Lead Time
Lead Time
Anti-Catechism? Deep Dialogue with Pastor Jason Braaten
Who better to unpack the role of meaningful dialogue in understanding the complexities of faith than Pastor Jason Braaten? As we sit down with Jason, he shares his passionate journey into ministry and his firm belief that engaging in deep, thoughtful conversations can not only bring clarity to our faith but also help to apply the Word of Truth effectively. We don't debate or argue in this conversation, but we make a conscious effort to understand each other's perspectives and connect on a deeper level.
We then venture into the intricate world of Anti-Catechism, examining the role of the Holy Spirit and the significance of God's commandments in understanding good and evil. We discuss how Satan's primary attack is on the first article of the Creed, how it manifests in our world, and how to uncover the truth behind the Anti-Catechism. Jason enlightens us that unity, love, and meaningful conversations within the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod are the keys to effective witnessing.
Finally, we tackle the pressing topic of evangelism in a society that grows increasingly hostile towards Christianity. We dive into the need for bi-vocational and co-vocational leaders in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and the tension between the congregational and episcopal models. As we wrap up, we consider the challenge of branding the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod in a post-Christian culture, and how a focus on Jesus, scripture, and Lutheran values might be the key to bridging the gap.
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Leigh Time is a podcast of the Unite Leadership Collective, hosted by Tim Allman and Jack Calliberg. The ULC envisions the future in which all congregations fully equip the priesthood of all 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 2:Welcome to Leigh Time, tim Allman here with Jack Calliberg, and today we have the awesome privilege of getting to know another one of LCEF president Bart Day's good friends. His name is Reverend Jason Brayton. Jason comes to us as a pastor from Emanuel Lutheran in Tuscola Am I saying that right? Tuscola, illinois, yeah, yeah, right, in the heartland, about two and a half hours outside of Chicago and St Louis in Indianapolis. And he comes to us after serving 13 years in that context. Before that he was a fundraiser at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne and he is also a podcaster himself with the Goddistine group. He's got a podcast called the Goddistine Crowd. So this is going to be a lot of fun today chatting with you, jason. Thanks so much for joining us. How you doing, brother?
Speaker 3:Doing well Better than I deserve.
Speaker 2:So the facts, all of us.
Speaker 3:All of us.
Speaker 2:So let's just talk a little bit about your ministry story. What do you love most about being a proclamer of the word, a distributor of the sacraments, and why? If you just go a little bit deeper, I think we oftentimes start with why. Why are you in ministry? In general, jason, thanks so much for hanging.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, my mom always said that I had wanted to be a pastor since I was four apparently, but I also wanted to be a garbage man to hang off the side. So I don't know how serious I was at the age of four, but I don't know. It just sort of became natural. I started studying business in college and was bored by it. It didn't interest me, I didn't love it. I could do it, but it wasn't anything that I really, really loved. What I love to do actually is argue and talk right, get into real conversations, not just in passing fluff. I wanted to talk about real things and things that really mattered, and so I was into philosophy, I was into ethics, and that brought me into theology, and I was always involved in church as a boy and as a young man. But it just kind of became obvious why don't I do this for a living? That's almost like what else would I do? What else could I do so.
Speaker 2:I love it. Thanks for saying yes. We live in a day and age, jason Wright and Jack would love to get your comments on this when conversations are remarkably shallow and we don't spend a lot of time, and this can infect the church too. Just keep it super surface level and I love that. You, how does that desire for depth get played out in your congregational life? What are the kind of rhythms of interacting with Jesus around the word and then really deep topics that interest you? How has that kind of evolved in your leadership as a parish pastor, jason?
Speaker 3:Well, primarily, one of the recurring phrases that I try to talk about is you are looking for a way to stay in conversations, not to get out of them.
Speaker 3:You are trying to continue a conversation, not just stop it, and whether that's at home or with your fellow believers in church, or even as you witness to those around you in your daily life, so often we are focused on moving, on getting to the next thing, instead of really enjoying the moment and finding a way to stay in that conversation, just to be human, and we've lost that.
Speaker 3:I mean, you walk around your I don't know what your neighborhoods look like, but you walk around at night in our town and you might have a family in one room, but they're all staring at a screen, whether it's in their hand or on the wall. You saw little of that go away just after COVID or during COVID, when people would come outside and then talk on front porches again. But for the most part, that kind of trying to stay in a conversation and continue discussion is an art that has been lost or a skill that has been lost, and I kind of feel like part of my job even though it's not my job to teach them how to be human is to teach them how to be human, like how to stay in conversations For the good of their family or their church body, the life of their church, or even just being neighborly.
Speaker 4:So you mentioned earlier that you had an affinity for arguing about things and then you move on to conversations. There's a difference between having an argument and having a conversation with somebody. Usually, I think about an argument as you're trying to win A conversation. Is you're trying to go a lot deeper than that You're trying? Why don't you give your distinction? What's the distinction between arguing and conversing?
Speaker 3:Yeah, ok, I teach logic, so I don't really distinguish them quite as harshly. I would just distinguish between what the enemy is. I am trying to win, but I'm not trying to beat the person I'm trying to. The enemy is the situation Whatever, whether it's a difficulty or whether it is. They're unbelievers and they don't understand where I'm coming from.
Speaker 3:I need to understand where they're coming from so that I can actually apply the word of truth to where they're coming from, or what they see on a daily basis or what their objections are. So I do really think that I'm trying to win and that I'm in an argument. I'm trying to convince them of something, but that doesn't exclude all the things that normal human beings do in terms of understanding where people are coming from and what the obstacles are to getting them from point A to point D, so to speak. So I don't try to make a harsh distinction in that terms. I would just try to say, when I'm talking to my folks, you're not trying to browby people, of course, but you are trying to convince them and you should have in your mind that there is a situation here that is the enemy, or something that you're trying to overcome. And if you are thinking that you have to have a certain amount of tactical empathy to understand what the actual things are that they are struggling with. So, yeah, does that answer your question?
Speaker 4:It does. It really points to what is the identity that you ascribe to the person that you're talking to. If you see that person as your adversary or your enemy, then that's going to create a certain type of tone in your conversation. Sure, if you see things in the context of greater spiritual warfare, that's going on. I think that's what changes the way, your motivation when you're talking with people.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, I mean, we all know the 7, 38, 55 rule Only 7% of what you're trying to communicate is communicated by your words, 38% is communicated by your tone, 55% is by your body language, and this is just a fact of nature. This is just what life in the world is, and if you don't take that into consideration at all whatsoever, well, I mean, there's going to be a lot of losing. For you.
Speaker 3:And I like to win, so I want to set up things in such a way that that can come on. Do I do it perfectly? Of course I don't, because sometimes my sinful nature gets the best of me.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I was just reading Never Split the Difference and they talk about that exact same rule and it just gives me thinking like when we talk to each other on social media, all we have really is the words. So you're really just using the 7% and it's really fascinating to think about how much gets lost then in those conversations because people don't hear your tone, they don't see your body language. Yeah, that makes you really think.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so these are all tools. We would never want to give up a tool, unless it's an absolutely evil tool. These are all tools to be used, but we have to. If all you have is a hammer, everything is a nail, and so maybe not everything needs to be used in that manner, and so you just have to think about how do you want to use those particular tools for the thing that you're trying to accomplish? I love that.
Speaker 2:Let's hang with the tools for a bit. What sort of tools, as a pastoral leader trying to shape the head and hearts, the tone of your respective congregation as they engage both in person and online? What sort of tools, pastor Brayton, are you trying to pass on to God's people for their work in the world?
Speaker 3:Well, one thing that I tell them a lot is well, there are two primary things. One is we are first and foremost, a people of hope and so, despite how bad it may look or how bad things really are, it's one thing to be redpilled, it's another thing to be blackpilled, Like. We're not to be cynics. We're not called to cynicism. So if you want to talk about what's reality and what you actually see, fine, but you can't talk about in such a way like Jesus isn't raised from the dead or that he's not coming back, or anything like that. And so it keep me quick. One of the things that they need to do in reframing what they're seeing is you know, consider St Paul, Every single.
Speaker 3:If you read the book of Acts, you know every single city he goes to. He ends up like either being stoned or imprisoned or shipwrecked or in chains or whatever. And he gets back up and goes to the next town. And then you read 1st, 2nd, Corinthians and the whole litany of the stuff that he says he went through. And there's stuff there that's not included in Acts. So he went through more. And at the end of that he says and I, for the sake of Christ, I delight. I mean, it's often translated as content, but I delight in my weaknesses and sufferings, and so there's a certain frame of look. You know, discipline and hard things are good and we shouldn't just flee from pain and difficulty because God is at work. And it's at that very time that you should be thinking I can't wait to see what God is going to do through this difficulty, Like I'm excited to see, I'm delighting in it.
Speaker 3:And you know the way the Navy seals or the, you know the bros get in the weight room or I don't know.
Speaker 3:But you know this attitude that you go into a difficult thing and people, just they delight in it.
Speaker 3:And we I think Christianity has become anemic in this manner that we don't delight in difficult things, in putting our mind and the gifts that God has given us to use. So that's the first thing. The second thing is that and I put these two things together is God has not this is applied to Timothy but God has not given us a spirit of fear or timidity, but of power and faith and hope, and that in 1 Corinthians, at the beginning, st Paul says you are not lacking in any spiritual gift. He has given you everything, it's all there. Now, whether you put that to use is a different, it's a different deal, but it's not like he's holding out on you, and so those kind of two things together, we're not to have a spirit of fear, but to move forward in boldness and in faith, because he has not held out on us, he has given us everything that we need, and so we should move forward with that kind of boldness of in doing a zeal, zealousness, yes.
Speaker 2:That's so good, brother. I totally resonated in the midst of our highly affluent, very individualistic postmodern whatever lack of truth. Our suffering muscle, jason, has atrophied and the Holy Spirit, through suffering and trial and loss, wants to build us back up. I mean, romans 5, 1 is like a life verse. Right, I rejoice in suffering and this is the journey of Jesus, this is the way of the cross, right, I mean I rejoice in suffering, knowing what Suffering produces. Perseverance, perseverance, character and character to what you said right up front Hope.
Speaker 2:And every time the apostle Paul uses hope it's pointing us to the crucified, risen, addicted, reigning and soon to return one Jesus, jesus the Christ that just as he's been risen, so too will we. So what do we have to be afraid of? If the everyday baptized Christian follower of Jesus in our Lutheran Church Missouri Synod context had that sort of robust hope and then trust and faith through the suffering, imagine how our witness in the world in a variety of different vocations would just be elevated. So, 10 to 1, man, are we listening to the words of Jesus? Are we immersing ourselves in the narrative of Scripture, or are we becoming crippled and atrophied and just inwardly focused and just protective?
Speaker 2:Right now, this is a great day in age in the midst of the potential chaos in the American Christian scene.
Speaker 2:You know it could suffering, could be closer to us now than especially when you and I began ministry right Jason, a number of years ago, and I think this is an excellent I don't know how else to look at it. It's an excellent time for us to be the baptized, the redeemed, because we're going to bring hope to a dark and dying world man. So I love, love that. I'd love for you to go a little bit deeper. How are like the narrative of Scripture, one of our big, big emphases right now in our context is Old Testament and New Testament primarily Old Testament and understanding of why Jesus is so necessary because of the Old Testament narrative and the typology that's rooted throughout the Old Testament. That just makes our faith and the need for Jesus to become all the more necessary. So how are you trying to instill kind of biblical literacy at the base level as you walk through the liturgy, the orders, the church calendar, etc. What's that look like for you?
Speaker 3:Well, if you're going to be hopeful and you're going to have something to offer, that means you have to have the thing to offer. So you just kind of have to step back and say, well, what do they need? And so part of what they need is they know that kind of on a surface level that the Bible has all the answers, but they don't know all the questions and or the objections or how God answers all of those. So I spent quite a lot of time just going through the creation narrative, in that it's not just that God created everything, but he put it into order, he separates these things and he organizes things, and that order is a good order. So it's not just that he called it into existence, but when it's in existence, he puts like kinds with like kinds, he separates this, he makes distinctions in this way, discriminates between this thing and that thing, and so thus makes judgments about them. So making judgments and this is what logic is all about is either affirming or denying something about something else, and so you cannot go through life without making a judgment. You can't go through life without making a distinction or discriminating between this and that, and all those things are good.
Speaker 3:And so part of what I feel like I'm trying to do a lot is just kind of take back normal English vocabulary to say you're going to hear that judging is bad always. You're going to hear that making a discrimination on any level is bad and evil. And I'm just here to tell you look, that's not the case. There is a way to go wrong with those things. I'm not saying you can't. Everything that God gives us is an occasion for us to sin, like money or wealth or technology or anything. But just because it is an occasion for sin doesn't mean it's automatically evil. And so just kind of walking them back to I don't know, I feel like I'm decadacizing them from the world and like decadacizing what they hear the majority of time when they're watching television, listening to the radio, reading the newspaper or interacting with their people at work, that they're getting a catechesis that is contrary to God's word. That I have to undo, that I have to refute and show how actually they've twisted God's word. And now we have to unravel that and say this is the part that's good, and here's how you go off the rails.
Speaker 3:So what I try to end up doing is I spent a lot of time trying to unravel the anti-catechism of the world, or the anti-biblical catechism of the world, so that they have a framework for understanding whatever they're hearing and they can hear. Okay, well, they're saying judging is bad, but I know from church and from my pastor and from the Bible that actually there's an occasion to judge. So is this an occasion to judge or not? And who makes that decision? Is God telling me that I need to judge about this or is the world telling me I can't? Who has the? You know by what standard, by whose authority? So that's how I feel like I'm doing, and I use the Old Testament, the New Testament, anything I can to pull out the distinction between the world's catechism or catechesis, and God's catechism and God's catechesis.
Speaker 4:I've never heard the phrase anti-catechism before and I love it. I think that's fantastic. I would really love like, from your perspective, as you're leaning into this, what would you say are the core tenets that are being taught in the anti-catechism?
Speaker 3:That there is a God but it's you, so you are your own God, but that if you're God, then you decide what happens with your body and then what you can do with your life, that you have complete and utter control. And when then you lack control, it's totally normal to lash out in strife or anger or wrath or jealousy. And so I mean, the primary thing is just the first commandment. And again, I think where you see most of these things kind of prop up is not in the gospel. I think, like our day is, we are just lacking in teaching in God's law and the goodness of his law, the orderliness of his law, thus kind of some kind of sanctification as well discussion. That's where Satan is attacking. You know, during the Reformation he was attacking the second article, bam. Like you can work your way to heaven In our age, just after the Reformation, you know, in the age of Orthodoxy it was the third article.
Speaker 3:What's the role of the Holy Spirit, so on and so forth. I think our age is the first article of the Creed. It is all about God and his creation, the order that he is instituted within it and the means by which he establishes that order, his word, either the commandments or other commands that he's given. So and attending blessings that he attaches to those things. So that's not to say that the second article isn't in view. It always is. They're all connected. However, I think where it really hits our people at least my people, the people that I interact with, those who have to go to HR meetings and those kinds of things they're hearing an anti-catechism against creation and everything that goes along with that. So you've got evolution.
Speaker 3:Death is a feature, not a bug. You know. It's not the consequence of sin, but it's how we get better, it's how we progress. All of those things are kind of wrapped up into it and then that kind of leads you with. You are your own God and death is just natural and that is just. It's actually not how we experience it, that's not how they experience it, that's why they get so mad and that's why they get so sad, and that there is something else and you weren't meant for this. So that's part of unveiling the Toto ripping the curtain off of the Wizard of Oz. You know the world keeps saying don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain, but like we got to expose the man behind the curtain.
Speaker 2:Oh, jason, dude, I love history and I think the way you just kind of, at a very high level, walk through the last 500 years of church history. On the attack on second article, you can say Reformation, and then you've got Pentecostalism to a degree that took place and even we still got some remnants of that in our culture today as well. But that, the attack today, the reason we know we are firmly in a post-Christian culture is that the attack is against the first article. Did God really say, did God really create? Is there even a creator In the beginning? God created like this is just foundational stuff and so it has been a dismantling of what is most true right now and I couldn't agree with you more that it is a first article attack to the utmost. And where do we start in our catechesis? Going back to the very beginning, going back to how God created and he is an orderly God. So thank you for that man that was. That's a gem, bro. Anything else to add there, Jason?
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, I just would add, like it's not just post-Christian, it's like pre-Pagan. Even the Pagans understood creation. Even the I mean the days of St Paul understood.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean, I would say I would say we're moving to full-on Paganism. So this is this is an interesting thing I was thinking about the movement of from modernism which you might say, like Darwinism, is a product of modernism, but also a lot of the things that we saw that led to World War II now a movement in post-modernism. In post-modernism, you can pick your own gender right. So I would say that people are holding some sort of mix of those. They may hold a scientific mix, but they might hold a post-modernist view, which is also very much not scientific at the same time which is where I think you're making the point that we are moving towards this a very Paganistic view of what's going on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, when I say pre-Pagan, I'm trying to bring to the forefront that Pagans, even animists, they got that there was a God of some sort. They understood there was a Creator. That just didn't happen. So I mean, you look at all the Eastern religions and even the Roman pantheon, the Greek pantheon, they all had a creation story, like they all had a story on how we got here. Now, to a certain extent, so does our age, which is evolution, but notice like we are the determinants of that. So it's not as though they're not worshipping, it's not as though they don't have a God. They just don't know it and they don't know that they're worshipping. I mean, you know, the guys in… the giants become your God.
Speaker 3:Well, science or themselves or… yeah, any other whole host of things. No one in the Areopagus would have been surprised if St Paul said that they were idolaters. They all knew they were because they all had idols. No one in our age gets that they're idolaters even though they have idols. They're just not made out of wood and brick stone.
Speaker 4:So I've had it explained to me this way that the hallmarks of paganism can be seen with three things. You can observe three things to say. Is this pagan? It would be? Number one is worshipping nature, it's creation, rather than the creator. Number two is sexual decadency. And number three is child sacrifice.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, we got all three.
Speaker 4:And we got all three going on.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness. So let's pivot a little bit. You know, Jason, lead time has been going on just like your podcast for five, six, seven years and third generation LCMS pastor and I get frustrated. I guess that more of these conversations are not had, because if people generally don't know you and they have some generalities about who I am, they would think it's strange that you and I are talking because of maybe our different understandings of the liturgy and how it exactly gets expressed, maybe in our unique context or something like that.
Speaker 2:And I really think the narrative for us, as leaders in the Lutheran Church of Missouri said it has to elevate to places of really creedal agreement is what we've arrived at right here. This is it. There's no other way outside of Jesus that we are saved. The Word and the sacraments are the means of grace that create and sustain faith, and people desperately need to be reoriented in worship or restored and or served by God through Word and sacrament on a consistent weekly basis. So we can definitely agree on those things, but what is your hope for the LCMS? I just came out of the convention and still have the little bit of scars. It's been a month and a half or so from that, and it's just. Sometimes it's a struggle. Have you been to a convention before, Jason? I don't know. Have you been?
Speaker 3:to Delegate? Yeah, I've been to two. I went in 2016 and then 2013.
Speaker 2:I was there in 16, and then I've been at 19 and now 23,. So three of them, and I just pray for more space for, yes, theological and very practical conversations that would lead from a place of unity and love and that are our witness for the world would be winsome, and I think there needs to be. I'm okay with dialogue and debate, I just think it needs to be a little more long form, and I think podcasts are a great space for that, because we can agree. Anything to add, though, on the necessity for we in the LCMS to kind of work from a place of unity, and then we can, as one brother sharpens another, we can sharpen one another with love and charity for our work and our unique context. Any words there, though, jason?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, it's just like I tell my kids or my people we should find ways to stay in conversations and not get out of them and not shut down. There probably is, as we all know, especially talking with kids, like there's a time to say no more. But you know, typically, you know when that time has come. It all depends what we're talking about. Right, if someone wants to talk about women's ordination, I think that conversation is over. If someone wants to talk about what are the ways that we go about actually, for example, in your instance, how do we train pastors? We do have a gold standard, but is that the only way and can we make that happen? Can we make the gold standard happen right now? Is that the only way to make it happen right now?
Speaker 3:I think you can talk about those things and hopefully you can see. You know, maybe there is a different way, maybe we have the best way and we should find a way to make that happen for everyone. So there are some things I think that are off the table. You know, like the divinity of Jesus, you know all the things that are in our confessions, that kind of stuff. But you know there are other things that, I think, are we agree that these things are important, but now let's talk about the best way to make them happen.
Speaker 2:So before we got on, you said in your God of Shing crowd, your podcast, that you get a little because it's easy to go to worship, right, and you say we can talk about liturgy only for so long. So what are some of the other topics that are really fascinating for you as it relates to theology and practice today? I'd love to get your perspective, and you can even flip it on us and ask us in our context, our perspective.
Speaker 3:That's good. Well, I mean, I like talking about the topics of the day, you know. So, like, how do we deal with? We are constantly hearing that the Missouri Senate is racist. Is this true and how do we actually deal with this? Or, you know, we are the large catechism. That was we talked about that you know, the release of the large catechism with contemporary applications and annotations. I, you know, I do stuff on fasting. What are practices that actually can help you induce a painful state and teach yourself some kind of discipline that you can say no to your body and you don't have to just give in to pain every single time? So I've done. Like political topics, I've talked to people outside the Synod. So I've talked to Doug Wilson once. I've talked to we've done a podcast on Christian nationalism. So we did.
Speaker 3:I interviewed Stephen Stephen Wolfe, the author of the Case for Christian Nationalism. I will be talking to Andrew Isker coming up. He wrote that book with Toriban Christian nationalism as well as the Boniface option instead of the Benedict option. So you know, I mean some of them are kind of fire rod people, but they're saying stuff that other people aren't saying and I resonate with some of it. Like you know, you have a point here. Let's talk about it. Yeah, so how are you guys?
Speaker 4:Well, just to your point, you know there will be more and more Christians asking the question like what is their responsibility to obey in a society that becomes more and more hostile to Christianity? Yeah, just recently California passed a law saying that if you don't affirm the chosen gender of your child, that could be construed as child abuse and that may impact your custody of your children. You know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we did three episodes on Lutheran resistance theory. So building on all of Lutheran malanctin stuff, including the Magdeburg Confession that came out after, essentially, covid. I mean COVID was really, really a blessing. I mean in hindsight it was really difficult going through it, but a blessing in hindsight.
Speaker 3:You know people, it was interesting because you didn't see, like I found myself agreeing with people that I wouldn't have thought I would agree with, like they weren't high church liturgical guys, but they were. We need to stay open. This is crazy. We can't let the government tell, dictate how we do our services and what we do in them. And there were people who were not what I'd say goddess deans type people who were saying that I'm like they're right, and there were goddess deans type people who were like no, we need to shut, close down. We need to shut down, we need to do everything that the government says. And it was. It was a very surreal experience and so it was kind of just strange. You know, my Going into it, my impression would have been much different and so you know, I really kind of Woke up to that. I got woke, as they say, only in a different way.
Speaker 2:That's good. Thanks for thanks for clarifying. So talk about Lutheran resistance theory. I just like to pause on that for a second. Can you give us a summary of what you learned through Lutheran resistance theory? I think that's fascinating, oh.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean Essentially right that you know Romans 13. It was used as that kind of like just the primary Cudgel to say just do what the government says, instead of the way that All of the reformers used it, which was this means that there's a duty of the government to do what is Commanded by God. And so you know all the reformers, when they're dealing with the possible invasion by Charles the Fifth, or you know, can we, can we resist even to the point of taking up arms. You know they were like there's some things that we can suffer, there are some things within tyranny that we can endure, but if they're telling us that we can't preach and teach the true gospel, that we can't gather together, that we can't do what we know is right, then you not only have a right but a duty to resist even to the point of bearing arms. So that was kind of essentially what we went through all the way up to Magdeburg, which was kind of the culmination of Luther's and Melanchthon's thoughts coming up to that, that that point during the interims.
Speaker 4:So Romans 13 and other is our verse right.
Speaker 3:Romans 13 is not their verse to get us to do what they want. It's our verse, and it's our verse to tell them there's a particular order that you need to be Maintaining and you're not doing that, and so it's our duty to do exactly what Luther did.
Speaker 4:He resisted, right. I mean, he had all kinds of orders put on him and he's not doing that. I keep.
Speaker 3:I'm not doing that my loyalty is to scripture yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah so. So, it's yeah, it's worth of podcast if you want to listen to.
Speaker 2:Okay, thanks. Thanks for the summary. Let's throw out another one there. That that we've heard Recently, and this is this is fascinating for me. I, I don't. I think Confessional and mission-oriented evangelical in the best sense of the word, two sides of the same coin. That's my, that's my perspective as I look at the, the word of God, as the great commission gets carried out, propelled by the word, the, the all of the priest, of all believers, kind of sent out to bring the message of of Jesus in our various vocations. But there there are some that and I just want to get my head wrapped around this. So maybe you agree with this or you disagree. I just would love to get a deeper perspective. Who say that evangelism is Primarily, if not exclusively, the role of the ordain, ordain, pastor, and Would love for you to kind of enlighten us where that thought comes from. And if you share that thought, yeah, defend it and let's, let's have a good chat.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I wouldn't defend that thought. Okay, I suppose it just means for me. I guess it would mean what you mean by evangelism. If you mean missionary activity, like Like local missionaries I mean, the reality is we live in a time where most of our clergy view themselves primarily, or Perhaps even only, as chaplains to their congregation and not Local missionaries to their communities. And that was not the case in the Missouri Synod from before the 1950s.
Speaker 3:You know, we have grown up and lived in a time where really kind of partially because of our birth rate, but you know, we peaked in the 1950s and All you had to do is put a sign like future church of Missouri Synod congregation and people would show up and and and that has really kind of fostered a particular mentality among among our clergy, that that we are primarily chaplains to our congregations. That's not wrong, but that was not the understanding of really any anyone before 1950. So so I had done a podcast on John Fritz's practical missionary where he talks about, like you're, one of your duties is also evangelizing the town and yeah, it's a both missionary to the time.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's a both and it's a both rather than either or I were, nobody would say don't be a chaplain to your Congregation exactly also be a missionary, all right. Yeah, exactly and and oh. By the way, we desperately need missionary work in America, right, I mean other countries are sending people to America to do missionary work because, like we've said, before we're becoming so deeply pagan.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I wouldn't say it's a Just a pastor thing, but at the very minimum it's a pastor thing and I'm not even sure if we're there in, you know, most people's minds, most pastors minds that they're also a missionary to their community. So, beyond that, yeah, I mean I think that part of our Training and righteousness, the Discussion about sanctification, is that they are, that our people are well prepared to, To give a defense for the hope that is within them, that they're well prepared to keep conversations going about. You know why do you go to church? That's weird. Well, this is why you know to be able to answer that question.
Speaker 3:Or when you go to work and they say, would you do this weekend, you don't answer primarily, I went to a football game, but that I went to church and this is what I, this is what I learned and this is why I go, because you know this is what it gives me and it it's just like changing, I guess, a perspective that that evangelism isn't this program that you set out to do as a church, but isn't it is the life of a Christian period, it is part of the calling, it's part of living out your life as a Christian that you're gonna tell people about Jesus and you're gonna Defend the hope that's within you. That's just what you do.
Speaker 2:So Seems pretty, seems pretty clear from from Jesus, the, not just Matthew 28th, but acts, acts, one witnesses, and that goes back to Mardereo, right, I mean suffering servants, those who are carrying the marks of Christ, the the way of the cross out into Dark and dying world, which is so, so counter cultural today. So, yeah, when we gather for Refreshment in the word to be served by God, we are served, and then we are, we are sent, and if the pastor doesn't model that Senteness, how can we expect all of God's people in our various vocations to do so? Is that a good summary, jason?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I think that's great, but also to expect pushback Like you should expect you should expect that when you do this, people will Not respond like you think they will, or they they will not. And you. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. I mean, like one of the I don't know, I, I, I.
Speaker 3:There's this part in the horse and his boy, c S Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, where Sash Shasta has been on a really difficult task and he gets done with that and Then he's immediately put on one that's really really hard, even even harder, and the narrator Lewis says, at this point in time, shasta had not yet learned that often when you complete one difficult task, you are often rewarded with a another one that is more difficult and better. And so part of what I'm trying to inculcate or establish in people is like, look, you've just been promoted, like you've been promoted and there's going to be more difficulties. Embrace the promotion. Like this is good, you've been promoted. God is saying you're doing well by giving you more difficult things and it's going to feel like he's hurting you, but he's just promoted you.
Speaker 2:Ah, so good. And again, that is the way of the cross. I keep going back to that in our conversation today. The promotion of Jesus was all the way to the cross for the forgiveness of the world, and then he's inviting us into that exact same promotion and it's so countered to consumeristic, hedonistic culture in which we live today. So get used to being weird Lutheran Christian, it's not the way of the world. Let's close with this topic just a few more minutes on formation.
Speaker 2:I really believe the quantity and quality of leaders needed for the future not just the present, but the future of the church is the discussion that we as leaders and pastors need to be at the table with this. We live in a rapidly, I know you're in a little bit more of a rural context. We take evangelism and reaching people, lord and sacrament very seriously in one of the fastest growing cities in America, here in Phoenix, and so we're running a test right now with competency-based theological education and we will be interacting with the Pastoral Formation Committee, jason, here in the next handful of months and we're praying that it's looked upon, it's assessed, analyzed. Those are words that came out of convention with curiosity rather than condemnation, and we really are talking about the need for bivocational and co-vocational leaders today and we have a number of them who are in our context. Bivocational meaning they could end up serving full-time, like we're privileged, honored to do. Bivocational meaning they won't. They may be a house, church or some sort of a smaller faith expression and they're going to continue to be a realtor or something like that out in the workplace.
Speaker 2:But we just have had this incredible treasure of our universities and our seminaries for so long and I feel like the world has changed and the church is evolving in such a way and we're kind of a number of our leaders are just saying no, no, no, it's not head in the sand, I don't think that's it at all.
Speaker 2:They're recognizing there's this profound need, but it feels to me sometimes like we're just yelling louder and that somehow is going to bring the next gen of leaders to and I'm good with set apart to serve the initiative that's coming from James Bannock and the group I'm going to be joining that group to talk about that need. But I think we have a window right now and maybe it's a generational window where we need to explore bivocational and co-vocational, but deeply Lutheran theological formation and residential, I think is not the only way, and I don't think SMP is even the only way, because it doesn't have a degree and it's kind of set as a second rate, maybe training formation pathway, though I love our SMP pastors, so any thoughts as it relates to formation and the need for bivocational, co-vocational pastors?
Speaker 3:Jason, well, I don't know about bivocational, co-vocational here and where we're at. That might be a possibility in the future, but I just don't know. I think we'll end up having it's going to take a bit for our smaller churches which is a reality to either combine or close, particularly in an perhaps not an area like yours, but in an area like mine where I can throw a rock and hit a Lutheran church in any direction, so people might have to drive a bit longer. They might not have one in their exact town, but that was not always the case anyway. So I don't know what that looks like as things unfold in closings of or mergings of churches and things like that.
Speaker 3:Again, I mean, part of the issue is the Missouri Synn is just strange. We are undecided on whether we are actually, you know, episcopal or congregational, congregational. I mean we are congregational but we act often not just from the top down, but even the way pastors view districts in synod. We often act as though we're an episcopal situation. So we kind of have this strange interaction and the way we live. I could live under either an episcopal or congregational model, but we're a congregational model and while you know, we've agreed to live according to this model. It seems as though like if we've agreed to this and now we're not going to, we want to do it a different way. There's always an opportunity to say, look, we don't want to be a part of this anymore. Now, whether that should be, you know the final say. Hopefully the you know leaders would say well, let's at least take a look at this what you're doing. So it's not like a forced issue that you have to belong to the Missouri Synod or anything like that. So it's just like I said, the Missouri Synod is strange in that regard that we operate with feet in both worlds of congregational and kind of episcopal model and that causes tension and so being all the more ready to actually ask permission and seek to be part of the solution instead of just going rogue.
Speaker 3:And what I find a lot is what you know what happens in our day is like we're just not getting the answer where we want, so we just go rogue. And if that worked, if that happened in my family, like with my kids, that'd be a whole different. I would understand the conversation from the top down right If my kid went rogue because he thought I wasn't given him something that I should have. Okay, we got to have a chat about this, so we just have to again. We have to have some tactical empathy for the leaders at the top.
Speaker 3:Why are they resistant to whatever they're resistant to? And then the leaders at the top, why are they pushing so hard to do this? What opportunities do they see? How do they want to? You know, strike the iron while it's hot, so to speak. And again, that's going to take some coming to the same table, some time and effort. I mean really effort. It's work to come to the table and talk about those things and be willing to say, be willing at the end to say, okay, maybe I'm wrong and I would say that, you know, for any situation.
Speaker 2:Amen, yeah, jackie, you got any follow up on that?
Speaker 4:I agree with tactical empathy.
Speaker 4:I 100% agree with that and that is a very interesting observation that you made that we have kind of feet in both pools right the congregational and the Episcopal sort of model.
Speaker 4:It's true I never really thought in that type of term before it and makes a lot of sense, and now I understand maybe a little bit more of the tension sometimes that we experience.
Speaker 4:I will say this what it kind of creates is an example maybe what we're going through right now. We've got this big, ambitious vision for our own ministry context where we see ourselves being a multi site ministry 20 campuses over 20 years, and a lot of energy and excitement and passion behind that and we also know that in order to staff that, that we have to think radically different than the models are presenting themselves to us right now. And so I think the frustration that can exist between the tension of these two is when you've got a congregation that is on fire and they wanna get things done and they see maybe a body that is slowing that work down and then you say, well, wait, we're supposed to be all about the Great Commission here. You know, nothing should slow, nothing should slow that down, you know, and that's that could be a gut wrenching thought for people to think that something's gonna slow down your mission work right.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:So I think that that might be why you might see people tempted, I would say, to go rogue in that particular instance.
Speaker 3:Not that I'm encouraging that, yeah, and I didn't mean that as a judgment in any way. Right, the curiosity I think would be to say to have a discussion of and maybe I'll just ask you guys like so, why 20 sites that are kind of under the umbrella of this church, instead of planting sister churches. What's the strategic value of that, instead of kind of the model that we've inherited? What's the purpose behind that? Why do you see that as offering kind of a best solution for where you're at?
Speaker 2:and what you're doing.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 2:Good question yeah.
Speaker 4:Jack, yeah, so from our perspective, we've been blessed to learn a lot from congregations within the LCMS, but we've also looked outside the LCMS to see what are practical ways to grow the church, to reach more people. We are 100% committed to our Lutheran theology, but we see the multi-site campus as a very positive model that reaches a whole lot of more people and mobilizes a lot more people into ministry. What we've often seen is that there's a whole bunch of independent congregations throughout the state of Arizona. They're all doing their own thing. They all have the freedom to reach the people their own way, but they're also all trying to reinvent the wheel. Every single one of them is trying to reinvent the wheel and if there are models, if there are systems, if there is let's call it branding, if there's resources that you've been able to bring to bear, that works really really well and then you can replicate that.
Speaker 2:We see that as a very winsome way of doing ministry, so yeah, there's a little bit of scalability and I think it's a model that is probably most suited for urban and suburban contexts in America rather than rural contexts, and it's a test we're running, holding it with an open hand.
Speaker 2:You know, if the Holy Spirit wants to lead us as the body of Christ to say we need independent congregations, I've had a number of conversations that it could just be for a season of time where a church is with us and you need to recognize that, call it out from the get-go and hopefully they reach a season of maturity where they could build their own respective identity to reach their own unique context. But if the context and the group that you're reaching your target demographic, whatever you wanna say is like young families we call them the Green family and so many young families with kids we got a preschool connected to us If that target demographic is similar, then a brand may be able to move into multiple locations. But again, holding that with a very open hand, I think it's very much an audiography first article reality.
Speaker 2:First article reality conversation. This is not theology. This is just what is wise in this context, right?
Speaker 3:now.
Speaker 2:So it's working for us. It may not work for you. Jason Thoughts.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I would just so two questions come up, and that would be do we not already have a brand, namely the LCMS, and how is this brand different? And so the second one would be kind of alongside of that is how do you then answer probably something that you've gotten the charge that you're building your own kingdom, not God's. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, I'm not saying you are, I don't know. I think this is. It's a fair question From what you've described.
Speaker 3:It sounds like decent work. I'm just yeah. So if you were on my podcast, that's what I would. These are the things I'd be asking you guys.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I love it. I love it. That's what I was hoping you would do. So I don't know. And this gets down to branding.
Speaker 2:We in our context recognize that Lutheran meant liberal, and the LCMS is certainly not liberal, but more people are in the evangelical Lutheran Church of America and some other offshoots that are more liberal. So I have to do a lot of work to even define what Lutheran means in a post-Christian or, as we've said here, maybe even a pagan culture, and so having a brand that may not front Lutheran but more just Christian Lutheranism, jesus. And so in our value set Jason, we did a lot of work on this it's Jesus, it's Bible and then it's Lutheran, very clearly Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, and so there was a little bit of brand confusion there. I don't know if that's answering your question. I don't know. I have to do a lot of work right now to help people understand what Lutheran Church Missouri Synod even means in a post-Christian pagan culture. Here I guess that's the short of it, anything else to add there? But it's a really good question.
Speaker 4:Yeah, no, that was clearly the pattern that's emerging in our areas, that the way that we've been successful reaching young families is to say, hey, we're Christian, we're biblical, we might even use the word conservative because it appeals to certain people and then, based on the experience that they have with us, then they become open to the idea of Lutheran. But it's not the word Lutheran that we're fronting. That has been the thing, that, the primary thing that is attractive, except for the school. The word Lutheran school is an attractive thing, you know, in the way that a Catholic school might have a certain brand to it, but when people are thinking about church, we love Lutheran, we're passionate about it. I would say, if anything, we become more Lutheran over time with sort of the experimental training that we've been doing, but it's also true that we're not the biggest Lutheran body out there and there's baggage that people have about that word which I lament. I deeply lament that it has that baggage and let's take it back we have to work through it.
Speaker 3:No, that's interesting that you raised that question because, or that you raised that response in your community that Lutheran doesn't mean LCMS, doesn't mean conservative, doesn't mean biblical. I've found a similar thing even in, you know, rural Illinois and just in the Midwest, because they always then ask you like which one, so they might know that there's a conservative one and there's a liberal one, but it doesn't automatically mean that you are, you know, biblically based or Christ centered, biblically based and for lack of a better way of saying it conservative in your values and what you hold to, so that makes sense and when we're trying to reach right when we're trying to reach unchurched families.
Speaker 4:I would say most people would not be even sophisticated enough to say which one that makes sense.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Well, that's really fascinating, because I spend a lot of time then saying like, yeah, so we're the conservative one and this is what we stand for. You just kind of walk through the solas and they're like, oh wow, that sounds really great. But yeah, I get it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we'll see what the Lord wants to do. And I dusted off a book. Now I don't agree with everything in this book. You know, we don't always agree. We should read things that we don't wholeheartedly agree with. But the book authority vested. Do you remember this, Jason, from back in the day, from Mary Todd? Did you ever read this?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I had to read it in undergrad.
Speaker 2:And she has. I did too, actually, at Concordia Seward and I was turned on to it again. She comes to some conclusions about women's ordination that I don't necessarily agree with. But what she does is she really summarizes in the history about this battle between congregational polity and episcopal polity, right, I mean Stefan comes over and what a fascinating trainwreck of a story it really was. And they're left basically here as orphans and then they kind of establish its congregational polity under Walther's leadership, where Word and sacrament is, where the body of Christ are, the priest of all believers are there, the church is, and at the same time the church should call pastors and leaders to lead them in Word and sacrament ministry. So it's really I don't know if you need it, Listener.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I'm necessarily recommending the book, but I did like her first half of telling the LCMS's story because it's really. It's kind of a story that we should probably discuss more often than we do, Because in the big scheme of the things, I mean we're not even a 200 year old church body Praise be to God, we've even lasted pushing 200 years. But I think the wounds of that kind of battle over where does authority actually lie is something that's still very relevant for us today. Any comments on that as we close? Jason, this has been a lot of fun.
Speaker 3:Yeah, recommended with caveats.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, exactly. So anyway, the Lord is good and it's a joy to be in community with you. It's a joy to have technology, jason, where we get to learn with you. Today we're praying for your work, your faithful work, there in Illinois, and I pray that you would pray for us in our desire to be faithful, to reach people with the gospel here and remain robustly confessional, conservative and mission-mindedly Lutheran in this day and age, because I really do believe. We believe and I know your podcast is saying the same man. We have the goods man. Our confessions are so, so good. It's such a treasure. Few other denominations have what we have in our the solas, also in the Lutheran Confessions, and I pray that we have more conversations of love and charity and challenge and accountability moving forward. So thanks so much, jason. People want to connect with you and your podcast. How can they do so?
Speaker 3:They can go to goddesssteinsorg and just hit the podcast tab. It's on all of the normal channels, podcast things, yeah.
Speaker 2:All right, I'm a Spotify guy. Are you iTunes or?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I just use iTunes iTunes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, jack is anti-Apple, so he does not, I suppose.
Speaker 4:He's used that Technology overlord of Apple. Yeah, yeah, alignment with Google you do resist, you do resist.
Speaker 2:Anyhow, this is lead time sharing. It's, karen. Please like subscribe, comment wherever it is that you take it in, and we promise to have more, hopefully fruitful, Jesus-centered conversations on lead time in the coming weeks. Thanks so much, jason, this has been fun.
Speaker 3:Thank you, take care.
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 theunitel 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.