Lead Time
Lead Time
The LCMS Almost Lost This Pastor...
What happens when the traditional path to ministry isn't an option? For Pastor Eli Thomas, the journey to becoming an LCMS pastor meant navigating uncharted waters through the colloquy process while balancing family responsibilities, work, and education over eleven challenging years.
What began as a winding path through different denominations ultimately led him back to Lutheran theology through his rediscovery of the real presence of Christ in the sacraments.
• Taking 11 years to complete undergraduate and seminary education while working and raising a family
• Navigating the challenging colloquy process to become an LCMS pastor
• Finding joy in interactive Bible study that transforms both teacher and students
• Serving two congregations simultaneously, including one with an average age of 80
• Moving from lecture-style teaching to dialogue that helps people experience Scripture
• Reflecting on convention experiences and hopes for the future of pastoral formation
• Discovering God's faithfulness when facing unexpected challenges
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this is lead time welcome to lead time, tim allman, here with jack cowberg. It's a beautiful day to be alive and, uh, we've been doing. We've been bunching a number of recordings. I'm heading on sabbatical here in about a month and so spending some good time with jack. It seems like I see your mug, which is just across the hall on a screen so frequently it's a good yeah, and you've got a special treat for those.
Speaker 3:You got a special treat for those joining on video. You're wearing your collar today.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Monday, Thursday right, that's right.
Speaker 2:So very, very good. Today we get to hang out with Pastor Eli Thomas. Let me tell you about him. He's an LCMS pastor, husband, father of two college students, sweet, both going to Concordia. Pastor husband, father of two college students, sweet, both going to Concordia. Now let's see One's going to Irvine here and then another one going to Seward. In the fall, is that right? Your 22-year-old is starting at Seward. Tell that story. You've got two Concordias, wow.
Speaker 4:I have two Concordias. I never imagined we'd be there, actually really excited for that Goes fast. My daughter started off with the. She didn't really have a place. She wanted to go. She wanted to go to California because she grew up in the Northwest. She doesn't like the rain, she doesn't like being cold, so she wanted Southern California. So we kind of directed her to Irvine and it worked out and it was great. My son's been working for a local elementary school for the last three years as a para, working with life skills kids trying to figure out his direction, finally decided hey, education sounds good. We had a DCE who is a fervent evangelist for Seward Nebraska and that kind of sold him he was. He didn't want to go to California. It was either Mequon or Seward. He decided Concordia would be good and we settled on Nebraska. So I don't know. I mean, when we go empty nest, apparently we go empty nest. All in, quick man, it comes really quick.
Speaker 2:I'm just a couple years behind you, so let me tell you a little bit more about Eli Grew up in Seattle. Majority of his family still lives in the greater Seattle area. He did his undergrad work at Northwest University in Kirkland, washington, studying biblical lit, and he did his seminary studies at Faith Evangelical Seminary in Tacoma, washington. Your son was born halfway through your freshman year of college and his daughter a couple of years before seminary. So his wife is a former Christian school teacher, turned public school teacher when he accepted his first call. He came to pastoring a little later on in life, 35 years old, when he graduated from seminary. And then he went through and this is going to form some of our conversation today. He went through colloquy and he's serving faithfully up dual parish pastor at Christ Community Church in Ridgefield, washington, and Grace Lutheran Church in Longview, washington. So well, welcome Eli. We're going to have some fun. Just tell us your colloquy story. Let's just start there. If we need to back up in your story at all, feel free to do so, okay?
Speaker 4:Yeah, colloquy, I'll be honest, colloquy is not what I would have chosen, but I grew up in a Lutheran church I think I called it the other side of the aisle, right. I was an ELCA guy. When I was growing up I was the only one in my family going to church and so the ELCA congregations where I went to preschool they were local to us and that's kind of where I started out. So I was steeped in the liturgical church growing up of where I started out. So I was steeped in, you know, the liturgical church growing up. But when I hit 16, and we moved out of the area, I kind of lost touch, you know, and so it was when I met my wife that I got back into church and she grew up Assembly of God, which was a serious shock to my system. That was a very, very different world than anything. I mean, I grew up doing the whole you know acolyte thing processional cross, I carry the processional cross, light the candles, eating, server, all that sort of stuff as a teenager and stuff. And move into that world was a whole different spot, but it was great because it got me back into church and got me going with her and really kind of shaped, I think, the moment when I really discovered my faith. I mean, I grew up with it but I didn't really acknowledge it. It wasn't until my early 20s that it really kind of connected. And that's when I discovered through. You know, I'd love to say I had an old voice moment that said, hey, thou shalt go into ministry. But it was really the I tried everything else and nothing worked sort of route. And my wife had graduated from Northwest University. She was a private school teacher at the time, and that was just one day. I kind of woke up and said, hey, I think I'm supposed to be a pastor and so I didn't know where to go. So I followed her route and I went to Northwest. And it was while I was there that I discovered that that that was not the right place for me.
Speaker 4:My, you know, my Lutheran heritage was trying to get through and I didn't know what I went through. We went through everything. I mean we went, we went through all kinds of churches, trying to figure out where we landed, until we found St Luke's Lutheran Church, federal Way, washington Shout out to my home congregation. That's where we landed and from there on that's where we headed. My problem was it took me a long time to get there. I mean, I often laugh it took me 11 years to get through my undergrad and through seminary. Yeah, halfway through my freshman year my son was born, january 8th.
Speaker 4:I went back to school for second semester and then had to take several days off because he was born, and that, really that created the necessity for an alternate route for me. You know, he was born while I was in college doing my undergrad work. My daughter was born in 2006. I knew that. I knew that God had a direction for me. I knew it was in the Lutheran Church. I knew it was going to be in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, because by then my spiritual formation was enough that I realized there was no going back to where I'd come from.
Speaker 4:And I didn't know what to do. No, I didn't know where to go. Where to go, and so I started a faith evangelical seminary in Tacoma. I'd started back in the late sixties um, as a solution to what they saw then as the liberalizing of the Lutheran church. Uh and um, they were a group of congregations abandoned together and started a training school for pastors. Uh, by the time I got there it had moved from faith evangelical Lutheran seminary to faith evangelical seminary, they still had a Lutheran track. I took, you know, I took all the same classes, had Lutheran systematics, went through, you know, went through Lutheran doctrine, went through, you know, read Christian dogmatics by Herbert Mueller, cover to cover, and went through that stuff and I got in there starting with apologetics going.
Speaker 4:Well, maybe I can find a way to transfer and get myself to St Louis, but my kids are growing, my wife's in her career. I'm approaching my 30s. I was like, what do I do? Snp wasn't a thing and honestly, I wasn't called the. I didn't feel like I was led to anything other than ordained ministry. And so, you know, praise God, we found St Luke's and I started working with my pastor there, started working with our district president and moved towards the colloquy route and I graduated seminary and we applied for colloquy and the synod came back and said, hey, at the last convention we actually eliminated that. Like, okay, what do we do? And our district president went to council presidents and went to the Senate and said, hey, we've got this. Guys, is there anything we can do? Well, they made the resolution it passed at convention but it was never actually published and so they grandfathered me and so I went to, I did. I flew out to St Louis.
Speaker 4:I had the worst interview of my life probably the most terrifying experience I've ever had sitting at a table in the center with people sitting all the way down on both sides of me so I couldn't see all of them with these huge binders that they would just open up the pages and ask me questions, and it was probably the longest hour and a half of my life facing off with these people from, you know, from St Louis, and we had a professor in from Fort Wayne and they were doing colloquy interviews all day long. And I often laugh about this because I, the pressure was just on, because I I didn't go through a Concordia, I was not the first guy to come through faith and come in through colloquy. I mentioned, you know, the, I mentioned my education, and they said, oh yeah, we know all about you guys there and I was like this isn't going well. I said, look, this was my situation.
Speaker 4:It was either that or Fuller and they got off on this track about Fuller. We never got back to face, so kind of finished out the end of the interview and I waited for a couple of weeks to see what they were going to do, because they could have required me to go to seminary for a year or two years. They could have required all kinds of things, but I almost think it was it's almost like a backhanded compliment because they required me to do a vicarage and read a stack of books. Okay, and that was the extent of my requirement to qualify for colloquy and I was grateful for that.
Speaker 3:Once you read the books, what did you do? Did you have like a feedback loop with somebody to kind of talk through those, or what did that look like?
Speaker 4:Or you, just I was supposed to read them, I was supposed to discuss them with my pastor, my supervising pastor, and then he would share as a supervisor with. Colloquy is an interesting process because it doesn't loop in the seminary. You know, we work through district and through the Senate, and so I was supposed to discuss with him. And then I had two interviews at the end of my vicarage to qualify for to qualify for ordination, would you say would you say that process was robust in your opinion, kind of going through it how?
Speaker 4:much I had actually, how much I had actually learned. Eventually, at the end of the day, they really had to rely on the fact that. You know I had. You know, you look at my transcript and I have these classes in, you know, in Lutheran doctrine and systematic theology and and practice and worship. And then assigning the vicarage, even though I'd done an internship and I'd been serving as a lay deacon in my congregation for three years as well, during that time preaching and assisting the pastor with ministry and stuff. You know, I suppose every case is different, right? You know, they take it on a case by case and assign what they think is necessary. So I guess I assume that they saw enough of something, that it was okay. It wasn't the greatest system, but it really highlighted to me the fact that, you know, if I hadn't had the option of colloquy, I don't know what I would have done. I knew that I was supposed to be in the LCMS but there wasn't a route for me to uproot my family and that was a real struggle.
Speaker 2:Well, thanks for sharing your story and and for reaching out. What do you love now, being in the local parish serving dual parish? What do you love most? What's the good? Let's hunt the good stuff. What, what is? What's God doing around you, eli? That you're like man? This is incredible. I can't believe I get to be a part of Word and Sacrament ministry. It's really extraordinary. I mean I'm just coming off the heels of doing our our noon, our noon Monday Thursday service, witnessing two out of 20 first communicants today and seeing the joy of mom and dad and family and friends wrapped around. I mean there's just there's a lot of hard stuff in the ministry, you know, but there's so much beauty and awe and wonder at seeing God at work and you get to be a small part of the big stuff he does. So what's given you great joy right now in your ministry life, eli?
Speaker 4:You know, interestingly enough I took over my second parish two years ago, so I serve full-time at Christ Community. That was my original call. Grace was one of those congregations that was too small to call a pastor and basically I got to reach out from our district, me and another guy and they said is there any way that you can help them out? They've had an elder serving as their leader for the last five months. Is there anything you can do to help them out? I spent a little bit of time talking to my family and talking to some of my colleagues in the area and I went. I think I could help them out and so I took them on in addition, so technically I'm like committed to time and a half to do these two congregations and I stepped into this congregation where the average age is like 80. We have an average weekly of attendance of between 20 and 25. I have exactly two families that are under 60, or I did until the last few weeks families that are under 60, or I did until the last few weeks and I've been doing you know I've been doing more memorial and funeral services than I've been adding people to the congregation and it seemed like a dead end. But I'll tell you, you know the place I find some of the most joy right now is that that congregation has a committed group every Wednesday at 11 o'clock that comes together for Bible study. And you know, I think if I were to say what's, you know what's my biggest joy in ministry I love preaching and I love doing adult Bible study. I love giving people the opportunity to you know, to experience Jesus. I think Jesus is meant to be experienced. That was one of the places I struggled growing up in the church is we went through the liturgy every week but it was never talked about, we just did it and so, outside of confirmation, I'm not sure I recall a time where we ever talked about why we did what we did in any sort of way. It was just the same thing and one of the greatest things I got, I think. Going through these other experiences spending time with Pentecostals and Calvinists and stuff worship services I think that really drives our contemporary setting at Christ Community. It's one that I inherited but one that we've changed to try to really give people the opportunity to experience. I could do that through Bible study. I mean we sit down and we talk and I love getting the conversation. They had been so used it's taken me two years to get them to respond in Bible study because they were so used to sitting there and being taught and now it was like, hey, what are you reading, what are you seeing? What do you think Jesus is saying? Or what do you think you know, where do you see Jesus showing up?
Speaker 4:We're going through the story right now and you know we're in, we're in, we're in here. We are at Easter time. We're talking about the fall of Israel, the Northern Kingdom, and we get a chance to take a look at that and go. You know how does the fall of this Northern Kingdom that coincided with Palm Sunday. How did that tie into Palm Sunday? You know, where do we see God bringing hope when everything looks hopeless? And you know Elijah talking about how he's the only one left and he's miserable. And yet God says, hey, look, I'm going to have you anoint kings and prophets. And there's people out there and you know say, look, we're on the West Coast. You know it can feel like we're in a barren wasteland out here at times, but you know there's a remnant still around and, and I think getting people to see that and go hey, oh okay. It's probably one of the greatest moments. I always come off a Bible study just kind of going man, that was great, a great time.
Speaker 2:Let's go deeper into that. There's so much research on kind of Aristotelian lecturing. Is has its place, to be sure, because you could kind of capture it up into another person's thought process. But transformation comes through dialogue, comes through questions, and then deeper questions. And so what's your Bible study style, if you will? Because it sounds like there had been seasons in your congregation where it was more like pastor gets up and he just kind of talks, for it's like an hour-long sermon of sorts rather than an interactive. You use the word experience. So what, what's what differentiates your kind of adult teaching style?
Speaker 4:I like dialogue. You know I don't want to be the only, I don't want to be the only guy talking. You know, I think that even flows into preaching, trying to encourage people to say I know that when you were growing up in Lutheran church you were. I had a guy I worked with years ago. I always remember this it cracks me up because he was another Lutheran guy and he said man, we were taught you do not raise your hands in worship unless you have a question and you better not have any questions. And I always laughed about that. You know, because you know I spent time at Pentecostal church and stuff. And you know like, oh, you know, get up, and you know, get up and engage in worship and that sort of thing. So in Bible study and stuff, I like to have a dialogue.
Speaker 4:I like to throw stuff out and say look, what do you think? What are you hearing? You hearing, you know I'm not going to tell you what I'm hearing, at least not right now. Like, you know, what are you hearing? Let's talk about it and let's see what you figure out. Uh, you know, does it coincide? Or? And I like getting in and kind of explaining the stuff that tends to slip over the head, and what I found in that is when I just get up and talk, um, I leave out. You know when we you know when we start talking with people and get into kind of feedback, all of a sudden I'm sitting there and I'm going. I don't know how many times I've read this passage. I prepared for this Bible study and then that went right over my head. I didn't, I didn't even think about it, and so it's great to get connections myself, and I think the opportunity to allow people to talk in Bible study is huge.
Speaker 2:Well, it's because the word is living and active, eli. Yeah, it's like the very word that created everything you see and don't see, that took flesh in the person of Jesus, still actually moves people today to confess Christ and then want to practice. Shout out to Allen Iverson we're talking about practice. Man, people need to practice talking about Jesus, and the church should be a place. Small groups should be a place. Bible study should be a place where people get to stretch their practice muscles in anticipation of discipleship in the home, discipleship in their community. Telling the gospel story. People, this is a wonderful calling for every member. I'd love to get your take on this. Do you think a higher majority of your members because of that kind of interactive Bible study style? If you were to ask, are you a type of evangelist Like, would more of a majority of them say well, yeah, I'll talk to anybody about Jesus because I practice with Pastor Eli talking about Jesus. Any thoughts there, eli?
Speaker 4:I wish I could. I wish I could say for sure that it's driving more conversations from people. That's that's the goal. Right is getting people. You know, we all know the Great Commission, right, we know that this idea you know to, you know, as you're going to, you know to share the good news thing, and we know that in our minds. But so often, I think I went to PLI a number of years ago and one of the things that I remember talking about there was it was, you know, we get caught up in the, the need to feel prepared. You know, I got to take one more class, I got to do one more Bible study, I learned one more thing. So I'm ready.
Speaker 4:If somebody asks a question I don't know an answer to and we're so often, I think, afraid to step out. I really think the goal is to try to get people just comfortable talking about and go, look, you really do know the answers. You know you don't have to have. You know I'm a pastor, I've been doing it for. You know I've been doing it for 12 years. You know, and I don't have all the answers either, there's things I'm still learning and discovering. I mean, you mentioned Tim. It's a living word. Yeah, I hope that I never stop trying to or never stop discovering new things, but that's always the goal is to get them to be comfortable talking. Are we there yet? I don't know, I think. As Lutherans, I think we have a natural tendency to like to learn but not translate that into as effectively into genuine conversations with our friends and neighbors.
Speaker 2:Yeah, god intends us to be a river, not a reservoir. And teaching, or sharing, is learning twice, and so the quicker you can learn something and share it with a friend. This is how the gospel spread. Do you realize? Jesus is Lord. Christ is risen. He is risen, indeed, hallelujah. It's Monday, thursday I shouldn't be saying that anyway, but Sunday's coming right, and so this is the tomb is empty. This is the invitation that we have for all of the baptized, for the royal priesthood to become adept and confident in the Lord, to share their faith. Jack, any, take on the role of, I think, teaching and our preaching in moving the everyday follower of Jesus.
Speaker 3:he is another priest and he should not be thought of as any different than the rest of the priests of the congregation. So now, if that's the truth, this is a powerful statement, that is an identity statement that marks what it means to be a believer right, not just forgiven, not just saved those are very important. But then also priest right we're part of the royal priesthood those are very important. But then also priest right we're part of the royal priesthood. So what is given, then, to the priesthood? Prayer, intercession, sharing the gospel these are all things given to all priests, not just pastors. So now, if you're a pastor, that should start to reshape how you think about how you interact with your congregation.
Speaker 3:That you are there as an equipper right, obviously, you're serving them with word and sacrament, but you're also equipping them to fully live out their daily vocation as priest right, that's exactly what Luther was thinking about when he wrote the catechisms. He wanted that to be a tool for parents. Right, it's a tool for pastors, but it's also a tool for parents to disciple their children, which means it's something that was going to be baked into the fabric of society. So I think that's a very like. We really need to lean into that right. That is something that I think is most important. I have neighbors I want to be able to, in casual conversation, be able to share the gospel with them whenever that need comes about. There's people in the town in the zip code that your congregation know that you, the pastor, are never going to know.
Speaker 3:So, you have to depend on them being a part of the church, an extension of the church, to be gospel sharers, carrying the gospel with them wherever they go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no doubt. Think about the night Jesus was betrayed and he inaugurated this new covenant, giving us his very body and blood, signaling back to Passover, but then saying, hey, in the next 24 hours, I am the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And this is the way I'm going to come to you and guess what? You're going to share it with others, we're going to share it with others and we're going to rally. There's a multiplying effect that even comes from the Lord's table. It was not just for them, it was through them, for all who would come to faith and be baptized and believe in the triune God, and the world was forever changed. Eli, you like to talk about the real presence. I love talking about the real presence as well.
Speaker 2:I mean this is, this is something that is a differentiator. Something that is a differentiator and really I mean deeply biblically grounded. I think, now that this is a podcast, that really argues a lot. But if we're to say, hey, the sacraments for all people, baptism for all people, sacrament of Holy supper for those who have been examined can see, this is the body and blood of Jesus. Confess it in faith. Jesus is actually here for you, not just bread and wine, but also his very body and blood. Talk about what you love, about the real presence of Christ, how we articulate it in the LCMS Eli.
Speaker 4:Well, this was one of the moments when I realized I was heading in the wrong direction. When I was in college, I started out on the pastoral ministries program at Northwest University. It was the one designed to get you into pastoral ministry and the assemblies of God. I thought that's where I was headed and I was taking a class called pastoral techniques and we. It was fascinating class. I've never run into something that was similar to it.
Speaker 4:We took field trips, going to a crematorium and standing in the back next to the ovens and going, hey, you as a pastor may find yourself in this place. And I remember we went to a church and we practiced how to do baptism. And this was one of my first experiences with full immersion baptism, which I love. I love the experience of that whole water connection. And you realize, you know why does a pastor have a lot to think about? You put somebody bigger than you down in the water. How do you get them back up on their feet? Uh, so there's a question. You know it was a great class but we got you.
Speaker 2:I'm picturing right now. If I had to baptize jack in a big I don't know how this.
Speaker 3:You better bring a friend you like you keep going.
Speaker 2:Sorry, yeah, you drop somebody back and you're double baptized.
Speaker 4:I mean, is that bad? I don't know. But we went to a church and walked through communion and one of the things that struck me was the pastor of that church as he was talking to us about communion. And he was talking to us about why they use bread and why they use exclusively grape juice, and I remember him using the words we use unleavened bread and we use unleavened wine, is what he called it, um, to explain the reason for not having alcohol in it. I started thinking about that and I'm going, man, I grew up Lutheran church. I grew up with we didn't. Grape juice actually wasn't an option in the church I grew up in. Something seems off to me. And then I started doing a little deeper reading and I'm like there's no way it could have been grape juice. I mean, at the time of the Passover we don't have fresh grapes. You know, the only grape juice that was available was was not unleavened, as he would have put it, and I got to really thinking about that. And then I started thinking about you know, I remember being in chapel and we celebrated communion and you could tell it wasn't a practice that regularly occurred. Yeah, and the pastor's like, yeah, the Bible says something like this. And he looks, he's looking it up, and he and then it's like, okay, so we're just going to pass the trays down and why don't you take it and eat and drink? And you know, and then he said this is something that symbolizes. And I was like whoa, wait what? And I really wrestled with that and that's what really kind of put me back onto the path of where is the right place. You know, there were other things you know discovering. You know discovering Luther in in church, history and stuff and all that. But it was the practice of communion, more than anything that drove me back. I guess what I would say back home was that sacramental nature.
Speaker 4:I started having conversations after I graduated. I started working for the university while I was a student. Not only did I have a child and a wife and a full-time course load, I also worked full-time for the university in the maintenance department, and so I was there for a decade and I got to know all the professors. I remember having conversations with some of my Bible professors. I mean, these were great men. They were, you know men, you know PhDs out the years from all these places, really smart guys and we'd have these conversations and I asked one of them one day. I said what is it? I said the experience I've had with the assemblies is this spirit-led concept. I mean, the spirit invades everything that you do until we get to communion and baptism. And then, all of a sudden, it's like where'd he go? Where'd he go? Yeah, that's a great way of putting it. And I said why do we have such a hard time with this idea that, uh, that Christ could be present in communion? Um, and that's really, that's really what got me there. Uh, and then it was a couple of years ago.
Speaker 4:We were doing an epiphany series on the gifts of Christmas. What were the things the wise men brought? Why gold, frankincense and myrrh, and what were these ties to Old Testament temple worship? And as we were talking about gold and talking about the construction of the ark and overlaying of gold and the cherubim on the top, and uh and the, and god saying and where did god rest? He rested on the mercy seat. This was where he dwelt, amongst his people. And then here we have the new covenant, uh, where christ meets us in the supper uh.
Speaker 3:So, eli, I have to share this.
Speaker 3:So, uh, I was baptized lutheran and then raised pentecostal and then came back to Lutheranism as an adult and we were at some sort of conference where we just happened to be around a lot of Pentecostal folks and they were kind of doing their thing and there was a realization, kind of an aha moment.
Speaker 3:Now I tend to draw a lot of conclusions that maybe that's a right conclusion, maybe it's a wrong conclusion, but to me it seems very reasonable that what's going on in that expression is we all have a God-sized hole and we get to fill that hole in communion, being with you know, having the real presence of God, the real, you know, the real body and the real blood. We have that hole filled for us and what I think I sometimes see is that their kind of expression, their hyper expressiveness with the Holy Spirit, is trying to fill that same hole. That we get filled with the sacraments, right, and so to me it's almost like I see it almost as an overcompensating like where they go over the top with prophesies and speaking in tongues and all that kind of stuff that they're trying to fill that hole that we get filled with that sacramental expression that we have well, this is why our extra notes this is my own kind of drawing the, the dotted lines, and I'm sure people could tear that apart.
Speaker 2:Go ahead if you want to, but that's kind of what I see well, I mean, what distinguishes the sacraments for luther and then for us, and this goes back 500 years. You know one of the big cases he makes to Catholic brothers and sisters it's not a work, it's God working for us. It's extra nose that comes from outside of us and changes us from the inside out, creating and sustaining faith in the triune God. Like I got nothing to bring to the table, I'm a dead man, I have to be revived. And the fervor of our praise, that's always just in response. You can say whatever you want. I mean, david danced and played different instruments, all this kind of stuff. That's just all in response, a hymn of praise, sacrifice that we are children of God, not by what we do, but just because God says so.
Speaker 2:And I think passive faith, extra-nose faith outside of us, is a bridge. There are others, but a bridge into inter-ecumenical dialogue with other brothers and sisters in other traditions and I think we should be charitable about it. This is one of my prayers for we in the LCMS can we work out some of our things that we need to work out so that we can unite in in mission and ecumenical conversation, because we believe this confession is true, like it's biblical it's, it's very grounded, like everybody needs Jesus, from little infants, baptism, baptism infants can die, go and make disciples of all nations. How Baptize and then teach. And one of our main teachings is the real presence of Jesus in the Lord's Supper. And yeah, he's at work, man, I don't just come and receive, taste and see the Lord is good and then invite other people to come and taste and see. Like it seems kind of simple.
Speaker 2:And Luther you picture Luther in his arguments, debates they had more robust debates and I bet he and Zwingli went and had a beer or something after their debate. But the one thing he could not compromise on was the real presence Is means is I don't know what else it could mean Take and eat. This is my body, this is my blood for the forgiveness of your sins. And I think your comment about the Holy Spirit, yeah, why would we like the Holy Spirit wants to have complete control, complete access of every part of our life, right, what we say, what we do, how we live and obviously the most important things bringing us into and sustaining our faith in Christ. Like, why would we kick the Holy Spirit out of doing something miraculous at the, at the table and through water connected to word Like that's kind of. That's kind of wild for me to even think about Any. Any response to that. Eli or Jack, eli jump and then Jack, you close this one down Go.
Speaker 4:Well, I take back into that and I go. I think there's also something, though, through these expressions and, jack, you, you mentioned you know your experience and trying to fill that God-sized hole. But then I also think about my experience. Growing up and church was you saying your hymns of praise and stuff, but you didn't react in any way. I mean it's so funny. I've been doing this for 12 years and I'm still caught by surprise if I actually get somebody to say amen when I'm preaching, because I'm not used to it in my context. But I'm like why aren't we Right? I mean, this should change our hearts, it should make us enthusiastic worshipers. And this is where I look at our worship settings and I'm going you know, how can we make this something that engages our senses, that engages our hearts?
Speaker 4:I often think about, you know, somebody asked me what's a verse that matters to you, like, well, there's a lot, sure, but 1 Corinthians 9.22 always stuck out to me, where Paul's talking about you know, to the Jews, I become a Jew. To the Gentiles, I'm a Gentile. And he says I become all things to all people so that by all means I might save some. I've always taken that to be. You know Paul says, look, I'm not free from the law, you know, I mean God's word is still my guiding principle. But how do we then take everything else and help people, you know, encounter Jesus? How do we help people see that taste and see that the Lord is good. Come in, you know, come and experience this feeling that you get through the Lord's Supper. But how do we also teach our brothers and sisters inside the Lutheran church to experience God? Maybe the way, maybe the way David did when you know, when he would dance, and maybe, you know, maybe we find a way to see, see how how people can experience.
Speaker 4:You think about those, those people that Jesus actually touched. You know his healings where he could have just spoken, like he did in so many other cases, and yet he uses his hands on the blind man. Or I'm always struck by the leper, you know, who's supposed to actually let people know that he's unclean. Stay away. And what's Jesus do? He comes up and he embraces the guy. I mean this is life change. And so I think there's opportunities for us as Lutherans to experience that. There's opportunities for us to show what we've got to people and say, look, we've got something I think you're missing. I've never had anyone I've had that conversation with when I say, how do we not say that Christ isn't present through the power of the Holy Spirit and communion? And I've never had somebody go. Yeah, no.
Speaker 3:Jack. Well, you mentioned stuff about the Holy Spirit, so I have to share a little story here. Holy Spirit, so I have to share a little story here. I was at a friend's party. A friend invited me to a party it was like a family reunion and a lot of the folks there they came from more of the Pentecostal background, and he introduced me as a person who worked at a church, and so all of a sudden they started referring to me as Pastor Jack. I said, oh, I'm not ordained or anything like that, and they didn't care, they just kept calling me that.
Speaker 3:And so at one point this lady came up to me and said do you have a word for me? Right, do you have a word for me? And she was asking for like a word from the Holy Spirit. And so I thought about it for a second and I said yes, I do. And she said well, what is it? And I said Jesus wants you to know that you are his beloved daughter, that he cares about you very much, that he died on the cross for you, that he has forgiven all of your sins, that you belong to him, that the promise of salvation belongs to you and that any time, any moment. If you ever want to hear his word, you can crack open the Bible and he will give you words of comfort and peace and joy. And she said he told you that.
Speaker 2:I said yes, he told me that, yeah, for you, for you, indeed, amen. So that's an experience, I think. To go back to what you're saying, that's a good story, jack uh, and that's one of your stories that I haven't heard before, so I appreciated that as well. We hang out a lot anyway, so I was on the edge of my seat on that story.
Speaker 3:She's like't know what you were going to say so good job, she was just blown away. I was like the Holy Spirit told you that. It's like, yes, it did. It's right there in the Bible.
Speaker 2:I take that back. I think I have heard that story, I just forgot it. No, jack, you're great. If you don't know, jack has one of the greatest well, you do know, if you've been listening one of the greatest laughs. You light up the room and from time to time you scare me, yuck, okay, no, getting back to your experience stuff.
Speaker 2:So it's not like Lutherans are anti-experiential or use the word enthusiastic. An enthusiast is waiting around for that sort of experience, to know that God is present, or for someone to bring a word, or laying on of hands or speaking in tongues, or something like that. Or were your words of prophecy or healing extraordinary healing for God to know he's present? God can do some wild things, to be sure. Some wild things to be sure, but what he does consistently is show up and show off in his word, both read, spoken, believed and through the sacraments, the divine mystery of being a child of God in the wires of baptism. And so why would this be any less experiential? Luther was very into. I want everybody to experience this, I and I want. This is one of the things too. Luther, jack, you, you. I think we're in the podcast where we talked about, uh, singing. Luther wanted the congregation to sing. Do people even know like the origin of even singing enthusiastically?
Speaker 3:comes from luther. He wanted the congregation to be joyfully engaged in worshiping god through singing, which is wild because it automatically made the worship experience less stoic than it would have been just watching the priest do his thing up there. Right yeah, it's a more interactive worship style, and what's wild now is that that Catholics do that. They've joined us in doing that. Good job, all right.
Speaker 4:I would talk to my colleagues and I'd tell them hey, you guys know that, you, you know everything. You've got, you've got your feet founded in the reformation. They never liked hearing that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we all come from somewhere, right, that's right. Anyway, all right, we just got about 10, 15 minutes left and, uh, we're, we're committed. We want to have difficult conversations on this podcast. There are some topics that I don't speak into currently. I've said a lot about them, but I think, just generally, as I'm setting up this topic, generally we can improve the way we love and care for one another online, putting the best construction on things online and putting the best constructions. As hard as this is around the politics and the convention cycles that happen from districts into the National Synodical Convention. I've been to the last three. I don't know if I'll be going in. Well, it's here in town, actually in Phoenix, so I'll be around somehow. I don't know if I'll be a voting delegate, we'll see how that goes, but you went for the first time and just tell us about your experience, eli.
Speaker 4:It was eye-opening, to say the least. I mean, I've been here and I've been part of my circuit for 10 years. I hear my colleagues talk about how things go and all that sort of stuff. So I don't think that that truly prepared me for the experience. And I think the thing that I noticed more than anything was I'm not sure how we actually get anything done Just because you know, the minute something comes up, there's often some sort of competing or something to try to alter it, and so the conversation starts and then something else gets proposed to amend it, and then the conversation starts all over with the amendment. You debate the amendment for the allotted time and you never actually get back to the original thing. Then we vote. We vote down the amendment, we vote on the original thing, which never had any discussion, then we move on, and so that was very interesting to me to kind of watch that play out.
Speaker 4:Never had a moment where I felt tempted to get up and speak until we got to the discussion on pastoral formation. That was a moment when I felt like I had a story to tell. I came from a different place. I wouldn't be an LCMS pastor if I hadn't had the route open to me. I mean, I don't like to make absolutes because I always say, look, god could make anything happen, but you know the way I see it and the way we were set up and the way my wife and I were where our lives were and how things were going. 30 years old I couldn't pack up and moved to St Louis. We were surviving mostly on her income. I had two kids, tried to do seminary for two years, pack up, go somewhere for vicarage, pack up, come back to seminary and then try to start out in my mid-30s. I don't know how that would have happened. And so I actually, for the first time I queued in to talk about this and before my name came up, an amendment was proposed and they cleared the queue and they started over with the debate on the amendment and I tried. I never got back into the queue, but what I heard in all of this and I can't remember what the amendment to the original thing was exactly what we were talking about.
Speaker 4:But you know, here we were talking about how do we? How do we, how do we fill our pulpits? And I'm serving two congregations. I've got a congregation that could. I've got a guy in one of my congregations who would be an ideal support for ministry. He's a worker priest model. He's the principal of a Christian school. He would be ideal to help get into the ministry and yet our structure doesn't have an avenue for me to get him in the way I think he'd like to get in.
Speaker 4:And then I think about my experience and I'm like well, I don't have any problem with residential instruction, in fact I think it's. I think you want to talk about gold standard and I would tell my watch your podcast on on is it the gold standard from a little while back? And I think, tell my watch your podcast on on is it the gold standard from a little while back? And I think, if you have the opportunity to do that, fantastic, please, please, take the route, because there were some things I missed in my route. Mine was a hybrid I. I had a residential class once a week. I to take the four classes each quarter at a couple of distance classes that were. I was watching recorded lectures and interacting with the professor online. And the last one was during one week. It was during a week-long intensive when I would go to class for six hours a day to get all the lecture in and I, there were things that I missed. The interaction with my you know, with my brothers in in during this time, I think was great, but at the same time it wasn't a route for me.
Speaker 4:And what I heard at convention were people getting up speaking to the residential standard and saying there is no way that we can provide robust education outside of the residential model. I'm like, look, I'm an LCMS pastor, I'm here, I was accepted and made part of this group. Either I got in through a loophole and shouldn't be here, or I was able to have an education that met a robust standard to be an LCMS pastor of not one but two congregations, and so that one was a little disappointing to me because it made me feel like I wasn't, I wasn't really part of the team. And then then we got into a discussion on, you know, re-emphasizing traditional Lutheran worship, and you know comments were made that, look, if you're not doing traditional Lutheran worship out of the worship book, you're not actually doing Lutheran worship.
Speaker 4:And I'm like aren't we sharing the gospel, aren't we? You know we're doing the confession and we're, you know, we're providing, you know, confession and absolution. We're reciting the creed and we're doing it in a slightly different model. Are we not still Lutheran? And those were a couple of things that really stood out to me. But what really got me was the topic of pastoral formation. Like why can't we I mean, we've got some great colleges, technology's come so far why can't we provide robust pastoral training to meet the needs? I've got a guy. I don't know how to get him into ministry.
Speaker 3:So you've got us at an interesting time in the history of our podcast. Right now, eli, we have made a commitment, just for the short term, not to be discussing the topic about pastoral formation, for the sake of peace and unity of the church, and at the same time, you know, we are hoping that others would engage in robust conversations about this topic. Obviously, we've made our opinions known about this in the past. I think the best way for us to respond about this right now is probably to say what is it that you would hope to see with respect to pastoral formation in the future? What are your thoughts?
Speaker 3:I think Tim and I are not going to make a comment on this right now, but you are certainly free to make a comment on it. What would you? What would? What is it that you would like to see in the future? If you like, let's just think future focused. What is it that you think gets our church body to a place where there is not just robust pastoral formation but maybe more accessible, more people participating in it, more you know something that results in more people being able to take the call in the ministry.
Speaker 4:I don't think anything's. You know, if it is God honoring and if we're following God in being the body of believers and seeking to carry out the work of his church, I think that he's going to. He's going to open doors and I rest that on. You know my congregation. I was a year into my call when we lost the lease on the space we were meeting in and we had some conversations about I mean, you're in first call and do we close the doors? And God opened doors instead to move into a portable setting in a high school. We have been meeting in the same high school for going on 10 years.
Speaker 4:I've been part of portable churches, high schools, schools don't like you there for more than a year or two. They want you to move on. This school has opened the doors to us and they work their schedules around us and they consider us one of the events that happens at the school and I can't see anything but God's hand in that and I look at that and I go that wasn't us. It wasn't possible for us to create that. I think when it comes to this issue, I'm like man. If we were to pray and put all of our faith behind this, I don't know why we couldn't make it happen. I mean, if we put pastoral formation aside, if we look at how many schools out there are providing robust training for all kinds of other degrees, and let's not wipe out a residential component. I mean this one guy that I've got that I could bring in. If he could do a significant amount of his learning at a distance and if he could go in for a, you know, for a week intensive twice a year and meet with his cohort and stuff, I think it would be possible and I think he'd get a lot of the benefits. It wouldn't be the same. I know it's not the same, but I still think the education could be robust because we're doing it in so many other areas.
Speaker 4:As far as the educational system, you know, across our nation and our colleges are doing, you know, this education, if people want it, they're going to apply themselves to it, and I had to do that. You know I education, if people want it, they're going to apply themselves to it and I had to do that. You know I had to do that in my education. I had to watch those lectures. I could have tried to skate by, but I'll tell you something having those lectures to watch and to then submit notes in relationship to what I watched meant that I was I saw the entire lecture.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you were engaged in the process.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm not, you know, I'm a pastor. I'm not, you know, I'm not an educational expert. I don't work in a university, I don't all that stuff. But I just I just think that if we, if we say God, how do we do this, how do you want this to happen? And and and lead us, I can't see why we couldn't do it. And the truth of the matter is I'm pastoring two congregations because there's nobody to fill the pulpit at the other one, and if I didn't have to pastor two, I wouldn't pastor two. It's a lot.
Speaker 2:It's a lot Thanks for doing it. By the way, what makes you proud to be a pastor in the LCMS? And then, final question what do you hope we look like in 2050 as a denomination, Eli?
Speaker 4:I'm proud just to be here, honestly, to be a member of the LCMS, to know that there are times when I think that the grass may be greener in other places, and then I remind myself that I'm right where God wants me to be. When I was installed in my call, one of the former pastors of the church that I pastor, Christ Community, provided me with a little framed picture that you know, 13 years has sat on my bookshelf over there and it simply says I'm in God's place, and it's a reminder to me every time. I think that, you know, maybe I should do something else, or maybe I'm too tired to keep going on, or maybe I'm just beating my head against the wall. I'm like I'm in, I'm in God's place. When I was going to seminary and it looked like colic we was closing I almost headed off in the direction of the LCMC, because faith is a training seminary for the LCMC, and but it just it wasn't.
Speaker 3:It wasn't quite what you were looking for from a confessional perspective, right it wasn't right, and so I'm just.
Speaker 4:I'm proud to be a member of the LCMS. I pray for the next 50 years. What's it 25 years? Sorry. I'm proud to be a member of the LCMS. I pray for the next 50 years. What's it 25 years? Sorry, I'm jumping ahead there, but what's it gonna look like in the next 25 years? That's about the time I'm gonna be. I'm going to be in the retired phase, where I am now working full time as a retired pastor yeah, cause that's apparently what we do here, but I pray that we are. We're trying to find pulpits to put pastors in, because we've got people training for ministry. This is a good thing that we've got. We want to share. I want to share it with you know, with the world. I want people to be, I want people to be Christians and I want them to be Lutheran Christians and LCMS, lutheran Christians yeah.
Speaker 3:The area that we live in, you know, is about 4 million people living in the metropolitan area of the Phoenix metro area. There's probably about 2,000 churches, maybe not even that much, maybe 1,800 churches serving this community. There probably needs to be 10,000 churches serving this community for it to be well served by pastors and churches. And so the vision that I have is that whatever and I'm not going to prescribe anything at this point in time, but like whatever it is that we decide to do as a church body, that it creates that pathway, that that many pastors could be filled and some right, that there would be people ready, willing to serve, and that there'd be a surplus of pastors. And so that's a vision that our church body is going to have to tackle and that's what I'm praying for.
Speaker 2:Hey, this has been fun, eli. If people want to connect with you, how can they do so? You got your email, yeah, I got an email. Eli.
Speaker 4:E-L-I at CC Ridgefield dot com. Amen, it's all spelled out R-I-D-G-E-F-I-E-L-D rather than Richfield, Connecticut, which always seems to come up when people are looking for Ridgefield Washington. But Eli at CC Ridgefield dot com is my email. Talk to me there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, hey. I've loved. Thanks for your generosity of time on a Monday, thursday and praying for you heading into Easter and the Easter season. I am very glad that you're a pastor in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod Welcome brother.
Speaker 2:And let's get after it. Making and multiplying disciples. This is lead time. Please like and subscribe. I'm going to double down on the subscribe Subscriptions on lead time. Please like and subscribe. I'm going to double down on the subscribe subscriptions on YouTube, especially wherever it is you take it in. But YouTube, it really helps, with the algorithm, to get this conversation into the ears of more and more people and we're very, very hopeful for the future. We know that the end of the story is very, very good. We win. I want to win, and we win in Christ as the people of God, and we want more people to know the salvation, the winning that comes in following after Jesus. That's in our hearts and we will continue. We will not stop proclaiming Christ as Lord until that last day comes where we take our last breath. This was an honor to spend time with you. Thanks so much, shaq, thanks Eli. It's a good day. Thank you guys. Great day, good work.
Speaker 4:Thanks guys, Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to Lead Time, a podcast of the Unite Leadership Collective. The ULC's mission is to collaborate with the local church to discover, develop and deploy leaders through biblical Lutheran doctrine and innovative methods To partner with us in this gospel message. Subscribe to our channel, then go to theuniteleadershiporg to create your free login for exclusive material and resources and then to explore ways in which you can sponsor an episode. Thanks for listening and stay tuned for next week's episode.