Lead Time
Lead Time
Does the LCMS Even Need New Churches?! | Pastor Ted Doering
Pastor Ted Doering discusses the critical need for church planting and revitalization within growing communities in this episode. He emphasizes the importance of hospitality, adaptability through challenging times, and unity within the LCMS, offering insights and encouragement for listeners engaged in church leadership and discipleship.
• Exploring the need for new churches alongside revitalizing existing ones
• Sociological factors informing why new believers are drawn to church plants
• The role of hospitality in creating inviting worship experiences
• Challenges and adaptations during the COVID-19 pandemic
• Building supportive networks among church leaders
• Emphasizing diverse worship styles while focusing on Jesus’ message
• Cultivating prayer and collaboration within the LCMS community
• Key traits of effective church planters and steps for launching new ministries
Breaking down faith, culture & big questions - a mix of humor with real spiritual growth.
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This is Lead Time.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Lead Time, tim Allman. Here, jack Kauberg, pray for him. He's just a little under the weather. He'll be back next time, but today I get the privilege of hanging out with pastor a brother I've respected from afar for some time, pastor Ted Deering. Let me tell you about Ted. He's a pastor and author committed to connecting people to the good news of Jesus. Sounds like that should be the heading for every pastor. But in 2015, he was called the Plant Narrative Church in Round Rock, texas, where he still serves today. So good, almost a decade of leadership there.
Speaker 2:So, through the Harvest Partnership Network, his dad. I've talked to his dad, al, and your dad and I and the Christ Greenfield family we interlock because Al was a vicar down here a long, a long time ago. He's, he's told the Christ Greenfield story in a way that I had never heard it before and you're blessed, ted, to have an awesome, awesome dad. I know you know that. But through the Harvest Partnership, ted works alongside other pastors and church leaders to multiply disciples, to expand God's kingdom, to plant more churches, yes and amen. He's the co-author of a book called Myth of the Millennial with his wife, chelsea, and also the author of Walking Together Simple Steps for Discipleship, a practical guide to deepening our faith. Walk with Jesus. How are you doing today, ted? Thanks for hanging out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm doing good. It's good to be here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're going to have a good time. So some people say, in the LCMS, we don't need more churches, we don't need more churches. What do you say to that? Why does the LCMS today need to plant more churches? Especially, though, since we have many who are struggling to stay alive? Why would we want to plant as well as revitalize, ted?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think you nailed it there at the end. It's a both and it's not an either or, and part of it is that I mean there are a lot of levels that we need to be planting more churches because there are communities that need it, there are places that need revitalization, but in the place where I do ministry around Rock, texas, we have a church here in the area that every three years they do a demographic study of all the churches, so they'll send an email out and get all the churches and the questions they ask are if you were full up on Sunday every service and weekend your regular worship, if you were full up, every seat was filled, what would that number be? And so they take that number, and that number in 2019 was 28,000, just around 28,000. If everyone showed up, filled your, you know, packed out your sanctuaries the population of Round Rock at that time was 177,000. And so we could be planting churches, you know, once a month, and still not be catching up. And so some of it is where you are that looking and saying we need to plant churches, just because parts of our country are expanding, and where you guys are in Arizona it's like that, where people are coming in and moving and things are exploding. And that's actually I mean historically as the LCMS that's who we are is that we would see communities grow and we plant churches there. And you even look at our deep part of our history as an immigrant-based church, that's what we were doing. We were planting churches where people were, where the growth was happening.
Speaker 3:So I think a big part of church planting is based around just a statistical need to say this is where we are and where we need to be. But also there is something about planting a church that brings in people who normally wouldn't go to church, and that's not to say that people aren't going to go to an established congregation, but it just is. What kind of happens? I've experienced it. I have friends who have experienced it. It's it's not a battle against established churches and church plants, and I think that's what often happens is people go. Well, you know, let's one is better than the other. That's just not true. It's just two styles of ministry and it's part of what we do as Christians. It's you know why do we study the missionary journeys of Paul? It's because he's going around planting churches and it doesn't negate the need for revitalization. Those are both things that should be happening at the same time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Amen. Think sociologically here. For me, what is it about a new church that may be more inviting to a new believer in Jesus? I have some thoughts there. But in your research too, have you seen why new often attracts new believers?
Speaker 3:Part of it is a cultural thing that established churches over time build a culture that could be bad, but oftentimes it's good. But people walk into an established culture and it's harder to enter into. It doesn't. Again, it doesn't necessitate that that culture is bad. It just means sometimes that lower and lower is not the right word Sometimes that newer culture, people feel like they're getting in at the ground floor.
Speaker 3:They feel like, oh, everyone's new to this thing, Everyone's. You know, we're all learning what's happening here and in church plants. Because of that newer feeling, because of the newness of people being present, I think there's an opportunity to teach things that you wouldn't normally teach. And I think, and maybe not normally but like we would take, you know, as we go through our weekly liturgy, especially as we started, we would slow down to explain what is confession, absolution, what is the Apostles Creed. You know why do we do that? And we would have these moments of, you know, 30 seconds to two minutes of education as we went along, and it gives people some access to what's happening, to what's happening, and I think there's a real blessing and a new start that that gives you almost have permission to do that because everyone's like, oh, this is new, so we're all walking along in it.
Speaker 2:I think that's great. I think explaining the liturgy whether it's more contemporary, we still were Lutherans, we have. We have liturgy explaining it is just hospitable, whether you're a long time church or new, like we're going to have more people just this. Last week I shook this. It's kind of mind mind blowing. I shook the hands of close to a dozen. I don't get to shake everybody's hand.
Speaker 2:You know they're coming out different doors et cetera, which is a bummer, I don't but I personally connected with a dozen new faces, people that I never I may not always remember names, but I definitely humans remember faces. I have never seen you before. So and I've often left wondering did we explain things well enough or did we just assume? You know, and it was in both our traditional and contemporary spaces we're constantly and it's not for me as a leader, I'm not the only one that's always leading, I may just do the message but the other parts of were we hospitable and inviting people in? Because I have no idea if this is this person's first time in a worship experience or they're a lifer in the LCMS, no idea. So I think liturgical hospitality is something we have to really be thinking about in established or newer churches. Anything more there, ted.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think there is a lot of excitement too, because what you get is not only are you explaining it to new folks, but your lifelong Christians who are helping you plant. They're getting to experience it through a you plant, they're getting to experience it through a new lens, they're getting to learn about those things. And you have a lot of discussion around, like you mentioned, hospitality. So we as a church decided early on we do pour over coffee, which seems you know you look and go. Oh well, you know you coffee snobs. Part of it was we let baristas make that decision. That was like off my plate, how do we want to handle coffee? And they said this is what we're going to do. But we have people do pour over, and so they do pour over coffee and then it goes into a pitcher and urn and people. But the point was, and what they brought to us was at this point you are stopping to get coffee. It's not just, oh, I'm getting my morning coffee, it's, there's a physical person standing there making the coffee. So you have a hospitality moment. And so we asked that question, not because it was overly spiritualized, but because we had never made coffee before as a church. It wasn't that there was this deep meaning behind it. It was just like, well, we want this to be something we do, and so that has been a part of what we've done for the past nine years because we wanted a touch point and we only had that conversation because we had never done it before. So you come into some of these things as a church that you're just forced into asking questions because you've never done it before.
Speaker 3:Our story at Narrative is that we launched and met in a middle school and so we launched in 2015. And the first five years it was really cool. We saw growth, we saw connection, we saw all these things happening. And then COVID hits and the blessing was we had built relationships with the custodians at the school and they call us. It was spring break of 2020. They called us and said, hey, we don't know if we're coming back, and the school had let us build a little shed in their commons where we stored all our stuff. They're like if you need stuff, come get it. And so my brother, who's my teammate in ministry, he and I drive our trucks up there and we go this, not that, and we just pull things out. And luckily, we had a relationship with a local brewery and we called them. We said, hey, can we use y'all's beer garden for the next? We thought three weeks, right. So you know, for the next three weeks, two weeks to stop the spread, that's right.
Speaker 2:Right, exactly, and then we'll be done.
Speaker 3:We spent 18 months meeting in an outdoor beer garden, which, as Lutherans, everyone's like. Tell us that story. How do you make that happen?
Speaker 3:And I'm like, first have a pandemic and second, live in a place where it is incredibly expensive to rent anything, because we looked we tried, and what we learned, though in that moment was part of church planting is you are forced to roll with some punches that established churches may not have. Now, that's not saying there aren't punches that come for established churches, that's not what I'm saying. But to say I don't have a physical facility, we are a portable church right now since we started, and so, with that purpose, it's caused us to be light on our feet, and so, with that purpose, it's caused us to be light on our feet, and so when those things happen, it just has become one of our cultural themes in our church is that we roll with what we have, we do with what we have, and so you know, from coffee to where we're worshiping, to how that happens, has been that process of we encounter it and we just have to run with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's such a gift. Where do you worship now?
Speaker 3:So now? So after the beer garden, the school opened back up and we were there for about another year. And then the Texas district built a new office, the Mission Support Center, and they built a meeting space, a chapel space, into it. And so since almost it was a year last month that we've now spent worshiping in the chapel space at the district office and that's been a huge blessing. It was a mile north of the school we were meeting in. It's on a thoroughfare that's a little bit more able to be seen from the road as opposed to kind of this school we were in was buried pretty deep in neighborhood.
Speaker 3:But what's really cool is getting to, honestly, for us is like getting to have a partnership with the district in terms of the people who work in the office, like getting to to just thank them for their work. You know you have all these district folks who work so hard and a lot of times it's behind the scenes and so we get a chance to say thank you and take care of what's going on. And it's also nice to have access. During the week we had been in a place where it's like we show up, we set up, we tear down, we leave and now to have a space where we can do a little bit more has been a huge blessing. So you don't have to set up anymore your stuff is set up, you do.
Speaker 3:Well, we still have some set up that we do. But what's really nice is if we need to duck in on a Saturday to do it. So we had our kids Christmas program this Sunday. So we had our setup and tear down crew showed up on Saturday and we got to set it all up. We're in the school. We had a five hour window on Sundays to do all of that and now we had a chance we could come in, set everything up on Sunday or on Saturday so that when the kids came in on Sunday it wasn't like, you know, our hair's on fire. We're not only trying to get the kids to, you know, like learn their places and be in spaces, but, you know, in their places and be in spaces, but, you know, also set up the whole sound system. It was like, okay, it's all ready to go, and that was a huge blessing and that's just been awesome.
Speaker 2:So good, so grateful for you. And you've persevered. You've made it to. We never make it, but you've walked through one of the hardest seasons, especially for not just young pastors but young ministries through COVID man. So yeah, big time kudos. I know it's a lot, a lot of work. What are the big? While I'm on that, what are the biggest two or three kind of lessons the Lord taught you in leading through COVID.
Speaker 3:Man, I mean a lot of it was what's the priorities? It's very easy to get lost in certain aspects of ministry, but when it was COVID and it was like everything else was taken away and for us, even where we worshiped was taken away and the brewery was such a blessing, like they didn't charge us, they let us use the space for free for a year and a half, but that meant sometimes they were in the midst of expanding so they didn't have a covering. So if it was raining or it looked like rain on Friday or Saturday, we're sending out mass emails going, hey, we're all online this week. Getting a call on a Saturday morning from the taproom guys going, oh, by the way, we scheduled a wedding Sunday morning. And so we're sending out emails going, hey, there's something scheduled at the beer garden, so we can't meet there this week. And so you learn a lot of like the importance and honestly being thankful for that, and so when we were, now that we're in the chapel in the Mission Support Center, like it's, so it's just such a blessing to sit back and see that. One of the great things too, that I keep learning and this is being a part of the Harvest Partnership and having a relationship with other church planters. I have some good friends in the Houston area, mark and Laura Pulliam, and they planted Lazarus Church there and one of the things they say that's really been a blessing to me is faithfulness begets fruitfulness. So COVID hits and it would be really easy to go okay, let's try something new every week, because what's working, what's not and you were forced to, you know, everyone was forced to figure it all out but to find a place of saying, hey, we're going to do what we do and we're just going to keep going to say, hey, we, god's called us here, so we're going to meet together for worship, for word, for sacrament, for um, for fellowship, the best we can, and we're going to trust that he's going to take care of us and we're going to trust that our faithfulness is actually Him proving His faithfulness. It's not about oh, look at how faithful I am, lord. It's Him saying listen, keep doing what I've called you to do and watch how I give fruit. Watch how I, you know, give fruit.
Speaker 3:A second big lesson I mean just the Harvest Partnership in general. So the quick story of the Harvest Partnership is as we planted, my dad's church is about three hours east of us and we planted in 2015 and he and I are having all these conversations and he ends up at a district convention sitting in a church planting seminar with another pastor and they're literally the neighboring two towns. They're like we should plant a church together. So they plant a church with Pastor Seth Kunze, who's just an incredible guy, and they go we should keep doing this. And so they, by that point in 2020, they were two church plants in with a third on the way, and they were getting together in North Houston just at a coffee shop once a week, once every other week.
Speaker 3:Well, covid hits, they start going on Zoom. Well, I get a call from dad. He's like you should hop on this Zoom call with us. So I started hopping on the Zoom call. Well, then I'm calling some of the church planners. I know go, hey, you guys should hop on this Zoom call.
Speaker 3:Next thing I know, as the Harvest Partnership starts forming from upfront in announcements at my dad's church, he's going yeah, and we've got this great church planning partnership and we got these two churches in, you know, in North Houston and there's even a church in Austin, like we were brought into it without ever, like, you know a formal process he just announced here. You are Cool, but what COVID did was it brought us all together and out of everything that happens in the harvest partnership, one of the best pieces is you have these sending church pastors who have a goal of saying no church planter left alone, because it's easy to get lonely, to be like I'm the only one doing this, and they really did a good job of caring and bringing everyone together and COVID coalesced that in a way. I don't know if that would have happened in the same timeframe that it actually did, so that was probably the other biggest lesson we took out of COVID.
Speaker 2:Well, crisis inspires innovation and connection, deeper connection. It's as if Jesus knew something when he said in this world, you will have trouble. Take heart, I've overcome the world. I'm right there with you and I'm mobilizing you in the midst of a chaotic, broken, fallen world. You don't even need to be afraid of what you're going to say. I'm going to give you my Holy Spirit. Who's going to remind you of all the things I've said, to bring you back to me? Who is your center, your teacher, the lover of your soul, your Lord and friend? So this is so good. We need more churches.
Speaker 2:Today, let's talk about types of churches that we plant. I think a lot of times in the conversation, especially in the LCMS today, it's like well, you're church planting. You're obviously going to be the modern, where you're going to forsake the liturgy. You're going to do all these things, you know, to kind of compromise on our Lutheran theology, and I think nothing could be further from the truth. So what types of churches do you think we need to plant, ted? How do you frame that up?
Speaker 3:My answer to that is yes In terms of saying that up. My answer to that is yes In terms of saying. In fact, I would argue we go to a false dichotomy of worship style. Yeah, instead of saying the types of church we need to plant are churches that seek to connect the saints to a deeper relationship with Christ and the disconnected to him. And if a church has that passion, I think that's. Those are the types of churches we need to be planting. Our churches that say you know, we, we do this and it's that's our temptation as humans is. We are, we struggle in tension, and so the argument has become how you worship and how? I think there are churches and there's.
Speaker 3:There's a famous quote that a lot of church plants use, which is different churches reach different people. I know that there are people that have come to narrative for one Sunday and it's not for them Like they. They come in and they go. This is, this is not what I'm looking for. But you know what, if they talk to me and share that with me, I can direct them to churches around us that have you know that are LCMS churches I have relationships with the pastors in the area are sending church Faith Lutheran in Georgetown. I mean just an incredible church that if people are looking to connect, I can connect there. But there's churches in Round Rock and in Wahlberg, just North of us, and Pflugerville and Austin and all over the place, and to me the struggle is not is not the style of worship, because I know there are people that will walk in to a traditional liturgical service and we'll say, wow, I'm, you, know this, this connects. So let's, let's plant churches like that. But I know there's.
Speaker 3:There was one guy along the way that joined our church for several years. That it was because I didn't tell him he needed to take his hat off in worship. Like he specifically said that he was an unbeliever. He came because his, his wife, wanted to come, but he was there consistently and he and I are having coffee and and talking about all this stuff. And he told me he's like if you had told me to take my hat off, I decided I was never coming back. And to me he's like if you had told me to take my hat off, I decided I was never coming back.
Speaker 3:And to me that's the point of saying we need to be planting churches, just where churches need to be planted, and it's looking at the culture that surrounds it to say what kind of church does this culture need, this culture need? And I do think we should look and say we should always be looking at what we're doing and making sure, as we plant churches, that we are working to be who we are as LCMS Lutherans. That as we plant, we say, hey, this is who we want to be, this is who we said we want to be, who we want to be, this is who we said we want to be. But we shouldn't limit ourselves to saying the style of worship is what creates our church. No, our confession creates our church. Jesus creates our church.
Speaker 3:And so I think there's so much room for different types of churches because it's going to reach different types of people, and that's the goal. The goal isn't because it's going to reach different types of people, and that's the goal. The goal isn't you know, how cool is our church? The goal is saying man, this family walked in and they hadn't been a part of a church for 10 years and they heard the gospel this morning and that's changing their lives. And that, to me, is why we should be planting churches, and that's maybe the higher theoretical, spiritual idea. And part of it, too, is looking and saying there are just places that need churches. You know, you look at for us, williamson County here in Texas is consistently on the fastest growing counties or fastest growing cities in the US, so we just need more churches. There are other places where maybe they need one church or two churches and maybe you're not planting as many. But you're looking to say, how are we connecting with disconnected people? And it's finding those places where churches need to be.
Speaker 2:I think some of our struggles talking to one another in the synod is way more sociological, cultural, than it is theological. And then we, we, we develop these divides around liturgy styles et cetera. But I think I think we're just trying to wrap our heads around. Man, I am in a very different place than you brother or sister are and size kind of worldview perspective I think of a lot of places in the Midwest. It's still a very churched culture, still a very churched culture, like when, when we're talking about a post-Christian, secular, whatever, like there's most everybody here. I look around, most everybody goes to church or there's at least empty churches around here where people, if they wanted to go, could find, could find a home.
Speaker 2:Our struggle in our two contexts, in the Austin area and the Phoenix area, like we're there's not even you do that survey. You know you talk about churches. Sending out a survey like it would be so ridiculously in proportionate to the amount of churches that we have. Like the Phoenix area I'm going to throw out it's probably five to 10% are actively every single week in a local church. So you've got 90 people. And then you were not even talking about the inconsistency of weekly worship. We've gone from pretty much every week to one out of four.
Speaker 2:My average worshiper is so I'm, I'm, we worship close to a thousand, but there's like three to 4,000 who are like in our orbit, calling us their church.
Speaker 3:Like. What does that even mean? It's my church. If everybody showed up on a week.
Speaker 2:I'd be yeah, if everybody showed up, we'd be up a creek, parking, et cetera. So, like our contexts are very, very different and we're just trying to wrap our heads around that. So this should lead to a lot more compassion and care as we kind of talk about the way the church functions in 2024. That's why we're trying to have in 2025, why we're having these conversations Anything more to add to the diverse context conversation.
Speaker 3:Ted. Well, and going off what you just said, I think because I see it in my own life too there is a temptation and there is a spiritual attack that the enemy uses against us. That's like, hey, let's use some friendly fire. And I think that's a lot of what we're experiencing right now, as a church body is saying we're just so ready to attack each other and there's so much potential right now that what I'm experiencing, what I see other people experiencing, is people who are looking and hungering for a church that is going to tell them Jesus died for you, period.
Speaker 3:Right To say like, hey, this is the good news of the gospel, is that when you couldn't, he did. That's right, and to me, that's can we plant more churches like that? And if you do that in a cassock and surplus and with incense, that's awesome. If you do that in jeans and a collared shirt, awesome, because the point is the message. The point is people being connected to Jesus, and so that, for me, is who you are, who God's built you to be, the context he's put you in. That tells you what kind of church to plant. Amen, and that's where it grows.
Speaker 2:Well, we've talked a lot about church planting. I found this kind of provocative. I don't know where I read it. And then I looked at the scriptures and I'm like I think that's true. It's funny, sometimes I forget more than I remember. Right, I've read and done some, but Jesus here's the point Jesus never said to go plant churches. Isn't that funny? Like right before he ascends, go and plant churches. That plant churches. You know, I think a lot of times as church leaders we go down. It's got to be about a new church. No, no, no. He said to make disciples. He said to make apprentices of the work, word and way of Jesus. So how does discipleship and I've been synonymous with when we talk discipleship apprenticed by Jesus, like the word, the work, the way of Jesus? This is what discipleship is, it's apprenticeship. So how does discipleship, apprenticeship, interconnect with church planning in your mind, ted?
Speaker 3:You know it is one of the key pieces. And I'll say one thing I, as I look at narrative and I say things we need to grow in, is saying how do we build out an intentional discipleship process? And to me, the church has always done discipleship. It just looks different in different places and the temptation is to say I want to plant a church and see the explosive growth, to see the establishment of all those things, to say I'm just going to keep planting more churches. All of those are good things, to say hey, that's more people connected. But what we have to remember is that in planting churches and leading churches, that doesn't happen in a vacuum of here's my organization, the church, because as you plant, as you lead a church, all of those things people are experiencing life. And what discipleship is is it is giving people the toolbox that as they walk through life, they see the work of Jesus in their lives, amen. And so when it comes to church planting, their lives, and so when it comes to church planting, it can be very easy to get caught up in the needs of planting. We need a facility, we need to grow, we need all of those things. What discipleship gives us is it gives us a deep breath to remember. You know, I love how Paul says it and I'm going to mix up a Paulson Paul here because I don't have it in front of me. But you know, one waters, one planted one, you know God brings the growth. And what discipleship does is it removes us to say listen, you are not standing by the tree forcing it to grow fruit, you're planting a seed or you're watering. And discipleship is saying listen, that's your job. It's this mix of the depth of sanctification, like you said, of that apprenticeship of Jesus, of that life, growth and faith. And it's also a freedom that says and I don't have to force it to happen. And it's saying I dig, you know, I, I do what Jesus tells me to do. I show up and I am a part of a church, I'm um receive the gifts he gives me and I get to live in his grace and I grow in that day by day and I see that day by day. And so what discipleship does is it is that foundational piece to say I can release what is God's to God's and I get to trust in what he's given me. And so discipleship becomes that place where people grow in saying we do the good work, but God's the one who brings the growth. So it doesn't give us excuses to stop and it doesn't give us excuses to push ourselves and own the issues. Instead, it brings us into a tension of saying this is where I am. It brings us into attention, of saying this is where I am. And, uh, I mean I, uh, I was talking with some friends getting ready for this podcast just different church planters and different folks and, um, a buddy of mine, phil.
Speaker 3:As I was talking to him, he gave me you know, we're talking about what what does it take to be a church planter? Um, because it's just a different style of ministry, and he said something that was so brilliant. He said you have to embrace simplicity and to look, and he referenced Luke 10, where Jesus sends out the 72 and he's like awesome, don't take this, don't take this, don't take this, don't take this. And, as a church plant, take this, don't take this, don't take this. And as a church plant, you're forced into not taking things. A majority of the time you don't have a. You know you don't have a building, so, okay, you're not taking that a majority of the time. You know you don't have a built out culture. Okay, don't take that. And so it becomes this place of looking and saying all right, I am going to embrace the simplicity of what's around me and lean into what has God given me to to work with and, in discipleship, embracing that simplicity I loved.
Speaker 3:We had a, our leadership team had a, a meeting a couple of years ago. You know, a Saturday, just sit down, let's talk where, where are we going, what's next? And we brought in someone to help guide us through that process and they said if you could explain narrative in a few words, what would it be? And our treasurer nailed it. He goes simple, relational gospel centered. And that has become our core of who we are saying simple, relational gospel centered. And so that's what discipleship ends up being for us is looking and saying this is not complicated, it's built on relationship within the body of Christ and it's centered around what Jesus has done for us. And so discipleship builds that core so that when you encounter the problems of whatever it may be, you're running to Christ instead of yourself.
Speaker 2:What a cool story. I want to be a part of narrative man. If you're in the house, you got to go to narrative. This is great. This is great, simple, relational, jesus-centered, that appears to be the type of disciple and then churches that multiplied very. Let's keep the main thing, the main thing. This is about the person and work of Jesus and getting his gospel into as many ears and hearts as possible by his spirit's power. And then it's all about relationship, how well we love and care, see how they love one another, and that is winsome to the community. And then we're just going to go on the long path, the long and narrow path of learning the rhythms of Jesus, the way he lived life, the way his life was saturated in Sabbath and solitude and prayer and deep need for community, and his life then, and then our life together as the Holy Spirit filled people of God, then is the witness to the world. There's a freedom in that. Luther said a lot about that Paul did too. There's a freedom in that. Luther said a lot about that Paul did too. There's a freedom in that. There's a winsomeness in that. There's a lovely dimension to that. There's not fear.
Speaker 2:I was, as you were, kind of going on the open or closed right. A lot of times in our narrative as church leaders we've got to do and we're just there's so much anxiety and fear desiring to control. You know my way, the pride kind of wins the day. I want to live with the open hand of faith. I hold nothing. I hold nothing but the God who holds me. Like everything is freedom, there's permission, there's release, there's equipping, there's empowering, there's sending. That's a part of that sort of a culture. Like I want to be connected to a church body. That's like that, ted, anything more there.
Speaker 3:Well, when you say sending, that's been a huge thing for me is that when planting churches, it also affects the sending churches. That's it and that's what's really neat to watch. You know, I think about the story we had with faith and the connections our sending church, the connections we've had there over the years. I think of the Harvest Partnership churches, the sending churches that have learned and like. So a really cool story is the president of Christ the King, where my dad's been the senior pastor for 37 years now, proving how old I'm getting is. His president is one of my good buddies from middle school and high school, which is just really neat to see and hearing the stories dad tells of these leaders within his church and when they've brought up church planting. And now there's, there is a, as they've lived in it, there is now you know your lay folks are saying, well, yeah, this is what we do. We plant churches, this is how we do it, that, as they've had creative moments in how are we going to plant, who are we going to call, and to hear the stories of of my buddy growing up and how he's walked alongside that as he's been on the board for several years, and neat moments of.
Speaker 3:So Mark and Laura Pulliam I'll pick on them again when they planted, they built this idea of short-term teams. So it was Christ the King in Kingwood and Resurrection in Spring helped plant their church Lazarus. And they came to these two churches and said, hey, we don't need everyone to be on the launch team, but we need some people who will commit six weeks joining us to basically prime the pump. And so they would come and they would be greeters or in the band or teaching Sunday school. And what's really neat is it builds this unity among churches because one your pastor knows hey, you're going to be gone for me. Tell you about this cool stuff we've been doing at this mission start and so you get this ground for cross-pollination.
Speaker 3:And, mark and Laura, this idea was so brilliant. You know, it's one of those things like I wish I had had that idea. But this idea of saying you do these short-term teams that go and serve, but then they come back and they're telling the story of church planting and so it starts getting built into the DNA of the congregation as a whole, because it's easy, I think, for us as pastors and professional church workers, to talk about these things and get excited about these things, but this is a body of Christ thing, this is all of us together, and so to give that away is incredible and I think it builds on what you were saying of the planting and the sending. There is benefits to both sides. There is benefits to the whole body of Christ.
Speaker 2:Hey, the early church didn't have individual churches. It's like Paul is trying to appeal to this, like I'm nothing, like I'm the worst, I'm the chief of sinners, like if you're going to have the St Paul's church, like that would sound so weird. And Luther kind of had the same dynamic Don't call yourselves Lutheran, call yourselves Christians. Did Luther die for you? This is ridiculous, you know. So in the early church there was just a church in Corinth. Paul wrote a letter. There was a church in Rome, and there was all different types of expressions, I'm sure.
Speaker 2:And was it messy? Was there heresy that they're working through? Obviously, council of Nicaea, for goodness sake, you know. But still it was just the church, the expression of the body of Christ there in that location. And so we can't control the wider church. But in the LCMS, could we start to see ourselves as one united church? We're here, a variety of different expressions, but man and you kind of hinted at this. If that's kind of your style, that's where you like. I know that brother, I respect that brother. We are one in the gospel, on the same mission together. This is where we need to go on the LCMS. Anything more there, ted.
Speaker 3:Well, what I would say is I'm, we're a baseball family. I mean, that's, that's been our sport, that's been who we are. And so, like I get into baseball analogies and like I think, like it's our pitch, like this, this time period in the history of our country, this is our pitch. Like people are wanting to have discussions about faith, they're deconstructing their faith. Wanting to have discussions about faith, they're deconstructing their faith. And we are a church body. That's central to our theology is a. Two kinds of righteousness is a you know, hidden and revealed God is the depth of the gospel that we, when we meet people and talk to them who don't know the Lord, we don't have to feel the guilt of saying, oh, I didn't make that person become a Christian because we go no, no, no. Like that's the Spirit's job. I just show up in my vocation and do my thing. And I'm worried that we're like not only are we just watching the pitch, like we're still in the dugout, even though it's our turn to bat, because we're arguing with our teammates, and what I've been blessed to see is that there is potential for us, as a church body, to step up together. Facts our area, like the LCMS church, is like we're actually one body. We're just meeting in different places, like you were just saying. And I think if we live in a fear, if we live in a place that says we are constantly worried something's going to go wrong, then, yeah, we're just going to keep arguing. But if we can start coming together and one thing that's been a huge benefit is starting in prayer To just say, if we can start praying together for each other, for our churches, for our communities, and saying, lord, lead us where you need us to go there's so much excitement for me in that. There's so much excitement for me in that to say let's come together, let's build relationship with each other as churches and grow into what is ahead of us.
Speaker 3:And what I've learned more and more as a church planter is there are things that only established church planter or established church pastors can teach me. Whether it was the pastor of faith, the two guys who were the pastors here when I came in Walt Poland and John Selly I spent a year, basically my first year out of seminary. I was an associate pastor with the plan to plant Like that was always the plan, but I got to spend a year with them and learn from Walt and John and all these incredible things. And there are things that, as a church planter, I can help you understand that as an established pastor like listen, I can set up and tear down a sound system now, because I had to learn that, you know I.
Speaker 3:There are things that you just have to work, because we're all in these different places and we can encourage and build each other up and work together and we're going to learn from each other. And one of the things that we joke about as church planters is like listen, we'll steal that from you, like just no shame, you did it, but we're taking it because it worked and and so we let's, let's, steal the best parts of you know church, our organizations, from each other for the sake of the gospel, for, for that process and man, that, just that gets me going If we as a church body can start saying listen, let's, let's do this together again.
Speaker 2:You know it can exist at the same time is anger and prayer. Like if I, if I sit down and pray with someone, for over with someone, whether they have a difference of opinion regarding this, that or the other, like I can't be angry at them when I bring them and we go before the throne room of Almighty God on behalf of those who are found, to reach those who are lost. So I just affirm what you said we got to start praying with and for one another more intentionally and then we need to learn with one another the posture of humility. It takes all kinds of churches to reach all kinds of people. I have so many more questions. We're not done yet, but the next 15 minutes or so we're going to land it.
Speaker 2:So, with that in mind, you mentioned three, or I'm going to ask three different characteristics that you look for in planters. You mentioned embracing simplicity. I love that. Anything else that you're looking for in a church planter, ted? Because I think, before I say that, there may be people that are listening to this right now. They may not be a pastor, but they may be. The Holy Spirit may be speaking to them to say, hey, could I do what Ted has done and I think for a lot of them, if they have some of these characteristics, the answer of the Holy Spirit is going to say, yeah, let's give it a go. What do you think?
Speaker 3:Ted, I mean being nimble like because that's. I can't tell you how many times I've walked in on a Sunday morning or into an event we're having or a Bible study, and something goes wrong. And I love. My uncle, ken, planted a church in Cibola, which is just north of San Antonio, and he always jokes that the devil's in the AV and it's half joke, half serious. We. I can't tell you the amount of times we walked into the school doing set up and the projector just wasn't working, or there was one mic that was making a sound that sounded like a screeching demon, and you just have no idea. And because you don't have, you know the week to like go, oh, I'll just go in the sanctuary and fix that. It's like, okay, I have 10 minutes to figure out what this is going to be. And that doesn't just happen with sound systems, that happens with a Sunday school, that happens with just. I mean, we walked in one week to the school and it had rained so hard there was standing water in the cafeteria where we met in certain parts, and so the ability to be nimble, walking into a situation and saying, okay, this is what we're going to do this week and just going some, some weeks, something's going to happen and you just got to roll with it there's. You can't fix it, you're past the fixing point. Okay, we made good plans, we're throwing out those plans and we're just going. So I think there's there's a level of being nimble because of how often that will happen when you don't have your own facilities, your own, you get to control those pieces.
Speaker 3:I also think that a big part of it is, if you're part of the family, that your family's in it together. Uh, that, to me, is a big piece. That my wife Chelsea, when, when it was, when I felt the call to church planting it was. We felt the call because it will. It just looks different. It's not, and this is what bothers me is people will pit church planters versus, um, you know, established church pastors and what's better, what's nice, it's just different. You have different issues Like that's, that's the only thing is like I just had different issues. It's not, I'm not better, I'm not worse, it's just different. But my wife being on board means that when we're our house is like the place for men's breakfast. She's on board. You know we've had conversations about how often that happens and how we need to invite others into it, but she's been on board the whole time and I think to have your family on board is key and that is big because it's a family on mission together.
Speaker 3:It's saying, hey, it's not just you know, dad who's doing this, husband who's doing this, like we are in this together. Because that also then disciples the families in your church to say, hey, this is all of us in this together, us in this together. It disciples the singles in your church. It disciples it's everybody, it's a community on mission together. And if your family, if their needs are different than that, I think you really got to take that into account. And again, that doesn't mean they're less, it just might mean they're built different and that's fine. But those three things embracing simplicity, being nimble, and you know a family who's in it together are big things.
Speaker 2:I love that so much If someone's looking to launch because launching well, we teach at the ULC this kind of lean startup model. Perfection is the enemy of good, right, and a lot of times you're like, oh man've got to have all these things, kind of, so it's perfect. There's the idol of perfect in our culture. If you think about it, that's just perfect, right. That's not the way the church launches. It's much earlier than perfect, because it's never going to be perfect. So what are your thoughts regarding appropriate steps to launch a new ministry or church?
Speaker 3:well, your thoughts regarding appropriate steps to launch a new ministry or church.
Speaker 3:Well, One thing I would argue that was one of the blessings that God brought me to in the process is that you can find a lot of different styles of church planting. One thing I would recommend is a two by two model, which you look at how Paul goes. Paul always goes with a teammate, and I think it was important enough for us to raise funds for there to be a teammate with me. And so when we planted the church, it was my buddy, john, who's now a pastor in Nevada, but it was me and John together. He was a DCE and it was the two of us, but it was me and John together. He was a DCE and it was the two of us, and that, I think, builds in to the process of saying one. There's a temptation to say, oh, this is my thing, but when you have two, it's like this is very clearly not my thing, it's our thing, and so I think that's really that's. One thing I'd recommend is saying hey, two by two. However that plays out, whether that's a full-time you know leader and a part-time, you know, john was three, fourths time with us and worked in the community, and the reason we were in good with the brewery was John's you know, co-vocation was. He worked at the brewery and in fact like his story is so cool he was, he worked with me. We're several years into the church plant and then he comes to me and goes I think I'm going to go full-time at the brewery and so he transitioned from my teammate to an elder. So he didn't leave the church, he just stepped aside. Well then we called in my brother to be worshiping community director and John worked full-time at the brewery and the reason we were connected was because of the relationships John had built at the brewery. So I think that's key. I think being able to step out and talk to people whether, however, you do that, but being able to have conversations with people who aren't a part of your church, whether that is, you know, christians who you get to talk with and share what's going on, or people in your neighborhood who you just get to talk to and they may never set foot in your church, but you're having those conversations of life with them.
Speaker 3:When it comes down to the plan of launching a church, I think the most important thing is saying again it comes back to culture and the person that there are churches that do a launch large model. That's not in my makeup. I'm not that guy. And actually when you said you know the idea of perfection is the enemy of how did you phrase it? Yeah, I actually heard.
Speaker 3:I got to hear a church in Manhattan and the pastor was teaching and talking about how important discipleship was to them and they realized they were investing so much time in Sunday morning worship that they, their people, didn't have enough time outside. So he said we now look at Sunday morning and say, good enough, that it's not about perfection, it's, he's like it doesn't lessen what we're doing, but it's also. We're not chasing the mountaintop every Sunday. We're saying, hey, was it good enough? Because then that frees us up to spend the time throughout the week in church planting. Parlance is your Sunday morning worship is okay Once you launch, that means now, every Sunday or whenever you meet.
Speaker 3:We're doing it weekly and so there's a temptation to say it's only about that, whereas I think what I've grown into and seen more and more saying, listen, this is our, this is, this is where we show up when we go. The rest of the week kicked us pretty hard and this is refilling, this is rejuvenating, because we're sent out and then we come back and we rejuvenate and God meets us and gives us his gifts and, okay, we rejuvenate because he's called us to go out, to send us out, and so there are a lot of different ways to launch and I've seen people do it across the spectrum and they all have. They're all faithful to where God has called them. I don't want to say successful, because we all measure success in different ways, but there's faithfulness to what they're doing and I think that's what's really cool to me is seeing not every church plant has to launch or look the same, but it's it's saying are we, are we where God's put us and doing what he's called us to do?
Speaker 2:Yeah, amen, amen. Last couple of questions. I'd be remiss if I didn't ask about your dad. What role did your dad play in leading you into ministry Ted?
Speaker 3:So he knew long before I did that I was going to be in ministry. And actually I found out from my mom, I think about the time I was going into seminary and she was like, yeah, your dad started training you in sixth grade and like I went back and thought through it and he was taking me on hospital visits. He was, you know, walking me through how he memorized his sermons. He was explaining to me and all of it just felt like, oh, that's what dads do, and you know he was just sharing his work with me. But I can tell you like there's so many lessons from the spiritual side of things that I am deeply blessed by to just like.
Speaker 3:He tells a story. He worked at a summer camp, camp Omega, up in Minnesota, and when he was between college and seminary and he was figuring things out but he worked a year round and he said they went to the big Lutheran camp convention that they had and they were all sitting around a table and he said there were all these other camp leaders talking about how they couldn't get their staff to do the small things, like just notice them and do them. And there was one guy who apparently was kind of railing on. Yeah, my, my people. They'll just walk past a burnt out light and they just won't replace the light. And dad tells the story of his camp director leaning over to him. He goes Al, sometimes you just change the light bulb. And it was this moment of going.
Speaker 3:I can't tell you how many times, as a church planter, I've ended up sticking around for an extra 30 minutes because it's like sometimes you just change the light bulb, sometimes you just clean up this, sometimes you just do that Like cause it's not like I'm a part of the church, I'm not, you know, the dictator of the church, and so it's those little kinds of things. And and to be, to be so blessed that when I have a ministerial question, when I have those kinds of things, like I just called that you know and go all right, how'd you handle this? How, how are you walking through this? And now to be in the harvest partnership together is is just huge, and watching that be such a um, uh energy giver for him that you know that has been just a blessing that we always joke about. He keeps talking about when he's going to retire and he just keeps pushing back. And so Not in the Bible, al yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, you've been so blessed as have I, so huge, to whom much has been given. Much is required. So thanks for stewarding this one life that God has given to you faithfully, ted. So final question as we are members, multi-generational leaders, in the LCMS, what?
Speaker 3:are your biggest prayers for our church body? I mean, we've talked a lot about that. We would stop shooting each other. I mean that's, and I know like there are times I got to repent of it. I got to step back and go, wow, lord, look at where I've been of it. I got to step back and go, wow, lord, look at, look at where I've been. Um, and we have the message, we have the gifts, we have the word, we have the sacrament. Um, man, if we could, if we could just walk out of of where we are and say, hey, let's take this wherever we go, let's bless the saints by this, let's connect the disconnected.
Speaker 3:It's often because there wasn't a theology of suffering, because what happens is they encounter a place where they're like I did what God told me to do and now my life falls apart. And it's like one of the things I love is like Luther's whole thing is he came to the gospel because he was so deeply suffering and we have a theology of that. Because he was so deeply suffering and we have a theology of that. And if we keep arguing with ourselves, if we keep doing that, like, my prayer is just that we can start learning to have hard conversations together so we can walk forward together and not assuming the worst about everyone, and that there's so much that we can be doing together, there's so much where God is calling us. And so that's my big prayer and, honestly, like what you were saying, what you have been saying for years about how do we train pastors, how, how are we doing that? Can we have these conversations? Because there is a need for that and and the time and setting is changing, and so how do we do that faithfully? But how do we do that so that more people get connected, so we have those connections, and so, um, my hope and prayer is that we can start having more conversations together and realizing, um, that we're really not trying to attack each other.
Speaker 3:You know, when we worship in different styles or like, and and here's the thing that bothers me is like thinking less of people because of how they worship, like that's the one that right now I get pretty fiery about is like I have good friends who are I mean, they do the liturgy in a beautiful way, chanting, and the whole nine, and it's amazing. And I have friends, you know, at narrative, we, we lead with a cone and a guitar, and. But we seek to be reverent in who we are and what we do. And what I'm tired of is people trying to create new laws around those things to say like well, we have the one true way, and it's like listen, worship and spirit and truth, like that's. Can we come together instead of tearing each other apart? And and I'm I'm getting weary of us tearing each other down because of difference of opinion.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I couldn't agree more. Not much to add there. Social media doesn't help us. Oh boy Comments that you can kind of indiscriminately, with anonymity, just poking proud of people, that doesn't help us. Social can help and I think long form doesn't help us. Social can help and I think long form podcasts can help us build bridges of understanding and care. So, as I say all the time, if you've got a difference of opinion with anything we've said church planning strategy, discipleship strategy we'll get you to right to the top of the list with lead time, because we need to listen and learn from one another and we're going to find, as I always find, we have way, way, way, way, way more in common than we have.
Speaker 2:That divides us in the LCMS and Satan is like a little mosquito. Luther called Satan the mosquito that you just couldn't kill until you realized Christ has put him to death through the cross and the empty tomb. But we try by our own might and power and strength to squash that little Satan who wants to poke at us. He's a liar, he's the divider and he works within the church. And Satan's not going to have folks outside the church he is, I guess, but he's already got them. Right, he's coming.
Speaker 2:This is one of my early things. My dad told me he's going to attack you, son. You know you got a target on your back because you're a Christ follower, right. And so he's going to attack us LCMS because we're seeking to be faithful, the one holy Christian, apostolic church, passive faith, like we agree on the Lutheran confessions. He's going to continue to strain at gnats and to get us to focus on that little, little you know thing. That kind of is the burr in my saddle, if you will, rather than what unites us on the mission of God to get all of his kids back. So this has been so much fun. Ted, you're a gift to the body of Christ.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:So good. You're awesome Praying for Harvest Partnership Network Texas District. You guys are a light in the LCMS, to be sure. If people want to connect with you, how can they do so?
Speaker 3:Ted, yeah, just shoot me an email right now, ted at narratorchurch. I mean that's pretty much what's going. Like you said, I'm cutting back on social media. There you go.
Speaker 2:It's so good. This is lead time. Please like, subscribe, comment wherever it is you take in these podcasts, and we promise to be back either later on this week or into the next week with another fresh episode. It's a good day. Go make it a great day. You rock, Ted. Thank you, buddy.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me, tim. You've been listening to Lead Time, a podcast of the Unite Leadership Collective. The ULC's mission is to collaborate with the local church to discover, develop and deploy leaders through biblical Lutheran doctrine and innovative methods Lutheran doctrine and innovative methods To partner with us in this gospel message. Subscribe to our channel, then go to theuniteleadershiporg to create your free login for exclusive material and resources and then to explore ways in which you can sponsor an episode. Thanks for listening and stay tuned for next week's episode.