Lead Time
Lead Time
Whatever It Takes: Spirit Driven Expansion in the LCMS with Pastor Greg Bearss
What does it take to leave a thriving banking career and follow a calling into church planting? Pastor Greg Bearss from Lake Pointe Church in Hot Springs, Arkansas, shares his inspiring journey of faith and transformation. Greg opens up about his initial reluctance to follow in his father’s pastoral footsteps, the pivotal influence of the Holy Spirit, and his eventual surrender to a divine calling. Discover the innovative strategies and unwavering mission that have fueled the growth of Lake Point Church and its success in planting five additional churches.
Our conversation with Greg also dives into the evolution of discipleship within his church community over the past 18 years. From initially weak efforts to significant improvements, Greg discusses how the church has become more inclusive, addressing real-life issues such as addiction, divorce, and personal struggles. Learn about the introduction of foundational courses designed to help members grow in their faith and the steps taken to ensure that discipleship is practical, inclusive, and transformative.
Leadership development and maintaining cultural relevance are also key topics in our discussion. Greg emphasizes the importance of structured onboarding processes for leaders and setting high standards to build a dedicated team. We explore the challenges of bridging traditional liturgical practices with modern evangelism, advocating for mutual respect and understanding among differing ecclesiastical practices. Greg’s insights on fostering love and unity within the church, prioritizing spiritual disciplines, and embracing diversity in ministry are invaluable for anyone looking to strengthen their church community. Join us for a compelling episode filled with practical wisdom and heartfelt stories.
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Welcome to Lead Time, Tim Allman, here with Jack Kalberg. It is an awesome day to be alive and one of the main reasons, Jack I don't know about you I've had a fan. Some days are better than others, Jack, and this is one of those better days. It's going to be even better because we get to hang out with my friend, Pastor Greg Bierce. Let me tell you about Bierce. Bierce is in the house man.
Speaker 3:He's been a. I'm saying your last name, right, greg? Right, you're not, but it's nobody does, so it's all good, it's all good. I always tell people it's Burse with purse, it's spelled Beers. So, dude, my whole life it's never been right. So I just smile and love, love, love, even my brother.
Speaker 2:Yeah, burse man, I'm such a, I'm such a, I'm such an awful host. I'm such an awful host, bro and a friend, I don't know. I kind of like bears.
Speaker 3:It's kind of a masculine you know with did kill when back in the day with did kill was like the bears. You know it's fun.
Speaker 1:It's all good, clean, fun. Well, now I gotta know what's the origin of a name like burst yeah that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's great. So yeah, that's a great question. It's evidently Scottish. My grandfather was German, so it's just a hodgepodge man. It's just a messy name and I don't answer. The only answering mail that I throw away is when they put B-E-A-R and then A-S-S. I don't answer that stuff, but other stuff.
Speaker 2:I miss here Everything else.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, at least I didn't call you that. Let me tell you a little bit about Greg before he shares a little bit of his story. He's 18 years as a Lutheran Church Missouri Synod pastor in Lake Point Church in Hot Springs, arkansas His first call as a mission planner. So tell us your ministry story, greg, and how you became a part of the LCMS. This is going to be a good time, man, yeah, man.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, we got to put the LP up there. I got the LP flashing gang signs and stuff, you know, and man, we started Lake Point 18 years ago and I've been a lifetime Lutheran. My dad was a Lutheran pastor. He's with Jesus now actually celebrated 11 years with Jesus on Sunday that he's been gone and kind of my hero followed in his footsteps. Second career and got into banking in Dallas and had a really, really good career going.
Speaker 3:But just this calling of being a pastor just never, never left me. I ran from it and I always joke the blue haired ladies growing up in the LCMS church, all the blue haired ladies would pat me on the head and say you're going to be such a great pastor and I'm like there's no way in hell I'm going to be a pastor. I've seen how you treat my dad. I'm like, no, I love Jesus, the church man. I saw underneath her dress and I'm good man, I'm good. And so I played that game for a while and then and then finally just really, they say surrender to the call, just finally recognize this is what God made me for and my giftedness. And so, yeah, so the, the, the long, short stories.
Speaker 3:I ended up going to Fort Wayne, which a lot of people are surprised about when they look at our ministry and they see the the that God has done in just different style. But my dad went to Fort Wayne, graduated from Fort Wayne, so I went there as well, and then I had a conversation with a couple of synodical execs that came down talking about church planting and I was like man, I didn't even know we did any church planting. And they're like, yeah, yeah, we are. I'm like okay, cool. And there was no training, there was no mission track, vicar, none of this stuff.
Speaker 3:In fact, a lot of that I developed with a good friend of mine that's in heaven too, steve Banke. He and I we were with Johannes Mangstead back in the day, working with Synod, trying to figure out how to do more church planting. Love church planting. We've been blessed to launch five churches out of Lake Point plant five churches, and so we're just excited for what God's doing there. But yeah, so I mean just the heart of ministry was just like how do we reach people that are going to hell? Depopulate hell, populate heaven. That's been my modus operandi for for 18 years and it's it's just, it's still our battle cry man, just just loving people to Jesus, you know.
Speaker 1:How that's so good, man Powerful story man. How, over the course of the year, 18 years, have you well, the spirits, worked? For sure, but what have been your intentional strategies, ways that you've kept Kike the Missio day, God's love for the lost at the heart and center at Lake Point?
Speaker 3:You know, from the very beginning we had these mission statements and you had to come up with all this stuff. We started with 10 families and then we grew and we were meeting at a middle school. We'd set up on Saturday for three and a half years. Our family set up on Saturday and tore down on Sunday and we were just praying. People would show up and the Lord blessed us. One of the amazing facts about Lake Point is we've never been under 100 people since our existence. So we had this launch large strategy for, whatever that's worth, god did it all. He gets all the glory, the Holy Spirit's presence. We didn't know what we were doing at the beginning. We just wanted to tell people how much Jesus loved them, and so that's from the very beginning that's been our goal. But we knew that the old tactics wouldn't work. If they did, then all the churches would be full and everybody would be. They'd know Jesus, have a relationship with him, be saved, however you want to put that. So we knew we had to do some things differently. So our style, the way that we did things from the very beginning, has always been a little bit out of the box, a little different, and it's always with intentionality. There's always a reason, there's a method behind the madness that we're trying to help people really understand that they belong.
Speaker 3:Our first mission statement was Lake Point exists to reach a skeptical generation along with a growing community of believers, and that was so wordy and I think I'm the only one that even remembers it. If Lake Point exists, what our new one is? Wait, we belong. Belong as you change, change as you follow Jesus. That's our mission and vision. Belong as you change, change as you follow Jesus. So it's real easy Belong, change, follow Jesus, and so that's our goal and we talk about that every Sunday.
Speaker 3:Follow Jesus, and so that's our goal, and we talk about that every Sunday. We close every worship experience with hey, remember, lake Point's a place to belong as you change, change as you follow Jesus. And so, with that in front of people I think it was Stanley that says about the time you feel like a broken record is when people are just starting to get it and, just like many of your churches, we recognize every Sunday we have a slew of brand new people that have never heard. But long as you change, change as you follow Jesus, and so that's kind of that's one of the big things is, you know the vision and keeping that in front of people constantly, consistently, and then you know it's like you have to be doing what you say. You can't just say these pretty statements and then not do anything. No-transcript.
Speaker 3:So, what are some examples of that? Like, how do you guys actually follow through with alignment on that vision? Yeah, you know, again I'm going to give you some statements and they're cutesy statements but like we really mean them. So one of our statements is it's our mantra, we say anything short of sin to reach people for Jesus. So that takes us to some different places, you know. So we have to watch that line. But you know, I think in the early years, you know, we went from 10 families to 100 to 250. And then three and a half years we built our own. We called it our Hug for Ministry and overnight we're to 500 people and I'm the only pastor on staff and we're just young and gunning it and just running hard just trying to reach people.
Speaker 3:In the early years we did things like MMA fights in our parking lot. That's one of the huge things that has just been, and I mean when I say MMA fight, bro, it's full on. We had the cage, we had the cameras, I had an investor that loved Jesus and he had some resources. So we did it first class and it was amazing. In fact we still hold the record for the largest MMA fight in Arkansas history on our parking lot Wow, it's crazy. That's another story for another time. Because the only person we had the sheriff's department there, the PD there All those guys are our friends, they love what we do and I was afraid we would have to run off some people. The only person we had to run off he actually got handcuffed was the dude waving a floppy Bible telling people to turn or burn, and that's a whole other story. I'm just going to leave that out there for later. But God's been faithful even in some of the crazy and so yeah, that's an example.
Speaker 1:A pretty intense attract strategy and attract is not bad, it's just winsomely getting the name of Lake Point out in the community is a place where you can find community and you're going to hear about Jesus from really normal, everyday people that are messy that's kind of what I hear. I mean that are being in the process of being transformed more and more into the image of Jesus. My goodness, is that a journey? Am I summarizing kind of some of the unsaid cultural things there at Lake Point? Is that good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's real good, you know, and I don't even mind the label attraction on the early years there were like these different names that we would label. We absolutely were attraction. We're trying to bring anybody that was going to hell through the door so they'd go to heaven. I mean, that was.
Speaker 2:No, you owned it right, but we did Kudos, there's no bones about it.
Speaker 3:The challenge with that, though, there's some challenges in that, and challenges is, I mean, we're not the same church that we were 18 years ago. Praise God for that. There's lots of changes along the way, and we can talk about those as well. You know, covid obviously shifted a lot of things, but as time progressed we grew so fast. I mean we're 8,900 on a weekend and I'm just holding on. We're like just trying not to fall off the rails and trying to help people.
Speaker 3:And when we started saying one of these mantras it's a place to be real, to be yourself. This is back in the day, 18 years ago, and in our culture, if you showed up with tattoos, if you showed up with piercings, if you showed up with tattoos, if you showed up with piercings, there are a lot of churches in the southern culture and in the south that they would just not even accept you through the doors, and we were saying stuff different. I was saying, like man, just wear clothes to church. You know what I'm saying? We're a lake community, so you can come in your swimsuit, wear clothes, though, just show up. And we had fun with it.
Speaker 3:But people owned it and they came, and then they said, like, if this is a place to be real, are we going to be real? Are we going to talk about addiction? Are we going to talk about porn? Are we going to talk about I'm on my third marriage and it's it's on the rails. I'm about to be divorced. Are we going to really go there? And so that really caused us to. I would say it this way man, we're smoking what we're selling.
Speaker 3:I tell people I used to say that all the time. You know and we really believe in what God can do. You're such a unique dude.
Speaker 2:I love it.
Speaker 1:I love your unique Greg.
Speaker 2:I got to follow up on this, though. So you guys are nailing a track. You're talking about the felt needs of the community that maybe other churches aren't leaning into. So then, what is? What is the discipleship look like there, you know, how are you, how are people being changed as they follow Jesus? Right, my second half of the statement.
Speaker 3:Yeah, my first confession is we, we really sucked at discipleship and, honestly, my, my personality and who I am is like evangelists out there. I'm just like I do not know strangers. Tim knows this man. We, we, we, we just we've had so much fun over the years at just man.
Speaker 3:I'll talk to anybody anywhere and I don't even care if they're homeless or if they're a gazillionaire, because that's just who God's wired me. But the flip side of that is that discipleship's not my band. Like. I'm not the dude that wants to hang out with you in a coffee shop for two hours. I'm. I'm just not. I don't, you know, I don't want to hear all your story. I mean, like my, my counseling is like just stop doing it. Stop looking at porn. It's going to help your marriage. I told you to stop, so stop, you know. Stop cheating on your wife. Don't fuck you over mine. You know there's a. There's an old bob newhart skit. Y'all got to dig it up, bob Newhart. If you even know who that is, I know who Bob Newhart is. I'm counseling and dude, it is hilarious, just stop.
Speaker 3:Three words Cost you $3. Stop doing that. But yeah, so, dad, I'm not the guy that you come to for that lovey-dovey and the discipleship. So it's been hard. We're horrible at it. I would say the first golly. I don't know if we're still good at it. Probably the first 10 years people would complain that we're a revolving door. We still held a large population on Sunday morning.
Speaker 3:But it was new families. One of the things that we had to realize is that, you know, we knew Sunday wasn't enough. We're in the word, but helping to train up people to be in the word and of the word and and not not just coming to church on Sunday, coming for the attractional whatever but then leaving. You know, monday through Saturday, living like hell and then coming back.
Speaker 3:Sunday and expecting life change again and you're just like so the discipleship piece, um is was difficult. What we've done now is we've put certain um things that we are really asking people, like if you're, if you're a stakeholder, if you're part of this ministry, this is your church home. There are some things we want you to go through, um. The first one is it's like it's called new to LP and it's just a this is just brief Christianity 101. Here's what it looks like. This is who we are, mission and vision. It's for newcomers, it'd be like a newcomer's class. And then the second thing that we've been doing is called Foundations, and this is five weeks and we're doing we do it on Saturdays and it's four hours.
Speaker 3:It's pretty robust and we're talking about theology. We're digging into you know how to read your Bible, but then we're also talking about the Trinity. We're talking about some of the questions that people would have about Christianity. We're digging into you know the different disciplines, like prayer. You know what is prayer, how do we pray? We take time, I mean. So we're really kind of like trying to take them and help them understand what does it mean to be a fully devoted follower of Jesus? You know?
Speaker 3:it means we, we, we do what he did, we say what he said, we live how he lived and we leave behind what he left behind and um, and that's that's really our. Our goal is to train them up in that and then partnering with other people other people on my team, on my staff, but then also within our church that love discipleship, that want to sit down for two hours and talk to somebody and just walk them through whatever it is that they're trying to navigate and disciple them, and so that's really been a key strategy for us.
Speaker 1:Hey, that's great man. And church leadership especially starting something new every well, there's change science out there, but you're kind of every five to seven years there's kind of a reinvention and a recommitment to who we are, how we love, how even discipleship takes place. I think there's some staples and we don't have to look beyond the book of Acts to see what some of those discipleship staples are. Right, I mean, they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to prayer, to the breaking of bread, to getting together consistently, you know. So there's just doing life together and hopefully there are leaders in that journey who, as questions come up, as culture changes, have the gift to teach.
Speaker 1:You know, both in larger settings, kind of the cause I would say you have, obviously, if you look at the office of holy ministry and the kind of the fivefold giftings, I mean you're a classic evangelist to profit, maybe with an apostolic bent too, but do we raise up more of those preacher teachers that are slower, that will dig into the four-hour class right, that really care about the details of our doctrine and just leveraging then all of the gifts of the body of Christ?
Speaker 1:So I guess my question is, especially since the church is in a new iteration, since you mentioned COVID. It's a curse word, bro, just COVID, I just get it out of my mouth. I hate, I hated that season. It was just, it was hard, it was discombobulating, but the Lord still refined us and is refueling, refiring us now, in and out of that season, like we've had a heightened awareness in our context about loneliness, about felt needs, about mental health and a lot of those things and we're trying to meet people exactly where they are, to work with the willing to raise up more leaders, you know.
Speaker 1:So I think our discipleship has become a small group Serving is a great way, obviously, to get connected in deeper relationship, to meet and follow Jesus. And then what we call CG Cares, grace, greenfield Cares experiences that are classes on rotation. We're looking to launch Celebrate Recovery. A number of these felt need ministries, greg. So how have you guys there at Lake Point evolved, especially in and through COVID?
Speaker 3:Yeah, 100%. What you said I completely agree with. We've had Celebrate Recovery and that's been a great addition to discipleship and meeting people where they're at. Our number one is small groups. We call them connection point. We use everything's like point. Everything has a point with an E on it. But the way I talk about it is if you're not in a small group, you're missing who Jesus is. Jesus was a small group guy. He had a small group. He're missing who Jesus is. Jesus was a small group guy. He had a small group. He met with them. Jesus was in community. You know, the whole example I always point back to is the Trinity Father, son, holy Spirit always in agreement, never disagreeing, in community and in unity. And that's who we want to be as the followers of Jesus. And so for us that's a key point. Our goal has always been like what would it look like to get like 90% commitment to small groups? And I mean that's a BHAG, that's a big Herodiasis goal, but we still keep pushing people toward it and pushing people toward it and that's where we've seen so much growth and the spreading out of discipleship and then watching also leaders rise up.
Speaker 3:In the middle of that, covid really decimated us. We. You know a lot of the people that would come through our doors were new believers or people that maybe had heard about Jesus when they were little and went to Sunday school but then got hooked on math or got caught in all the struggles of life, and then now we're just like coming back and learning. And so, man, when we actually had to shut down for a season and we did live streaming, all that stuff, but we really it knocked the wind out of us hard and I don't think we did a really good job of trying to keep people connected, we just didn't know. We didn't know what we didn't know. But I think the blessing out of COVID that curse word is man, we stopped doing so much. I mean, we really shifted almost a hard shift to from being this attractional to really focus solely on discipleship and really pushing small groups and bringing that to the forefront. We're talking about it every Sunday and just saying get in a group. This is where life happens. It's where we grow vertically with our Father, but also horizontally, on the horizon, with other believers, and this is where life happens. And so we've been beating that drum like really hardcore and really seeing some amazing things happen. So for us on the other side of COVID, we found it solidified the core and the people that were showing up and are still showing up. They're in it to win it. And the people that were on the fridges, the fans, whatever you want to call they're trickling in slowly but a lot of them have, you know, sunday fun day. They've shifted and they're not going to church at all and that kind of breaks our heart. But our goal now is we're in this season of shift to where we're saying, okay, we're going to continue to disciple, continue to push small groups, continue to help people through Celebrate Recovery, through other offerings that we have, help them disciple and grow and then walk it out.
Speaker 3:I'm constantly telling people to be in the Word of God. In fact, I've read one of these things. We started these silly things, these little note cards, and these note cards have got all kinds of memory verses that throughout the year I read through the Bible in a year and have a plan. I challenge everybody to get on a plan of reading the Word of God, not just the verse of the day on you know you version, but like dig in. And that's really been amazing for people to start writing down verses that are addressing the struggles, the challenges, the battles that they're in the middle of, and it's changed my life and it's and I'm seeing it change others that'll, that'll do it, but it's. You guys know how this is. You can only lead a horse to water. You can't make them drink. So we're just constantly reinforcing this in vision and saying here's what it takes.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. How do you approach and distinguish interconnected discipleship and leadership development? This is a leadership development. This is leadership podcast. So is discipleship and leadership development intermingled in your mind at all?
Speaker 3:Yeah, for sure, man. I think when you're talking about that, that leadership and discipleship man, I'm pretty old school, I would say from some regard. People, every time I've had somebody come up to me I had it happen this last Sunday, man, I'm really excited. They're newer to Lake Point. I'm so excited, man, I want to be your right-hand guy. I'm going to be your armor bearer. If they ever say armor bearer, I know that person's leaving in about two weeks, three weeks tops. They're just like they're not, they're not staying. What I'm looking for are the people that are hanging out and they're picking up trash. They're, they're. They're taking the auditorium and they're fixing the seats and they're just like they're serving and they're and to me that's a huge mark of leadership is is that servant leader? And so they're doing it. Naturally they're not trying to become your best friend, to control the church or whatever. So there's something with that.
Speaker 3:But then within the leadership is like we're working on training leadership. If you want to be a connect group leader, you have to go through a leadership process. You have to go through certain things, even for us now, like on the stage, on the platform, if you want to play or sing or have gifted in music. You're going through all of the regimen. You have to go through new to LP. You have to go through foundations, see where you are and help grow you as a leader. And if you want to lead a group or be on the platform, we're going to go through a training process that helps you understand what it is. We're not interested in just handing out titles, and people that want titles are typically the ones that they have an ulterior motivation.
Speaker 2:So let's pause on that real quick. I was just consulting with another church and they were anxious. They were anxious about the idea of going through an onboarding process because they're afraid it's going to chase off people from leadership roles. And kind of my argument was well, do people serve? Are people more or less willing to serve and lead when they're being equipped to do that well? Right, I think what you actually see are people are more eager to do that when you actually have an intentional process to equip them to do it well. So what's your impression on that? Because it seems like you've got a very robust process in place.
Speaker 3:What I would say to that is, if they're anxious or they're worried that their leaders are going to leave because they're going to help coach them and make them better leaders, then good, let them leave. I mean, I'm not scared of people leaving. I mean the people that stay that are going the wrong direction are the ones that you have a hard time with. But typically, I think leaders that are leaders want to be invested in, and that's what we found. We want to put a high investment because we have a high bar of requirement and nobody's getting paid. We have a lean staff of people that are actually getting paid. We have a broad staff of people that are volunteers, and I mean 20 to 30 plus hours a week. They're grinding and there's a high expectation. But then also, what I tell them is if I'm expecting a lot from you, you can expect a lot from me as well.
Speaker 3:If you need me and my goal is to help you be the best leader you can man. I want to help you grow your connect group and be someplace where life change is happening and equipping is happening. And if they don't want that or they're anxious about that or they're like I already know it all, that's a huge red flag to me. I mean I would tell that church. I'm like man, you really you want the leaders that want to grow. The leader that knows it all is a scary person.
Speaker 2:Right, it may be a smaller pool of people, but they're going to give more results, I think.
Speaker 3:Ultimately, yeah, and it cultivates a whole new mindset, like, hey, like for us, not everybody gets to be on the platform. Hey, we love everybody, but it doesn't mean I don't even care if you can. We had the lights out. Singers, the guitarists, that could shred. We've had all that, and there were times I was looking on the platform wondering if my lead worshiper believes what he's singing.
Speaker 3:I'm not going back to that. Listen, I'll have tracked and I'll have view a verse on the screen and we won't have anybody on the platform before. I'll go back to that. And that was a big turn for us because we had three different worship teams. Man, we had one that was traveling on the road and we squished all of that and we said here's the requirement for you to be on that platform you have to be in a small group, you have to be in church when you're not leading. I mean, those are the craziest things. People show up when they're leading and then they're ghosts. Nobody knows them when they're not on the platform. So I mean that shift to us. Yeah, things to herd, bro, get ready. If they're anxious about things in the herd, it's going to happen, but it's going to be good because what's left is robust and then you can build on that. It's like the foundational man. You can't build on a weak foundation. I've tried it. It falls apart.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Greg, I love your passion, dude.
Speaker 2:There are not many Greg Burses in the LCMS.
Speaker 1:Praise God, Well, maybe maybe, but I just love your missional zeal, your love of leadership and your desire to continue to grow, and it seems that we sometimes in the LCMS lack contextual and personality diversity. Hospitality that's a mouthful, I know, but like folks that look and sound like you and start churches that are different than the vast majority of churches in the LCMS, it's like we don't know what to do with you, and so we either ignore you or we attack you in in, in public or in private.
Speaker 3:Right, and this is this is a lot more than the former. Yeah Well, sure that's easier.
Speaker 1:It's easier to do that and to develop caricatures around a guy and his ministry without really getting to know the guy and the heart behind what it is they do in their context. It takes all different types of churches and leaders to reach all different types of people with the gospel. I mean the church in Jerusalem I'm sure looked radically different than the church in Corinth right, the church in Corinth right and there were radically different personalities and leaders and they were all under the covering of the same confession of Jesus as Lord. So what are your thoughts on how we kind of work through that right now as a church body For me? I'll just give you my thoughts and let you riff on it. I mean I got to have brothers because you and I have a little bit more of the same type of driven.
Speaker 1:You know extrovert, you know woo mentality, you know very galvanizing People love to probably just like get close to your energy and stuff like that. They kind of feed on it. But I have to stay close to guys that shout out to Brian Crane he's a pastor at Eternal Life and their church is radically different than Christ Greenfield. But I need Eternal Life and Mesa to be a part of my perspectives. I think we demonize diverse and that's just not the way of Jesus, definitely not the way of the early church. Any thoughts there, greg?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and unfortunately it does. That's one of the areas I think the church reflects. Culture is the demonizing of different, and that's a huge challenge. By the way, I love, tim, that you are a learner and I love learning learning with you and that you crave learning. Jack, we just met, so I'm not sure I hadn't figured you out yet, but you've got a great voice and so you've got that going for you. But no, I'm with you, man.
Speaker 3:I want to keep learning and I think the challenge that I've had is people that would they'll attack and talk about me instead of talk to me, people that would they'll attack and talk about me instead of talk to me. And so if there's somebody that has an issue within the LCMS, it's like I find out about it third party, I find out about it from Christian News. I find about it like this I'm like well, why didn't they call me? I've had the same cell phone number y'all since we moved to Arkansas, for like 19, almost 20 years I've had the same cell phone number and like I publish it, I give it away all the time. I want to have a conversation with you because I know I don't have the corner on the market of what God's word says and the way I'm not saying, hey, the way of Lake Point is the only way you can do it. Probably one of the biggest things that hurt well, I'm going to say it hurt us, it challenged our ministry because it brought us up kind of into the light was back when Kishnick was president. He did one of his president Monday morning things and he made a comment in there we need more churches like Lake Point in the LCMS and at that point most people didn't have a clue who we were and that all changed.
Speaker 3:Obviously my thing is man, I love my brothers. What I grew up with was TLH, the red hymnal, tlh. I cut my teeth on that. My dad did that. I can still go by heart. I, a poor, miserable sinner, confess unto thee all my sins. I can go through the whole liturgy and I love it. I grew up on it.
Speaker 3:The problem was I'd invite my boys that I played ball with to come to church with me, and you know, and they would come to church one time and they would show up and they didn't know when to stand up or sit down. They couldn't navigate this book. We call it a hymnal because there's like a. There's a page 23, but there's also a hymn 23. And they're just like what's going on? They didn't know the prayers, they didn't have them memorized, they didn't even know the Lord's prayer. And so they would come one time and I'd say, hey, dude, come on, man, let's go, let's go, you know, come back. And I was like, no, I'm not going to your church. I'm like, why not? You don't even go to church at all. And they're like, yeah, well, teach them, catechize them on this. Like they don't want to learn that they're. They're not understanding why my dad's wearing a dress at the front of this thing we call an altar. Like they don't understand that.
Speaker 3:Why are you lighting candles on the table? What's going on? Who's coming over for dinner? I mean, it just was like all these things that we have that are hindrances, and so what happened is I was like man, I want to reach people for Jesus and I'm just going to do it the way that I know how, and I want to try to keep it real, try to remove some of the things that were hindering. And so, like man, I never, I never poo-poo anybody's way of doing it.
Speaker 3:You know, if I live downtown New York in an area that was highly Catholic, I'd wear a collar man. I think that would get you somewhere with people in a culture that honors, or at least looks at it, maybe not so much now, but back in the day, maybe you know I mean. So it's like for me it's. It's the thing that Paul said. He said, you know, I become all things to all men in order that I might save a few, and so that's really been our heartbeat.
Speaker 3:We're not trying to be cool, we're not trying to be different for different sake. What we're trying to do is keep hell depopulated and populate heaven more. That is our goal, and I know I don't have it all right and I've never confessed that we do but I'd rather have conversations with people that disagree or that are throwing arrows. I've had people bring things up against me that I've never even met, like I don't even know, I couldn't pick them out in a lineup, but yet there's things that they're saying about me. Or, instead of saying hey, could you have a conversation, why do you do? Why do you have a horse trough for your baptisms? Why do you do immersion baptisms? I mean, just ask the questions instead of like just throwing arrows and darts. And supposedly it's not even friendly, flyer bro, it's. We just kill our own.
Speaker 2:And what people say on social media are the types of comments that people would never say to each other face to face. Isn't that wild?
Speaker 3:Ever Twitter, now X. I mean, that blew my mind when that first came out. I'm like I couldn't believe that people would do this and there's no retribution, there's no accountability. It's just say what you want, let the words fly and then that, of course, is why we have cancel culture and how we're just going to cancel you. So it's unbelievable how far we've gone in. The pendulum has really swung that direction, right.
Speaker 1:So if you're listening and critiquing up to this point and you're like I can't believe, lead times talking to that, greg burst, you know, and I've heard about like point cause, cause. President Keishnick brought it up a decade ago and I've been, I've had it out for like point for some time. I'm not really a counselor either, I'm a leadership guy. So I'm going to say stop it, Just stop doing that.
Speaker 3:It's not producing the righteousness of God, put the phone number up there and call me. Man, I had a conversation with a guy just recently and he dresses differently than I do and he's more like man my dad was. I mean, he wore everything. I mean he was like I grew up with the, the pyramids, and and and the Alb and all of that and and this guy and I are on different places, the way that, uh, you know, our ecclesiology is different. But after talking with him, the heart is the same and it turns out he wants to reach people for Jesus, just like we do. He's just doing it differently, and man and I celebrate that and and it was really cool because at the end of it he was like man, I didn't know that about you and I'm like, yeah, man, I love our liturgy. I'm not anti-liturgical, I'm not anti, any of that, I'm just pro-Jesus and whatever it takes, and this is how he's gifted me. So this is the direction that we've gone. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And we seem to have more hospitality when we think about populations outside the United States or outside of Europe. Right, we know in Africa or maybe South America, that a Lutheran worship service is going to look different than it does in Europe in a Anglo-European context.
Speaker 1:Well, jack, I'll say something slightly provocative. I don't know, I think that may be shifting. Oh, interesting. I think the method of some teaching in the LCMS way is not taking into account context like we once did, especially as it relates to worship and the role of the pastor, and I've talked to missionaries on the ground again, putting the best construction on all things. The approach is much more Roman right now it than it once was, and so there's still work to be done and conversations to be had.
Speaker 1:Uh but yeah, lcms international missions for many years was was just that, jack, like here. Here's our confession. We want to do whatever it takes and I hope we can get back to this point we want to do whatever it takes one to respect your culture. I see that you have many gods. You're definitely living in a pagan culture. Hello, united States of America. Right, the secularism that's rampant here, and are we going to run away from? Are we going to build a wall? I mean, richard Niebuhr's Christ in Culture is a really helpful handle today. I remember having that class back in the day and post-modernism and all of that like it is here on overdrive, and so what is? What is the perspective of the church. Is it against culture? Is it above culture? Uh, we're certainly not going to be, and this is the way we're walking through daniel right now I mean, daniel is a perfect example in a babylonian exile entering in there's.
Speaker 1:Is there a lot of things that are unjust in his story? Yeah, yeah, nebuchadnezzar was a bad dude. He's probably killed his family and now he's being forced to be a part of the government and the wise men there, but he had a Jeremiah 29. I mean, work for the welfare of that community. In their peace, you'll find your peace. And oh, by the way, this is one of the coolest points of the Daniel story. Oh, by the way, they're going to see and experience the love and power and mercy and might of God.
Speaker 1:I love the story of Daniel being able to. There's no mankind, nebuchadnezzar, who could let alone interpret your dream, let alone tell you what your dream is. This is an unrealistic expectation, but the God who knows all things has revealed what this dream means. The God who knows all things has revealed what this dream means, and it was out of his hospitable, immersive, yahweh-centered love that then, in the book of Acts guess who's there? The dispersion, those who had been sent out and came as non-Jewish Jews. Now those who follow Yahweh. They are there at Pentecost, at Mesopotamia, you know, and for Phrygia. These are places that had Babylonian influences back in the day. They came to know multigenerationally who Jesus was. So, anyway, anything to say about our perspective in culture today? Are we angry toward it or are we saying you know, satan's having a heyday and we're called to be salt and light in a dark and dying world, greg? Any observations there, bro, and other models even that you can think about? I wish we would get more excited and passionate and quote more scripture.
Speaker 3:I just wish we would do more of that. My gosh, yeah, no, I love that. And the whole thing about the Babylonian story that I love with Daniel is that Nebuchadnezzar confess, confesses God for who he is, he worships, he worships. He says there's no God greater. And there's this amazing confession that is in the book of Daniel by a pagan king, and I always use this. I'm going to be using it this November.
Speaker 3:My God can use a pagan king for his purposes, so get out of the way, don't worry about the president and who's going to be elected, and that's another podcast for another time.
Speaker 3:But the point is that God works, and that's the thing. Sometimes I feel like we get so wrapped up in our methodologies and ecclesiology that we don't leave room for the Holy Spirit of God to do his job. It turns out he's really good at his job and it's changing lives, it's opening eyes, it's those Cornelius moments. It's the Peter on the rooftop and him ordaining in the Holy Spirit, setting this amazing divine encounter where a whole family is going to understand the love of Jesus and be baptized. And yeah, it just blows my mind how we want to. We're the ones now, honestly, that kind of cancel culture.
Speaker 3:So we're going to try to huddle up in our little huddle, and it's getting littler and littler by the day, by the way and trying to take the way I do it to Africa, and every time I've been to Africa which has been several times the best expressions of the love of God have been in some amazing four and five-hour worship experiences, and it's nothing like you've experienced here, and and and I just man, I praise God every time I go there. I don't want to leave because they they get it Like they want to worship for two hours before even the word is spoken. They're worshiping Uh and we've, yeah, we try to put them into whatever box Roman, roman or whatever. We're trying to negate letting God do what he does so well in diversity and the ways that God works.
Speaker 3:Just in the book of Acts, there's so many different ways that he works. It's not like here's the secret sauce. There are so many ways that the Holy Spirit is working through Paul, through Barnabas, through Timothy, through Silas, through these amazing women like Lydia. We get a little obtuse in our thinking when we begin to say this is the only way. It has to be like this. I don't even know if Jesus could come to our churches.
Speaker 1:That's not the best thing, I'm going to say, yeah, I don't know man. Well, the Pharisees didn't like him right when we moved down the legalistic path. So if we miss on, I'd love to have someone just come on this podcast and honestly, biblically, confessionally, lutheran, like bring all of your lutheran into the conversation make an argument that it's not this order christology, missiology, ecclesiology that it's not that order, like I'd love to hear that. I don't think it exists in the Bible. The Bible is God's love letter to get all of his kids back. But right now we have inverted that order, haven't we? I mean, it's like we talk way more about our ecclesiology, just like how we do the things. Let's just focus on Jesus and let's focus on this. This appears to be the reformers like main call.
Speaker 3:There's things getting in the way of Jesus and the gospel of grace and mercy, theology which changes his ecclesiology, and it just man, yeah, that's a great. I would love to be on that podcast with you, if you, if you get somebody else that wants to argue, that cause, man, I'm telling you what it's Christology is. I mean, jesus, jesus, jesus, he's got a Trump. He's just got a Trump for you, baby Right.
Speaker 1:Christ for you All right. Well, we're coming down the homestretch. I'm coaching football these days in Arizona and I got to go get in the heat. Baby, it's super fun, I'm loving it, I'm loving it.
Speaker 1:But yeah, it is. It is. So, last question, We'll riff on this and we've kind of been hanging out here, but I love for longtime multi-generational LCMS leaders like yourself. We need a hopeful vision. As I look at where we're at right now, our theology is excellent. I don't hear a uniting, hopeful vision for more workers, more churches, healthier dialogue. I just would love to hear a hopeful vision for you for the LCMS. What should we look like in 2034, greg man?
Speaker 3:I go back to Jesus, I go back to the book of Acts, and the key to this whole thing, the key to this whole thing is love. How are we loving? It's Matthew 22. How are we loving the Lord, our God, with all our heart, mind, body, our soul. And then the second commandment is how do I love my neighbor? If we can't love within the LCMS, how are we going to expect anybody to want to be a part of it? You know what I'm saying? And beyond LCMS as a church, if we're known for what we're against instead of known for what we're for we should be, they'll know we are Christians by our love. It's in our old songs that we've had.
Speaker 3:And the challenge is how do we love, even in our differences? Man, let's have conversations. Let's do it face to face. Man, I love to get a face to face with someone. I can't get anybody face to face, man. I can't. I didn't get a phone call. I can't get a face to face with anybody. Man, I got people that I don't even know. It's just mind boggling. I would never do that way. I'd never do business that way.
Speaker 3:Why do we do that way in the church? And so, if we can get back to love, and then we can get back to our grace, theology, and that grace is God's grace to us, but guess what? It's our grace towards others as well. And so how do we extend as much grace as we've been given? How do we love the way God's loving us? And then that opens the door for conversations that can be honest and open and honestly.
Speaker 3:At the end of the day, we don't have to agree on everything, as long as we agree on the main thing, as long as we have Jesus at the front. He's the way, the truth and the life. None can come to the Father except through him, and that's our focal point to see people understand his love so that they're not going to hell. And honestly, for so long, guys, we've been fighting battles that the world doesn't care about. Within the LCMS, we're fighting these battles, these wars that are just keeping our eyes off the prize and off of what's really important. And I know it breaks the father's heart. I know the enemy, the devil, is just looking at us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, practically speaking, what could a church body do to reflect that, to have that more loving posture towards each other?
Speaker 3:Man, I'll tell you what we're doing. You know, one thing that hit me so hard and we did it, we began it last week is I just felt like you know, if God's called me to be an evangelist, I need to teach others how to share the love of Jesus. So what I did is two weeks ago, I said on Sunday. I said hey, I got a, there's a signup sheet, I'm only taking 10 people and 10 people. What we're going to do is I'm going to spend some time with you and teach you how to talk to somebody about Jesus, which you know isn't hard, right, but some people it's more difficult than others. And then we're going to go downtown and we're going to go down there and we're going to take a cooler on wheels full of water and drinks, and we're just going to go down there and we're going to talk to complete strangers and just say, hey, can I pray for you? Hey, would you like some cold water? And you know, by the way, we're down here wanting to pray with people and share the love of Jesus.
Speaker 3:And that bro, that right, there has been a shifting game changer. I didn't know if anybody would even sign up on the list. I only had 10 blanks on this so not more could sign up. We had people sign underneath it. I said you're not going, just 10, just 10. But then the 10 went out and we went out and we had some amazing conversations and we weren't forcing people over their head with hitting them with the Bible. We weren't using a megaphone, we were just walking and talking to people that we engaged in. Some were homeless, Some were in our city. We have a lot of people that are coming here for vacations and it was crazy and amazing.
Speaker 3:And we got to pray with so many people and it just crazy and amazing. And we got to pray with so many people and it just blows my mind. People want to be loved and they want to know the love of Jesus. We didn't get cussed at, we didn't get flipped off. We had some people that said you know, we're good, everything's going great, we're like amen, but it's doing what we see. That's happening in the Bible and being who Jesus was and it's taking that book of Acts and going man. That's still happening today.
Speaker 3:We still pray for people, for healing man. We still believe God's healing mental illness spiritually. He's healing people spiritually. We believe he's healing people physically and we're seeing him do it. And so when you're real about that and you're taking that to the streets and then others in our church body can say, hey, listen, man, you might not be there yet, you might not be one of the 10, but listen, you can pray for us as we go out. This last Sunday I did it again. I said I'm going to take 10 more people and we did. We had 11 people sign up and so I'm just going to keep doing that because you know it's it's, it's gotta be, I've gotta be an example and I've gotta be doing what I'm expressing and telling and asking my church to do and to be, which is just the hands and feet of Jesus.
Speaker 1:Greg, I've, uh, I've had so much fun learning with you today. Uh, greg is also a part of a of a pastor's group that gets together the golf now, uh, with Zach Zender, and I really treasure that time, those days, with you, and I'm praying for you and Lake Point, and I'm just praying for unity big time. And that love 1 Corinthians 13, that love would be patient and kind and putting the best construction on all people, all churches. And I say this, you know, maybe not every podcast, but if you're listening and you're like, have you heard Greg, reach out to Greg. Greg, you want to give your cell phone?
Speaker 1:Yeah absolutely so good. This is lead time. We're striving to set up conversations with diverse leaders like Greg, in diverse contexts, with the hope that we would unite around our common confession, as Jesus is Lord. Unite, if you're a leader, around our common Lutheran confessions and then say, hey, I'm going to be, I'm going to be praying for you, your unique context, your unique personality, and God's given you an awesome personality, an awesome motor, bro. Uh, for those of you who aren't, I got, I got one more. I got one more question Like what do you do for self-care to maintain Cause? I'm not going to throw out your like age, but you are older than I am and if people are looking at this, you don't. You don't look as old as you actually are, right, so you're like the Holy Spirit. The joy of the Lord is your strength. So, yeah, give some words of wisdom on self-care.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, man, I will say this this is one thing. Early on that I had some great mentors speak into my life and you can't be that dead leader running and I hit a wall more than once. You know, I promised my wife at the beginning I said it's going to take everything we got for the first year. I mean, we're not going to take a vacation, we're just going to give, give, give, we're going to do, do, do, we're going to do. And we did it. And two years later she said I thought it was going to be a year and we had some honest conversations and, man, this Bible dude, I have got to have regular time with Jesus. I have to be in the Word of God.
Speaker 3:And then what's been happening lately, which I absolutely love, is I wake up in the quiet hour and I won't tell you what time that is, but I'm up pretty early and I'm just spending time in prayer, just just. That's my rejuvenation. Those are the basics. Those two are necessities. That's that's kept me alive. I tell people all the time the word of God has kept me alive. There are so many crazy things that I could tell you about that are going on right now that I won't. But God's word is solid and it's my nourishment, it's my bread, I'm drinking it, I'm nourished on it and it's keeping me strong. The second thing I do is physical vitality. We believe in the bucket. So physical vitality, mental vitality, spiritual vitality, and so we. I'm in the gym, I love the gym, but we also love the lake. We live in the lake community and so surfing is one of my favorite reliefs. And getting out there and surfing behind a boat and it's just been so, having fun with that and just just recognizing that man, it's not a sin. In fact, I think it's opposite. I think it's sinful if pastors are not going out there and getting some some alone time.
Speaker 3:Sabbath rest You've got to have Sabbath too. It's a whole nother deal. Fridays are my Sabbath. I'm still not mastered Sabbath, but I'm getting better on it and I have people around me that are challenging me on it and they're like don't pick up your phone, Don't work, don't do this, don't do that, just go have some time with the Lord alone. Those are quickies, those are the no-brainers. Man, the Word of God in prayer. You have to have time for that. I would say, hey, look at your screen time and then tally up how much time you've been in the Word of God in prayer and see how that reconciles. That'll challenge you.
Speaker 1:That will, man. This has been so good. Sharing is caring, like subscribe, comment, whatever it is you take in lead time, and whether it's on YouTube or Spotify, and I pray this conversation just gave you a lot of joy and not anger.
Speaker 2:It gave me joy yeah, good.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, joy is Jesus, and we talked about Jesus an awful lot in his mission. So that is why, greg, you're a gift to me, a good friend, and Jack, wonderful work, as always. This is lead time. We'll see you next week. Great job, love you guys.
Speaker 2:Peace. God bless guys. Love you too buddy.