Lead Time
Lead Time
Exploring the Influence of Lutheran Education and More with Jonathan Schultz
Join us for a fascinating conversation with Jonathan Schultz, the president of Concordia Publishing House. Jonathan's journey, from a home rooted deep in faith to serving as a volunteer missionary in Guatemala, is a testament to his devotion to the church. His experiences have moulded him into a leader whose influence extends across various entities of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.
Ever wondered about the ins and outs of leading a publishing house for a religious institution? Jonathan sheds light on the rich history and evolution of Concordia Publishing House (CPH), which played a pivotal role in serving the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS). With intriguing stories of the challenges CPH faced when transitioning from German to English and the significance of the St. Louis edition of Luther's Works, Jonathan invites us into the world of CPH. He also highlights the importance of fostering a positive work environment and the influence of vision in shaping the organization's culture.
The conversation pivots towards the changing landscape of customer engagement, with Jonathan sharing some unique challenges faced within the LCMS. He elaborates on CPH’s commitment to serve the wider Synod through various resources, emphasizing the crucial role of Lutheran education as a gateway to the church. In a call to unity and boldness, Jonathan explores the importance of adaptability and open-mindedness in ministry, and the need for pastors to step out of their comfort zones and take kingdom risks. This is one conversation you don't want to miss, as Jonathan Schultz shares his insights on building a strong and confessional church.
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Leigh Time is a podcast of the Unite Leadership Collective, hosted by Tim Ollman and Jack Calliber. The ULC envisions the future in which all congregations fully equip the priesthood of all the believers through world-class leadership development at the local level. Leigh Time taps into biblical wisdom for practical solutions to today's burning issues. Each podcast confronts real-time struggles facing the local church and a post-Christian culture. Step into the action with the ULC at uniteleadershiporg. This is Leigh Time.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Leigh Time, tim Ollman, here with Jack Cowberg. We are in Phoenix, arizona, gilbert Arizona, suburb of Phoenix, recording today and it is a beautiful day. We have just gotten out of the hundreds, jack, and our guest today, the president of Concordia Publishing House, jonathan Schultz. He's saying Jonathan, thanks for joining us. You're having an Indian summer right now, a little bit in St Louis, I think. Falls in St Louis are absolutely spectacular. Has the humidity come down? And, yeah, what's the weather like?
Speaker 3:It's just gorgeous. It's going to be 82 today Low humidity, sunshine, mild breeze great day to set out. We should have actually had a happy hour for our employees this afternoon.
Speaker 1:Maybe we'll have a pop-up one yet.
Speaker 3:You guys are inspiring me on this great idea.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, you are.
Speaker 3:You're a fit. I love it. When does the Sare? When does the Sare?
Speaker 2:Probably like a month or so from now.
Speaker 3:OK, perfect, so it'll be passed. If I don't actually do that, it'll be a moment, it will pass.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah it will. I've loved all the work that you're doing and now just a couple of years in your role, I think, at CPH as the CEO president. And what I also love, as I was looking at your bio, is how you've been so intimately connected to so many entities of Synod and serving on various boards like Lutheran World Relief, Lutheran Foundation. How did you develop Just tell your LCMS story a little bit how did you develop that love for not just CPH but just the serving the wider church, and how does that impact your role, obviously with CPH?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so first thanks again for inviting me to be on today.
Speaker 3:Yeah, to understand my story is to understand my family. So my grandfather was a pastor, my father was a pastor, my three brothers are pastors, I've got six nephews that are pastors, two that are seminary now one more going and I'm the attorney. And then, on the flip side of the commission, ministers. My dear wife is a Lutheran school teacher and there's like 1,300. Just about we're getting there About 13 other family members that are either DCEs or teachers, and so church work is sort of in the DNA.
Speaker 3:I guess I was compelled to do it. My mother probably really didn't give me an option other than that, but even though I ran away from it so I'm not the pastor, I'm the attorney Went to Concordia, chicago, and then I went to law school in Chicago at Loyola practice for a while. But then and this is a longer story than what we have today but we ended up after three and a half years going to Guatemala as volunteer missionaries. Wow, and my wife and our son was one and a half years old at the time, and so it all started with my cousin was going to Slovakia to be a volunteer missionary and she stopped in Chicago when we were living there and was telling us she had been down to St Louis for missionary orientation. We're sitting there having a beer and eating some nachos and she's telling us this incredible story of what she's going to be doing. And I'm like, well, that'd be a fun thing to do. And you have to understand, at the time we were trying to figure out are we going to stay in Chicago where I was building a practice, or are we going to move closer to family? Sue's was in southern Indiana, mine was down in the St Louis area where my dad was a pastor.
Speaker 3:And so this thing popped up and just set a crazy thing like that after a couple beers. But you know what I mean? It was just a spark and we just couldn't get over come that idea and it's like, why not? And if we're going to do something like that, why not do it now? And so I say that at the end of this. And so we prayed about it and we called down St Louis, we tried to put up all these roadblocks and it's like, hey, it's the middle of July, there's no way we can be in country somewhere else this fall, and it's an hour. Never. If we don't do that this year, we'll never do something like that. So we're going to go on and make other plans, but every roadblock we put up, god knocked that roadblock over and we called down Lesh Schmidt was the guy down in St Louis at the time, great guy, and he's, like I do, trying to find somebody to go to St Petersburg, russia. And we're like, oh, that's pretty cool in 1996, after the wall is falling and stuff.
Speaker 3:Or Guatemala. And we're like, oh, guatemala. But we prayed more and prayed more and he came up and told us about it and we're just like, well, god, if we're going to do something like this, then use us. This is not about us, but where can we serve? And so we went to Guatemala from 96 to 98. And we were volunteer missionaries.
Speaker 3:We worked at a missionary school that at the time was about 35 years old and it had been started by the missionaries and it was really a multi-denominational missionary group that started this LCMS. Missionaries were very involved in it and what the missionaries had found out down in Guatemala is that they were spending so much time home, school and their kids that it was interfering with their pastoral and missionary work. And so they decided why don't we start this school together? Have these volunteers come down from the United States and serve there and in the time. So that's how it started. By the time we got there, though, the school had grown in its prominence and it was probably served a couple hundred students, 90% of which were Guatemalans from probably the upper middle class, I would say. It was in Tate, saltanango, which is the Western Highlands, about four hours away from Guatemala City, and just an incredible experience. We were playing down there one year. They needed us a second, and we stayed down there.
Speaker 2:So you learned.
Speaker 3:Spanish yeah.
Speaker 3:I learned Spanish, but you know, the problem was that we were teaching the kids in a North American, where the North American based curriculum, because the mission and ministry of the school evolved to the point where the goal was also, despite Europeans and North Americans going down to Central America trying to fix the place, the real lasting change was going to have to come from the people within, so these kids could be taught in an environment, a Christian environment, go off, be prepared to go to a North American or European university and then come back to positions of leadership and influence in business and in government. Then perhaps that's how real lasting change for the better could occur. So, yeah, so as a result, my Spanish is eh.
Speaker 2:No, that's all right. So enough to try. I love that heart, brother. And how did that influence you and your perspective? Because I've done cross-cultural work, my entire ministry too. Lower income. Our congregation is now partnering with the Mexican Lutheran Synod as they're looking to get rebooted. I'm actually working on my Spanish right now. In Duolingo, I got a 48-day street.
Speaker 1:I got a 48-day street going right now. Yeah, yeah, that's awesome, just conversation.
Speaker 2:My goal is next year when we go down to be conversant with brothers and sisters there. But what did the Lord teach you? That then impacted your ministry and even to this day, your work as a leader at CPH.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think I've always said it wasn't a life-changing experience, but it certainly was a life-enhancing experience. I really believe that for most of us that are short-term, even at one or two years, it's definitely a life-enhancing experience to do something like that and it's really shaped my whole view of our ministry here at Concordia Publishing House from the get-go. I mean, I'm a product of southern and central Illinois country-ish congregations and so that was my experience. We did not have a Hispanic community in my town. We didn't have other nationalities or races in the towns that I grew up in. So of course I spent 10 years in Chicago. So that definitely shaped it and changed me as well.
Speaker 3:But I came back here, met a CPH employee that's actually how I got to. Cph is walking around on a street to Pana High Chail with a CPH employee that had come down to do this retreat for the missionaries and he encouraged me to apply at CPH and I said I didn't know CPH had attorneys and he said we never have, but we're always looking for the right people to join our team. And you just talk about God orchestrating things and lining opportunities up and for us to be open to the call. It was just fantastic, so got back here. One of the first projects that I was set loose to do is to develop a short-term missionary experience for our employees, where we give employees up to two weeks of paytime off to go out on a short-term missionary leave and we give them some resources and some cash to make that happen, and we'll fund up to three of those a year, and so it's just broadened our employees' perspective of that as well.
Speaker 4:Jonathan, what would you recommend to people if they're considering doing some mission work, Like there's a lot of people that would be new to it. They've never experienced it before. What are some things that people lot to think about and consider as part of that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think there's there's. There's probably good ways and I'm not the expert by any stretch of the imagination. There's good ways and less good ways probably to do that work, I think, and I think it's important to to partner up with somebody that understands it and at least have conversations to make sure that you're not working at odds with other initiatives that are being done or you're doing things for people that you're actually walking alongside of, instead of going and building something and just everybody's in the community is watching the, the North Americans, come in and do that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I know there's a. There's a book out there that I think it's called helping without hurting. Is that what it's called?
Speaker 2:No when, when helping hurts.
Speaker 4:Jack, when helping hurts, it's the state.
Speaker 2:It's a staple for interacting and coming alongside in mutually beneficial relationships with folks that are different, because if we come in top down, you know especially with Western mindset telling people it just doesn't work. You create dependencies and it can go sideways really, really quick. Power structures kind of get set in and and that's not helpful in the in the long run. So yeah, thank you for that hard. I'd love to hear your your story, though, of evolving as a leader at CPH. What roles did you do? Because you've been ever.
Speaker 2:I was blessed to be invited to a leadership gathering where we'll get to this in a bit and more depth. I got a tour of CPH and got to see and hear the story from you about how that ministry has evolved over the years. So yeah, tell a little bit of your story and then merge it into the origin story of CPH Perfect.
Speaker 3:Okay. So when I got to CPH they didn't know what to do with me. So I was a 30 year old kid and and like, how can we go from not having an attorney to having a general counsel or whatever? So they gave me a title of assistant, corporate counsel and assistant for the vice president of corporate development. But it was a. It was a great position because I had a great mentor as the vice president of corporate development that really helped me on my leadership journey. He was very affirming, he was very encouraging of me to pursue opportunities to serve, you know, either at the local level or like in Lutheran World Relief, for instance, and so. So from there I became just corporate counsel and then in 2006, I became vice president of corporate counsel physician. I held until the last two and a half years where I, when I became interim president and then was finally elected president of CPH.
Speaker 2:That's, that's so good. So tell the story of of CPH and how it served Synod from the very beginning. I mean, you've been at that corner. I forget the names of the streets, but CPH has been at that corner almost since the founding of Synod, almost 200 years ago, 170 years ago or so. So tell that story.
Speaker 3:Exactly Right. So in the corner of Miami and Jefferson today we started in 1869. At that time St Louis looked very different. I mean, the south side of St Louis was pretty much wilderness. There was Holy Cross Lutheran Church over across the street that you could see from Concordia Publishing House.
Speaker 3:One of Walters four churches that he served the seminary by that time was actually in place on the property. They had moved up from Perry County and they were over by Holy Cross and Dr Cf W Walter had been publishing Deir Luthoran and Trinity historic Trinity was was doing some publishing and stuff. But the LCMS was expanding so rapidly that they realized a singular church could not do this. So in the convention of 1869, I believe the LCMS convention of 1869, they authorized the formation of a publishing, a printer, I guess is what they called us at the time. And about a dozen years later we became Concordia Publishing House.
Speaker 3:But it was located I mean they, they approved it in the summer by September 11th. They had organized us and a couple months later they had this sort of printing shack plus that had a seven horsepower steam engine to run these printing presses, located over by where the seminary was, and they thought, hey, this is a good idea, and so started started printing stuff immediately. We then moved across the street, as you said, tim, several years, like about five years later. Rumor is is that Dr Walter's wife was not happy with the smoke blowing into her windows, and so she said like a cold or something.
Speaker 3:Yeah, CFW, get rid of that.
Speaker 1:It's either, it's either CPA to me get rid of.
Speaker 3:CPA, so it's not affecting my life. So, anyway, we moved over here. Actually, our first building over here was facing the river, which you can imagine, which is sort of be the back of our building at this time, and then in the 1890s or so they pulled it up. But that was an incredible time of growth for the Senate, for CPA. But the real amazing thing is, you know, everything was done in German at that time, so we did not publish our first English book. We started in 1869. Our first English book came, I believe, in 1896.
Speaker 4:Wow, so uh do you know what that was?
Speaker 3:That was our church at the time. I have no idea.
Speaker 2:I'm curious to know, I need to find that out Interesting.
Speaker 3:Maybe next time I'll have that, yeah, so one of the first big projects that we took on was the St Louis edition of Luther's Works, which was, like, I think, a 25-volume edition in German of Luther's Works and that was in time for the 400th anniversary of Martin Luther's birth. Now that's a 25-volume. So that was a big project for a small, growing publishing house because that was all moveable type that they had to set at that time. So that was a major undertaking.
Speaker 2:Yeah so what a story.
Speaker 4:It's amazing that somebody could write 25 volumes worth of stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. So our last book in German so of course I mean 1896 English started when the First World War came. We got pretty quickly on a print and a lot of stuff in English right, because our churches were having to transition because of the issues surrounding the First World War and stuff. But our last book that we published in German was in 1999. I was here for it.
Speaker 3:And it was up to up to that time we were publishing the Portals of Prayer in German, and so finally the people that that read it in German in all our congregate I mean, this was for this wasn't permission work, this was for our congregations up to 1999. And they were finally. We just there just weren't enough numbers to justify printing it. So we did one last volume of 365 day devotional in German and and called it, called it a 125 year success story, and so yeah, we're gonna be.
Speaker 2:We're gonna be talking leadership and kind of culture and the wider church, but I think people would be interested to know, like, what does it take to produce a book? So we're interviewing Jameson Hardy here and he's got a book on pastoral leadership. He'll be on in a couple couple weeks but what does that process look like? And because I was asking questions about where the actual printing takes place and I know you've got partnerships for it to it to happen today. So talk about, like, from ideation all the way to completion of a project, what does that look like? And things that may kind of surprise the average person, Yep happens in a happens in a couple ways.
Speaker 3:And, of course, cph. We have so many different programs. We print theological books, we we print adult spirituality, we have children's books, we have curriculums, we have periodicals, we have hymn books and music. So let's stay with the concept of a book, because each one has a different, a different path. So in Jameson's point Jameson, as this often happens is I was at a dinner with Jameson and he goes I'd love to write a book on pastoral leadership. And he gave me a little hey, this is what's percolating in my mind and everything. And I said great, great, that sounds, that sounds wonderful. Let me get you in contact with our editorial team, see what they think. We do market research. Yeah, there's a potential market for this. We put out the schedules hey, if you want your book and x date, then we need to have a manuscript by this date.
Speaker 3:And some people you know a lot, of a lot of authors, first time authors like my book's perfect, you know. And here's the manuscript, it is a gem now, just just print it, you know. And and soon they find out, an editor goes with their virtual red marker and everything. But in every case our authors come back and said oh man, I I thought that was going to be horrible and everything, but I really appreciate how you made my perfect manuscript that much better. And so there's that editorial process. And then we have a whole another team that goes in and does copy, editing of it and proofreading it. We are our designers, layout the product. Because we are an entity of Senate, our books have to go through doctoral review to make sure that they comport with scripture and the Lutheran Confessions, which is. I've not seen problems with that in my time here at CPH. That's a, that's a boogeyman.
Speaker 3:But often, but it's it's just a fact of the matter is all most of our authors, you know, subscribe to scripture and the Lutheran Confessions, and so the products that are coming from their pen and the writing also conform to that. And if there's not, then we, then we work that out, or the editorial team, if they see something earlier on, it's already been worked out, in that From there, I mean, marketing plans are put together and big launch date is announced and we go from there. So you know, traditionally a big change in the publishing process is distribution, and Amazon, of course, in my 25 years has been the the big distribution channel. Whereas when I got to CPH there were over 5000 Christian bookstores and people would walk into their local Christian bookstore and they'd see Jameson Hardy's book on the shelf and and they'd buy it, today the number of Christian bookstores is probably under 500. And so it's. It becomes challenging. So social media becomes a big element of the marketing as well. And then directed churches and events and pastoral conferences and those sorts of things.
Speaker 2:So, from concept to book, on in the hand of a reader, we talking about an 18 month journey, two years, I know it can vary, but yep somewhere in there.
Speaker 3:Yep, yep, somewhere, somewhere in there. It depends on the speed of the author. Okay, in many respects, and let's shift.
Speaker 4:I may be missing this a little bit in the conversation here. Like I'm kind of curious, like how was like peel back the layers a little bit on the kind of the decision making process? Because, okay, you guys are, you guys are making decisions to work on certain projects and maybe not to work on other projects. What, what causes you to decide on specific projects?
Speaker 3:Sure, that's a great thing, because there are so many books and there are so many people with great ideas that would love to write books, and so when do we invest our resources behind it? It's going to depend on a couple things. I mean, it's going to depend on number one what is that subject? Is it what makes it unique? Secondarily, it's like there's so much work that an author has to do now to market their book, you know, because it's driven on their personality. So often You'll see that when you have Jameson on, I mean, you'll just see that naturally.
Speaker 4:He works really hard at it. We just had Flamon oh did you, yeah, and you guys put together a really great book with him Fantastic.
Speaker 3:Thank you, Thank you. Yeah, that was a real exciting project as well. And then the third thing is you know just their notoriety as well, right, I mean. So Flamon, he has a, he brings an audience with him.
Speaker 4:And he has a.
Speaker 3:He has a. I mean he's definitely on the upswing with an audience as well, and we look at youth gathering coming up and those sorts of things as well.
Speaker 2:So no, that's. That's so, so good what I've been impressed with, just with watching you. You work so well with people and you are a culture shaper. Tell the top three values or principles for your leadership at CPH. What kind of an environment are you trying to cultivate with how many employees do you have now? Perfect.
Speaker 3:About 160. Yeah, wow, so yeah.
Speaker 2:You know we, our organizations are, you have a much broader reach. But running a school with a preschool, you know we got about 130, 140.
Speaker 1:I bet you do so like shaping shaping culture like that.
Speaker 2:That's a big deal for us, so talk about your values and principles for shaping culture at CPH, yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, it's probably no surprise hearing me People and culture are first and foremost. I mean, that's my top leadership principle, without a doubt. And so we work really, I work really hard as a leader. I'm relations. I know every single one of those employees. I usually know their spouse or the kids, or stories about them. I'm very intentional on taking the time to write notes to them, birthday cards, whatever the case may be. But more so than that is just engaging with them in the hallways.
Speaker 3:You know, and it's one of the reasons why I am so resistant to move from a hybrid work environment, which we have now, to something that would allow people to just be totally, totally remote, because you lose so much of that culture and what shapes CPH. And this predates me by all means. But CPH is a place, it's a destination location for a lot of people to come and work. We have we just had 10 days ago we had our service awards luncheon and over half of our company has 10 or more years of service at Concordia Publishing House. Next year we'll honor five people with 35 years plus. We have five people. They came into the organization and had stuck it out 35, you know, one or two is not uncommon for us, but five from that class, and we've had two employees celebrate their 50th anniversaries while I've been at Concordia Publishing House, and so it's really, it's really important to foster.
Speaker 3:And I was joking about the happy hour earlier, but we do that. We do that once a month, we have a happy hour and we just look for opportunities, employee activity, things, and so that culture too. It's communication as well. I have a weekly staff meeting that we flow down then, so only the leadership team comes up, but their responsibility is to flow down the salient information from that meeting to everybody in person. And I audit that every now and then with employees, just to make sure that we don't get too busy, that we don't continue to put first things first.
Speaker 4:We talked last night in a meeting about the ministry of presence and the importance of presence in leaders and I think you just hit a home run with that with the idea of the hybrid workspace. You have to be. If everybody's remote, it's like virtually impossible to be present with people. Right Agreed.
Speaker 2:And a culture of celebration, when people have loyalty, is a big value for you. I mean, we want to create a space this is what I hear where you love coming to work, you love the people that you get to work with and there's a calling that's beyond you. So how do you cast vision in terms of this kind Because I think this is super compelling for a culture like this kingdom this growth there's more people to serve, obviously all under the banner of Jesus Christ. Anything to say about the power of vision, kind of shaping culture, jonathan.
Speaker 3:Yeah, 100% it's. You know, our mission is wrapped up and we have to convey what that mission is, and so hiring people then really becomes important too. We hire I look for people that have the potential to be long-term CPH employees, that are not going to get bored. It's not just another job. Their vocation is to be part of CPH and we've really tried to inculcate that into all of our hiring managers. I mean, tim, you know we live in the shadow, literally, of Anheuser-Busch and.
Speaker 3:Perina, and we will never be able to attract people based on pay. Our benefits, of course, are concordia plans, so that helps us, without a doubt, but we will never be able to compete, and so we got to find people, and so one of the things to use it myself, I mean we're really intentional about an internship program with the Concordia universities. Every summer we have at least six interns come in and have them try out areas of marketing and IT and even editorial and stuff places where we don't have church workers working, because only 10% of our 10% probably of our employees are rostered. So but we're looking for other people that that come from church work families or come from the Concordia and make sure that, make sure that we're looking at them with the assumption that they're going to be part of that mission and vision.
Speaker 2:No, I love that. I love that there's so much power in in creating culture. But then language shaping culture. I'd be curious, have you, have you guys walked through like a clarifying and narrowing in on what the primary objective is and you've got a number of different kind of markets that in products that you're, you're offering as a leader. So that takes a lot of work. We talk about ourselves as a family of ministries and needing like a way to have all of the family kind of come together and we did a lot of research just just recently that our kind of vision language has come out.
Speaker 2:The family ministries vision is to see lives transformed by Jesus Christ period. And this, this kind of call for you belong here. There's this call as many people as possible hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ. So that's for the umbrella of ministries that we have. What is some of the mission, vision kind of value language that is really shaped and it could be formal and some of it could actually be informal as well. So love to hear your take on that.
Speaker 3:Yep. So our mission statement is something that nobody, nobody can memorize but at the heart of it at the heart of it, though, is to equipping, aid the member congregations, the schools, the households and other other people, so there's actually an element of serving beyond the LCMS. That's in our mission statement, but our vision statement is that we strive to be the premier publisher and provider of choice for products and services that are faithful to scripture and the Lutheran Confessions.
Speaker 1:And that's not new language.
Speaker 3:That's not language that that's not language that came from me, but that's what we're called to. That's what we are called to do and that is something that people have resonated with. Most of our employees would know, would know that, would know that vision statement and that's what we try and do and we obsess I mean, that's another one of my leaders we obsess about being being engaged with our customers and and making sure that we're serving people and that all just builds right into that being first and foremost in the minds of our customers.
Speaker 4:I'm curious to know, as, as a leader like how, how do, how does your team, how does CPH know that they're winning at that mission statement? What is it? What do you look at to say that you know this? This is what we've set out to do and this is how we're winning at this, at this game of publishing right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. So, in our as we have evolved, as our business and our systems have evolved, we've gone from being, you know, customer service to customer loyalty, to measuring customer engagement. And so we actually surveyed, we've really we actually surveyed this and our expectation is that we have a 95 plus percent customer engagement score.
Speaker 1:You guys are like a promoter.
Speaker 3:We are. We're just transitioning to it, which probably was not the best idea when the board adopted a goal and then we changed the measurement, because now we got to try and figure out a translation thing like that before, before the end of the year, and I have to report on that. But I think it's going to do us. It's going to do us really well to transition to net promoter score. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:And for those who are watching and you're not familiar with the net promoter score. If you've ever gotten one of those pop up surveys that says how likely are you to recommend us on a scale of one to 10, that's a net promoter score and there's a whole sort of complicated formula behind that, but it is one of the world class tools to measure, as you said, engagement with the people you're trying to serve Right and you really only get credit for like a nine and 10, right I mean, and then one to six is subtract and the rest is just thrown away.
Speaker 3:So yep, let's.
Speaker 2:Let's dig into a topic. You know this is all. This has been super fun, but we're in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and we don't always get along with one another. There can be conflict, and especially online. I'm not going to ask questions about the large catechism. Maybe some people would be expecting me to do so. President Harrison has spoken about that project and frankly, I find the book very, very helpful and very, very balanced and reasonable as you try to serve. So there could be conflict around confessional mission, which I think is a false dichotomy. We're all confessing mission minded, on our best days, lutheran confessing Lutherans. So what are your thoughts as you as a leader and CPH in general gets to serve the wider Synod, how do you articulate that and name some of your products that are books etc. That are trying to serve the wider Synod?
Speaker 3:Okay, great. So I'd say, first and foremost, what an incredible privilege and what an incredible mission that we have, like I said, is to to equinate all of the LCMS and that's, and that's something that that the staff and I are serious about doing. So I've been really intentional in my two and a half years and some of this started, of course, before, but about visiting the entire Synod, as much of the Synod as I can possibly visit. I don't think it's healthy for anybody that is in a role such as mine, for Synod to view Synod through the lens of one, one church and one city every single week. And so I get out, you know 15 I was just out in, I was just out in Orange County, where I've been trying to get around to all the Concordia's was at Olu and Creen and St John's, and you know just that's, that's what we do, and so what I? These are some of the things that I've learned. I mean, first and foremost, we are a church body that ministers in some extremely diverse contexts, and what I find to be true, and I want believe to be true, is that our pastors and teachers across Synod are trying to preach and teach at their very best in their contexts.
Speaker 3:The second thing I the second thing that I realized is that I have not been given the vocation of ecclesiastical supervisor For you or any other church worker. We have a system for that and I'm not that, and so I really try to refrain from forming opinions on personal preferences or theological. That's just not who I am. There is a whole system. If you're doing something that I don't agree with, honestly, I can talk to you one on one on it, but there's somebody else that that is responsible for that.
Speaker 3:But what I am called to be as a president of the Synod's publishing house and and to help create resources to equip and aid the whole church. So some of those resources that we're doing. You know, not everything is going to work in every context right. For one thing, there might not be a big enough market that a publishing house can do something. Or your church, I would imagine, likes to hyper contextualize it and make it your own right for exactly what you're doing. So that's not what I'm going to be doing. But there are so many other things that we can do that we have are unified around. I mean from things like portals of prayer, a daily devotional that 500,000 people get that across the Senate.
Speaker 4:Very popular in our congregation.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and school.
Speaker 3:We haven't had time to talk about school ministry but, oh my goodness, this is a golden era for Lutheran education, I believe.
Speaker 3:And so school curriculum, and we've been intentional about and I know there's some people probably disappointed in this but we're also realizing that our school ministries are gateways to our churches in many respects, and so our latest curriculum that we've just developed is much more Bible-based and less catechetical thinking that people that are in context where they really want to inject catechetical, lutheran, small catechism into the curriculum, we have other resources to enable you to do that.
Speaker 3:But there's other contexts where our Lutheran schools are serving a population that is 85 plus percent that are not Lutheran, and the most critical things that people, those kids, can learn and take home with them is that Jesus loves them, he died for them, and that whole story of salvation as revealed through Bible stories and that narrative, and so that's been an intentional aspect of something that we've tried to do for the whole church. And then there's other things that we can do too, right, I mean so some of the leadership books that we're doing. Flames book is sometimes a book we may not have done in the past, but man, that is, that book is just really phenomenal.
Speaker 4:I think it's a fantastic book that churches ought to consider to give, maybe to people who are adult converts and they're kind of trying to think through their own faith walk and understand what Lutherans are teaching in the backdrop of other things that they may have been taught. Really great book for that.
Speaker 2:Yep, thanks, yeah, thanks yeah thank you, for you know leadership means taking risks. Leadership in some senses is I'd love to get your take disappointing people at a rate they can tolerate and stay with. You know we've got to take risks and you serve a wide variety of people in a wide variety of contexts. We're praying at the ULC for contextual hospitality. To listen, you know, twice as much as we speak in to put the best construction on everything and if we've got a concern we bring it to a brother I love.
Speaker 2:I love the move right now with caring for schools. I'd be curious to know who's not into Lutheran schools today. Like, we have the gospel, and I love the choice that you're making to biblical literacy must be a priority today and then, as you dig into the Word of God, then Catechesis follows biblical literacy, for sure, for sure. Thank you for your courage and for your kindness. Really that's it, and you really don't strike me as one who is easily offended. You know your identity is secure in Jesus and if people have thoughts about how CPH could get better, you know kind of shrug your shoulders and say, sure, love to hear your thoughts as we try to do the best we can to serve, being as imperfect as we are. How did you kind of develop that sort of courage, that identity-focused courage? Where does that come from, jonathan?
Speaker 3:Well, I think again. I mean it is probably from my upbringing in part. I mean, it's just who I am. I have always been confident I was. I knew nothing other than being a Lutheran Christian right, and that Jesus loved me and regardless of what happens to me, I'm going to be okay in the knowledge of that. And so I live with that every day. I can shrug off.
Speaker 3:I find it easy to say I apologize, I screwed up, I could have done something better, and go on, go on from there. I mean, another leadership thing is just create an environment of continuous quality improvement and through that you're like always evaluating what could I've done better? What could CPH have done better? How could we made that product better? And so I mean, when it's a curriculum, we messed up with the preschool level of the curriculum. We probably short circuited the process to rush it to market, I mean, and we didn't get enough customer feedback loops in the development of it and the preschool level was hit too high as a result, and so we almost got immediate feedback on that. Now, in the past, CPH would have maybe said oh gosh, we'll keep that in mind in eight years. I said we can't afford to do that we got to have. Our preschools are growing, they're the gateway to our day schools and into our churches and we've got to make sure that we have a curriculum that works. So we went back and we redid the whole thing.
Speaker 3:And so that will be launching this next year. It's been a while since we launched this a lot, but we just had to do it for ministry reasons.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's kind of you're embodying what we call the build measure, learn mentality right. And yeah, and in in this particular instance, especially with the immediacy of the schools, you can't afford to wait a decade for the the perfect product you have to try to be willing to iterate on certain things and be more responsive to what's going on.
Speaker 2:And that means that sometimes things aren't gonna go as you, as you want exactly. A lot of pastors are listening to this and what I'm praying for, jonathan love to get your take on this as you, as you get to interact with a lot of pastors is that there are more pastures, pastors who are willing to take kingdom risks and recognize that there will be struggle, that that it's not always gonna go the way you think it should go, but this kind of true north being more and more kids, young and old, hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ being baptized in the name of the Triune, god and and the church must adapt as we, as we try to serve. Adaptability is a key, but what we know, based on a lot of research, that adaptability Is not a high behavioral trait for a lot of pastors when we can be very, very kind of set, I do this and then I do this and I do this, and it better, better go right and and I think a lot of times pastors may feel just unsafe. There may be opinion leaders that that can hurt them.
Speaker 2:A book I remember called clergy killers. You know, and and Jonathan actually talks about this too there will be loss, there will be trial. When you try things, certain folks may get you know ruffled feathers. So what? What traits are you praying for in pastors, as especially you're writing more leadership literature right now? How are you trying to shape the, the culture of pastoral development? I?
Speaker 3:Think one of the really important things and I lied you guys for because, and looking looking at some of some of the guests that you've had, I mean they're in probably they're in different places Then then where you guys are in your ministry context but it's so important to sit down and talk to people face to face. I often say that Facebook for years I've been saying this it's really the devil sandbox, right, and I mean it's so easy for people to get into that. And man, I, when people say I'm just getting off of it, there's an element of that. It's like yeah, wow, that's awesome, do do that. But so so important to talk to people now face to face. I mean, in the past, things are set, things are said that people probably would have got punched in the nose. You know on Facebook it's put there, but if it had been said while you were actually in the sandbox, you probably would have got nose, and I'm not advocating violence or anything like that.
Speaker 3:Please, but it seems, it seems safe and I can say anything and I'm a big ace command my guy, I'm telling you and so I just just the bar is not, you know, not bearing false witness.
Speaker 3:You know Luther admonishes us to, you know, speak well, but you know, defend, defend, speak well of and put the best construction on everything, and so that's something that and hey man, I'm sinful and I struggle with that every day, but I'll tell my people. I said, if you hear me going off about so-and-so or spouting off because of something, call me on it and I'll do the same with you. And We've been living like that for two and a half plus years here at CTH as a cultural thing and it's just, it's just fantastic, because that's what we're called to do in the church. And so more of that, I would say more of people talking, you know, in dialogue. I Don't know, I mean it's just it.
Speaker 3:I deturchus so much reflective of our, of our society and politics right now. Right, I mean it's like people get into their own factions and there's no people just getting together Over a beer. And once you do that I Mean you, you, you have a different outlook on that person, at what they're doing, there's an appreciation, and so I pray, I pray for that, you know, I pray for that. And then that people give grace where I.
Speaker 4:I remember an elderly man in our congregation said in the old days of the LCMS We'd fight in the daytime and then at night we'd drink and make up. And he said the problem is we quit drinking together, we may have a drinking problem.
Speaker 2:And we are. Folks may look at the United Leadership Collective and some of the Innovative things we're doing in the theological formation spectrum and and just tests were running and think that we're a Theologically liberal or loose organization and nothing could be further from the truth. I mean we're. We love deep, confessional Lutheran theology. We get into so many conversations we were we're having a debate recently on on one of our kind of student calls about the, the Can faith come outside of hearing or can faith also come by reading? And we had a robust, a robust theological conversation. Faith comes by hearing and the Lord still works through written, written means. So all that to say, let's stop with the labels and and put it all that guy is in this camp or that guy's in this camp.
Speaker 2:And the days are too short, as the world is unraveling right now, jonathan, for us to bite at one another's heels when Satan is trying to take us out. Take that head out. We know ultimately who who wins. But if we, we need entities like CPH, speaking boldly, building bridges, platforming as the spirit leads different voices, all in a common, uniting Approach toward reaching people with the gospel and not compromising our, our confessional Lutheran stance. So this is our call. This is why the United Leadership Collective exists and, as we close, last question as an official entity of Synod at CPH, what are your hopes for the LCMS? Say, 20 years from now, 20?, 2043? What are your hopes?
Speaker 3:Well, let me tell you, let me give you some sobering statistics about where we were 20 years ago. I mean, we've lost seven hundred seventy thousand members In the last 20 years. But even more sobering to me is that infant baptisms are down from 32,000 Right around 15,000, which is an over 50% decline. Meanwhile, you know, our society is becoming more and more hostile to, to, to us and, frankly, in your lifetime If not your kids at lifetime it's possible that our church, based on our, our beliefs and our, our stances and interpretation of scriptures, could be a hate group and With that will totally change how we do church. Right, I mean, we'll lose tax exempt status, you'll lose your housing allowance and all these things, but, man, that's what that's.
Speaker 3:So the devil wants to just like lead me to this despair of this is gonna continue. But man, I mean Jesus is Lord of the church and Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever, and I think he works for good and everything. And so my hope for the LCMS in the next 20 years is that we are a church full of strong and secure disciples who know the Lord, jesus Christ, who Stand firm on the confessions and the scriptures and then just engages the culture with the incredible power of the gospel, and withstand anything that that is thrown against us and Just say, lord, I'm doing. I'm doing what you called me to do.
Speaker 4:The rest is up to you and, rather than lamenting, seeing in our nation as a mission field like a gigantic mission field, right, just as we would see any other country. That's pre-Christian, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah you bet? Yeah, the book of Acts gets to come alive in our day and age today. And the church was built because of the suffering of the saints, the martyrs who have gone before. And I'm not saying persecution, robust persecution, a physical persecution is coming, but it could in our lifetime. I agree, and we will. We stand on the promises of of Jesus in the hope of the resurrection. I pray the LCMS takes that united stance today.
Speaker 2:It is what we have the goods bro, we got the good the gospel is is here and therefore we can engage culture and even other church bodies with a lot of hospitality and grace and not compromise the commitments that we've made to Scripture and and the confession. So this has been so much fun. Jonathan, love your heart, love your leadership style so much fun. How can people connect with you and CPH if they desire?
Speaker 3:Yeah, for sure, really easy. Cphorg online or me, jonathan dot Schultz at CPHorg would love to to hear from anybody that has any questions or comments, product suggestions, etc. And yeah, keep buying those books because they're filled they're filled with good stuff and we love supplying them for the church. So, hey, man.
Speaker 2:Thanks for doing what you do. This is lead time sharing. It's caring. Please like, subscribe, comment wherever it is You're taking it in, whether YouTube, itunes, spotify, wherever it is that really, really helps share podcasts too. Maybe someone needs a hope filled conversation like this conversation with Jonathan. Please please share. Jesus is so good. He's Lord of the church. It is a good day going. Make it, by the power of the spirit, a great day. Jesus loves you. We love you too. Thanks so much, jonathan, jack. Good work, peace, thanks guys.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to lead time, a podcast of the Unite leadership collective. The ust 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. You.