Pacific Southwood District that there's a growing sense among the lady that want more collaboration and are going to use their influence. If a pastor is slightly insecure toward that end as a pastor, it's gonna be okay. We can partner together. I see a softening there. Have you seen the same?
Speaker 2:Yeah, in some places I do, and churches that wanna do mission, I think, and if you wanna do mission you've gotta put your ego aside, and if you wanna do that, so yeah, and I think anytime you can collaborate. It kinda forces that as well, and I do sense a softening for sure. But we're at like three and we need to be at 10, so we gotta wait to go. But I think it's moving in the right direction overall.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I agree, you talked about bivocational. I've had an epiphany. This was on a conversation on my American Reformation podcast and American Reformation Striving to Learn from People who are outside of our denomination. I interacted with a student named Eric Hoek who has a ministry called I Help Pastors Get Jobs. I help pastorsgetjobscom. I don't know if you've heard of him, but he's doing it.
Speaker 2:No, I haven't, but that's exactly what I was talking about.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah so and a number of these pastors.
Speaker 3:He brought a new word co-vocational, not bivocational, and so bivocational, I think, is going to be what is needed for multi-site moving forward. So what I was talking about in the 50 to maybe 150 kind of range for that community, in the hopes that maybe in time, that leader who's working at Starbucks or partnering with someone else, who understands that their primary heart calling is to pastor right, who's going to give them that freedom, that's more of a bivocational leader. We're going to have a number of them that are trained up using competence-based theological education. At the same time, co-vocational are a number of our leaders who are in the marketplace, in sales, in real estate or maybe accounting and printing. I've got a number of different men that I'm specifically thinking of here who are not going to leave that vocation but want to work on a smaller house, church or lower income model, not for profit, but that still is their heart's call. And right now, again going to systems and structures, we've kind of disregarded that individual because they exist in our churches but our models for formation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know as well as I do it's expensive to have a full-time church worker. I mean Accordia plans, whatever. How have you structured it so? And sometimes I think you can get a lot more done with three-part-time people than you can with one full-time. You know, and especially so I think you know, why can't the person who's a salesperson or whatever, put in five, 10 hours of work and lead a discipleship ministry or lead or maybe be the main pastoral call person and care person, or you know, yeah. So I feel like, yeah, I think so often it's kind of an all or nothing.
Speaker 2:You're either a church worker or you're this, and a lot of it kind of breaks my heart. Some of these multi-ethnic got leaders in the Texas district and this was not by the district, but we're told somewhere along the line that, no, you need to quit your job. And then come to find out they have, you know, 40 people from an impoverished area that can know and they've left their vocation to lead this group, and then the funding for missions ran out and then I'm like, no. So I mean there's nothing wrong with saying, hey, this person's gonna be a salesperson the rest of their life, but they're gonna give 10, 15 hours a week to lead a small group or lead a small house church or have a specific role in the church, and why can't we celebrate that?
Speaker 3:We definitely should and I have a vision that we will in time and I have a vision that our institutions, which are our treasures, our concordias, our seminaries, would evolve toward that end. We've been blessed in the Luther Church, missouri with obviously people are the biggest blessing, but then ample resources in our institutions that I pray we have more of a curious heart to run some tests, especially around Bible-cation and co-vocational leadership development Super, super fun. Last question here, chris, this has been great. Leaders are disciplined and they celebrate the disciplines that you center them in the word of God, that take care of them heart, body, mind and spirit so they can show up, so that Jesus can show off day in and day out. What spiritual disciplines do you maintain to keep your joy for the ministry?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have to admit that I am not the person I type that easily goes into disciplines and even the doctorate ministry program I chose. I thought about missions, I thought about different things and I really didn't want to. I'd been at DCE, I'd been a youth minister, I was kind of new into the pastoral ministry. I'd already had a master's from DTS so I was able to, even without the master divinity from Concordia, I was able to get into it. I had enough credits to get into the doctorate ministry program and I chose pastoral theology and practice, which is kind of more generic, and quickly into that process I realized that I wasn't going through a doctorate program to sort out ministry models and multicultural ministry. I was going to sort myself out and so one thing that came out is I put together this little. One of my projects I put together was a little booklet called A Loud, extraverse Guide to Silence and Solitude and I kind of came chicken and screaming into Walt Weiser, who's a pastor and that leads these retreats for pastors.
Speaker 2:But that's been a big part of my discipline is getting away not turning the phone off, all the things that kind of trigger me to. I do morning prayer from an Anglican download because that kind of calms me down, things like that. So it's getting away. Actually, I'm going next week to Camp Lone Star for a two day prayer retreat with other pastors, so it's definitely getting away. It's working on yourself, reflecting on yourself. I ended up doing my thesis for my doctorate on hugging the cactus, which is an approach to soul care and embracing the ugly parts of yourself, which really has nothing to do with my day-to-day ministry.
Speaker 2:But it just became like I said, I wrote the book I had to write, not the one I wanted to, and it was kind of so yeah, so, but it's that daily dying to self right and it's one of the things I do is I turn my cell phone off when I go to bed and I don't turn it on most days. I don't turn it on until I've been awake for at least half an hour, just to have that. Just no background noise you know, yeah, man, that is so necessary.
Speaker 3:Well, we all are. We all are and Satan would love to steal, kill, destroy and divide us from the new man and woman in Christ that the Lord wants to raise up every single day.
Speaker 2:Well, even this group that you know, travis and I lead monthly, we've really just said when we get together, it's not about ministry, it's not about missions, it's not about, it's about soul care and we use poor of these guys. We have time worship, we have a meal together, we have communion and we have somebody share something. That's going on. And, from a spiritual standpoint, I shared on my thesis one month we had another guy share about spiritual warfare, but it's we just gotta. And again like why can't circuits do more of that, like we need? Yeah, it's really taking care of the soul and emphasizing the part of our spiritual formations. If we don't take care of our soul, someone else is going to take it from us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I resonate with that so much, and I pray for the collective soul of the Lutheran Church, missouri Synod as well, that leaders would model this silence and saboteurs. Whether you're an extrovert, like you and I are, or an introvert, we need more time away because people are just being carried along, just overwhelmed. You know, stresses at an all-time just about high as you look at folks. And so can the church be a place of rest and care and soul care. That's a phrase that has not been in the vernacular of many Lutherans for a while. We don't, you know, because when you talk about the soul, you're going to talk about your emotions, right, your fears, your fears, your worries, the areas of pride, and I've been thinking a lot about that conversation around emotions.
Speaker 3:This is a very Lutheran invitation because confession and absolution is at the heart of it. I need, I need father and mother confessors, right, I'm not right. There are parts of me, there are masks that I wear that I need to be able to take off so that I can be seen, loved, known and forgiven of my sin, so that my soul, my conscience can be right and pure and good as I move into caring for other people. Anything more to add there, chris?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that really was the emphasis of my, of my doccional research was was uh, hugger cactus is a is a phrase that actually came from a speech by Robert Downey Jr of all people, and it was about advice that Mel Gibson had given him when his life had fallen apart. And the phrase hugger cactus is really an invitation to to, you know, embrace the ugly parts of yourself. So how do you integrate, you know, st Center, and we have a great theology to process that as Lutherans, but it's so, how do you integrate your false self, your shadow self, you know, all those things that that we talk about, and it really is the invitation to die to self. Or, you know, in a psychoanalysis world, die to ego. And that, yeah, that was my research, for my doccional thesis was about how do you, how do you integrate the shadow, how to integrate the false self, how do you identify it, and and it's, and it's painful, it sucks, it's not easy, but you know, you know so that's so necessary.
Speaker 3:Chris, this has been awesome. You're a gift to me and the body of Christ. If you want to connect with you, how can they do so? But?
Speaker 2:uh, you know I've seen connect through Bethel Lutheran Church, east Dallas. Uh, BethelDallasorg is the website for that. I've also uh, part of my research for my doccional was to to make some online resources available for hugging your cactus. So if you go to hugyourcactuscom, have a blog and I'll and I'll link to some videos and I'm going to be developing that further as well.
Speaker 3:So so cool, so cool. This is lead time sharing. Is Karen? Please like? Subscribe comment. Wherever it is that you take in respective podcasts, be it YouTube, spotify, itunes, are you a Spotify guy? When you're doing podcasts when? What are you on? Are you iTunes, chris?
Speaker 2:Uh, right now, mine's on just YouTube. I just have YouTube videos. I don't have it yet. Yeah, yeah. No, I'm gonna be developing that as we speak, um, and I actually want to be an editor to to turn my research into a book. So we'll see.
Speaker 3:We'll see so so cool. Praise God, dude. Thanks for using your gifts to glorify the the name of Jesus. So we'll be back next week with another fresh episode of lead time. You're awesome, Chris. Thanks bud, thanks man.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to lead time, a podcast of the Unite Leadership Collector. 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 the Unite Leadershiporg 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.