Lead Time
Lead Time
Beyond Sunday Service: The LCMS' Role in Community Engagement with Andy Warner
Can the decline of churches and pastors in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) be part of God's grand design? Join us in an engaging conversation with our longtime friend and listener, Andy Warner, who brings this intriguing concept to light. As a former Director of Christian Education who transitioned into a software engineer, Andy's personal journey within the LCMS provides a unique perspective on the changes within the ministry and the challenges it faces today.
We then delve into the role of the church beyond its Sunday morning services. Taking inspiration from Jesus's teachings and the Book of Acts, we discuss how the church can serve as an incubator for new things, its responsibility towards the community, and the significance of gathering and being sent. Using examples from the Christ Greenfield Tim and the La Mesa ministry, we underscore the importance of service and community engagement, and how actively addressing the needs of the community can transform the church's impact.
In the final part of our discussion, we open up about the ongoing struggles within the LCMS, particularly the issues concerning Concordia Texas. From communication problems to legal battles, we highlight how these challenges have impacted pastors, DCEs, and laypeople. As we wrap up, we draw guidance from the teachings of Jesus and the disciples, emphasizing the need for patience, hope, and prayer amidst the chaos. Join us for a rich discussion on the LCMS, the role of the church within the community, and how we can be His hands and feet in the world today.
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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. It's been a minute, jack. We were on vacation since we recorded, and what's giving you joy right now, brother.
Speaker 3:Oh, looking across the courtyard there seeing this cool building project that we've been working on. For those in the loop, we're doing a big construction project to get a gym build for our kiddos on our campus so that they don't have to sweat in 120 degree weather when they play basketball and volleyball.
Speaker 2:That is huge.
Speaker 3:So that gives me a lot. We are also in the phase of where living in Arizona is that it's prime, because it's beautiful 74 degrees. I went on a walk with my wife to the park. We have this cool mountain bike park. We go to the top of the hill and you can see the whole valley and the weather's just totally beautiful right now. All those like in April.
Speaker 2:We feel like Midwesterners do right now with winter coming right. We know the heat is coming, but the heat is going off.
Speaker 2:Well, the heat is on today, because the fire of the Holy Spirit is alive and well, as we get the privilege of interacting with one of our longtime listeners a longtime friend, though we're just getting reacquainted Andy Warner. Let me tell you a little bit about Andy. He lives in Liberty Hill, texas. He is a father of three boys, soon to have a fourth little girl on the way. His wife, stephanie, is a former DCE, currently working as a teacher in the Austin area, and he has been a web designer for some time for 20 years a software engineer. What company are you currently employed by Andy? Currently, I work for a company.
Speaker 4:I help start called Morpheus Data.
Speaker 2:Oh cool. Well, we'll look forward to hearing a little bit about that. But he cares about the Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod and the formation conversations that we're having today. He's a member at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Cedar Park and shout out to the good people at Good Shepherd, so this is going to be a lot of fun today. Tell us your LCMS story, though a little bit more. What do you love about being a part of the LCMS? And yeah, just a little bit, because you had even intentions, maybe, of serving within the LCMS. So tell a little bit about that story, andy.
Speaker 4:Thanks for being here, buddy. Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, so my LCMS story actually starts in college.
Speaker 4:Wasn't raised LCMS, but I found it through a local church as I was kind of finding my way through college and didn't know really what I wanted to do, had an idea, but just was kind of in a transition point in my life and so I found myself into a college age bubble study and through that, through some connections there, I found my way deeper and deeper into the church and then eventually feeling called into the ministry as a DCE. And so from there I changed a lot of my life and went changed colleges, from going to community college at the time to Concordia, texas, and then I finished out my four year degree in six years as a DCE from Concordia Texas, went on internship, didn't end up taking a call because I did what many church workers do and they find another church worker to go be with and my wife ended up taking a call down by UTEM in Arvada, colorado, at Peace Lutheran, and so I just got to support her as a leader in the church and I've been finding myself a leader in her positions ever since.
Speaker 2:So what was your internship, where was that at and what was that experience like?
Speaker 4:Yeah, that one was it. That was an interesting internship. That was in a little town called Cleveland, tennessee. Shout out to First Lutheran in Cleveland, tennessee, small church, fantastic congregation. Love the people there. I was sad to go but wife was going to do her internship and we had to give that a go and let her finish out all the work that she had done as well, and I lasted 10 out of the 12 months there. There was just a lot of things in transition that needed to happen that I just couldn't finish it out, and one of those being getting married a week or two after I got back from my internship that summer and then a week or two later we left after our wedding to go to Colorado and that was interesting. It was a small church. I didn't have a whole lot of experience with small churches and kind of what a DCE did for, just kind of all around adult children's youth ministry and got to learn all about that and what I excelled at and a lot about what I don't excel at and it was good discovery.
Speaker 2:Good discovery how did you develop? Because you wrote me a long email regarding pastoral formation and kind of leadership development in particular, and you said something that was very provocative and really one of the main reasons I wanted to get on here. You said something about the decline in pastors and churches in the LCMS potentially being God's will, and I'd love to hear what you think are underlying problems and core issues as you look at the Lutheran Church in Missouri, san it Now kind of as a layman, but still connected to the local congregation and one who's been within the system being trained as a DCE. So say more about that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so God's will really isn't like a great descriptor, because I don't think God wills anything bad to happen, so God's good all the time. And so I think it's more kind of a we're in a contraction period as the LCMS and really as a church at large, and we can just see that through. We can see it through our numbers, through our congregations getting older, overall shrinking, and it's not just the LCMS that this is happening to, this is happening to churches all over. And so I think when we study the Bible, we look at the Bible and we see what happens to the early church, we see what happens to Israel and the Old Testament.
Speaker 4:Um, primarily, I just think of these times where Israel contracts, israel has messed up. We kind of strayed a bit, and because we strayed a bit, we have consequences to pay. And I feel like that's where they'll see messes right now is that we have strayed a bit from what our mission should be and what God is calling us to do. And because we have strayed, we are seeing this con contraction, and contraction hurts right, and I think the more we contract, the more painful it's going to get until we make some changes. And so I think the lack of pastors and pastors coming up through the system or, I think, leadership in general DCEs as well is related to the fact that I think we've gotten a little bit off mission and that we need to find our way back.
Speaker 2:Jack, what are your thoughts?
Speaker 3:No, I. We read in scripture that God is the gardener and he prunes, and there might be, there might be, some wisdom to the idea that God is pruning various church bodies, and if that's what he's doing, then we can trust that the idea is to leave the vine healthier than it was before through the pruning process, and that may very well be God's will. When we start to think about, you know why a body might see decline for a period of time, and I guess if that's the case, if we think that we may be pruned, then what is this healthier thing that God is preparing us for? That's probably where, I would say, is you know, that probably leads. That's the next question that comes out of that that observation.
Speaker 3:I don't think it's wrong. I don't believe that every single church body in the world, and even in America, is in decline. We see that the health of certain bodies is various, you know, like, even though we may not agree with the theology of certain church bodies, they've found ways to grow and share the gospel, maybe more effectively than other bodies have. And I think there's opportunities in a pruning process to take a fresh look at things, to take a step back out of the system and say is there, is there an opportunity for the next generation of the incarnation of the LCMS to be healthier than it has been over the last 20 to 30 years and to see a revitalization towards other times in the LCMS when it was more innovative and more passionate about sharing the gospel? And then maybe it is right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can't, theologically, jack or Andy, justify decline, right? I can't. That. God's mission, god's will, is that all people would be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. And so, while we can get into the balcony I've been thinking of this metaphor get into the balcony, observe some of the demographic shifts and the cultural shifts and all of those things. We've got to get back down onto the dance floor, if you will, and dance where God is dancing, move where God is moving.
Speaker 2:His word is alive and well and he wants to bring more and more kids into his kingdom. That's the mission of God. I got to get my kids back, man, they're strained, they're lost sheep and they need to hear the shepherd's voice. And so how will they hear unless people are sent to bring the word of God to them? So this is our call today, and I get mildly frustrated it is mild, it's not an intensely frustrated frustrated. It's a mild frustration because I'm within the family of the LCMS that more of our leaders aren't going to the balcony to see some of the adaptive changes that are needed right now to accomplish God's will, which is to see, can save the lost. Any other observations there, andy?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean, I think a little bit more detail on what I'm kind of getting at is.
Speaker 4:I feel like we, as Lutherans I mean as anybody we tend to focus on our strengths, and, I think, lcms we see our strength as our theology. It's the way that we understand and teach and preach God's word, and I think that's great, and I don't think we should change anything. But I think that what we've done, though, is we've allowed ourselves to focus on that too much at the expense of being the hands in the feet of Jesus and just kind of, yeah, looking from the balcony or just observing, like taking what you think is right and stepping out of it and saying, okay, where is, where are the pain points? And if I throw out everything, everything, and I just kind of look at this from a blink, say what works, what doesn't work, why am I shouting at the wind in some places and in other places, reaping a huge harvest? And I think it goes to the fact that I think that a lot of churches aren't serving as like physically serving their communities.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so let's go there. Why do you think a lot of churches struggle, andy, from your perspective, to engage their communities, and do leaders potentially justify inaction toward the community from a theological perspective? I'd love to get your opinion on why a lot of leaders in churches struggle to go on, go on mission, to reach a loss.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that churches have delegated more and more responsibility to church leaders, from service from and heading up service opportunities to even spiritual form, like personal spiritual formation, right. Where do people get most of their teachings? Sunday mornings? I mean, I don't think that's the way that it's meant to be. I think that's supposed to be a supplemental thing.
Speaker 4:What does Jesus talk about? A lot when he's asked about what is important. He's talking about taking care of people. He's talking about taking care of the widow and the alien and the orphan. He's not saying you have to know all the Lutheran confessions. He's not saying that you have to be able to recite all of that word for word.
Speaker 4:And in fact, a lot of what he says when he's talking to like the Pharisees, or he's talking to the disciples, he's saying, if you're doing the right thing, god sees that and that's what's important, even if it means that maybe you don't show up to church on Sunday because an opportunity to do good presented itself to you. And oh, this is what I was thinking of. So there's the moment where Jesus is talking to the Pharisees after he heals a man on Sunday, right, and the Pharisees say no, you can't do that. That's work right. And Jesus says which of you would you know stop the Savior's sheep that fallen in a well on a Sunday, or would you just let it die because the rule says you can't do work? And to me he's pointing out like listen, thought of something in your way, just go do it, like it'll get taken care of, like your spiritual formation is more important and doing good is more important than going and listening to the sermon on Sunday.
Speaker 2:So let me. I can hear a number of folks maybe disagreeing with this, and I'm going to politely play devil's advocate right now, because I understand the point that you're making. I mean, people must gather to hear the word of God. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God and Jesus. In his mission he wanted to get people to himself right, so they could hear his words and witness his works, namely, you know, healing, casting out demons, proclaiming the gospel, raising the dead, and then obviously his primary work, his crucifixion and his resurrection. So at our best, we gather to be restored, and this is what the liturgy is all about. Right, we get incorporated into the story of God, from invocation to benediction, from our identity in our baptism, all the way through confession, absolutely elucidation, hearing the word of God, then being sent with the presence of God into our world.
Speaker 2:Now, where I would agree so I think sometimes we miss that Sunday is the training, discipleship being restored, forgiven of our sins, and then maybe it's an imbalance, like that's all that it means. What I hear you saying is that's the primary way that we are. Church is the gathered, you know group. And then I'd go to the Book of Acts and you see over and over again where the Christians are meeting in temple courts and they're trying this is evangelism and being connected to their Jewish roots. And then they're meeting in house to house. They have to gather, but we can't say that that's the end of the story. No, we gather to be scattered, to be sent, to be restored, to do the things of God and to namely preach the word of God, to declare who Jesus is and what he's done through evangelism. So discipleship and evangelism is where I'm going as I listen to you right now. But you're basically saying that we become imbalanced, maybe around the gathering rather than the sent work of the church.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we've made it the one thing instead of one of the things that we do as Christians. Sunday morning is the thing we do, and I think that that has just made us focus I mean again, on our strength, because we have a very strong theology, we have a very strong way to teach and preach. And then you ask to say, all right, let's go out and do missions, let's go out and serve our community, or we're going to go to Africa or Mexico or wherever and we're going to help them out. About all the while that there's a full-time mission that is down the street from us that we need to be taking care of. And I think a great story of that is Christ Greenfield Tim, and when you came I know this story because your dad talked a lot about whether or not you would take the call when you were considering it my dad exaggerates, my dad exaggerates, just to keep that in mind anyway.
Speaker 4:Well, no, but just like from when you've taken the call to now and some of the stories that I've heard you tell on lead time, and like the Lameisa ministry is a ministry that has grown and flourished and done great things for the congregation, and I think those are the sorts of missions that I think churches need to start taking up. It's just there's someone in the community and there are congregations now that knows a need in the community and we need to make it our job to start filling those needs.
Speaker 4:And if we start making that our job, then Sunday doesn't become the thing, it becomes one of the things, and while I don't want to diminish its importance, I think we can't diminish the importance of going out and being in the community and being those hands and feet and making that also our job.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, thanks for the compliment, but here's the thing, it's all God's work and then it's all the equipping of the saints and releasing of the saints. I didn't, I did nothing but say, yes, here's a need, let's go. And the Holy Spirit did the rest, connected to the word, and it's flourishing because it is about the priesthood of all believers. It's about all of the body of Christ saying here's a need, we're going to get after it. And there's lots of needs, by the way, and churches don't necessarily just have to do what is the need of your community? That's what I hear you saying. And can the church be a place, an incubator, where we start new things to meet that respective felt need, in anticipation of hearing the word of God? Jack?
Speaker 3:Tim, I think you hit the key phrase here and you said priesthood of all believers. Right, and I think that's something, maybe, that our church body is walking through a reckoning on that topic. Like what does it actually mean, if we actually believe this to be true, that there is a royal priesthood of all believers at every single believer is king and priest forever. Right, Then how should that rethink? Like what is the church? What is the job of the church? What is the job of clergy? What is the job of anyone on church staff? How does that cause us to rethink that? And have we been thinking properly about that up until this point? Is that impacting whether or not our churches are growing or declining?
Speaker 2:And I think there's a lot to be said on that topic. Yeah, absolutely so. Share one of the strategic changes that we did on job descriptions. Now, when people hear job descriptions, they think, wow, you're just a big church, blah, blah, blah, blah, no, no, no. You should have job descriptions for your volunteer, your surf team members, to let them know clearly what they're about. So if you're a leader here, that's moved into a director role. What gets added, Jack, to the end of every job description.
Speaker 3:Every person who holds the title of director, and that would include people that hold the title of pastor. Their primary job is people development. We're here to develop people. We're here to develop the priesthood of all believers, to equip them to do the good work of ministry. That is your job period. You're not a doer, you are a developer to help other people be the doers and even help them be the developers in turn. Right, so we don't want to hire people who are doers. We want to hire people who are developers of leaders who are leading other people to do stuff. That's what we want. That's what we want to be. That's mega shit.
Speaker 3:That's written into your not just your description, but even the title now, because we'll say something like director of youth ministry development. Director of worship development. Director of operations development. Like you, are a developer. That is your primary role. That's why you get a paycheck here and a title right. So your capacity to develop people.
Speaker 2:Until called workers, pastors, dces, teachers and I'm thinking set apart to serve right now in the Lutheran church in Missouri Synod. Until that shift occurs, we're going to continue to see the decline in workers.
Speaker 2:Because you can have all the strategies you need to have these conversations, but if, at the core, the pastor doesn't see his role as a developer of people, as I'm gathering even on Sunday to bring Word and sacrament, I can't wait to see who's really lighting up, who's leaning in, where has God at work in their life, and then I'd like to draw them closer to partner with me. If they have a respective teaching gift for Timothy right, some of them do. Many of your executive leaders out in corporate America have a teaching gift. Let's test that out in Bible studies, small groups etc. And then maybe, as they're kind of leaning into deeper theology, provide formation opportunities for them to go deeper in Lutheran theology.
Speaker 3:At the local level.
Speaker 2:At the local level.
Speaker 3:So therein is the key to how a church body reverses its decline is that it equips the local church to be the primary place where faith development not just faith development, but vocational development, ministry vocational development happens.
Speaker 2:That's the key shift there is, and then there will be no shortage to get to your point, andy no shortage of people who are looking in their respective vocations, in their community, saying, oh my goodness, there are felt needs all around here. How are we caring for the family? How are we caring for mental illness? How are we caring for people that are walking through isolation and the poor? There's no end. And the answer is Jesus, andy. We just need to get him to Jesus and he changes everything, now and forever. He forgives sins, gives life, salvation, etc. Everything changes.
Speaker 2:But if you don't meet that respective felt need, especially in a post-Christian, you could say pre-Pagan culture, where there is no God, until we kind of put food in their proverbial stomach, they're not going to be ready to hear the word of God because they're too anxious, they just are trying to survive, right, and the church is connected to the Prince of Peace and he allows us to think radically different as we move up to the balcony and then move down to the dance floor. So, andy, anything to say to?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean, I just think about all the. I mean I think about people suggesting like oh yeah, invite your friends to church. That's often a call for evangelism and the LC Mass. I feel like it's just bring your neighbor, bring your friend to church. And the thing is, I think that used to work when people saw the church as a place of moral good, and I think that that's something that we've lost. And I can't get a non-believer to show up to church because they're antagonistic. They're not just agnostic about it, they're antagonistic towards the church. But On the flip side, I can get them to show up to a service event.
Speaker 4:If we're going to go feed the homeless, if we're going to pick up a park, if we're going to make an area, but I can get people to show up for that and that, I think I feel like, exposes them to Jesus just as much as church does, and it opens them up to being ready to come to Sunday morning worship and to learning more in depth about what Jesus has for them.
Speaker 3:This is getting into the concept of felt needs, and how does the church engage around felt needs? So, Andy, I totally agree with you. One of the examples I like to teach people about is we have a very robust marriage ministry here. So there's people out there. They're not interested in an invitation to church, but they are eager to fix their marriage, and if you spend eight weeks with somebody helping to get their marriage turned around, at that point in time they are interested in your invitation to church.
Speaker 3:It's a different relationship you have with them.
Speaker 4:But you're flipping the script right. Instead of saying Sunday morning is the initial touch point for them to find Jesus, it is maybe the second, third, fourth touch point, and I think that that is a more effective strategy right now in the culture that we're in.
Speaker 2:I mean, this is what Jesus did. He met felt needs when he healed, when he made people's souls right by casting out demons, when he fed the 5,000. This is all felt needs. Just think about the story of the 5,000, jack and Andy. I mean there's probably 15,000 people who are there. It's a huge stadium type of experience on a hill.
Speaker 2:Many of these people don't even know how the bread and the fish just showed up. You know, the disciples are just bringing it. Many of them are going to hear stories and stories, you know, and continue to get drawn, not because of what Jesus could do through his word, but because of the felt needs. So it took and Jesus is frustrated with this story. You're coming to me because your bellies are full, I have food that will last into eternal life, I am the bread of life, I am the living water, etc. So the ultimate goal still is to hear the word of God and to be drawn into a relationship with Jesus.
Speaker 2:But, man, it takes time and you can see Jesus even in his ministry three years. There's mild frustration. People don't know. Some of the disciples even walk away. You know, are you going to go away too? And Peter gives that great declaration. Where are we going to go? You have the words of eternal life. So, yes, it is about hearing the word of God. That's our ultimate end goal. But we got to start meeting more felt needs, just like Jesus and the disciples did More there, andy.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I mean they don't have to be big, like talking about La Mesa or the congregation of that. Previously we had a mission called Acts of Love where we would take care of high schoolers' babies. The kids got pregnant in high school, had their kid, and so we would take care of them for free to help them finish out high school. And there was no ask like you don't have to come to church, we just want to care for the babies. That was it and that was the touch point and that was the thing that that church did. That, you know, was Jesus' hands and feet every day and that was our job. That was a big part of our budget too, and when we went through a vacancy, that was, in a big part, what held the church together.
Speaker 4:You know, we didn't have a huge decline in membership because we had this other job that we were doing. It wasn't just on the pastor to entertain on Sundays and teach and have a great teaching and preaching moment. It was. We actually have this job that people care about, and so we're committed to that as well. And I look at that. I look at how important that was to so many people and in the congregation and outside the congregation. I say I think this is what a lot of congregations are missing and that if we could do this one thing, then the church I feel like would rehab its overall view of our towards the culture, like the culture would be much more open to us, just as being a place of good right and as opposed to a place of what people I feel like would call more self righteousness and then make it more people more open in general just to be invited, as opposed to having to take a few steps first to help them to understand what the church is really all about.
Speaker 2:Well, I think this is a point, whether you call yourself a confessional or mission whatever, on the spectrum in the LCMS, which is very narrow theologically, by the way, we can look sociologically and at theologically at what happened when the mega church kind of consumer, individual Christianity movement kind of took place in the United States and huge brands and churches started to grow and just the Feed Me culture took place and let's rally around a charismatic person and just do church better. And that did not produce the fruit. And I think our culture right now, especially here in America and in the West, is kind of living through the ramifications of consumer Christianity today. And Lutherans, we have the goods. We don't have that many big churches anyways, you know. So let's just, let's just get small, get local anyway and bring the gospel word and sacrament to people first by meeting their felt needs. It's really, really good. Anything before we pivot the conversation, Jack, anything at Cherry on the top to this one.
Speaker 3:The cherry on the top. Let me see if I can make this brief. I believe we're getting into the concept of service here. A lot of churches they struggle like how do we get people plugged in? How do I make them feel like they belong?
Speaker 3:One of the things that's been an aha for us is that, beyond what you're doing showing up on Sunday morning the best way to belong is to serve.
Speaker 3:If you wanna build meaningful relationships, deep relationships with other fellow believers, serve with them. It is like the least awkward way to start developing meaningful relationships and when you experience serving on a team, you are way more likely to retain these people and have them feel like they belong, that they belong in that church. Hey, and it could be anything. It could be like a La Mesa type of serving, or it could be I'm just a greeter on Sunday or I'm helping to clean the bathrooms and making sure that it's presentable for people when they show up. Just that active service, that contribution, but doing it in team with other people so that you're also building relationships with people, is so important when I talk to people about what are human beings created for. We are created for worship, we're created for community and we're created for vocation. Those are the three things that we're created for, and the church should actively speak into all three of those things.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Tim and you brought up kind of just like the consumer culture I think when I dream about a healthy church culture in America would look like and we all heard the term church shopping and just how it makes up I think anyone that is connected to a church in a leadership position cringe. I think church shopping is inevitable, but the way that it's done is what makes us cringe where they're looking for the flashy worship or they're looking for the charismatic creature. But what if church shopping was? I'm looking for a church that's serving a ministry that I care about. What if that was church shopping and if we could get our congregations to be on mission enough? That that is what our culture became is if you started looking for a church. You started looking for a church that had a ministry that you cared about enough to serve at, then I think that we would be in a wholly different place as a church in America.
Speaker 2:Well, hopefully there would be a church in your neighborhood that understood the felt needs of the people in your respective neighborhood and they were on mission doing that that you wouldn't even have to go very far, as you look, because leaders are recognizing we gotta start feeding people physically before and relationally before we can even get the right to share the gospel, and it really it's all about relationship. Jack, I confess my sin in not prioritizing service within and outside the church more quickly in the 15 years of being a pastor.
Speaker 2:This light bulb has only gone on really post COVID the last couple of years like, oh my goodness, serving brings people into community and sometimes there can be the downgrading of service, or maybe theologically, we don't talk about it much because it sounds like it's works.
Speaker 3:Righteousness which nothing could be further from the truth, or a fear that we're putting a burden on people and we don't realize how we're blessing them with the opportunity.
Speaker 2:Exactly exactly and it's just. It's really a stewardship, generosity conversation, right. When we serve, when we give man, our spirits are full, the joy, part of our brain is locked in and we lean into relationship, first with Christ and then with one another and being his hands and feet. It's so, so good, andy. So thanks for drawing that out. This has been a fun topic. You already got your cherry on the top, jack. We're gonna shift because I wanna talk about what is very controversial right now in the LCMS is the struggle with CTX. You live in the Austin area, concordia, Texas, and as an actively engaged lay leader in the LCMS, what were your thoughts regarding the struggle? I don't know how much you watched the convention, the struggle with CTX and how the conversation is going even to this present moment.
Speaker 4:It's not going well, andy, it's a bummer, no, no, and so I'm in a weird spot. So this is a fun fact is for DCEs and I'm sure you'll probably know some of this For your first call it has to go through your college. Well, I went through internship. I'm in a place that if I ever decided I wanted to take a call, I'd have to go technically through Concordia Texas, who can no longer issue calls. So I'd be in a really sticky spot, and I'm sure a lot of other people are as well. So I've got friends that work at Concordia Texas Still, and so I've been kind of hearing second hand about what has been going on since the beginning, and it's been going on a lot longer.
Speaker 4:This moment has had probably close to a 10-year lead-up to where we are today, and what I have seen is that there's been a lot of mistakes in communication and really a lot of communication issues between Concordia Texas and the Senate. And when you take the whole playing field of what's going on with the Concordia University System, between the big hot-talk lawsuit and what the Concordia University System was talking about doing at this convention and prior to the convention, I felt that Concordia Texas probably had made the most logical decision to make sure that the university stays open, especially for their students, and to protect them as best they could, and I was sad to see that they had to separate and they felt that they had to do that. I think it was a logical step. I think that you could draw lines from what was going on with the Concordia University System in general to what Concordia Texas talked about being fearful of, which is that essentially, concordia being amalgamated into another campus, and I was glad to see that that was stated.
Speaker 4:That was not the case at the convention. I did watch as much of the convention as I could, but I also, in terms of the fact that I was not, I also enjoy life, so I took it in spurts and I watched the things that I cared mostly about, the Concordia Texas stuff, as well as some of the other kind of a new show that goes on about what congregations can and cannot do or the roles of pastors in the S&P program and what what roles they can fulfill, and I was sad. I was happy and sad. There are some good parts where you can really tell that the conversation is starting to change. It's just how slowly it's changing and it's frustrating and it's in the courts, Andy.
Speaker 2:I mean the courts are going to decide now, right, Well, now, and I haven't even gotten there Because I know this.
Speaker 4:That's the worst thing that has happened right now. But the LCMS has brought a lawsuit against Concordia Texas, and I think that that was the worst thing that we could have done. There is no winning now, because either the LCMS is responsible for all the assets of the Concordia University system, in which case they are on the hook for all this money in the hot-shop lawsuit, and then they also are, now so should have the assets of Concordia Texas, or they're not. Either way they're going to, they lose something, and reconciliation is really the only way forward Outside of the courts, because the once you go into the courts, you are just saying God, I don't believe that your justice is going to be found through here. So we're going to go through the courts of man, and Jesus warns us against this. He warns us against bringing, and what will happen when we bring lawsuits against our brothers and friends.
Speaker 4:And right now I'm just looking for an adult in the room to just figure this out. And so my and it's like you have two sides playing tug of war and both sides feel that they're right and no one wants to let go, and right now we need someone just to let go and just whether or not not saying that they're wrong. Just saying I'm going to let go. We need to move on. We need to reconcile above everything else. Let the chips fall where they may and that is the only way to move back towards being healthy as a college and ascended together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's very sad. Unfortunately, again, using the balcony, I don't see that happening, Because both sides are saying you can't do what you just did, Concordia, you can't take what is rightfully ours and there's justification on both sides for can they do what they did and leave the Senate and the asset which is one of our Concordia? So it's just very sad. If you can reverse the clock a year, two years, be in the room. I want to be in the room where it happened.
Speaker 2:I don't know exactly what's going on in the rooms where reconciliation could have occurred and confession. You can be right in the wrong way If the way we speak things is not seasoned with love and it just has gone south. So I'm praying for everyone connected, both at Synod and at Concordia, texas. That reason would win the day, because lawsuits are a black eye on our church body. It's just very, very poor for our witness in the world. Jack, anything, I know you've been kind of disconnected from this thing, but it's just really, really sad.
Speaker 3:No, I'm familiar with some of the details of the lawsuit and, if I had to guess, I think that the lawsuit will rule in the Senate's favor, Although I'm not certain of that. But just kind of hearing some of the details of it and on the whole I agree. I think the best way forward is mutual repentance and reconciliation. I don't see any other healthy way, other way that you could call healthy, that resolves the situation. And it saddens me deeply that this level of division exists and I have to believe that if we were approaching this in a different way, that maybe a different outcome could have happened. But I don't know. There's so much unknown about what's going on here there is so, it's just very sad.
Speaker 2:Let's stop talking about what we don't know. What we don't know. I mean, there's just now it's to the courts and we pray for the Lord's will. It doesn't happen it doesn't happen.
Speaker 4:And in the courts, though, too, we're talking about, you know, everyone thinks they're right, but the question that, or the thing that's not being talked about, is, we're not being right with our brother.
Speaker 4:So and that is also important and sometimes both sides can be right, and so then the question is who's going to be right with their brother? Yeah, and at that point someone drops the rope and just that's fine, and I hope what ends up happening in? In my opinion, now that it has been stated that Concordia Texas won't be amalgamated into another campus, concordia Texas needs to say listen, we accomplished our goal. Our goal was to not lose the campus and let Let the chips fall where they may with the leadership at Concordia Texas, but Concordia Texas, I think, should just hold itself back in. So we're sorry, we're going to go back and let's try and move forward, and whatever the fallout is, the fallout is, but it's also, I think, the mark of a great leader that can see that and say you know, I knew there would be consequences, but we accomplished our goal. If I have to take, you know, if I have to take those consequences for the university, then that's what it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so we will see. You're talking about president Don, Christian. He's on sabbatical right now. I'm praying for you, brother, and and praying that the Lord's will which is, at the end of the day, reconciliation does does occur because we're we're better, we're better together. So let's come down the homestretch here. What top three changes, andy, from your perspective as one who's been within the system, but also just a layman at the local level? What top three changes should the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod make to Reverse the decline, reverse the stagnation within our church body by the power of word and spirit, or your thoughts?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think that Number one top change for me is make make the church a place of joy for the community, and that that goes in into what we've been talking about earlier, which is just finding ways to serve, find the felt needs and fill those needs, and make that Not a hobby but a job. Make that be the church's vocation. I think that's us. That's the top one. The next one would be for, I think, the congregation to retake some of the responsibilities that they've handed to church leadership for themselves. Talking about the priest of all believers, talking about just taking, you know, personal hold of your own faith growth, your faith life, and then also Taking hold of the missions that God puts in front of you personally and For them to I mean for them to do that is, I think y'all made a good first step of changing the, the job descriptions of your leaders and making them developers as opposed to just doers. And then I think the third one is to to be patient and To learn to learn patients with others. I think that that's something that we're just struggling with right now. It's something that I saw a lot at the convention. People were patient, but there's also this Unconfortableness that is happening in our culture and in our churches right now and Instead of taking a breath, being patient and saying, you know God is going to get us through this, you know, I feel like in some ways, we are the disciples on the ship and the storm is raging and Jesus is sleeping and we're just wondering what is going on.
Speaker 4:Jesus, why won't you just wake up and fix this, like we're all gonna die? And then, when Jesus does, he, he admonishes the disciples and then he fixes the problem. And I imagine myself on that boat, like if I were to travel back in time. And what would that look like? Like would I be able To not be like the disciples? And my answer is probably not, because they're all sailors and I'm not a sailor, right, and if they were freaking out, that's something that was happening, but it's. It's that it's just finding that peace and that patience that God has for us and instilling that in our congregations. I think, if we can, we can make those those changes in our congregations that we're gonna see a much healthier church, we're gonna see much healthier Senate, we're gonna see a much healthier, just church body and and our communities around our churches.
Speaker 2:Amen. Jesus is the hope of the world and Jesus has a church and his, his peace, reigns in us by the power of word and spirit and and therefore gives us that ability to To enter into our communities, into the chaos of this day and age, into the social Unravelling in many respects, the, the cultural wars, the political division, the, the actual war going on right now and in various places in our world. To look at this, look at this world and recognize that by our baptismal promise Colossians 3 that we have been called to set our minds above when, where Christ is, that he is the risen and reigning one and he is in control of us, our small little feeble frail lives, our small little feeble frail Synod, and and he still wants to invite us into his, into his mission, into his word, work and being his hands and feet. This has been a lot of fun. Any closing comments? Jack, though, can we get going? Yeah?
Speaker 3:No, I think you know, with respect to the, the Texas issue, you know we can lament and I think that's that's the, that's the only thing that we have right now. You can pray, and you know we can pray for a more amicable resolution that then we've had so far. You can hope God can do, god can resolve things that seem in irreconcilable to us and there, you know, the the great thing is that our hope In the promise, what Christ has given us, that is a reliable thing to give, our, you know, put our hope in and In the midst of all the difficulty that the church, that the church has, there are some solutions being provided and then we also have hope. That goes along with the difficulty, and every human being hopes but hurts. But we get to hurt with hope and I I rejoice in that.
Speaker 2:Man, amen. So, summarizing, today, man, it's all about service, meeting felt needs, and I love this about equipping the saints, developing and Releasing, deploying the, the people of God, for love and good deeds. And then and then how? What is our posture as we go into the world? It's, it's a posture of peace and love and and care and joy, bringing the gospel to as many people as possible. Why? Because the days are our short. Jesus is soon to return. Andy, if people want to connect with you, how can they do so?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I don't really use social media, so can't find me on Facebook. You can't find me on Twitter X. Now you can see my email, I suppose, at warner dot Andy at gmailcom, if you have questions, I guess for me. But other than that, I think that's about it.
Speaker 2:All right, baby, this has been a lot of fun. This is lead time. Sharing. It's caring. Please like, subscribe, comment wherever it is you take in podcasts. We promise to bring compelling conversations from leaders, lay leaders, pastors and others within the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod Praying for a a new day. The Lord is at work and he loves you so much. It's a good day going to make it a great day. Thanks so much, jack. Thanks Andy.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to lead time, a podcast of the Unite leadership collective. The ULC's mission is to collaborate with the local church to discover, develop and deploy leaders through biblical Lutheran doctrine and innovative methods to partner with us in this gospel message. Subscribe to our channel, then go to the unite leadership org 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.