Lead Time
Lead Time
"The Beating Heart of Missouri's Mission" with Dr. Ben Haupt
Could the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod's mission history hold untapped wisdom for today's challenges? Reverend Dr. Ben Haupt joins us to unravel this enigma, sharing his captivating journey from a parish pastor to a global executive leader at the Pastoral Leadership Institute (PLI). His profound insights challenge conventional wisdom, arguing for a seamless blend of doctrine and mission. Ben delves into his collaborative work on "Gospel DNA" and his critical engagement with "Mission in the Making," laying the foundation for his upcoming book.
We also explore the untold stories of the LCMS's untranslated German mission documents, revealing their practical origins and the historical shift that sidelined them. Uncover the vibrant diversity of the early Missouri Synod's mission work and debunk myths about forced German assimilation.
Reflecting on the compelling sermons of early LCMS leaders, we spotlight their enduring influence on missionary outreach. Learn how local circuit leaders and grassroots movements have historically advanced the church’s mission, and why empowering small church leadership is crucial today. We discuss the impact of centralized control on local organizations and the importance of fostering genuine dialogue for adaptive change. Tune in to be inspired by Ben Haupt's commitment to a unified and robust approach to spreading the gospel, both locally and globally.
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This is Lead Time.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Lead Time, tim Allman here. Jack Calberg has a day off. I get the privilege today of hanging out with a longtime friend, partner in the gospel, reverend Dr Ben Howe. So let me tell you a little bit about Ben If you don't know him. Nine years as a parish pastor, various large and small church contexts, he served at the seminary. He helped with the library renovation a number of years back, praise be to God, in that seminary Concordia Seminary, st Louis.
Speaker 2:He now is the PLI, pastoral Leadership Institute. Is it PLI? Is it still Pastoral Leadership Institute? Ben, okay, and I got to give you this title. This is spectacular. He is the global executive leader. Yeah, the G-E-L is in the house. Global executive leader for PLI. Praise be to God, I'm excited about your new role there as well, and a lot of our conversation today is going to orient. We'll kind of put at the back a little bit of his work with PLI vision for PLI. It's very exciting. But he's got a new book that's in process, the Beating Heart of Missouri's Mission, the Lutheran Church, missouri Synod's Mission, and so he's got a number of myths that we're going to talk about that he's heard floating around. He's a historian and has a lot to share with us today Before we get going. Ben, how you doing man, feeling good, I'm good yeah life is good.
Speaker 3:I've been on sabbatical this past spring and it's just finishing up. Taking a new position has been a lot of extra stuff but it's been really good and really exciting to both bless Concordia Seminary. As I wrap things up here, I have had a wonderful time and a wonderful run at Concordia Seminary. Loads of friends here and I hope to continue to be a part of the seminary community as I'm able Maybe teach a class here and there. I think I'm scheduled this fall to teach a doctorate of ministry class. Sweet, scheduled this this fall to teach a doctorate of ministry class, and sweet. So yeah, love Concordia Seminary but excited for the new, the new call for PLI, and that means moving off the seminary campus. But uh, you're moving to Chicago, is that right?
Speaker 2:we're. We're staying here in St Louis are.
Speaker 3:I'm married and have two boys and, uh, selena and the boys love their schools, that they are at teaching or studying. So yeah, they said, dad, you can take a different job. That's fine, as long as we get to stay where we're at.
Speaker 2:Yeah, st Louis special place, seminary special place and PLI. The mission is extraordinary. So let's dig into a little bit of the backstory, of how you fell in love with, kind of, the story of the LCMS. How did you fall in love, though, with the mission and missionary story of the LCMS, ben?
Speaker 3:Yeah, there were a number of things. The first thing was our good mutual friend, Mike Newman, District President. Reverend Dr Mike Newman, Gospel DNA yeah, Gospel DNA. Reverend Dr Mike Newman, Gospel DNA yeah, Gospel DNA. Exactly when he was working on that book I was new to the faculty and new in the library and this was long before the renovation Mike came in and, I think, introduced himself. We got to talking and he told me about this book, that he was working on Gospel DNA and he was interested in the history of Missouri Synod's mission and so I took him down to where I knew the library had a number of resources and we just began to find stuff together and it was really exciting to see his book come together. He had some kind words for me in his acknowledgements and that just got me more and more excited about mission.
Speaker 3:Then a second thing was beginning to do some research around what else had been written on Missouri Synod's mission. I came across this book, Mission in the Making, by Dean Luking, and Dean Luking is a wonderful scholar. He really uncovered a lot of the primary sources of Missouri Synod's mission. It's a very well-researched book and yet his overall thesis I began to grow more and more dissatisfied and I might be over-characterizing his thesis, but as I read it he basically was saying according to his research in Missouri Synod's history of missions, there were these two camps. There was one that was really interested at the founding of the Missouri Synod around right doctrine and confession, and then there was this other camp that was really interested in mission and outreach and social ministry. And they were these two camps. And as I read through that book and followed his thesis and then went back and read the original thesis from the University of Chicago PhD that he wrote for Yaroslav Pelikan, which was what eventually became this book, I just began to grow more and more dissatisfied with that basic thesis and I wrote a paper for Concordia Historical Institute with Tom Mantleifel, did a session for the Walther Roundtable on mission and I reviewed a number of things and I would suggest that Luking, instead of discovering camps, he may have actually created those camps, Because that book, Mission in the Making, was very, very popular and, like I said, there's tons of good stuff about it.
Speaker 3:It delves tons into primary research and yet that overall thesis I, just as I started to get into the primary sources, I started to think more and more no, Walther's talking about mission too, and these guys like Binger and Kramer and all the missiologists are also talking about right doctrine and confession, and so I really think that there was one group in the founding of the Missouri Synod that loved both the Word of God and confessing the Word of God correctly, as we've received it from Christ, and also doing this mission that Christ has set us out on.
Speaker 3:So I got interested and excited because I realized there were a bunch of resources that had never been translated before. Luking, in fact, talks about one resource that he couldn't find and I, after a bunch of digging, I found it, and I was I was very excited because I really respect Luking's primary research abilities. And so once I found some of these documents and realized, oh, these have never, ever been translated, I started asking around among people in the Missouri Synod that have worked on mission history and they said you know, I don't think they've been translated, they're not in any document or any book that we know of, in any document or any book that we know of, and so it was kind of stumbling upon a project that was kind of eventually begging me to be done.
Speaker 2:Ben, you're like the LCMS Indiana Jones, bro. I just picture you down in these dark basement dungeon of the LCMS as I must find these documents. It's so exciting, bro.
Speaker 3:I'm proud of you Somebody once said of Bob Kolb that perhaps he had in the rare book room of Concordia Seminary found the fountain of life, and it was somehow wrapped up in the dust that's in the rare book room of Concordia Seminary and that got me more and more excited, like I had visions of Gandalf, you know, like searching through all these primary documents, and I wasn't smoking a pipe, but you know, it was kind of like that it's definitely like that.
Speaker 2:Well, it is sad, as you make that observation about the two camps. It's a good thing we don't have those camps today. Ben, right, right.
Speaker 3:Being very facetious, like it's still there. That was. The other thing was that as I got deeper and deeper into this, I, as an and I started talking to it and talking about it started listening to other people. Boy it it. It does seem that a lot of people, just by the way they talk, they they fall into one or other of those camps in the things that they put as primary. And if both confession of the Word of God, as it's been given to us by Christ, and doing the mission that Christ is on and joining Christ in His mission, if both of those things are from Christ as gifts and as vocations for every Christian, then, boy, let's hold them together and celebrate them and hold them up for the entire church, as this is a great treasure and heritage and it's a great vocation and thing to be a part of.
Speaker 3:Amen.
Speaker 2:Amen, amen. What surprised you about the LCMS story of mission?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it surprised me actually that one thing that surprised me was there were scholars that had said way back in the day that Luther and Lutherans that followed him were not interested in mission. There was a famous missiologist that suggested that, and as I started poking around I got surprised to see that they actually the first Missouri Synod Lutherans, the founders of the Missouri Synod, were all about mission. In fact, kind of the founding story is just as much bound up with a history of mission as it is a history of confessing right doctrine. It's both. And yet there aren't tons of books out there about the history of Missouri Synod's founding mission and and there were all these these documents that were just kind of laying around and needed needed some attention and I found more than what I've translated. So there's still gobs and gobs of stuff out there that could be translated at some point down the road.
Speaker 2:So we want to be respectful to previous generations, to be sure, but as you look just systemically across the landscape, almost 200 years now in the LCMS history, why do you think many of these German mission documents were never translated into English? Any thoughts there?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, part of it is, you know, for for a long time in our history, the, the history of the Lutheran church, missouri Senate pastors and and late people spoke German. And so these, you know, when they were written, they weren't. They weren't written as these kind of arcane, like uber academic pieces. They were written for the church. I mean, they're like sermons that were preached at mission festivals and they're essays that were featuring in De Luteraner and Leo and Phara, kind of like our Concordia Journal today or Lutheran Witness.
Speaker 3:So it's just that over time, of course, the Missouri Synod has become primarily English speaking and has, over time, lots of people have lost the ability or just don't have the ability to speak German, and so it's just one of those things that I don't have the ability to speak German, and so it's. It's just one of those things that I don't think it was anybody that set out to kind of neglect these resources. It was just like, yeah, that's part of our history and I think history is just begs for us today to to to listen back to those voices, I mean. I mean I I think back to one of the maybe formative uh movies that that made me love. You know, you mentioned indiana, jones and, uh, we talked about gandalf and lord of the rings, but the dead poet society with robin williams right seize the day.
Speaker 3:Boys, listen to these, these guys that are pushing up daisies. Um, there's, there's tons of wisdom to be learned from these people that went before us, that were trying to do the same things that we're doing, and, um, robin williams has them. Listen in to these, these portraits and stuff, and, and uh, the more that I listen in to those, uh, those brothers and sisters that went before us, man, there's just so much still to learn.
Speaker 2:Amen. Yeah, well, that's what the scripture is. It's a whole bunch of dead guys, empowered by the Holy Spirit, speaking the words of God, telling the grand narrative of God's love. That's what the confessions are. And we should tell the story of the LCMS the good, the bad, the ugly, but a lot of beauty and growth, the pioneering entrepreneurial spirit. That's why we have because I'm a beneficiary out here in the Pacific Southwest District.
Speaker 2:I mean there were so many people who said there has to be churches as Phoenix has grown, as LA is booming, vegas is booming, like we were planting so many churches in a number of these two different iterations. And that's what Gospel DNA kind of talked about. One of my brothers I think it was Scott Seidler, you know him. He was questioning me as if this was on a podcast I think may predate this one whether we ever had kind of some growth areas or golden eras and there's never a golden era. There's always sin and suffering, you know, and it's a messy thing, but there were certainly eras where we were starting churches and raising up a ridiculous amount of leaders in comparison to how we're raising them up today, isn't that true, ben?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. The mission was radically diverse. We were reaching out to all kinds of people groups. That was another thing that really surprised me in my research man at the founding of the Missouri Synod there were missions to all these different people groups and right here in America they very much saw the mission field. Give me just a second. Hey, doggie.
Speaker 2:The dog needs to be put out. We don't edit these podcasts at all, so real time Ben is in his. For those of you who are not watching, ben looks like a. He looks a little bit like Anchorman. His office smells of rich mahogany, with many leather bound books in the background, and he also has an awesome dog that he just put away. All right, what's your dog's name?
Speaker 3:dog's name dude dog's name is mabel and she loves to be with me in the room while I'm on uh zoom calls or podcasts, until, uh, she hears something going on outside and then all of a sudden, she has to be out, but she she doesn't like the door. Uh open she, and and now she's probably standing on the other side of the door wanting back in and still barking.
Speaker 2:But you know, it's all good, it's all good. So yeah, different people.
Speaker 3:How diverse the mission work of the early Missouri Synod was. They were, they were reaching out to. There was a vibrant Chinese ministry here in St Louis. In St Louis the Chinese had come in the mid-1800s to. You know, not always for glamorous or spectacular reasons. I mean, they were being used nearly as slave labor to work on the railroads.
Speaker 3:And yet the early founders of the Missouri Synod said look, look at all these, these Chinese people here, let's they? They found a pastor who knew some Chinese and they said, why not? We absolutely have to go to these people, kind of man from Macedonia moment. These people are crying out for the gospel, are crying out for the gospel. They were certainly going to African Americans who also had not been brought over to America under any kind of happy circumstances. And yet the Missouri Synod founders said we have to take the gospel to these brothers and sisters, to Native Americans.
Speaker 3:They were learning Chippewa and it is one of my myths is that the German Lutherans forced all different other people groups to learn German so that they could be civilized before they learned the gospel. That is absolutely false. That is, that is uh, couldn't be further, further from the truth. Uh, the the earliest founders of the Missouri Synod came over in some part to reach out specifically to native Americans, not to reach fellow Germans, uh the, the stuff that happened in in Frankenmuth, uh Leah, was sending people over specifically to reach the Native Americans, not just to reach fellow Germans. And when they got over here to to reach the Native Americans, they, they just started living among them. And some of the great heroes of the founding of the Missouri Synod are our friend Jeff Claytor, missouri Synod. Our friend Jeff Claytor, his great, great great grandfather, audemars Claytor, starts learning Chippewa and starts living among them. And it was tough going but they meant it. They were all about reaching the people that America had drawn by whatever means it's so good.
Speaker 2:So let's get into the myths. Let's talk about the myth of CFW Walther that you know. Walther was all theology, no mission in the founding of the synod. Talk about Walther a bit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so Walther writes a number of sermons, preaches a number of sermons that are very, very, very explicitly about mission. He titles them things like he always titles them first with a Bible reference, and a lot of the sermons that he preached on mission he preached around Epiphany, so Epiphany was the season that he especially delighted in preaching mission sermons. So he's talking about the people that have come from afar seeking the Christ child, and in the same way we should be watching out for people who come from very different lands or who speak very different languages and yet are interested in this Christ child. So Isaiah 61, and there's another, well, matthew 2, on the wise men. But he's titling these sermons like Mission, every Christian's Obligation. And he has one sermon where he's trying to convince his fellow Lutherans, as he's preaching to his local congregation, that they need to reach out to the Native Americans and he says, frankly, some pretty shocking things. I'm even suggested in this introduction and I would love to see if somebody will print this.
Speaker 3:I think that if people read Walther's sermon on reaching out to native americans that some people today in our church body might call brother walter woke, he says. He says, uh, you know you, you you've uh heard your cattle on their lands, you farm. You farm your farm on their hills and like whoa, that's uh kind of sticking it to the, the germans, um, weren't they, weren't they, uh, the rightful settlers of their land? Walter says, nope, this, this land that we're on, all of it, belongs to the native americans. And and he, he really lambasts the Inquisition, the Spanish Inquisition and the killing of Native Americans, over a million Native Americans killed when the Spanish conquistadors come to settle north and Central America, that out, just like that, talks about their brutal murder and then says, shouldn't we at the very least be concerned with their souls? So as to say we probably should be concerned about even more than that, but at the very least we have to take the gospel to him. This is radical kind of stuff. I mean Walther is pushing back on some huge social mores about Northern European folks coming and settling and he's I mean he's stepping in it and he's not afraid to right. He lets his hearers have it. He speaks the law in all of its severity and yet he preaches the sweet gospel that Christ is for them and that Christ is for their Native American neighbor too.
Speaker 3:In another sermon he spends a long time going through all the reasons why mission work is not just for the experts. He talks about how the word of God is given to all Christians. Every baptized Christian has been given the word of God right when they hear the words I baptize you in the name of the Father, son and Holy Spirit, you're given the substance of faith right, the content of faith, this Trinitarian creedal faith. And so you know, at confirmation the catechism is put into their hands. That a lot of times you know they were putting the scriptures in their hands. The scriptures do not belong to some kind of expert, professional, clergy class. The word of God belongs to all Christians. And because the word of God belongs to all Christians, that's something that Walter didn't make up, that's something that Paul didn't make up. That's something that the apostle Peter told the church. Right, paul told the church. Right, paul told the church. But Luther and Walter were pleased to point out that every Christian had the joy and the obligation to take the Word of God and to speak it to their neighbor. And so Walter says you know, you might not be able to go across the seas to India there was already burgeoning mission work in India and Africa and Walther's Day, but he said you need to go to your neighbor and be sharing the word of Christ. And he talks to lay people as if they're missionaries and Walther.
Speaker 3:I thought that my district president in Florida, georgia, gerhard Michael, who's an amazing missionary. I thought he came up with this idea, but I found out that it was actually Walther. Every congregation a missionary outpost and every Christian a missionary. That's not something that I mean. I love gerhard michael. He is, uh. If you don't know gerhard michael, uh, look him up and learn from him. He is, uh, an amazing leader. But but that was actually said by walter in one of these epiphany sermons man dude.
Speaker 2:The myth dismissed. Walter was a doctrinal and mission-oriented beast for the early days of the Missouri Synod, whose words are still shaping us today, if we'll read all of them. So explain how. This is your second myth. The LCMS view of mission had an expansive. You've kind of touched on this a bit, but if you want to go a little bit deeper an expansive, not limited view or scope which could be limited only to the nuclear family you can also talk about mission festivals for trans congregational work. I think there's a lot to be said here that we can learn. Go ahead, ben.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So one of the sermons that I translated was from August Kramer. What a fascinating guy. He had been kind of part of the revolutionary spirit in Germany in the 1840s and then kind of had a change of heart. Goes to school and gets a doctorate in linguistics, moves to England and becomes a tutor for Lord I think it was Lord Tennyson's kids and pretty, pretty impressive credentials and. And so man, talk about upward mobility. What's he decide to do? He decides to go be a use all of his linguist abilities and be a missionary to the Native Americans. He gets sent over by Leah, as one of they were called Zendlinga the sent ones. He gets sent to Frankenmuth to start this missionary to the Native Americans. And so he's preaching the sermon and he says you know, mission work is not just to our own families and you know, obviously there is a prime mission work to families, tim you and I both have kids.
Speaker 3:Our dear wives are both very interested in sharing the word of God, as we are with our kids.
Speaker 3:And yet Pastor Kramer wanted these settlers who were just trying to make it right. They're not trying to think about what kind of video game platform they're going to have for their kids. They're trying to think do we have enough food saved up to be able to make it through the winter on this farm where there's nobody that has our backs? And so, as these settlers are just trying to eke out an existence for their kids, he's pretty provocative to say you know, our mission work can't be. You can't just settle here and build up big walls and live in a nice, happy little settlement community and disregard your neighbors and the people's land upon which we live. Mission is not just to our own families but it's to our neighbors. And so you have right there, and Kramer's I mean Kramer cares deeply about the Word of God, right? He's memorialized on the Fort Wayne campus as one of the founding pioneers of that seminary, that seminary. And yet he's very, very interested in mission, and explicitly so to not just, you know, our own wife and kids.
Speaker 2:Imagine, I mean the context just trying to survive and still preaching on a mission orientation like that's next level. We don't have the same problems and yet how can we not have the same sort of zeal toward reaching those who are far from the Lord here in a post-Christian context today? It is unbelievable. So I love that story of Kramer. The Frankenmuth story is one to be relished in our church's history, to be sure. Talk about the role of the Mission Festival. I've done a lot of work, ben, you know this. My doctorate is in collaboration between churches looking for circuit congregations to work more together circuit forums, circuit convocations and circuit convocation sounds like what was the mission festival for trans congregational work? Talk about that, yeah.
Speaker 3:So this was a, this was a big thing. Let's, let's get a couple of congregations together and have a, a mission Sunday, a mission festival where we're, and it's it's not, it's not your typical thing of like, hey, let's get some congregations together and have church on Sunday afternoon and, you know, maybe hope to get 20 people there or something. These are like blockbuster events, right. Hundreds and hundreds of people standing room. Only people are trying to find a place just to just to be able to, to hear what's going on, and they're bringing in kind of the, the all-star team. So, uh, walther and Kramer go on the road and they've lived this kind of Indiana Jones lifestyle the pioneer missionary spirits, the early leaders of the church body, and yet they're showing up at a local congregation for a packed house to talk about mission.
Speaker 3:And Walter, in some of these mission festival sermons, I mean he's got his hand out big time and he's kind of.
Speaker 3:I mean he uses the full extent of the law to sometimes even shame these people to say, like man, you're trying to do all these things, but look at your neighbors, they're living in abject poverty. Surely we should gather some money together to send a missionary to them so that they can hear the good news of the gospel that we don't own and that came to us and we don't deserve to have it. So these mission festivals were both. They were a chance to talk deeply theologically, so there would be several talks. This talk from Kramer was there were a couple of talks during the day Walter had the morning session and then there was maybe lunch and then there was an afternoon session, an early evening session, and so you know it was, it was deeply theological, it was, it was educational and it also was kind of like, you know, sitting through a capital campaign sermon where somebody is like you know, do you really love Jesus and how much do you love Jesus? And you know, why don't you, why don't?
Speaker 3:you give a little bit more than what you thought you were going to when you showed up here today. So they're not shy about saying no, we mean business and this isn't just pie in the sky, kind of nice thoughts. Oh, let's just think happy thoughts and maybe say a prayer for those that don't know Christ. This is like no, we want your congregation to support this missionary, and here's, here's what it's going to cost. And you know you, you're, you're field, you're farming their field. So get out your checkbook.
Speaker 2:Well, I love, I love it on so many levels and I think what we can learn right here is that there was a partnership, a connection between those who were in the local community and those who were in the regional leadership community. They kind of saw that and they wouldn't probably have used this role, but there was an apostolic function that they were serving. And one thing I pray for today is that there'd be more local circuit leaders who would say man, we're way better together. And then let's call in the leaders, President Harrison, whoever the district president is, hey, you guys get over here. And here's what we'd like you to do. We'd like for you to talk deep theology, to be sure, but we'd like for you to cast vision for us to grow and reach our community with the gospel. Like, could that happen today?
Speaker 2:I've said this for years, Ben like all the guts are there for us to do it. If we'll simply cross these confessional, missional lines and say we're all LCMS, Lutherans baptized in the name of Jesus, what is the vision? I feel right now there's a vision leak and I think it'd be very simple and it'd be easy for us to say you know, President Harris, if he doesn't cast no, no, no. Vision should start from the grassroots. Like pastor, if you're at the local level, it's your responsibility to cast vision. If you're a circuit visitor, it's your responsibility for your circuit to cast that vision. It's so easy to cast stones at the national level, but I don't know that we're actually modeling what we want to see at the local level. Anything more to say there, Ben?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I think you know, to speak to the local level, it was these local leaders in Grand Prairie, Illinois. At Mission Festival at Ebenezer Lutheran Church, Grand Prairie Illinois, at Mission Festival at Ebenezer Lutheran Church, Grand Prairie, Illinois. They evidently got together and said you know, we're going to settle for nothing less than the top leaders of our church body. This is 1865, so lots has happened. You know Walther's, founder of the seminary and president and all this kind of stuff. They ask for the best of the best. We want to host this mission festival. So, local level, grassroots, beg your church leaders to come and do a mission festival. Beg your church leaders to come and do a mission festival.
Speaker 3:Tell us about the history of Missouri Synod Mission. Tell us about how the scriptures lead us to do this and then beg us to give toward the work of mission. This is the great joy of being part of Christ's people. The other thing that I think local. That can happen locally sometimes in the history of mission.
Speaker 3:Mission societies get kind of poo-pooed like oh no, you know, there should only be the local congregation and then the experts. And there were these mission societies that started and Leah was one of the first to start one of these mission societies among Lutherans. He was kind of watching some of the playbook of the pietists and some of the playbook of the Methodists and people that were decidedly not Lutheran and he said, well, we need some distinctly Lutheran mission. But but he didn't leave it to the experts. He said we're going to, we're going to start a society, and some of the stuff that's not been translated from Leah and I haven't even gotten around to translate all this is like the minutes from these early meetings when Leah was a young man and he was like no, we're going to, we're going to raise a bunch of money and we're going to just start sending people from our local congregation and if, if, nobody else will band together with us.
Speaker 3:We're just going to bootstrap and get, get after it. Um, and of course Leah is interested in collaborating with with Walter and they eventually have a falling out over doctrine of ministry and it is unfortunate, but there's still man. There's so much that I learned from Leah as somebody that just in his local congregation is like we're going to just start doing this and let's get after it.
Speaker 2:Amen. So your third myth has to do with the siloed missional confessional camp story. You've kind of dismissed that already. Anything more to add there, though?
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, I talk a little bit in this introduction under this third myth about Binger, jf Binger, johann Friedrich Binger what a great Lutheran name, right, walter. He eventually becomes Walter's brother-in-law, he marries Walter's sister and Johann John Binger was like best friends with Walter. They come over on the boat together. Walter and Binger, as young men, are like doing catechism lessons on the ship with the young people. They're kind of the you know the fresh pastor, or well, I mean candidates there. They're just out of seminary. Just, you know, fresh theological students. Let's put you know the young pastors in charge of youth ministry. So so, right from the very beginning, walther says that Binger had this, and here's where the title comes from he had this beating heart for mission. And I've had to think a little bit about that. Walther says that Binger had a warmly beating heart for mission. It was the heartbeat of his entire ministry. He's the one that starts the Chinese mission in St Louis. He's involved in a mission to the Africans, african Americans, the slaves at the time, and he's just begging Lutherans. We've got to take the gospel to all these people.
Speaker 3:And so when Binger dies, walther writes this biography that has been translated into English. It's in the library at Concordia Seminary. It wasn't widely published and so there's maybe one or two copies in the St Louis Library Fort Wayne I'm sure has a copy of it. But it is a fascinating book about the biography of this missionary. And so you have Walther, who, again, who's been said to have been, you know, staunchly confessional, and Walther's like praising Binger, this missionary, and holding him up as a hero of the faith for all these people.
Speaker 3:So I mean wrote like a hundred page biography after Binger died, and so that was another indication for me that Walther had a profound respect for missionaries, people who were absolutely after this. There was another couple of letters that I translated from Walther to a guy in New York City who was involved in mission to Jews. And he writes a couple of letters even I've seen the originals and he actually writes some Hebrew letters. German handwriting is horrific and very difficult to decipher, but his Hebrew any beginning Hebrew student could read through it and he's using these Hebrew terms to talk about our—he's comparing this pastor to Ruth and the kinsman redeemer, who just loves the Jewish people. And so Walther has this beating heart for missionaries to very specific people groups and cares deeply about them. So again, walther being deeply missional in his pastoral practice.
Speaker 2:I love the Walther story for so many reasons. He's courageous, he centers the mission on the church rather than leaders, the priesthood of all believers. That's really the reason why we stay after. Stephan has his fallout and he appears as he grows older I'd love to get your take on this To become. I mean, he plays the church father role very, very well and kind of has these arms reaching out and he's making these for those that are going to go too far and I've read a number of different books going to go too far away from kind of doctrine, you know, pushing the pietistic edge or something like that that he's going to have these strong words to bring him back. And then, for those who have forgotten about mission, he's propelling them. He's got this arms outstretched, trying to unite the church, and I think that he was the glue that then catalyzed us. The church got built up by the glue of Walther and it inspired many, many generations. I mean we're still inspired today.
Speaker 2:Talk more about another way to talk about it from maybe a systems perspective. He's differentiated. He knows his identity is in Christ. Therefore, he's another way to talk about it from maybe a systems perspective. He's differentiated. He knows his identity is in Christ. Therefore he can speak harder words, and yet he must listen to all different people, all different places and contexts, so that we don't lose pure doctrine which catalyzes the mission of God, for the sake of those who don't know him. Anything more to say about Walther, though Ben. Is that a fair kind of summary of his role?
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and I think Walther is such a glue that holds so many Christians together under the scriptures and confessions because he himself was a student of those right.
Speaker 3:So there's a number of times where Walther hits these highly fractured moments where there's debates the Altenberg debate and he gets to a number of places in his ministry where there's major controversy and Walther doesn't kind of say like let's get a political action committee together and like figure out how to get everybody to vote for a certain person.
Speaker 3:I don't think that that pulls people together, I think it divides people. Walter instead spends a ton of time going back to the Confessions, going back to Luther, going back to the Scriptures and being himself a student of those foundational words of God that have been spoken into the church, especially the scriptures as the word of God. So he has tons of stuff to learn from Luther about the nature of the church, for example. Or when there's all these questions about what should we do with missions, he's going deeply back to Isaiah or to Matthew. And so, as a student of the scriptures, as a student of the confessions and Luther, he himself is listening when the waters get choppy, and I think that's anybody that would aspire to be a leader in the Missouri Synod or in Christ's church on earth should first be a humble student of the Word of God and those who have gone before us, because there's just loads of wisdom.
Speaker 2:Amen. There's really no room for pride. It's all the Lord's work. So let's get to myth four. How did the early leaders? We've talked a little bit about this, but if you got more, I love your primary sources, by the way this is super fun. Super Indiana Jones, this is so cool. Okay, so how did the early LCMS leaders cross cultural boundaries and work interculturally I love that phrase interculturally.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I got that from my friend and colleague, leo Sanchez. You know there's all these different terms out there multi culture, crossing, cross cultural, multi ethnic but what Sanchez has just recently at the multi ethnic symposium, talked about the importance of the word intercultural, and words are important. I was out to lunch with him the other day and we got just talking about this word intercultural and how important it is. It's exactly the opposite of what some people might call being colorblind. So, in other words, let's not talk at all about differences, differences divide us and let's just focus on what unites us skin color, how different people, groups have been treated in the past, which leads to racism, all of these kinds of things. There would be some people who would say let's not talk about all that stuff in the church. That's been kind of co-opted by the woke culture or it has to do with, you know, cultural Marxism or Darwinian influences and that sort of thing. I don't know.
Speaker 3:As I go back to the 1850s, 60s, 70s, they weren't doing the colorblind thing. They were actually very interested in developing strategies to reach different groups of people. So the mission to the Africans had some strategies that were different from reaching Native Americans or reaching the Chinese, and so I think they were very attuned to this idea of at least paying attention to different groups of people. They weren't colorblind. I'm not sure to be a fair historian, I'm not sure that there was probably tons of what we would today call kind of intercultural learning, where the church would say, hey, you know, we want to go learn from our Mexican neighbors or from our Chinese American neighbors, we want to learn from them some things, and it's kind of this equal exchange. But they were at least willing to learn the languages that these people were speaking. And you know, some of the early missionaries to Native Americans were actually living like in teepees, so that they could not be just the folks that are living in these very European kind of homes. So there was some listening going on and some strategies that paid attention to the uniquenesses of these people groups.
Speaker 3:And I think that if you pay attention to Acts 2 and to what happens at Pentecost, the reversal of the Tower of Babel does not lead everybody back to speaking Hebrew and all coming back to having one culture monocultural People were hearing the gospel spoken in their own tongues. So Medes and Parthians and people from Rome, they're all hearing the gospel spoken in their own unique languages. And there's something I think that the Holy Spirit teaches us about what it means to do. Mission is not to first make Germans out of everybody and civilize them before we share the gospel. That's a confusion of law and gospel right. The gospel comes directly to us in a language that we can speak.
Speaker 2:Yeah, amen. Well, that gets into myth five that some say you know the new believers. They got to learn German, become one with German culture. Dismiss that quick.
Speaker 3:And we only got about 20 minutes, ben, so I want to be cognizant of time because we got some good stuff to get to here, yeah, Kramer talks about he has this fascinating diary of his mission work among the Native Americans and he's talking about this Chief Pemezike. And he says that Chief Pemezike allowed the Lutherans to have services and even to baptize his kids and his grandkids. And Kramer says that when we do these services we have a translator. And so we know that Kramer was not teaching the kids German first and kind of doing this, making them into fine Germans. He's using a translator and taking the gospel straight into Chippewa.
Speaker 2:Myth six. I love that story. Myth six talks about leaders maybe not viewing the entire US as a mission field. Dismiss that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's a great journal called Die Missionskaube, the Mission Dove and man there's. I mean, it was a magazine, it's all in German and it's just about missionary work among early Lutherans. And in the inaugural issue of Die Missionstaube it says mission work is not some foreign thing across the ocean, mission work can and should, must, happen right here in America. So the earliest founders of the Missouri Synod this is 1879. They're saying already then you know, America is a mission field and we Lutherans that are here, we have to reach America with the good news of Jesus.
Speaker 2:Well, that's how we got all these churches Ben.
Speaker 1:We started at that time it kind of makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was missionary outposts. There were a lot, of a lot of churches in the Midwest. Look it up. A lot of those churches were starting 70s, 80s, 18, 1870s, 1880s, 1890s. Isn't that right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it wasn't because, hey, there's look, it wasn't like demographics and look, there are this, there's this pocket of Germans and we should plan a church here because it'll probably be successful. That is that kind of thinking.
Speaker 3:I'm ready to just say that's. That's nearly anathema in my, in my mind, much more the these, these German Lutherans were saying hey, we've got to reach all people, so we've got to plant churches in places that probably won't succeed. Audemars Clater is going to Native Americans and it's tough, going hard and they're just like no, we have to do this. The gospel compels us, pentecost compels us to reach all of our neighbors. So they're starting these churches all over the place, even in places that are pretty difficult to reach people.
Speaker 2:There's no way that recruiting Germans to grow the church is a strategy today. Or. Lutherans who are transplanted. We're declining, so you know there's no way that can be a strategy. We've got to reach those who need a church, need word and sacrament, to be sure I like. Your final myth is probably my favorite and the ULC's favorite that the earliest Lutherans told the laity you got to leave mission to the called professionals. Please dismiss that myth then, please. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Friedrich Lochner in the Mission Dove. He quotes Luther and he says one does not have to have a special calling from the church in order to preach the gospel to unbelievers, nor does one have to have a special calling from unbelievers themselves, even though many years ago many people here have been led to believe this. Dr Luther says, and he goes into this big, long excursus about how Philip wasn't a pastor, and yet he's going and preaching to people. Apollos hadn't been set apart, and yet he's going and preaching the gospel. And Luther says he should let himself be called and chosen to preach and teach in the place and by the command of others.
Speaker 3:But it starts by just. We can't but help speak the word of Jesus to people. And so Lochner is holding out this great call for all Christians to be missionaries to their neighbors by taking the gospel, speaking the words of Christ that they hear in their sermon on Sunday morning. You don't have to go to seminary. You went to church this last Sunday. You heard a sermon. Take down a few notes and when you go to work or when you talk to your neighbors, or at the gym or whatever, share what your pastor talked about in his sermon this past Sunday.
Speaker 2:That could work. That's a great strategy for today, ben. Let's be more. We come to worship To yes, hear law and gospel, receive forgiveness of sins through the confession of absolution, lord's Supper, to be sure, but are you coming to worship today with a heart of a learner who's a missionary, out in your various vocations that I'm taking down notes.
Speaker 2:Hey, what'd you do this past Sunday? I don't know, went and played some golf and got the kids to the games and stuff like that. You know, maybe it's a friend who has. What'd you do? I went to church. I tell you, I heard a really cool talk. A really cool talk Can I tell you about Jesus? I mean, it's that simple, you know. So let's come expecting to learn so that we share. This appears to be from the Spirit, actually from the Father and the Son, who sent the Spirit who dwells in us, that gives us the words. We need more proclaimers, not necessarily professional church workers today and let's dismiss that. You're all professional, you've all been baptized, you've all been made into professional church workers, out in your various vocations. We have to reclaim the missionary zeal that was once in Missouri and I pray is here once again, and so okay.
Speaker 3:So good. I'm doing a bunch of interviewing of pastors and leaders and laity that have encouraged people to come to seminary to study here. That was my sabbatical project and you know the one thing that I've learned is anybody that came to the seminary was encouraged first by their pastor, by a wife or by a grandmother to be about the work of sharing the word of Christ in their day-to-day life, long before they said, hey, maybe I want to be a pastor. So if we want more pastors, the first thing that we should do is encourage the lay people to take up the Word of God and start sharing it with their neighbor right now, today. On Monday morning after they hear the sermon.
Speaker 2:Amen, amen, all right, amen, amen, all right. Let's close with a little bit of kind spice. In the LCMS right now. You've made some observations. I've recently interviewed former President Jerry Kishnick, who was a part of the Blue Ribbon Task Force, and the current prior I've talked a lot about this the prior approval process, the list conversation I've been talking about. You've said that both of these kind of iterations in the LCMS story of late have characteristics of now these are loaded words here right A progressive, liberal, centralized big government approach. Would you care to respond further there, ben?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I'll be an equal opportunity offender and I will say first that I have loads of friends that I'm probably going to step on some toes here. But look, both the Blue Ribbon Task Force, this idea that we're coming up with a government that will really work, especially and as long as we have the right people in power, so in other words, you're loading up power to people that you hope will be in the position Bad idea. Secondly, this whole thing of prior approval. I think that it has been really detrimental to local organizations and local leadership of organizations by giving more and more centralized control over who gets to be called as president, who gets to be called as a theology faculty member. And here's the thing.
Speaker 3:So there's this great book by this conservative observer, yuval Levine. I don't know if he's a Christian or not, but he's very much a student of classical conservatism and he has this book called the Great Debate between Edmund Burke, who was kind of the the foe of the French Revolution, english writer, and Thomas Paine, the one of the founders of of America, who wrote Common Sense. And Thomas Paine has this, this view that we should. We should just kind of burn down institutions and start over. He's all about revolution. And Yuval Levine says that that is the classic playbook of liberal, progressive big government, centralized power, and what he calls conservatism is the exact opposite of that, as conservatism is the exact opposite of that Limited government, the idea that we want to disperse power and we want to try to preserve institutions by not coming in and wrecking them or saying you guys don't know what you're doing, so we need to create this power structure above you to kind of keep you in line. That's what liberals, that's what progressives do. They love big government, they love regulation.
Speaker 3:And I think both the Blue Ribbon Task Force and the prior approval process have both drunk deeply from that centralized big government approach and I think it stinks and I think that it's wrecking our local institutions. And I'm stepping on all kinds of toes and I'll be happy for somebody to correct me, but I do think, as Luther pointed out, conventions, church councils can err. I'm not putting either of these errors at the feet of anyone or any group of leaders. I'm laying it frankly, at the feet of convention, and the conventions have given our leaders these powers. I think that conventions should be held accountable for what they voted in and what it's done to our Concordias, what it's done to, in many ways, theological faculties. Yeah, so I've spiced it up, so I'm sure that I'll get some, some kind email.
Speaker 2:But we got to talk about it. What's we do?
Speaker 3:What are we doing with creating big, centralized government and saying we have to have, we have to have a group of people that centralize control of our, all of our institutions?
Speaker 2:I think that's a bad idea. It is, and a byproduct of it is a lack of dialogue, because when you've got a smaller, ever smaller group of people Blue Ribbon Task Force at the top who are making then prior approval process lists, these decisions you can't possibly know. This is again a systems kind of you can't possibly know personally the character, the content of their learning, of all of these people. So what do you do? You know, who do they know, who do they associate with? And then this is where it really gets sad right now. What you can't associate with that person, can't talk to that person. I've invited I'm at like two dozen leaders right now in different leadership roles within the structure of Synod, who will not come onto this podcast because I've said things that they slightly disagree with, nuance, whatever, but the reason like many of them would want to, but their boss tells them no. I mean, how goofy is that? You know, can I? Can I talk to this person? That doesn't sound like the church.
Speaker 3:That doesn't sound like the freedom of the gospel bro.
Speaker 2:It's raw politics. Yeah, it is what it is. So just call it what it is and and move on. I appreciate your, your comments. Um, and it's. It's there again. You're throwing. You got to name.
Speaker 2:Some people have said you got to name names. This is way beyond names, man. This is the system of how we've organized ourselves. So there's not one person but can certain pockets of people who are in those leadership roles say, wow, as we round out, this would be, this would be amazing, as we round back to the next synod and convention and you're going to get inundated in pastoral formation with many, many resolutions that are going to hopefully be regarded as a plea from the church toward new ways to raise up leaders.
Speaker 2:I could go down other things, but this is what I talk about a lot. What do you do with those? Do you consolidate a lot of them into something that's just kind of mushy and doesn't? Or do you actually take the time to dig in, have the conversation, look at the data and dream new dreams into the future? Or do you just play the petty political power structure game that we're playing right now? So there are certain leaders that are in positions right now that could make the courageous move to cross the aisle, if you will, toward people who have said things or trying things, myself included, rather than just kind of saying, well, maybe we'll disregard it for a time. This is a structure right, just ignore, and you know what people do. This is leadership on the line. By the way, adaptive change Either ignore or when you know, maybe the heat as a spicy thing you just said kind of comes up. Are we going to come down? You know charges? Let's move right past dialogue toward charges which you couldn't say. Anything we just said is heretical.
Speaker 3:We're just talking about the structure of sin. If somebody thinks that I have spoken heresy or have defamed some person, they should like Christ calls us to do some person they should like Christ calls us to do, they should talk to me personally and they should point out what they think I've done wrong and we should have a conversation about it and we should search the scriptures together and hopefully win a brother. So we got to be talking about this stuff. The. The joy of the gospel and gospel work is in the local place. That's where all the the good stuff happens.
Speaker 3:And all of this stuff about like banding together to save the synod or save the nation I think that kind of stuff is frankly ruining local institutions. I think that kind of stuff is frankly ruining local institutions. And so go out and read Great Debate, go out and read A Time to Build that's another Yuval Levine book, a Time to Build man. We need to just be working on having healthy local institutions and there's so much good that happens at the local level. That's what I'm interested. Happens at the local level. That's. That's that's what I'm I'm interested in dedicating myself to.
Speaker 2:And the reason the local can go farther and faster is because we know one another. There's trust, there's trust. So we need to work on trust in the synod to be sure. So last question talk about the data of sizes of churches in the LCMS and your experience as a small, large church pastor, and how does this play into this is a PLI question play into your vision as director of PLI?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so PLI started in many ways to help large churches to raise up their next senior pastor. It's a real thing. I know I have loads of good friends that are large church pastors, including you and my church, christ Memorial in St Louis, which is also part of the large church network it's a real thing and those that serve in that role as senior pastor of a congregation that has a thousand people in church on a weekend or something like that. That's a very unique skill set. I serve at a large church myself, in my first call in Vicarage, and was even for a time, interim senior pastor at St Paul Boca until Steve Corretto took over. God bless him. He's an amazing leader, true, so I love large churches, but I also served at church.
Speaker 3:When I got there, there was 85 people in church on a weekend, and what some folks recently have put together are some stats on what has happened over the last 20 years from 2002 to 2023, 2024, on sizes of congregations. Every couple of years, we take a snapshot of how do our sizes of our congregations break out across the synod, and what we've seen is just a dramatic spike in the smaller congregations and shrinking of the larger congregations and shrinking of the number of large congregations across those different size groups. So what I think we, what I want to really dedicate myself to, is especially helping the small church that is maybe 50 in worship or something. I think that might be kind of the sweet spot If, if you're 50 in church on a weekend and you're trying to just cling to, like these early, early settlers, you just have enough maybe in the bank to last one winter. I'm all about coming alongside those congregations.
Speaker 3:Pli has maybe not always been perceived as coming alongside small congregations, but I have this huge heart for pastors and for lay leaders that love their little local church but are kind of saying, man, we're kind of on the ropes and we're barely able to make our pastor's salary. That is a sweet group of people that have the gospel, probably have some property and have a foothold as a missionary outpost in their local community and nobody else can reach their community with the good news of Jesus like they can. We need to give them tons of resources and support and that probably will take churches like Christ Greenfield coming alongside and saying, hey, man, let's, let's work together and let's learn together and we'll learn from you, you learn from us and let's go.
Speaker 2:I love that vision, ben, so much because that's what we in the ULC churches were working with. Pastors that are listening many right now they hear all this kind of leadership talk and I think the myth is that's only for churches of a certain size. No, no, no. There are so many principles that can be learned culture, system, structure that support our deep theology, that can scale if you will. That's not a bad word. That's what Jesus talks. Scale Jerusalem, js Amir, to the ends of the earth. Right, that can scale and help a pastor just take that right.
Speaker 2:Next step, have you thought about this? Is there coaching that's involved, and so there's self-directed learning for that? Because no man, I mean, he knows his community way better than I or anybody in PLI does. So how do we release to him this just kind of hope and support and maybe some sort of a framework to bring to the congregation? I think the percentage coming down, because I think the myth is well, every congregation that's 100 or less or 50 or less, you know what They've pretty much this last person there turn out the lights. That's not true. That's not true.
Speaker 2:There are hundreds and hundreds of churches who are there saying I see opportunity, we got a pastor. He may be a little bit older, right, he may be in his 60s and maybe he can kind of be sparked to life again. And can we? This is a major part of our vision could he kind of mentor, a partner pastor who owns the mission there in that place, that's already an elder, if you will, that's respected, and could he kind of grow up into that leadership role? There are hundreds of churches that are eager to have you and many other groups within the LCMS enter into that conversation. So I'm so glad to hear you kind of slightly tweak in the mission and vision of PLI, specifically national. I couldn't let you get off the hook, if you will, ben, without talking about the amazing work that PLI International does, and I'm connected to the Mexican Lutheran Synod. We're working there. So many exciting gospel explosion, church multiplying stories going on through PLI International. What could you share there?
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is why PLI has started talking about itself as a global organization is because of all the amazing international work. And Scott Rishi has just he's worked with PLI for a good long time now and his vision is to train trainers who then themselves go out and train people, and so it has very much been training thousands and tens of thousands of people. It's unbelievable and it's not that Scott Rishi is going one-to-one to train all these people, but it's much more taking these things that PLI has learned learned from large churches and leadership, from the scriptures and have passed that along to existing local existing local pastors, and pastors are are excited about it. They're saying, yeah, I, I didn't learn all this Seminary. You know I could.
Speaker 3:I four years was long enough and seminary taught me lots of great stuff and I'll never bash the seminaries because I I know what hard work it is to be a Semprof and to instill as much as you can into the graduating class. But there's so much more to learn in continuing education and I love pastors that say I don't think I have this figured out yet. I need some help with that. Is there anybody that can help? And there's all kinds of best practices and doxology and just loads of great continuing ed opportunities out there. So if PLI can be a part of that and join that. That's what's going on internationally and it's amazing.
Speaker 2:Hey Ben, you got a friend in me and the ULC and we're here to love and support, pray for you in this transition. I pray PLI global, national, international just explodes, that some of the myths around what PLI is for would be dismissed and that you would start to serve the entire Lutheran Church Missouri Synod very, very well. If people want to connect with you, brother, how can they do so?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'd love to be in touch. Ben at PLI leadershiporg Ben at PLI leadershiporg that's my email address, new one, and, and so there's. Yeah, I'm also out on Facebook and Twitter and all kinds of stuff. I have a new little podcast called Bitcoin Reformation Podcast, so if you're interested in Bitcoin, we can talk about Bitcoin. But here's the place where I'll finish. Christ is King and he continues to lead his church very well as our head. He's the only leader of his church. He's the only leader that we really ever need, and yet, in his grace, he has called just loads of wonderful people to serve his church. We have his word, we have his sacram, his gifts. Uh, let's, let's go and be the church. It's. Let's, let's be confident in, uh, what christ has done and what the, the spirit is doing as um, as he, he lifts up the name of jesus in our midst period.
Speaker 2:End of sentence. End of conversation. This has been so much fun. This is lead time, share, care, like subscribe, comment, even if it's I comment, even if it's I got a nuanced perspective toward X, y and Z. We're having a number of those conversations today and we pray it's for the benefit of the health of the local congregation who is called to go on mission to make Jesus known. It's a good day. Go and make it a great day, ben. Grateful for you, bro. Thanks for the time.
Speaker 1:Great, 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 theuniteleadershiporg 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.