Lead Time
Lead Time
The LCMS Has Changed? Part 1 | New Season of Lead Time with Will & Steve Sohns
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New SEASON of LEAD TIME!! This episode features a heartwarming conversation with Will and Steve Sohns, a father-son duo passionately involved in mission and ministry within the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod. We celebrate Will's upcoming 91st birthday and his lifelong dedication to spreading Jesus' joy, including personal moments like baptizing Tim's wife, Alexa, as a baby. Will dives into the profound concept of the Missio Dei, illustrating through Scripture how being sent by Christ is central to our faith, focusing on representation, relationships, and the Great Commission.
Can the church’s focus sometimes become too inward that it misses God's broader mission? We critically examine this question by exploring the intersection of justification and the Missio Dei. In this thought-provoking discussion, we critique the inward focus seen in both the Pharisees and modern churches, emphasizing Jesus' revolutionary approach that prioritizes the heart and mission over tribalism. By unpacking various Greek terms for "sending," we highlight their theological importance and show how key doctrines like justification and sanctification are inseparably linked to being sent on God’s mission.
How has the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod evolved in its approach to mission over the past 150 years? We trace the historical and cultural shifts within the LCMS, discussing how early leaders like Pieper and Walther focused on scriptural authority and ecclesiology, often sidelining the Missio Dei. Will shares impactful stories from his mission work in Nebraska and Wyoming, demonstrating the power of evangelism in transforming lives. Steve reflects on how his father's dedication to the gospel shaped his own ministry path. We conclude by celebrating Will's efforts in fostering collaborative mission work, encouraging congregations to partner for greater impact.
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Welcome to Lead Time, tim Allman here. Jack Calberg has the day off. I get the privilege today of hanging out with two of my favorite people because the joy of Jesus rests on these men in amazing ways A father and a son who have given their lives to mission and ministry in the Lutheran Church, missouri Synod. This is Will and Steve Soans. Let me tell you just some personal connections. Will I think he's pushing 90 years old Will are you 90 now, brother?
Speaker 2:I'm pushing 91 in six weeks.
Speaker 1:All right, all right. So he's on mission and ministry right now in his older adult community where he's bringing the love and light of Jesus. We're going to be talking about that and Steve has been a longtime pastor in the Houston area and Steve's actually very close in proximity to his dad right now. Steve has been on, I think, lead Time, american Reformation, one of those two podcasts back in the day.
Speaker 1:And the personal connection, steve, is that your dad, will, was the supervising pastor for my father-in-law, pastor John Kosman, and on Vicarage. On Vicarage is when my wife, alexa Kosman at the time, now Allman, was born and Will got to baptize that sweet, sweet lady. Will, do you actually remember that experience and everything?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes, I do, because it was really special to baptize a child of one of my vicars we had a lot of vicars, but I think that was the only one that I had a chance to baptize a child of a vicar and that was just absolutely special.
Speaker 1:So special and Will also was a pastor in the Denver area with my grandpa, arnie Allman, back in the—that would have been probably what the 70s or so something like that. Will, is that right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, early 70s or so, something like that Will is that right? Yeah, early 70s, I think, starting back in 68 or 69. Yeah so good.
Speaker 1:So this is going to be a fun conversation today and we're going to start out. Will has written and spoken a lot in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod about the mission of God, the Missio Dei, so I'd love to just start there on this conversation today. Will, how would you define the Missio Dei?
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for this opportunity. The Missio Dei, of course is.
Speaker 2:Latin, and the word Missio actually is Latin for the word mission, but, more important, it means actually send, or sending, and because of that it comes really from the scriptures itself. In John 17, it says as you sent me into the world world, so I have sent them into the world. Well, that word sent has been translated a mission, and but. But the most important thing is that that in this sending, a great sending, a book that I wrote has to do with that sending motif all the way through Scripture, but it starts with what Jesus said about himself always, that he's sent by the Father and he wants us all to know that he's a sent one. And so the sending is a key word that is more important for me to use and which I've been talking about than simply the word mission. The word mission can be abused and misused and misunderstood, as I see it today, and so I went ahead to get into that Missio Dei. And so I went ahead to get into that Missio Dei. And then in John 20, that's Resurrection Night. Well, the John 17 was on Monday, thursday, all right. So then comes the great mission task. In between, jesus suffered, died, rose again, but then he made it quite clear on resurrection night about the sending, because he said when he said peace, be with you. And when he showed them this, he showed them his hands and his side, but then he said peace, be with you, as the Father has sent me even so, send I you. So once again, it's the send word. In the Greek it's apostello, from which we get the word apostle and apostolic, etc. And so we really have to go back to scripture to understand the Missio Dei. And even as Jesus began his ministry, he explained the Missio Dei in Luke 4, when he talked about the spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor he has sent me. Well, that passage was at the beginning of Jesus' ministry and so that's just like bookends. He said that when he began his ministry.
Speaker 2:And then, on resurrection night of all things, he repeats the sending motif and zeroes in about the missio de which, which is that latin term. And and so to explain briefly the what the whole sending word means, uh, it means basically an official, authorized business on a business. The same word is used in the Old Testament and translated by the New Testament word, but the Old Testament word is shalach and that was used, for instance, in the calling of Moses and I should say the sending of Moses. The shalach is sent. It means being involved in an official business which involves the authority. The word sending involves, and the intrinsic meaning of it, tim, is that this is an authority word. It means that you represent the sender. You have to deal with who the sender is. In this case it's Christology. It has to do with Christ sending us. So therefore, the word sending means representation, it means a relationship between the sent one and the sender.
Speaker 2:It always involves the intrinsic meaning of leaving. If you're sent, the whole concept of sent is that you've got to leave, and so it means leaving, and I'd love to explain what all that means. But if you leave, you've got to go, and so the Matthew 28 passage now comes together. He says, instead of go ye into all the world, that word go there means as you are going. Is the correct translation? Well, if that's the case, you had to be sent, and so you're sent, and now, as you are going, now comes the commission of baptize and teach, et cetera.
Speaker 2:And the send word always involves a task and therefore the task of what Christ has done for us in his suffering and death, to bring us the forgiveness of sins. And the word send always involves the word message. That's a part of the nature and essence of sending. And if that weren't enough, involved in that word send you've got to have resources. And the next one it gives you the purpose and always the target, in other words to whom are you sent, and always the target, in other words to whom are you sent. So it involves the sender, the sent one, and then to whom are you sent? That's the world. Jesus has sent us into the world. And then the last element and it's like an element of the word sending is the words return and rejoice, and Jesus did all of this.
Speaker 2:If you really want to know about the mission of God, just apply the meaning of the word send to Jesus, because that's exactly what Scripture does. Jesus came with authority. Jesus represented the Heavenly Father and the triune God. Jesus had a relationship with the Holy Spirit and with the Heavenly Father and so forth. Jesus left the. He left heaven to come, to be born into this world and become a human being.
Speaker 2:And in the leaving Jesus was going man, he was going all the time in his ministry, if you read the four Gospels. And then he had the fantastic task because that's an intrinsic meaning in the word send the task of redeeming us and restoring mankind, redeeming and restoring all of creation, not just man, but all of creation. And then he came with a message. Jesus had the message about God's love that's the ascending word again. And then resources the Heavenly Father was always with him and the Holy Spirit was involved in Jesus' ministry. And so Jesus himself had a resource the Heavenly Father and the Holy Spirit, and the purpose that the lost might be saved, that the world might be redeemed, and the target was the whole world. The Missio Dei means that he was sent to the world. The Bible does not say that he was sent to the church. He was sent to the world. He was sent to the world, come on, and everything that the world means, and so that's to whom he was sent.
Speaker 2:And then the last part of this messio dei is he returned back to heaven and they rejoiced, they rejoiced, they rejoiced over one sinner that repents, and so all of those are the essence and the Greek when we talk about the Missio Dei.
Speaker 1:Oh well, that is so good. Hey, you should have been a preacher. Man you're preaching at us, man.
Speaker 2:That was so good so good and so rich, I can't help my nature Tim.
Speaker 1:I know, I know it's a beautiful nature. How will they hear without people proclaiming the word of God? And the heart of the word of God is that God loved the world so much that he sent his one, only son into the world. He did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world may find life through him. So a couple little and I'd like to keep this real, real tight when do you find Will? Just top of mind, the Missio Dei in the Old Testament. You mentioned Moses, but this is connected to the grand narrative of God's mission to get all of his kids back. So go back just a little bit more into the Old Testament, will.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, for instance, right away in Genesis, it talks about the sending of Adam and Eve into his world to care for his world, and so the sending began right there with Adam and Eve and God sent Abraham.
Speaker 2:The word, of course, was translated go in Genesis 12, but that's ascending, the going is an ascending word. And then, of course, after Abraham, you've got Isaac and Jacob and repeating the covenant. Then you've got the sending of the prophets later on. But the key is to understand the type of Jesus. In the Old Testament was Moses, If you want to use the word, a type of Christ, and several times, at least three, I think it was at least three or four or five times, just off of the top of my head that he said tell the people of Israel that the I Am has sent you.
Speaker 2:And then he repeats that three or four times to emphasize the sending. And it was the Shalach word. The Shalach word is official business and Moses became an official partner of God and the burning bush was the presence of God, the I am, that I am sending Moses. But then that continued by sending the prophets all the way through the Old Testament and Isaiah talks about whom am I going to send? And again, it's the Shalach word. And, by the way, that is such an important word that in Leviticus it explained how the sins of the people would be placed upon the scapegoat. And I forget the exact. I think it was Leviticus 19,. I'm not sure off the top of my head, but the word that was used there was shalach, and it said and it used the word sending the goat into the wilderness with the sins of the people and which meant that they would never return again. But the goat was sent into the wilderness with our sins.
Speaker 2:God sent Jesus into the wilderness of our life and that was a type of sending in the Old Testament. So the Old Testament helps give the color of the New Testament word apostello, which is the same meaning.
Speaker 1:Well, it's the same. God right Will the same.
Speaker 1:God of the Old Testament or the God of God right Will, the same God of the Old Testament, the God of Abraham, isaac and Jacob loved his people. I mean, as I've looked at the Old Testament, god's desire, through Israel, to be a light to the nations, that many would be blessed, that many would confess Yahweh. We're writing it in the midst of a series right now, in Daniel. Oh, my goodness, how do you read Daniel and not see God's love for the world, god's love for the Babylonians, god's love for the pagan, when Nebuchadnezzar has this unjust moment saying hey, you mystics, you wise men, you tell me what I dreamed and interpret it by the way. Who prays, intercesses before God? God revealed the dream and the interpretation. God does it. Why even despair, the pagan wise men, these mystics in Babylon, and many of them. This is a wild thing. And then many of them come to faith. The magi hear of the one who is to come, this king of the Jews. We've come to worship him. Praise be to come this king of the Jews. We've come to worship him. Praise be to God.
Speaker 1:The diaspora, those that had been sent and scattered, had bent the knee to Yahweh as king and Lord. And then in Acts, chapter 2, verse 9, you've got residents of what? Mede, persia, all these diaspora places. Babylon had come. So Daniel was a preparer, and you could say even a type of Christ standing between the accusation of the law from the accuser and the ultimate result is death. Jesus is that type. Jesus is on every page of Scripture and Jesus I don't know how we read the story of Jesus and then the sending of the church and get confused about the role of the church today.
Speaker 1:So you said something that was very provocative, will and Steve, I'd love to get your take on this too. The church exists for the world. The mission of God is through the church, for the world. But the church exists to get all of God's people back, because God has a mission. When we get the church in front of the mission, or we even say the end result is the church right, is the gathering of the saints rather than the sentness. We're going to go down pharisaical paths all day long.
Speaker 1:And while I bring up Pharisees, this is the big struggle. They forgot the sentness of God's love, yahweh's love for the nations. This was Jesus' big call and it was discombobulating to them. Jesus broke so many paradigms right. He moved the issue more to the heart, and the heart is always turned inward and the church also can have that heart that's just turned inward. Take care of us. And then we're defined through these small little ways that we organize ourselves and we become tribal rather than missional in the best sense of the word. Rather than being sent, we become tribal very, very quick and Will. I think you know this. One of my biggest observations in the 16, 17 years I've been a pastor and you have a lot longer runway at this is that the LCMS has experienced a mission drift. We've become distracted from our ultimate call of being sent into the world. So anything more to say in response to anything? I just thanks for letting me go on a little bit of a Missio Dei rant there.
Speaker 3:Will Love it.
Speaker 2:Thanks, bill, so any there will love it, but thanks, so any any?
Speaker 3:response to, as you've looked at, the lcms yeah, go ahead, steve oh well, I love staying quiet, by the way, I just love dad talking and you responding, so I'm not going to jump in any more than I have to. But as you were talking, I was just thinking, because we just have been working on another book that really deals a lot with the old testament, and I think about god sending, or, if you will, casting, the spear from Garden of Eden all the way to the cross, and the tip of the spear is always Christology. It's always Christ for us. And then the fact on the cross he says Father, forgive them, which is another sending word. Dad, is it a phima? Am I on the right Greek?
Speaker 3:Yes, yes and so he says send away their sin. And it started in Eden. It goes through and yet we somehow missed the spear, whether it was the Pharisees or us today. And I know my experience. And dad gets me more excited every time I talk to him. You know, his 91 years just gets hotter and hotter.
Speaker 1:So good.
Speaker 3:It's that aspect of I love the church, I love the Lutheran church, but we so including me get engaged with what about the church? What about me? What's in it for me and in our eyes, get taken off of the sending into the ending, which is me versus God sending into the world. And so I think you think you know the. The drift really starts with each one of us, but we see it in the church at large because we together are apt to drift away from the sending. So I'm going to pass it back to you, dad. You had a thought coming up, I think uh, yeah, on that word.
Speaker 2:On that word, it's the word for forgiveness. It's mentioned in connection with the Lord's Supper, when we receive for the forgiveness of sins. It is the sending word. That word together with the apostolic word in the Greek, and then also one other word, the apostolic word in the Greek, and then also one other word, the pimple word. There are several words for sending. The word shalach in the Old Testament is the same with the apostolic word, but there's also other words that help us understand that. So in John 20, it uses three different of the sending words. Of course, in John 20, again I'll repeat what it said as the Father has sent me, so I am sending you the sending word, the last one. So I am sending you the sending word. The last one was the pempo word, which indicates the source, mainly the source of the sending, but it's still sending. It's Jesus, sending the baptized Jesus, because he was sent by the Father. The apostolo word, jesus is the one who sends us.
Speaker 2:But then, in that same text, is the ephemi word, which means that if you forgive sins of any, that's in that text After the sending of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2:He talks about the sending of the Holy Spirit in that text because he says of the Holy Spirit, he talks about the sending of the Holy Spirit in that text because he says receive the Holy Spirit and whoever sins you remit. Well, that's the FME word there and it's the word that we translate forgiveness. But it actually actually means sending away, sending away, and so God uses three different sending words to really emphasize that this is the sending motif. And, tim, what I had in my mind also was to say without the sending, there's no justification. Without the sending, there is no sanctification.
Speaker 1:Without the sending there is no sanctification.
Speaker 2:Without the sending there is no sanctification in human beings. Without the sending there's no resurrection. Without the sending there is no crucifixion. Without the sending there's no suffering and the remission of sins for the whole world. And so that's why the word sending there's no suffering and the remission of sins for the whole world. And so that's why the word sending, that motif. You used the word paradigm a while ago. That is the paradigm for understanding everything in Scripture. The Missio Dei is wrapped up in the great sending of Christ, the great sending of the Holy Spirit and the great sending of the baptized.
Speaker 2:And as a result of that that brings us justification. So the sending motif includes the task of justifying the world through faith, by grace.
Speaker 1:So good. There's been kind of I don't know if argument is right, probably argument over the primary focus of the church and kind of the doctrine on which everything rises and falls, which is the doctrine of justification by grace, through faith. But very rarely, as you're doing right now, do we connect the through line, the tip of the spear, as you were saying, steve, to the mission of God. So just go deeper Will in how the doctrine of justification is intimately connected. You can't disconnect it from the Missio Dei. Say more there. No, you can't disconnect it from the Missio.
Speaker 2:Dei Say more there. No, you can't disconnect it at all. There's a lot of necessary essentials within the context of ascending, but ascending is really the primary activity and the hub around which all ministry and mission of the church is to be aligned, but all the other is aligned to it. You can't do without the justification and sanctification and all the wonderful theological understandings that we have. They all support it. I almost got a kick out of reading Pieper on this when he said that the central teaching of Christianity is being justified by grace, through faith. Yes, that's true, but that doesn't happen without the sending of God and that's involved in the sending of God. You can't separate the justifying work of Jesus, you can't separate it from his sending. That was his purpose, that was his task, that was his message and the resources of Jesus were involved in that. I mean, it's all there wrapped together.
Speaker 1:It doesn't appear to be controversial. Jesus was sent to justify us before the Father. Duh right, I don't get how—what arguments have you heard? Will, over the years, of people trying to differentiate and even divide justification from the Missio Dei Get into the history here? Because this is fascinating to me how anyone could even make a theological argument that it's anything other than what you just said.
Speaker 2:Well, the problem, as I see it, of not understanding that is that we've approached this always just from a theological and doctrinal approach instead of the scriptural approach of God's sending Our whole training at the seminary, and I wouldn't give anything more for it. I mean, I just really appreciated everything that I was taught about the doctrines of the church and the doctrines of justification, et cetera, but they had to be put into their place with right distinctions. For instance and I and I quote peeper again here and I can't tell you the page I've offhand but he said that that every, all other doctrines, all other doctrines that we have, and all of our theologies are either antecedent or consequent to the central teaching, and so that means that they are all necessary, they're all essential, but you have to have the proper distinction so that the missio Dei is the central matter and then justification, sanctification, all of those doctrines are incorporated in that. I don't know if that's what you were trying to get at, tim.
Speaker 1:No well, sure Did Pieper use Missio Dei much in his writing, and it's been a minute since I read Pieper. But talk about he and or Walther. I think we can pull a little bit from them in the LCMS story. Go ahead Will.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't remember that Pieper and I might be wrong, but I don't remember that he used the word Missio Dei. Yeah, I don't remember that he used the word missio de. Uh, but I don't either. But he and that's because the his focus uh, while he said what I just quoted a moment ago, uh, his focus was a doctrinal approach, uh and and uh, instead of the approach that I'm using here with the sending, great sending of God, yeah, yeah and anything more to say anything.
Speaker 1:Whoa Steve, there you go, steve all right, wow, no, no, no. So that's, that's wonderful. Um, how did this?
Speaker 2:that's a part of the drift you asked. Asked about the drift earlier. Yeah, yeah yeah, go ahead. A part of the drift is that we've been more concerned about all of the doctrines instead of the hub, the central hub around which all of the doctrines as important as they are are centered, and so a part of the drift is that's what's happened in our church body?
Speaker 1:Well, I think so. And why do you think that is? I got my take. I mean, my general 30,000-foot view is that the culture has shifted from a Christendom culture to a post-Christendom, or now we could say pre-Christendom culture, as things kind of cycle back and pre-Christians are brought to faith in Jesus. That shift we didn't.
Speaker 1:I don't know that it was as necessary per se. We were largely Christian America. Sure, we're going on mission to start churches and to reach, maybe, Native American community groups and bring Catholics to become, I don't know, whatever. But it just is a very different time today. So it would have been surprising to me if there had been a lot of major push in terms of it's all about the mission of God. I mean, we were still living going back 150 years. Here in the United States of America. We're still kind of arguing for there's nothing else. It is by grace, through faith, that you have been saved. It's a gift of God. We were kind of still in the justification waters but we missed the white hot why of the mission? Anything more to say about why we may not see mission per se as much in the writings of peeper and other lcms fathers will?
Speaker 2:well, it goes back to uh peeper was involved in. In writing the brief statement and it passed in 1932.
Speaker 2:Tell that story. Yeah, and if and if you look at what he did, it started with scripture instead of the mission and then, besides that he talked about, briefly talked about the mission under ecclesiastical, under ecclesiology, excuse me, under the church of the church, and he talked about the congregations and the local congregations and he gave little shrift to the mission of the church. Well, I'm not finding guilt here now with him, except that you see their focus. It was a matter of focus, tim. He focused at that time on the scriptures.
Speaker 2:What happened with us is I went through a lot of activities and culture of the Missouri Synod over my 67 years in the ministry. Over my 67 years in the ministry is that the focus got screwed up. The focus was not on the mission, the focus was on. It almost became bibliolatry. The focus was on the formal principle of theology instead of the material principle. The formal principle is all the means, the means of grace, the means of means of activities to carry out the message of the gospel, and basically we began focusing on the cradle instead of the Jesus in the cradle.
Speaker 2:And so all of this stuff is cradle stuff instead of, as Steve mentioned earlier, that it all centers in Christology and who Christ is and what Christ did, and the sending of Christ, the sending of the baptized, into the world. God made the church to be official partners with him in getting it into the world. Well, we lost that focus because we began focusing on other things.
Speaker 3:I think that oftentimes current solutions become our future problems, and so we know Pieper was addressing problems with those because of who he wrote against at the time In the 70s, which I remember very clearly because of our fight for the Bible, which was a great fight, the challenge became, I think we kept fighting in what Dad just talked about, those principles, those places, and in that we forgot the initial problem.
Speaker 1:I think Steve cut out. I think Steve cut out Will go ahead. Oh, he just said Will. Do you have any response to that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, he just mentioned that we focus on the church and we focus on the institution instead of the focus on the Missio Dei. And that goes back to the drift again and what has happened in our Synod, the drift again of and and what has happened in our Synod. A lot of tremendous things have happened in our Synod and I'm really glad to be a member of it. I'm glad you know that I was born into it. But I have seen the change of focus and and I think the focus, the change of focus began at the time in which our early church fathers had to really deal with the scriptures, they had to deal with fellowship, they had to deal with so many other things that the Missio Dei got shoved to the side.
Speaker 2:And so the example of that is the brief statement statement uh, let me read about it let me read it just a second. I got it right in front of me. Uh where, where he says uh christ himself commits.
Speaker 2:This is the only missional thing in the whole brief statement, okay here, it is christ himself commits to all believers the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And then he quotes Matthew 16, matthew 18. And, interestingly enough, he quotes John 20, the sending passage, and commissions all believers to preach the gospel and to administer the sacraments. And that's all that's said in the whole brief statement. And then it's underneath the category of the church, in other words, it's under ecclesiology. And so what I think Steve was saying and he needs to get back into it here. It looks like he got off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'll let him back in when he comes back. Sure, okay, it looks like he got off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll let him back in when he comes back. Sure, go ahead. Okay. What Steve was saying the people and all of them at that time, including Walther was certainly addressing the needs and the urgency at that time. We understand that, but without their intention at all, that became the paradigm and the paradigms instead of the Missio Dei. The Missio Dei is at the heart and center of who we are as Christians and, as we confess, god's true word and the message of the world. It's the Missio Dei, then, that's got to serve as the lens or the hermeneutical principle to understand everything else in Scripture. Well, the Missio Dei did not become the center in our history.
Speaker 1:This is good. How Will did your view of the pastoral office and the role of the church? How did that evolve over the years? I mean 60-some years. There had to be an evolution for you to develop this white-hot wire around the Missio Dei. Could you tell a little bit of that story, will?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I would be happy to.
Speaker 3:First of all.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure that the word evolve is the best word for that.
Speaker 1:What's a better word?
Speaker 2:It's development. You know I don't believe in evolution.
Speaker 1:No, I don't either. I like change. How did it change? Develop and not evolve. Yeah, there we go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm just teasing you, Tim, but God shaped and molded me. That's the. I guess that's what I'm saying. He, he was shaping and molding me and and I like to use those words instead of evolve, and that's what I meant by that.
Speaker 2:And and he when I, when I first entered the ministry and I was ordained and installed in Cambridge, nebraska, while I was kneeling there and they had their hands over me, I was praying a prayer, and I'll never forget that that's what I was doing God make me a missionary in this place, and to be a missionary pastor, and that means a sent one to this community. And so what happened in that little congregation a rural congregation in Cambridge, nebraska, rural congregation in Cambridge, nebraska was that, because of my focus on the mission of the church and my desire to evangelize, et cetera, et cetera is that that congregation experienced something they'd never experienced before. We had old guys, two guys that were in their 70s, that had never been in a church, never baptized, had no relationships in their families that were Christian. By God's grace, god used me to bring them to faith and to have a baptism in our church of two 70-year-old men that were known in that little community.
Speaker 2:That just gives you an idea of what began to also God shaping and molding me throughout my life and throughout my ministry. From there, because I was known as a missionary at that point of this rural church, I was called three years later to start a new mission in Casper, wyoming, and though I did not use the word Missio Dei at that time, I used the principles. The principles of the Missio Dei were such things as, right away, teaching the congregation, the new church, the steering committee and so forth, teaching them about the mission. Instead of organizing the church, we organized it, but I said, the main reason we're here is the mission of Christ, and so I was literally teaching them, and that helped me develop and change my ministry as well. To focus there and another thing happened at Cambridge is that we had wonderful pastors in the circuit. I enjoyed these old codgers, they were helpful to me, but do you know what their focus was?
Speaker 3:How many?
Speaker 2:when they reported to their voters assembly, they told me that, well, they told them how many miles they drove to go to the hospital, how many miles they drove for this, and that, instead of talking in the voters' assembly about training them, about mission that helped develop me right then and there, for my ministry to keep focusing on the mission.
Speaker 1:Amen. Thanks for sharing that will. Good to have you back, steve. I just got a couple couple more questions. What was it like having will as a dad, steve?
Speaker 3:I'm sorry my internet kept me in the last answer, but I think you get a sense of it, it's okay is that the tip of?
Speaker 3:that spear of the mission, was always there. So many of us, like yourself, grew up in the parsonage we say. I got to grow up outside the parsonage. I got to see the world through the missional eyes and whether he was working on with our church bodies through the hard years of the 70s, whether it was building what he called kingdom builders, people who went out to visit others, having missionaries at our table from Brazil and Africa, involved with ongoing ambassadors for Christ sharing with people at their doorsteps, who is Jesus? Going to very traditional churches in Illinois, who?
Speaker 3:It became very plain that we matter. We are the church. That's what God cares about. And what it showed me was this is not what it's about. It's about people who are dying without Jesus. And so when God called me out of my accounting degree and MBA into the church, it was because of a burning heart, of seeing what god did at the university of wyoming with people who walked in the door, who were begging to know hope and found jesus. And I said to myself this is what it's about. This is what dad's been doing is raising up people to share the gospel that the mission of christ is first and primary. Yes, you could do that as anything. But what it told me is I need to get engaged in engaging more people to be a part of the mission of God. I didn't use that phrase mission of God yet, but that's really what it was and it was really the depth of having a home life that mirrored in every way in the church and beyond that. We're on mission for God.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hey, wow. What a gift. And I'm right there with you, To whom much has been given. Much is required, and so we have to steward these days and the people, the ministries, the influence that we have, all for the glory of God. Let us consider how we can spur and encourage one another up toward love and good deeds, toward being the hands and feet of Jesus, toward being light in the midst of darkness. And let's do it. Let's do it together, Will. This is part one of our two-part conversation. You get to hang out with your longtime friend, Bob Newton. That's going to be coming out very, very soon, but you influenced me, Will. I've got to tell a story, but let me, you influenced me, Will. I got to tell a story.
Speaker 1:You were in a presentation that I made at. I'm getting a little bit of kickback here, so let me just who collaborate in mission at the circuit level, and I was praying for a change of pastors seeing, hey, we should work together and we should report the beautiful things we should build. Maybe this wasn't a word you would have used, but maybe there's ways we partner and scale to work smarter rather than harder. And then you raised your hands in the back as I started talking about the LCMS role of forums and convocations, that's hidden in the very back of the LCMS handbook and you said, yeah, that's what we intended but it never really really happened. And I just want to commend you for your wonderful work in the circuit forum and convocation manual. In the handbook you have an invitation toward mission, toward sharing stories, toward churches working together. So what was the story of you kind of reimagining in the handbook because you were part of putting that together, the role of circuit forums and convocations Will. I'm excited about this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd be happy to. I'll try to. In fact, I had almost forgotten that I was in your breakout there at.
Speaker 1:Phoenix.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's neat. Thank you for reminding me of that. Well, we had a committee it wasn't a committee, it was a task force on redoing the Constitution and bylaws and the structure of the Senate, and I was involved in that. And I was involved in that and I was the chairman of a committee which was the theological committee of that task force, and what we wanted to do was to redo the constitution in such a way as that it mentioned the mission of God and not only mentioned it, but centered in it, focused on it. We wanted to focus on it in the preamble of the constitution and the objectives of the constitution they were all all to be missional, so that the mission, the Missio Dei, became the centerpiece of the Constitution and bylaws. Love it Well and so, and on that committee, like I said, I was the chairman of it was was Ralph Bowman was on that committee, sam Nasker was on that committee and and a couple others I can't come to mind right now, and they all agreed with my proposal to make it truly a Missio Dei Constitution.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, when we went around from district to district to get that ready, to prepare for the convention which that was in 2010, to make the changes, we had such kickback kickback on that proposal that we decided that we couldn't even bring it up before the convention because it would have divided the Senate. And that is a sad, sad day in my life to know that we had to do that, that the mission of God was always secondary. There was an overture once and a resolution once at a convention. Before that, bob Newton, I think, was the chairman of that particular floor committee in which the floor committee brought out the fact that the mission of God was the primary thing for the church. The convention floor literally revised that, amended it to say a priority instead of the priority. That shows a completely different mindset, and so, from my experience working with the Constitution and bylaws, that particular experience was a sad day for me.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Do you remember anything about your intent for circuit forums and convocations as it relates to mission work?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, yeah, it was all connected to that that the circuit forums and so forth should begin centering on the mission and make that their focus, and so a lot of all of that went down the drain because the convention itself did not want to go that route.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I still read it. Yeah, I mean I still read it. And if anybody wants to dust it off, it does say that forums should talk about bring lay leaders together to talk about new mission work, and then the conv starts new opportunities to share the gospel in your respective area. But what I found in my research is there was never training of circuit visitors toward that intent. And so now circuit convocations don't happen very infrequently, maybe in very small pockets. I've only heard of a couple ever happening, and you could reach out to me and let me know if, man, we're rocking circuit convocations. I don't hear about it. But circuit forums are then basically for voting for district and synod conventions, lay leaders and synod pastors, rather than collaborating in mission. So it is unfortunate.
Speaker 1:Will I lament with you, but the Holy Spirit isn't done with the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod yet, and there's always an opportunity for old men you know, I'm 43 now, so I'm not as young as I once was to say, hey, clarion call, let's keep the main thing, the main thing which is the mission of God. I don't know how I get how it was a battle over justification. We really are concerned about justification being lost, but I don't get how the doctrine is the mission of God and then justification follows right after that, because Jesus has been sent to justify us before the Father by grace, through faith. I don't get how that's even a stumbling block at all, and I guess you guys are scratching your heads wondering the same thing. Could you get behind the curtain? I mean, is this just about power and control, or are people actually making deep theological arguments that we shouldn't center on the mission of God? Because it seems kind of self-evident to me. Any historical comments as we head into part two, with Bob Newton coming up here, will Anything more.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, we're getting into that, but I think that the problem that keeps us from doing what you're just talking about, tim, is that we're not letting the Missio Dei be the lens by which we interpret all of scripture. Uh, the missio dei should be the lens, or the hermeneutical principle, the hermeneutic to to interpret and understand all of scripture, to under interpret and understand the world. Uh, to interpret and understand the church. In other words, the Missio Dei, if it is the central and core of God's activity, which it is, then that should be the lens to interpret and understand and apply everything else, including all the necessary activities that we need to have in the church to carry it out. In one simple words, two words maybe. When I was a pastoral advisor of the International Lutheran Lameness League, I had a lot of discussions then with Ozzie Hoffman, because we had our Lutheran Hour meetings and so forth.
Speaker 2:And one thing that Ozzy Hoffman said in a discussion with me. He said Will. He said we focus too much on the means instead of the word grace. And so we have a lot of activities, a lot of programs, a lot of start and stop stuff we even had PTRs and spiritual life missions and all that stuff but we focus too much on the means instead of grace. And now that's how. So I would say it in another way we need the Missio Dei as the lens to interpret the scriptures and to understand it and to put it into practice.
Speaker 1:Well, this has been extraordinary Grateful for you, steve, go ahead.
Speaker 3:I don't know if you have to cut off.
Speaker 1:Go ahead, Steve. I do want to make sure we celebrate.
Speaker 3:Now I don't know if you have to cut off.
Speaker 1:Go ahead, Steve.
Speaker 3:I do want to make sure we celebrate, and I think the good news is that, despite these things, god is doing great things.
Speaker 3:And the groundwork that you had in your BPM presentation, the aspect of collaboration, I continue to see whether it's working with you, working with Harvest Partnership, which I was on lead time with you before watching people get the sense of God's sending. We've distributed nearly 19,000 books and I get comments all the time. Someone says I just found this book. It's not the book, it's the scripture. It's the word of God that is changing hearts. It's the word of God that is moving people.
Speaker 3:And so, whether it's my work and my refinement of planting churches, but even doing vacancies and I go and preach and they're in a bad place, no one wants to come here, we don't have a mission, and I get to preach about the great sending and I walk out and people say thank you for giving us hope and a purpose, and so I see God not me, but God putting legs to this in so many places. And that's where the Missouri Synod, I think, is really singing right now is at the grassroots, Rejoicing, and we just need to do more rejoicing together, Celebrate and show where God is showing up and that we are joining him there and that his mission will continue to move forward.
Speaker 1:Amen. This has been so much fun, will. I can't wait for part two with you and Bob Newton, and I have actually Dr Kolb Robert Kolb in the waiting room right now, so we have to close this one down. This is lead time. Sharing is caring, like, subscribe, comment, wherever it is you take in this conversation, and we pray the white hot. Why the sending of God? God's intent to get all of his kids back out into the world and getting the awe and wonder of it. He gets to use us Broken, feeble, frail, fallen, sinful people that he has made clean, made into saints and sent into the world. This is lead time and we'll be back very, very soon with part two of this conversation with Will Soans and his buddy Bob Newton. Steve, you've got an awesome dad.
Speaker 3:And what a legacy of love.
Speaker 1:bro, you won the lottery, just like I did for sure. All right, we'll be back soon. Great work Will, Great work, Steve. God bless.