Lead Time
Lead Time
Prior Approval in the LCMS: the Need for Transparency and Trust
The prior approval process for LCMS leaders lacks transparency and is creating distrust and division when qualified candidates are removed without explanation. Family dysfunction in the church is exacerbated when decisions are made without clarity.
Pat Ferry, Bill Cario, and Tim Ahlman discuss the topic at length:
• Two distinct processes exist for presidents versus theology faculty appointments
• Presidential approval requires sign-off from two of three key leaders: LCMS President, District President, and CUS board chair
• Theology faculty approvals follow a different, increasingly unclear process
• Concordia Wisconsin's presidential search illustrates the challenges when preferred candidates are rejected without explanation
• Leaders advocate for transparency while maintaining appropriate church oversight
• Relational trust is broken when decisions are made without discussing rationales
• Worship practices and associations may impact eligibility without explicit guidelines
• The process has evolved over decades with decreasing clarity in recent years
We need to continue working together for greater transparency. If we're going to break down walls between us, even little ones, we have to work at it together.
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Speaker 2:Welcome to Lead Time. Tim Allman, here and today, jack, it's a day off as I get to sit down and have a conversation on the prior approval process. Before I introduce both of my guests, here are some opening remarks. Every time we talk about and we talk about formation here a lot, we've talked about the prior approval process much, much less, but every time both of those topics are discussed there are strong opinions in the LCMS and it's a complex. Both of these topics of discussion are complex. They have a rich, deep and could be, in some circles, divided history. So here are some opening words.
Speaker 2:The prior approval process is unclear at this point to the wider church. There's lots of different discussion. There's resolutions that are going to be going through district conventions trying to bring more clarity. Here's what I also know. There have been wounds created as certain leaders have been removed from serving on various boards and committees and for Concordia University system as well as for seminary positions, and those wounds have created distrust and that's unfortunate and it's hard to get people.
Speaker 2:So, before I introduce both my guests, it's hard to get people who have been wounded in this process to talk on the topic and folks have sent me many emails with lots of, lots of details. Frankly, a lot of it is beyond me because I wasn't in the room or a part of the process, but they don't feel like they can. They can talk or it'd be helpful. They can talk or it'd be helpful or, to be quite honest, most of the folks that could talk are in a season of life right now where they'd rather not even get into it anymore. They've either retired or moved off of the topic, and so I also want to bring clarity.
Speaker 2:I have asked President Harrison to speak and the invitation is open and haven't heard from him yet on this. I think there are many in the church body who would love to hear get behind the scenes just a little bit as to how this happened. So the invitation is open, president Harrison. And finally, I am concerned that the prior approval process is creating disunity in our church body. Many confessional and mission oriented leaders with credentials and good standing in the LCMS have been removed from potential leadership, and that's unfortunate. So now, with that being said, get to hang out with Reverend Dr Pat Ferry. And I don't know, bill, do you have a doctorate degree as well?
Speaker 1:Reverend Dr William Cario. There we go. Not Reverend, though easy.
Speaker 2:Dr Bill Cario and tell us let's start with you, bill Tell us your story, like where you have served and kind of the credentials you bring into the conversation today. Thanks for being with us, bill, thank you.
Speaker 3:Thanks for this opportunity. I'm a product of the LCMS. I'm a pastor's kid who went through the commission ministry process at Concordia, ann Arbor, and then my ministry at Concordia University, wisconsin, now CUWAA Started out in the history department and Pat pulled me over into administration in the early 2000s. I recently retired and have gone back to my first love of doing research.
Speaker 2:There you go. What are you researching right now?
Speaker 3:Ironically, I'm researching the merger that took place between Concordia, wisconsin and Concordia Ann Arbor.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's cool. You had something to do with that, so I'm sure.
Speaker 4:I did, I did, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so good, pat, tell a little bit for those that most people know who you are. You've been on the podcast before, but little introduction and what you kind of bring to the conversation around. Prior approval brother, thank you.
Speaker 4:Well, let me say first of all, tim, thanks for the invitation. Always good to see you and talk to you. Thanks for all that you're doing with your programs, really really terrific. And just also a word Bill Cario is one of the finest people I've ever met. He's a dear friend. He was the senior member of the history department when I came on. We were it, he and I, and so we've been close colleagues. He's a person of incredible integrity, just great service, and as my right-hand man at Concordia he really provided a great balance and perspective and judgment. Truly truly a tremendous servant, content to stay behind the scenes, but when I stepped down he was kind of thrust at my recommendation into the office of interim president and had to deal with a whole lot of stuff and did it really, I think, very, very effectively.
Speaker 4:So just for those who don't know Bill, let me just say just a remarkable person and a very dear friend. We did serve together at Concordia for many years and you know we had the good fortune of being able to be on the faculty and then later in administration. I think it's sort of ironic in a way that I probably wouldn't be approved for prior approval now on the faculty or administration. But that's a different story and you know it's a story that goes way back. You teed us off, tim, by saying that you know there's some folks who just really would rather stay away from it. I would too, I'd rather. You know I sort of hesitate even at your invitation to talk about it. But it is kind of telling in a way that you don't have. You have a couple of retired guys right, because we can sort of speak more freely about it, I guess. And that in a way is a reflection of the problem that we can't just have just open, transparent conversation about these issues with people who are affected by it directly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, amen. So I would love to get a historical perspective and again, you probably don't have all of the details on the conversation, but from your long perspective as leaders in the LCMS, can you tell how the prior approval process worked and, from your perspective, how it's working today? And or you can geek out a little bit and get into bylaws as you are led to how you think it should work today. So just a little history. We'll start with you, pat, I guess, on that, maybe the nearest to it, and then Bill you can respond. So tell me, tell me early on, as you entered into being a president and being on faculty, how prior approval worked.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so really there are two distinct kind of processes, for presidents and for faculty, and I'll break it down a little bit. As for bylaws, I'll let Bill geek out on that if he wants to. He'd be better at that. So you know, once upon a time every single position of faculty position on any synodical schools faculty had to go through approval by what I think in those days before our time really was called the Board of Control, which is a kind of compelling title, right, the Board of Control, and in some ways I think that's sort of built into our DNA.
Speaker 4:As far as centralized involvement, I think first of all it'd be important to say that it's really a good thing that the church cares a lot about the people who are serving our institution. I think that's very important. It would be real disappointing if the church was apathetic about that, but it cares deeply about its institutions and the people who are in those situations. Historically, the church has had rather significant leverage. I think it became clear at some point that it was untenable for some small group, some board of control, to vet every single faculty member as our schools grew and broadened their programs, and so they focused instead more on theology faculty.
Speaker 2:Can you tell me roughly when that happened? Pat Put a timestamp on that.
Speaker 4:I think it was just a little before I came on the faculty. I'm going to just guess it went through the 1980s and Bill's a better historian than I am, so he might know more specifically. Do you know, Bill?
Speaker 3:I don't know exactly when prior approval came into place. I do know that in the early 2000s when the Matthew Becker situation took place at Concordia Portland, becker was a theology prof there and a number of people had issues with his theology, some of the things he published, issues with his theology, some of the things he published 2004,. He actually left Concordia Portland, took a position at Valpo. It's clear that by the mid-2000s CUS was much more interested in making sure that the theology profs at the Concordias were in alignment with the LCMS theology and that type of thing. It's important to recognize that prior approval really refers to two distinct processes. The first is for the president of the Concordia Universities and that process is determined by the LCMS handbook and bylaws. The prior approval process for theology faculty is determined by the CUS policy manual.
Speaker 2:Cool. Well, let's go back, Pat. Keep going on the timeline. I got a couple of questions to come back on that, bill, so thank you.
Speaker 4:So I think that's helpful, especially as it relates to theology faculty, as it relates to the selection of presidents.
Speaker 4:When I came on board, the process was like this there was a faculty search committee that brought forward a set of recommended candidates that had to fit within certain guidelines and obviously, lcms membership and academic credentials and so forth and so on, and they brought, then they brought the list. This faculty search committee. It had input from various constituents, obviously, but it was really a faculty committee that brought the list of five names to the electors and in those days the electors included the president of the synod or his representative, the chair of the board for higher education, the local district president and the board of regents. Voting as a whole had a single vote. So there were those four individuals then who are working only with that list, right, that list. Now, if I recall correctly, they could bring in other names of people who had been nominated if they chose to. I don't know that that ever happened, but they were working with the list of those recommended by the faculty search committee and then they had to kind of arm wrestle and come to some consensus or conclusion. I think they typically did. You know, four votes. Nobody has the deciding vote, they have to work it out, and that was the process.
Speaker 4:Then that changed because, I think for very good reasons, it was determined that the local board had immediate responsibility for the president.
Speaker 4:That board had to oversee it and make sure that everything was going well, and so it was determined that the board should have electoral responsibility, not only input from the former electors, but included somewhere along the way.
Speaker 4:Also then the ability to approve the list, approve the list of those final candidates For several years. That approval process list at the very end of the process and I remember sitting in on a committee before the convention where he asked that that be changed so that he could approve the list at the beginning, because you know, doing it at the end after they've gone all through all of this and if he does he's not satisfied with the candidates just caused a lot of trouble and disappointment. So the convention then changed that so that the president or the electors two out of three right there was the local two out of three, not just the president, the local district president and the chair of the board. Two of those three had to approve the name at the beginning of the process after the nominations were provided so that the board would know, you know, from among those names which ones they could elect. I hope that was clear, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean that's good. Is that where it stands today? That the two out of the three that you listed right there the president, the district president and the chair of the respective CU board, concordia board and this is the process for both presidents and for theological faculty or no, it's just for theological. Who was that? It's just for the president, that is the current bylaw process that you just outlined. Two out of those three needed and they get to approve or not approve the names at the very beginning of the process.
Speaker 4:After the nominations.
Speaker 2:After the nominations Okay, very good, and that is according to bylaws. Yes, bill. Yes, maybe go into the bylaws the nominations? Yeah, okay, very good, and that is according to bylaws. Yes, bill, maybe go into the bylaws a bit. Yes.
Speaker 4:Yeah, okay, I think that hasn't changed, but how is it different for theology faculty than Bill?
Speaker 3:For theology faculty, the prior approval comes at the end. Prior approval comes at the end. A faculty search committee brings a recommendation to the university president, and then the university president forwards information to CUS. Now, in 2008 and 2009, the process worked this way and this is only for full-time theology faculty candidates to the CUS board, and the CUS board would vote on them, having seen all of the information, and then the CUS president would inform the CUS institutional president or the Concordia institutional president whether the faculty member was approved or not. That changed a little bit by 2017.
Speaker 3:By 2017, two things had changed that a Board of Regent member for the individual institution had to be involved in the interview process for theology faculty members, though, was that the Concordia University policy manual did not indicate how the CUS would make its decision about approving the candidate the theology faculty candidate or not. It was very unclear. I think, in part, this was to help speed up the process, so perhaps the CUS president had the ability to make that decision. It just is very unclear in the policy manual. It no longer indicates that the CUS board is involved in the decision-making process.
Speaker 2:Huh, this is interesting. So there are no. So the the opportunity for adjustment could be a group or, you know, a committee made up of a number of different folks putting together the guidelines for approval or not being approved for. And let's just look at the president, like the synodical president, the district president of, say, nebraska for concordia, nebraska, go bulldogs right and and the chair of the board there, they have to pretty much figure it out. And if two out of the three say no, I know I know X, y or Z about this guy or this gal, for this said position, that person's not on the list. But there's not. And I think that's like the opportunity for change right now. Is there's not a lot of clarity for the guidelines for why said person? Two out of the three people would not want that person on the list. Is that fair?
Speaker 4:Dr Ferry, yeah, let me. We have to kind of keep breaking this down between presidents and theology faculty, but in both cases the problem is the same. Right, there's just this people who are responsible for overseeing these folks whether it's the regents overseeing the president or the president and academic leader overseeing the theology faculty they don't know exactly why someone is not permitted. So let's talk about theology faculty first. Okay, so you have people, you have these, you have scholars, right, they're working. They're working hard. They're doing this in addition to maybe serving a parish, or maybe they're taking time off. They're expending time and money and energy to earn a doctorate, with the hopes, perhaps, of teaching at a Concordia one day. That's a noble quest, and their education will be valuable to them in the parish too, no question about it.
Speaker 4:And then they go through a hiring process. They go through a faculty search. The faculty committee approves them, and they know this. They know this the institution academic leadership supports their appointment, the president of the institution supports their appointment, and yet they don't pass approval at that point. So, okay, why not? Well, right now, the way it stands is we don't have to tell you why not. We don't have to tell you why not, and oftentimes people don't get a job for various reasons and you don't necessarily tell them as they go through a process. But in this case this person has been approved by a theology faculty search, by academic administration, by an institutional president, I mean. So I think it's a fair question. You know what is it? What is it?
Speaker 4:that makes me unqualified for this particular position. Now, quick transition. Then, bill, you can weigh in on it too. Quick transition to the presidency, that search process, right. So you get all of these names you nominate, you get all of these names. Go through it.
Speaker 4:And I know that in some cases boards will work on this in advance and say here's a group that we're pretty supportive of, here's a group that we don't feel quite as good about.
Speaker 4:Feel quite as good about. And then, when the report comes back from those who have the ability to veto names and they don't see any of the names of those that they felt pretty good about at the beginning and they see a lot of the names of those that they were concerned about on that list and they don't have then the opportunity to say why aren't these people on our A-list eligible for us to consider? Shouldn't we be casting our net widely to qualified people for such an important position like this? Why can't we go through a process with a lot of folks that are potentially qualified? And if they're not, if you have some concern, tell us about it. We don't have to tell that, but tell us about it as the regents, so that we can understand better why we're dealing with this list of those that we really weren't very supportive of in the beginning. I mean, that's the problem. There's the lack of transparency and the inability for those who are immediately involved in oversight and responsibility to know why they can't work with certain people.
Speaker 2:Well, let me break it down to the parish level, bill, before we get going. I just want to draw a through line for me and there's a lot of pastors that listen to this right. So it's kind of like if we're going and this is a much lower because there's no lower but lower position in the church Say we're in a DCE search right now, a director of Christian education, and I have heard, and our search team has heard, of so-and-so and they're open and qualified. And then I go to my district president educational team and say hey, can I have the C-Myth for that person and that person? And they say and here's information. Every single time, so every single time, as a local parish pastor, I've asked about a certain person and I have been told because it's happened. No, and they've said, with protecting confidentiality, and here Tim is just a little bit of the backstory for me. And if the committee has a relationship, et cetera, like that's the level of communication and connection, relational connection between me and district representatives. They are in oversight, they have responsibility for giving me the profiles and a little bit more of the story. But here's what I know. Ninety eight percent of the time the people sure here's, here's their stuff. We trust you, we trust the Holy Spirit, we trust the committee to lead toward the right candidate. It really comes down to relational trust at the end of the day. That's how to bring it down to the local level.
Speaker 2:It would be strange to me if that group came back to me and our committee in a search process and said you asked for these 20 names, here's 10. And we're not. We don't have to tell you at all why the other 10 can't be on, can't be on your list. Is that a fair summary?
Speaker 4:to bring it down to the local level, pat and you choose one of them, right, you don't have to tell the other one why you picked the one you did. You know you might say, hey, here's some things you need to work on, or say you might do that, but you don't have to. That makes sense. We just pick somebody else. But in the case of a faculty search or a presidential search, you know these are people who the local folks feel pretty good about, and why are they not allowed to be considered? And so then you jump to conclusions or assumptions about it. Well, they don't fit a certain theological profile, or well, they go to this kind of a congregation where they do this sort of worship. You just jump to all kinds of conclusions that are maybe not fair at all. But you don't know.
Speaker 2:You don't know, bill, anything more to add there.
Speaker 3:And to put this in context, I think our experience, pat, and my experience at Concordia, wisconsin-ann Arbor, was that we did not have I can't think of any times with the faculty the theology faculty search process and the prior approval where our candidates were turned down. We probably factored that in and our theology faculty department factored that in in the thinking about who to present. But we had no issues at all with the prior approval process for full-time faculty during our tenure. It obviously arose with the presidential search after Pat's retirement that that issue arose, of course, about I have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, about faculty not not being allowed. Well, I have, and again, we'll protect names here for sure. But I've asked certain people who have certain disciplines I think are fascinating, who have a certain line of research I think are fascinating, who have a certain line of research, who are potential candidates for one of our concordias, to come on lead time or on my podcast or whatever, and they've declined because they don't want to be associated with rebel rousers like me and stuff like that. Like that's kind of sad Pat.
Speaker 4:It is sad. And Bill's comment too it's about trust. Obviously it's about trust, right, and there were times when our theology search committee presented a candidate that I kind of scratched my head about and Bill and I talked about it and you know what, at the end of the day, we didn't stand in the way of the people that they recommended. I mean, they were closest to the situation right, they were closest to the situation and did they make some mistakes? I think so. I think they made a couple. That means you know that we made a couple. Are we going to make some mistakes? Yeah, but there are ways of dealing with that.
Speaker 4:Then subsequently, right, you work at it. You're not going to get it all right at the front end every time, but you have to be able to work at it. And you got to trust the people who are close to the situation. And I think you know it's not listen, it's not going to be a surprise to anybody when we say there's a trust problem. It's not listen, it's not going to be a surprise to anybody when we say there's a trust problem. Right, people don't trust me. I don't trust everybody as much as I wish I did. It's kind of built into our human nature in a way right, but without the ability to be transparent about the things that concern us.
Speaker 2:We're never going to get past that. Yeah, well, let's get into some of the like. What do you think could be some changes? You know, let's paint a hopeful vision, let's try to build bridges of understanding and trust and clarity, transparency. I think that's what we all want in the LCMS. So what? What guidelines could be given to create more, more trust for respective candidates as the higher level boards? And I do appreciate you differentiating president from faculty. They're being a different process. I think that's really, really helpful. But do you have any words of wisdom for those who are looking for some changes? Because, at the end of the day, this isn't about President Harrison. It's a system that's been created by bylaws and by a handbook, and bylaws and handbooks can change by synod and convention. Right, that's, that's how things work. Over time, things, things evolve. So I think we need more transparency to protect all, all leaders in all different positions. Any words of wisdom there, bill, moving forward.
Speaker 3:I was struck in the. I was peripheral in meaningful discussion that wasn't just about the bylaws. But can you help us understand, can you help the Concordia Wisconsin Board of Regents understand, why some decisions were made to provide some feedback? I was just struck at that, that that process just seemed to be just a jarring sense of we're in charge here and it has to be done this way and you won't question anything. We don't have to explain ourselves.
Speaker 4:Well, and if I might add to that, I obviously was not a part of that process, having stepped away from it, but there was a fairly strong expression of the idea that we need to get somebody in here to kind of straighten this out. Right, and that's maybe putting it. I might be putting it mildly, but in any case we've got to get somebody in here to kind of remedy some of these circumstances. But I'll say this that during my time and Bill's time and mine together there was I had not a single occasion, not a single occasion, where the president of the synod or the district president expressed any concern to me whatsoever about our campus or what was transpiring. And I'm not saying that to suggest that we never had any issues.
Speaker 4:There was one time when President John Willey.
Speaker 4:President John Willey asked me he was concerned that we were considering having a conference about science and theology.
Speaker 4:It sort of came out of a debate that was going on about something that was published in Concordia Journal and Concordia, nebraska, and Concordia, and we were thinking about having Dale and others come and talk about this on our campus and, john Willie, I said I really would prefer that you didn't do that and I said, okay, we won't do it and we didn't do it. I mean so it was you know. There just never was an instance of that. So to kind of come in with this impression that we've got to fix everything and then not to give anybody any input into what's wrong exactly you know, and what's you know, why can't we talk about this? So to Bill's point if there was something built into it where we could say that, that, that that you know, that there was just a lot, a much higher level of transparent collegial adults in the room, conversation about about why things are, why we need certain things and why certain people are not qualified and so on, it would just help so much.
Speaker 3:I am still struck. In that process In November of was that 21, when CUS performed its transition review required for any presidential transition, the CUS report identified no major problems at Concordia University, wisconsin, ann Arbor. Four months later, president Harrison felt he believed he needed to come in and do a thorough review. I'm not sure what happened during that. Well, I know what happened during that time, but the institution itself did not change that much.
Speaker 4:Well, and here's, there was a lot at stake, right, you're going to appoint a president to this position. It's rather one of our largest universities, complex, and so again, the impression is he wants to get his guy in there, and I have no problem with that, right, I have no problem with that. He's a leader. But let's talk about it with the boards. Let's come to a place where we can agree on this and finally, I guess you can say well, they did, but it was a painful process and we've had a lot of painful presidential searches through the years. Maybe it will be less that way, because we're also now going through a process of defining who can serve on these boards, and maybe it's just becoming kind of narrower and narrow. We'll get to the point where this won't be an issue, because only certain folks will obviously be, uh, considering a qualified for these positions. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Well I, so you bring up a slightly different topic there. How, how is it narrowing for people that don't know what's going on right now? What, what? Could you be a little more clear there?
Speaker 4:Pat Cause, I'm, that's something I'm not aware of. Yeah, so regents, um, um, and Bill, you might have to help me on this cause. This is rather new since my retirement, but you know, there there was a point at which, uh, regents were selected. Uh, this is for the universities, not so much for the seminaries, but the regents were selected by synodical conventions, district conventions, and then by board appointment, and they all. At that point there were more who were elected by one than those who were appointed. But there was concern that those who were appointed might you know well, maybe they aren't they should be, not at the kind of same level. They don't have votes on certain things. Now I don't think that they can vote, for example, on board appointed members, and so they kind of have a little bit of a second level.
Speaker 3:There's a two-tier board of regents system.
Speaker 4:I believe Board of Regents system, I believe. But what it implies is that we really trust the ones who are elected more than the ones who are appointed. I mean, that's how you have to interpret it, I suppose, as it comes down to it. And so if those who are elected in conventions then appoint the others, then you're going to have a much more monolithic sort of board eventually, and that's what you'll have. Anything more there Bill Anything. Is there any more on that Bill? Anything to add there, bill?
Speaker 3:I don't know that I have anything more to add about the Board of Regents.
Speaker 2:Well, coming down the homestretch here, it's just an uncomfortable conversation.
Speaker 4:I don't know if we've helped very much either, to tell you the truth, and I think Bill and I both feel very deliberately about affirming that the church should have investment in its institutions, absolutely, but we would also, I think, agree I won't speak for Bill, I'll let him speak for me, but I wouldn't speak for him but that it is too opaque. There is just inadequate transparency and that people and you said wounded Tim, I think that's not too soft of a term Again, these scholars who are preparing and have no idea. You know, what did I do wrong? What did I do wrong? Did I speak to Tim Allman on lead time?
Speaker 4:That was a huge mistake, right, did we? Did I? Was I called to this congregation and they do this style of worship? Oh my gosh, I have no control over that. Really, what is it? What is it? And if it's just a matter of, okay, there were two really well-qualified candidates and they picked the other one, okay, that's fine. But these are people who have gone through the process, right, and they were recommended and then denied, why?
Speaker 2:And their respective board didn't get to make that decision and that board doesn't know why they didn't get to make that decision.
Speaker 4:Typically, our board would approve these without being immediately involved. They trusted the judgment of those who were close to the situation. That's the way it should be, but now even the president and the academic dean and the theology faculty are not given any explanation about.
Speaker 3:And it is true that there is a board member at Concordia Wisconsin who's involved in every faculty hire and has a responsibility to represent the board and listen for mission fit and theological fit, especially for theology profs. So they too are involved in the process.
Speaker 4:That didn't happen in every Concordia. I mean, we took an extra step in there, but we did want to make sure that there was paying close attention to mission fit. So, and Tim you know, as it relates to the presidential search, I was supportive when President Harrison asked that those who had to determine the list that they should do that at the beginning of the process rather than the end. I think that's probably still a good idea, right, rather than go all the way through it and then have names rejected. But there really does need to be a much stronger collegial process with the boards in indicating why some people who are by all appearances, eminently qualified are not the support. It's not a matter either of whether or not someone is a pastor right. I mean, that's not the defining thing. I mean we have three presidents now who are not pastors, right? So that's not the cutoff. So what is it then that makes this person who gosh, at least on paper, and what we know of him makes him disqualified? Help us to understand that.
Speaker 2:So to be clear, and maybe you don't know this, but when the list is given, the approved list is given to the board of regents to call and we're just talking president here, the synodical president and the district president and the chair of the board and maybe this is answering my question, maybe it's the chair of the board, gives a little bit more color. But synodical president, district president, don't have to be there as they give that list to talk through why these names, and maybe that's it's as simple as like you've got to show up to talk through a little bit of why we think these are the best candidates. At least there'd be the relational connection rather than just maybe an email or maybe there is. So could you give me some clarity on that one? Pat, do you know anything about how the list gets shared? Ultimately, that is approved.
Speaker 4:I don't know.
Speaker 3:I can tell you a little bit about the experience at Concordia, wisconsin. President Harrison and the CUS president at the time did come to meet with the Board of Regents After Concordia's search committee solicited names for presidential candidates. They came and met with us and one of the issues was what happens with the names of women who applied From the Concordia perspective? I believe there's no. The search committee and the Board of Regents sent a list of names and simply identified those that had accepted the nomination and sent that name ahead. My understanding is that President Harrison expected the committee to call the names of women off that list before it went ahead. That did not happen. That raised a number of issues. It was unclear.
Speaker 3:Everyone understood that the list of approved names would not include the names of any women candidates. Everyone understood that. The question was what was the committee supposed to do? Were they supposed to call the names, the list of names? In some ways? That process occurred. That meeting occurred. There was a face-to-face discussion with the Board of Regents Then during the summer, my understanding is that two of the three candidates, the Missouri Synod President and the District President, worked together to call that names and sent that list to the board of regents, and that was the list that we were given.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 4:But there was no explanation subsequently, bill, about why the 12 or 13 names who were on their preferred list were not. None of them were on that list.
Speaker 3:They're just a list of names.
Speaker 4:And they don't have to support the names that the board recommends, but they do. I think they do owe them some explanation about it, and maybe it's just as simple as saying look, this is the kind of person I want in this role, and that's implicit anyway. Right, this is the, and this is why I think this would not be helpful, and so maybe it's just implicit. Maybe we aren't jumping to any inferences that are incorrect, and that's probably why there's some bristling going on. Right, that you know we don't like the decisions that they make and that makes us unhappy, but still, I think, as brothers and sisters in this process, if there's a little familial dysfunction, one of the ways you kind of get at that is by talking through these things.
Speaker 2:In fact. So one point of clarity for me as it relates to presidents, the three, the two out of the three votes is the president of synod, the district president where the Concordia is and the chair of the board of the Concordia, or or?
Speaker 4:is it Jameson Hardy C? U S?
Speaker 2:C? U? S. So this is Jameson Hardy. Okay, so it's, it's, it's Dr Hardy, and Dr Harrison, the chairman of that board not the, not the executive. The chair, not the executive. Okay, Do you know who that?
Speaker 4:is right now I don't remember the fellow's name a father, something from detroit, right?
Speaker 2:uh, okay, sorry, apologies if you're listening well, if any of, if any of those three people would like to come on.
Speaker 4:it used to be gerhard mundinger, okay, so in our day, in my day, it was gerhard and it was matt, it was john willie, and you know, we, we raised the question well, what, what about? You know, what about david meyer? And we have a campus in michigan? Well, you know, we, we, we, we raised the question well, what, what about you know, what about David Meyer? And we have a campus in Michigan? Well, no, we, just, it's just going to be CUW, cu, uh, wisconsin, south Wisconsin, district's president in that process. So you know, the Michigan side didn't have any input into it.
Speaker 2:No, well, thank you guys for the time. Um, I think we're still. You just hear us If you're listening and you don't agree or you don't like or whatever, but you've hung with us this entire conversation. I hope you hear a call for brotherly conversation, sisterly conversation around something that is gray and opaque in our church body right now gray and opaque in our church body right now, and I'll just you mentioned worship or associations. I think those are the two. Tribalism is definitely a thing in the LCMS. The longer I'm in, the more I'm like wow, this is interesting and not great.
Speaker 2:Everybody has a part to play in working past those respective walls. We present ourself in a certain way or we associate with a certain group and therefore we don't talk to that group. So are we going to one another's respective gatherings, conferences that are talking about controversial issues? Is there an open invitation for that? I would hope so, and I'd hope, for those that have different platforms, that you would be open to having people come on to share diverse opinions. That's what we're trying to do here at Lead Time, and it's very evident that there is a system that's been created of distrust, division, and here's what's divisive when you don't come on to actually have a long conversation around a complex issue. If you only want to stay kind of in the shadows and talk to a certain group of people and you won't actually come, not just onto my platform this is not a big deal but onto other, open. This is the power of long-form conversation, a lot of these questions, which are all relationship. It's not just I hear too many folks today just going to synod and bylaws and conventions and all that kind of stuff. Well, we work between synod and convention. Let's have brotherly conversation between conventions and hopefully, because the same Holy Spirit lives in all of us we're all the baptized hopefully we can come to some sort of a consensus. There's going to be negotiation around certain things and, to land this plane, I don't think there's negotiation around what the church needs, both in the concordias, in the prior approval process and in raising up workers for the harvest, and that's unfortunate. So yeah, I think the Holy Spirit would love to unite us as a church body to bring greater transparency and to get to the worship piece.
Speaker 2:If it is guilty by association, because you've been in a church or are currently in a church where worship practices are this way, you should listen to Dr Bierman's Adiaphora YouTube channel. Follow Joel Bierman on YouTube. His recent piece on Adiaphora is very helpful and he agreed to come on to talk. Just today he sent me an email saying he's going to come on to talk a little more in depth about Adiaphora. We're obviously talking about things neither commanded nor forbidden as it relates to having a drum in worship, etc. So let's continue to work together. I really appreciate both of you, your care, any final comments from both of you as we're heading down the homestretch here? Bill, thank you, now we're good. Okay, you've said everything, Dr Ferry.
Speaker 4:Tim, I applaud what you're saying and I have to say I feel just a little convicted by it in a way too. I mean, I've had some opportunities to appear on other programs and have been reluctant to do it, even this one. None of us, nobody really likes to get in the fray, right? Nobody likes conflict or to get involved. But you're right, I mean, if we're going to break down walls, even little ones that exist between us, we have to work at it together. So thank you, thank you for all you do to that end.
Speaker 2:Here's behind the scenes. At Christ Greenfield, we walk through difficult conversations. This is a high challenge, high trust organization and it takes time and attention. And the devil really is in the details. Right, Like leadership is noticing bad behavior, Like hopefully we address and confess if it's me who's added to that. But just yesterday sent an email to our team around a certain group of people oh, this is good A certain group of people having a certain amount of data that the rest of the team didn't have and using that data to jab at a certain group of people who aren't looking at the data in real time. And so I sent out a loving, kind but clear email. If we're going to get into the details, the devil is in those details of data. Everybody has to be looking at it, rather than a small group of people looking at it and then using it to accuse others. That's not helpful.
Speaker 2:So this is how we do it real time in the church and we're just calling for leaders at every level to be functional, trusting and healthy in the way we manage conflict. This is lead time. Sharing is caring, like, subscribe, comment wherever it is you take in these conversations, and we pray that the joy of the Lord is your strength, as the Holy Spirit calls you to courageously follow Him out into the community. To that the joy of the Lord is your strength as the Holy Spirit calls you to courageously follow him out into the community to engage the corruption of our sin internally and to build bridges of understanding, building teams. This is what Jesus did building teams who go out and are salt and light in a dark and dying world. It's a good day. Go and make it a great day. Thank you, dr Ferry and Dr Cario.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to Lead Time, a podcast of the Unite, Dr Ferry and Dr Carioca nightleadershiporg 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.