Lead Time
Lead Time
Why the LCMS Fails at Evangelism
Whether you're a traditionalist, a missional reformer, or somewhere in between, this episode will challenge your assumptions and stir your heart for unity, clarity, and bold gospel witness.
Rod Zwonitzer—a second-career pastor with a background in corporate marketing—joins Lead Time to drop some hard truth: the LCMS is great at feeding the sheep but terrible at fishing for the lost. In this rich, candid conversation, Rod explores the tension between doctrinal purity and outreach, confessional liturgy and contemporary music, and why the term “church growth” sends some Lutherans into panic mode.
From defending contemporary worship (with his Stratocaster in hand) to later questioning whether pop culture fits in the sanctuary, Rod shares his journey through marketing, ministry, and the Book of Proverbs—all while urging the church to stop fighting and start fishing.
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This is Lead Time.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Lead Time, tim Allman here. It's a beautiful day to be alive. Jack Calberg is also in the house. Pray, the joy of Jesus is yours as you're buckled up, ready to learn something new. Today the Holy Spirit is at work. He's within us and he's leading us to look and become, look and sound more and more like Jesus, for the glory of his name, for the advancement of his kingdom. Jack, how are you doing, man?
Speaker 3:I'm doing fantastic. It's a beautiful day. It's kind of crazy because we're smack dab in the middle of May, but we have this really beautiful weather right now. Usually we're in very hot temperatures already. Yeah Well, we will be.
Speaker 2:We will be soon. It's coming Tomorrow. Yeah well, we will be in, like tomorrow, I think tomorrow's like in the hundreds already we're getting there. But wherever you are, pray that you're setting the temperature which is joy and love and care and warmth toward those that are around you. Today I get the privilege of introducing you to our guest.
Speaker 2:His name is Rod Swanitzer. He's a second career pastor with a marketing degree, especially in advertising. Ron has worked in corporate world for nearly 14 years in product management at Westinghouse Storage Technology and then United Technologies, haas Tech. He's a graduate of St Louis Seminary, my alma mater, concordia. They're in St Louis. He graduated in 1984. He served congregations in British Columbia, dearborn, michigan, and did a brief transition work with the radio station you may have heard of it KFUO in St Louis. God has written two books Testing the Claims of Church Growth and Wise Words for Each Day, a devotional on the book of Proverbs. That's going to be fun. We're going to talk about both those. He's always been into outreach, even as a lay person. Before going into the ministry helped plan and launch three mission agencies. I bet you heard of a number of these as well. Pablo Latino and I should be able to say this better Ephatha, ephatha gee whiz.
Speaker 2:Ephatha Lutheran Mission Society and he's currently launching an outreach partnership called Through the Bible in Two Hours, which seeks to attract the unchurched and de-churched into our LCMS congregations. Praise be to God, Rod. What a joy to be with you today, brother. How are you doing?
Speaker 4:We're doing great Good to be with you guys in the Phoenix area there. I almost went to university there. It was my dream and I didn't quite pull it off, but I've always loved the Phoenix area, Scottsdale, all of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, asu. Did you think of going to ASU? I tried to get in.
Speaker 4:I was a tennis player and I wasn't that good to get a full ride. So they, they cut me back and I decided to to go to another place Arizona State and Arizona were in our conference at that time and so I decided, well, I'll go in my home state, little Wyoming and then recoup. But I realized real quick I was not competitive at the collegiate level. So I decided, okay, you better get another career guy. I loved Arizona and my golf pro, the John Jacobs Company, is out there and I heard you like golf too. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, yeah, it's cool.
Speaker 3:We call it paradise. Here I played TPC Scott's field.
Speaker 4:Shot one of my best rounds of my life there, so I love Arizona.
Speaker 2:There you go. No, it is a great place to live. And where do you live now? St Louis Rod.
Speaker 4:No, we're just outside the Detroit metro area, a little place called Fenton. Okay, beautiful my wife. I'm married to a Michigander. I'd still be retired in Florida playing golf, believe me.
Speaker 2:Well, hey, rod, you reached out to me via email Thank you for doing so and you've heard us talk about kind of the two sides of the same coin mission and confession, as it relates to our Lutheran confession. So start there. You propose a both-and approach to mission and confession. We agree and would love to hear how you articulate that, rod.
Speaker 4:Well, I would summarize it like this guys, it's one of my big frustrations with our beloved Synod that we seem to get into two tribes, the purity of doctrine tribe and the outreach tribe, and the twain shall never meet and I've tried to bridge both of those tribes and I was unsuccessful. Very frustrating to me. And in the book Testing the Claims of Church Growth, I proposed, you know, put down the verbiage and the talk and let's sit down and, as you know, believers in Christ, let's settle our differences the Lutheran way, a formula of Concord. And I'll never forget when I was at the Sim there was a guy running around called JA O Preuss and he was an expert on Chemnitz, as you know, and Chemnitz was the big guy in the formula of Concord. And so I remember he had a little lecture one day and they had cassette tapes of it back.
Speaker 4:Boy, that's ancient dinosaur, isn't it? Cassette tapes and I still have it of his talk about how to resolve disagreements in the Lutheran church. And I proposed that and I tried a little bit. That can't seem to get any traction at all among us. I'm just frustrated. I like both sides, I really do. I love doctrine, I love the purity of it. But I'm also just 100% reach out with the gospel to everyone I can, in every possible way I can. So that's my frustration.
Speaker 2:What did? And Jack, you're muted. I had to mute Jack because we have a huge drum line going on outside of us right now. No, we have it's chapel day, as we're recording in real time here. So what was JAO Preuss? I mean a strong mentor for me. Do you remember, rod? Some of his attempts? How was he trying to articulate bringing confession and mission together? Do you remember that, rod?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean he said that the way Chemnitz and the boys did it was to the points that you disagreed on. You could only talk about them in terms of scripture and what was already in the Book of Concord before the formula. And so you know, articulate the sides, all you could bring to bear on either side, and then you had to pick one. We confess this and we reject that formula of conquered style. And we actually tried this, guys, in 1996 here in Michigan and I was really disappointed. We had four church growth guys talking to four confessional guys and we talked for three years and we both kind of wrote formula of concrete statements and discussed them and at the end we had, I thought you know, agreed to give it on our work to the Senate and let Senate kind of take it from there to the Senate and let Senate kind of take it from there. And it fell flat. Guys were opposed to doing it and so to this date it's never seen the light of day.
Speaker 4:I thought it was a great discussion. I remember we started listing doctrinal things that we thought we disagreed on and we stopped at 20. And so we waited the place that we'd like to start and it was not my number one, but the one we settled on. You guys will like this worship liturgy and adiaphora, and so we talked about it for three years and a fascinating discussion, and it just still frustrates me that we couldn't get any traction anywhere among us to try to keep going with this. And so I appreciate you guys and what you're doing. I've listened to quite a few and I thought, well, I'll just come on and share what the Lord's been doing in my life and maybe this will start a spark somewhere in the Senate and we'll lay down our hostilities and get together as brothers in Christ and try to resolve our differences, because I like both sides. I'm a weirdo.
Speaker 3:Can you help explain to some folks the term church growth? How should people understand that term church growth? Because I think, yeah, unpack that for that. Because to me, on the surface, the term church growth shouldn't bother anybody. Everybody in the planet who's a Christian wants to see the church grow. It's the Great Commission. And yet there's some certain baggage that's tied to this term church growth that's got some folks in Lutheranism kind of. It gets them up in arms when you bring it up right, and I think that's we're trying to understand. This dichotomy has formed around this topic and I think there's misconceptions about what it is and what it isn't, and maybe what it looks like you know, and how it can and cannot be applied in a Lutheran context. Maybe can you unpack that for people.
Speaker 4:Jack, I think that's such a great question and you know it's kind of. I think you know we look back in history of all kinds of things, and especially the church, and we put titles on things that sometimes just don't quite define. You know the issues really well and I think you're pointing out one of them who wouldn't be for church growing right. But I think the differences that at least I'm aware of are that we are very suspect of each other and how that growth would occur, of each other and how that growth would occur. And I think that's where I know I was asked to write the book because they felt like I had had a marketing career that was interesting and I maybe could relate, and so it kind of took off from there. In fact I fought, I have to admit I fought kind of hard at the beginning, said I'm the wrong guy to have write this book because I'm not a wordsmith like some people are, and it kind of terrified me and they said, no, no, you're perfect. You're perfect because you have background that not many other pastors do. And I would summarize it this way other pastors do and I would summarize it this way my last few days at a congregation that I was at in Dallas, texas, all the people were telling me this we're so excited for you, rod, to become a pastor. It's about time that we had more pastors like you that have had an executive experience. And I said I'm not sure being an executive in the corporate world is going to do anything for me as a pastor.
Speaker 4:And as I went through seminary that's what I found out there were very little to me that transferred from my corporate life to being a pastor, because I went into it, you know, open-minded. I had no background at all being a pastor. I loved to teach a singles Bible study group that I was in. That really blessed my life. But I didn't know how to be, what a pastor would do, and the only thing that I thought was transferable was you're a timid little guy, being a five foot eight with a long German name, and so I was always kind of shy and my dad didn't have a lot of money most of my growing up life. So I always felt a little self-conscious and the corporate world really did a number on me. To survive, I had to become one tough hombre, and it was a rough world, especially in the big corporate life that I was in, and so I became a pretty mean little marketing guy and I was shocked to death that I went as far as I did at the corporate world and you know, I played for I played for real, I, I, I tell everybody that, listen, you pay me excellent money to give you the best marketing advice I can and that's what I'm going to give you. And so, you know, I, I learned, I learned a lot. I dealt with very, you know, talented men and women in the corporate world, amazed them, and I could keep up, and so I think that's the thing I really learned. I'm not really much afraid anymore to talk with anyone. I remember when I had to commune my first synodical president at the community rail and I thought, well, hey, just another Christian. I mean, I'm a pastor, he's a pastor, no intimidation. So I think that's what I got.
Speaker 4:But I did not see any transferability of my marketing life because to me I knew that marketing was a dominant theory in the corporate world, where you know the transition from an engineer designing something you know. We always had examples like you design a watch and the engineers design all this thing with the gears and the levers and all the other things that can consume a watch, and then the sales department tries to go out and pedal that and the marketing changed that all around. To go out first and figure out what does the consumer want, with keeping time, and that, would you know, in turn drive the rest of your corporate activity, and that's what I did as a product marketing manager. I had to go out and figure out what the consumer wanted. We would always talk about it. The consumer was king. You had to do what the consumer wanted. We would always talk about it. The consumer was king. He had to do what the consumer wanted. Even in my last career with United Technologies Mossack which is a fantastic corporation, unbelievable to work for that they really held to that. So the product marketing guy he had ultimate uh say, um, like in my product lines, um, I had total control over what the design was going to be, what the price was going to be, what the distribution channels were going to be, what the promotional plan would look like. The promotional plan would look like. And I looked at the consumer, for if I couldn't please the consumer, I couldn't get more market share. You know, profit. All the rest of that followed that.
Speaker 4:So to me, marketing shouldn't apply to the church. So you know, like I have friends that have scathed reviews about me saying, hey, what kind of marketing guy is this? He says he doesn't like marketing in the church. And yet he, we've seen him and he does promotional ads. And and my response is they don't know marketing with that, with that approach, because you know, promotion is just a part of marketing. So can we promote the church Absolutely, but I'm not sure that we can allow the consumer to be the king.
Speaker 4:That's my point and that's the point I tried to get across in the book. So, jack, I guess the long-winded talk there. It's unfortunate that I think some people in the church growth business, and just to put that label on that, they become very consumer-oriented, very marketing-oriented. George Barnard wrote a book on it which I used initially before writing my text to say I don't think the church should be a marketing entity. I strongly believe that. So that's kind of where I come from. But should the church do whatever they can with keeping Jesus as the king and the Lord of the church? Absolutely, one hundred percent? So that's to me the disconnect on the wide range, on both, and I'm not saying everybody is in those polarized sides. Sometimes it's variations of that, degrees of that.
Speaker 3:Does that help? Yeah, yeah, it helps a lot. And sorry, you're gonna hear some drums pounding outside my door right now as I'm talking, so uh, we'll just, we'll just get, we'll just go with it right now, but um I have three.
Speaker 4:I have three brothers, and all of them were fantastic drummers. So drums are good.
Speaker 3:I love the drums I've been drummer my whole life, uh but they're right outside my door right now. But so this is fascinating. We're just coming off of a season right now in our ministry context Christ Greenfield where we decided as a strategic goal that we were going to really really get good at our reach strategy, and I think that's something like churches do need to have a reach strategy and a discipleship strategy, like we're trying to bring more people. We agree, it's word and sacrament. It needs to be getting the true gospel into people's ears, and we also believe that there's things that the local church can do to invite more people in to hear, so that there's more people hearing the gospel Right. That's a thing the church can do. To invite more people in to hear so that there's more people hearing the gospel right. That that's a thing the church can do, and so promotion is something that we do.
Speaker 3:We have a very intentional strategy to bring a lot more people to our website, and we've seen a very clear pattern that a certain number of people visiting our website means a certain number of new people visiting us on church on a Sunday, and so we've built strategies around that. Now we're not saying untrue things in our effort to promote, but we are honoring the fact that sometimes the felt needs of people in the community might be a little bit different than what you think they are. And being sensitive to those felt needs is a much better way to start building relationship with people so that you can have permission to share the gospel with them. What are your thoughts on that? Do you think I'm off track here as I'm thinking this through?
Speaker 4:As I was listening to you, jack, I would say that that matches up very well with what we're doing and through the Bible in two hours, that when you're reaching out to an unchurched segment of our society or a de-churched you know the people that have fallen away from church life you cannot talk to them like they're churched and you cannot talk to them start using theological language. They don't know these words, you know so, absolutely. So you have to do something to attract them and get them interested, absolutely. I think that we have to be careful there.
Speaker 4:And I would also say that sometimes things that the church has tried and maybe been successful at attracting those kind of people in don't work anymore. Or in certain areas they don't work, and I've been a part of that very. I mean like, uh, you know, what surprises me is is how much the, the missouri senate, uh, was maybe successful in previous times at attracting uh, unchurched people, for instance, to have to have a parochial school, and I've been in situations where I had wonderful schools but the Lord just did not bring any return on investment. And so the church, you know, that's where the marketing guy comes out in me. I say, well, hey, it doesn't look like the Lord is blessing that. Let's try something else, let's find something else that will attract them. And so when I was listening to you, jack, I was going amen, amen to all that.
Speaker 3:And my mind goes to, because I've been in a lot of, I've consulted with a lot of churches in that situation where there might be a healthier school than there is a church, and my first reaction is how well are we building relationships with people in that school? Um, are we just assuming that because that school is connected to the church, they're going to come to your church, or are we actively going into that school setting and building relationships with those families?
Speaker 4:yeah, or or you know you're, you're at, you're in. I've seen two different, completely uh, you're in. I've seen two different, completely different areas in the country, where one the people absolutely were thrilled to put their kids in our preschool. We had 250 kids in a preschool Can you believe that? And the entire physical structure was it looked like a preschool, it didn't look like a church and we could not interest the people in the church side at all. We could not get them to even consider switching over.
Speaker 4:Another one that I was in in Michigan we had a large school and we attracted a lot of people from well. For instance, we had a huge Roman Catholic church right across the street from us and they did not have a preschool or a kindergarten. So they would send all their kids to us preschool and kindergarten and at first grade they're gone to their school. And then we had a lot of other kids in the neighborhood that would come in and give us their kids because they were church but they didn't have a church school and the minute they graduated we lost them. So we felt like that we weren't doing really evangelism in the one and the other one. It didn't seem like the Lord was blessing it at all and that congregation. By the way, they were in the Orlando area.
Speaker 4:When we retired down there and after living there for three years, my wife decided she really didn't like Florida. She missed her Michigan and I tried to convince her to stay down there and let me go off, but she said no, I want to go back to Michigan. So when we went back, but they shifted their outreach away from the school model and it went ablaze. They went from worshiping like 20 a Sunday when we were there to right now they are booming. They're up around 200 and no school. So but they're doing outstanding outreach in their area. So you know, to me it's the old marketing mix. You have to shift, you have to adjust. What maybe didn't work in previous decades it might work now something new but you have to attract and interest people before you can get them in the door, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:Hey, this is good, Rod. We talk about brand as well what people say about you when you're not in the room and the brand of our church now we're talking. Christ Greenfield is so intimately connected to our school that to separate church and school feels insincere. We are a church that has a school and our new principle has kind of doubled down on this and we're seeing quite a bit of growth. So I think it's just being true to who you are, where God has placed you, what the environment is like. We're in a very open environment towards school choice, and so for us to not have a school, lutherans do school education really really well. We've also seen a lot of families that don't have a church come to our church because of language really really matters, right, because we say welcome to Christ Greenfield Church and School. We're honored that you are here, and I just did a prayer walk a couple days ago with a couple brand new moms who have had kids in our school and now have just started to come to our church, and the prayer for all of our staff and teachers and families that are impacted and the worship that takes place on our campus. Both these women are far from understanding who Luther is. They were outside of any kind of Lutheran understanding. But now they've come in to understand who Luther not just who Jesus is, and then what it means to be a Lutheran, things like that and they've grown to respect it. And so I think for us, just being true to who God has made you to be as a, not trying to be and, jack, you and I have been talking about this don't try to be something you're not, and I think that's faithful. It takes all kinds of churches to reach all kinds of people in all kinds of contexts and don't try and be someone you're not. Live and evaluate consistently. Evaluate what's what's going well for us right now, cause there's always things that we can do to to improve Um and and to to round back and get a little higher level.
Speaker 2:The whole church growth piece, I think we've equated cause words shape worlds right. I mean words really, really matter. And we've equated church growth with and this is in our LCMS context a decrease in liturgical awareness, in watering down the gospel, making Sunday into a message that's self-help, a message that's self-help, that kind of pings at where you can grow individually and kind of, like I said, waters down the truth of law and gospel. I think that's why words really really matter. Church growth went in that direction, and so now I think this is again a little higher level. If anything looks like one of those communities and we'll just throw out like a Willow Creek or Saddleback, right, I mean they were early on in the church growth movement and they had the new contemporary worship, all that kind of stuff. So for those congregations like ours that have a drum speaking of drums, drums in worship, singing a new song Lots of drums, evidently.
Speaker 2:Lots of drums. It was really discombobulated. To be quite honest, last 20 minutes You've done great, rod. Appreciate you. For those of us that have gone down just even alternative forms of worship instrumentation, then you're immediately kind of put in that camp of you're a church growth missional person and nothing could be further from the truth. Is that kind of your book? I've not read the book. Is that what you're kind of trying to get at Rod? Say more there as we land the church growth conversation.
Speaker 4:Gosh, this is such a good conversation. You know, I remember the final days at the seminary there, tim, where I remember the two pastors that were doing the placement. It was the good cop, bad cop routine, where the first guy would ask you like, hey, rod, where would you really like to go? So I was saying I'd like to go do campus ministry in Hawaii, and he was like, oh great, you'd be perfect for that. And then the real guy would say, hey, what's wrong with going to Iowa, rod? You know what's wrong with going to Kansas? And I go. A lot of things you know, you know, and uh, uh, so, um, you know it, it it's um. And then, and then he looked me in the eyeball and he said, rod, I want you to tell me honestly, are you going to allow contemporary worship into your, you know, ministry? And I tried to get as straight faced as I could and lied through my teeth Say no, I'm never going to allow it to come in.
Speaker 4:But you know, I'm an old guy and I was going to high school right in the middle of the British invasion, okay, and so rock and roll was big, and my brother who was a fantastic drummer, I remember I grew up in Cheyenne, wyoming, where biggest rodeo in the world, cheyenne Frontier Days. And so one year my brother the drummer on the Kingsman, louie Louie fame. He got sick, so my brother played with the Kingsman. He also played with Sam and the Sham and the Pharaohs. He was a great drummer and so I was envious of him. You know the rock and roll guy doing well, all the girls liked him, so I of him. You know the rock and roll guy doing well, all the girls liked him. So I'm thinking, you know, I think I ought to get this rock and roll stuff. So I got into it. Oh, we're bad, we were one of the worst rock and roll bands you'd ever heard.
Speaker 4:I look back now and say, oh, what were you doing, ron? But anyway, at the time I believed that I could do rock and roll in a Lutheran way, a confessional Lutheran way, and my first call in these little churches in British Columbia, canada, I would vest up and I would have my Fender Stratocaster on and the people you know some of them were digging it right and I'm thinking this is okay. I'm thinking this is okay and then over time I think the Lord kind of did a number on me to be honest, and you know, I think what he kind of showed me is, you know, that Christianity throughout its history has really been kind of otherworldly transcendent. You know, even consistently, throughout it, if you look at it, especially in the Old Testament, god's people, israel, they stood out like a sore thumb. God's people, israel, they stood out like a sore thumb. Everything that God had to do, the way they worshiped, the way they lived, they were different from all the other peoples around them. And so I kind of got to thinking about that.
Speaker 4:And it really hit me when I went to Dearborn, because it was a big, thriving congregation and we had three worship services on Sunday and they had just started contemporary worship on Saturday night. So one on Saturday night, two on Sunday, and we pastors we would show up with the sermon and that was basically all we did. You know, the praise band did the rest. And I remember going home every night and saying something just wasn't right, just didn't feel good, what was it? And I heard a presentation about this that totally changed, started to change my attitude, and it kind of went like this that I you know what kind of praise song would you sing on the Titanic when you were going down. You know, with something I'm fascinating.
Speaker 4:I'm reading this new book since I'm kind of getting involved in social media which talks about a famous book by Neil Postman I don't know if you've heard of this called Amusing Ourselves to Death and it's kind of like and this dates me guys Growing up. I couldn't believe it. When I was in college, color TV was so far out there technology-wise it was unbelievable. Look how far we've come since then. I mean just amazing technology. And that technology doesn't fit real well with the gospel. So, and there's a new wonderful book by this, called, you know, scrolling Ourselves to Death, which talks about this.
Speaker 4:And you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4:Is it kind of turned me to consider this?
Speaker 4:What I'm saying, is it kind of turned me to consider this that you know the gospel is it didn't equate real well with the type of music that was being done there.
Speaker 4:And when we finally sat down with the musicians and talked to them about making the music more in line with the theology that we were preaching in the sacrament, they said to us well, you know, we mean to tell you that your preaching and your teaching we don't like it. It does not match up with our music, you're right. And so they left, and it wasn't mine or the leader's wishes that they would leave, I just wanted them to do, you know, music with drums and guitars and everything that kept more with the theology that I believe in and confess I wanted to preach and teach, and we had a hard time finding enough songs and music that would do that. We did find some, absolutely we did so, you know, we even found that we could do a lot of service and meet the entire church church year with, with music, but they didn't want it, they didn't want that, and and it became obvious to both of us that it didn't equate.
Speaker 2:So that that's kind of where I was coming from yeah, well, hey, I mean back in the 90s I was growing up. I don't think. I don't think I've ever said this publicly. I don't think I would have done contemporary worship in the 90s or early 2000s.
Speaker 4:And that's when I was talking, I know.
Speaker 2:I know, I know and with the music that was coming out and I think often in the debate today around this, many people think we're still singing those songs, the eye-centered songs, the overly romantic. You could sing to your you know, your girlfriend or boyfriend or spouse or something like that, just like you sing to God and you know remarkably repetitive and theologically very shallow decision theology oriented like there's. I couldn't have, I couldn't have led as a pastor and I'm not throwing any boomer pastors under the bus you were doing the best you had with the information you had at the time. But we could and have done a lot better now and shout out to the Songwriters Initiative the Jesus-centered songs that are coming out right now for those that have more modern instrumentation in their worship. These are wonderful, wonderful new hymns for the church that can be sung on an organ, on a piano or with a guitar.
Speaker 3:It's very, very rich, jack, any comment there Theologically really rich, very rich, very appropriate, designed up front to be meeting the Lutheran liturgy. So there's songs that are designed that work well for communion and songs that work well for I mean it. Just it just fits the lutheran liturgy really well, but it's contemporary and it's actually really really excellent.
Speaker 4:Uh, contemporary music, um, that even just stands on its own as really great I wish I would have had you guys around when I was I was confronting.
Speaker 3:This would have been much easier it's taking time to catch up with that and it's beautiful to be able to have that Now when I think about meeting people where they're at. A lot of people come from maybe a non-denom setting where you know their tradition is it's a worship band and somebody who preaches band and somebody who preaches. So how do you take that and create hospitality around that and actually make that Lutheran right? And that's basically what it allows us to do. It allows us to reach people where their mind.
Speaker 3:You know Lutheranism is great at reaching Catholics right Because they're used to pews and they're used to organ and they're used to robes and so when they come from Catholicism to Lutheranism, it feels very comfortable to them. But it can struggle sometimes reaching people from the non-denom setting, even though the theology is just as much for them as it is for anybody right. So how can we create hospitality and still keep the liturgy, still keep the truth that's being preached, and still have the truth in the lyrics and the songs and the mood that we're trying to create through the liturgical flow and still create hospitality for people like that? And it works, it actually does work very much.
Speaker 4:I think that's where we've kind of fallen down, that you know we maybe don't have haven't thought it through and tried to unify on how we could allow more contemporary music to be in the church and acceptable.
Speaker 2:Hey, we only got 10 more minutes, Rod, I got to talk to you about Proverbs. I got to talk to you about Proverbs. You did a book on Proverbs, Daily Walking through the Proverbs the role of wisdom in the church. So what is the role of? Because what we're talking about right now is a lot of wisdom Do what is right for the care and discipleship of the found and for hospitality toward the lost, those that are coming to meet Jesus. So what is the role of wisdom, as found in the Proverbs, for our daily walk as disciples of Jesus? Rod, let's hang there as we close.
Speaker 4:Well, I would put it this way, that I doubt. I don't know when you graduated from the SEM, tim, but there was a professor there that scared the bejeebers out of me. His name was Horace Hummel.
Speaker 4:No, he just was gone when I got there, but I've heard stories of Horace and I was terrified of him because, you know, the Hebrew did not come easy to me, but I loved it and still do, and all my friends that took him early on said, oh no, he just goes so deep into stuff that it terrified me, and so I was able to dodge him in the enrollment process all the way until my fourth year and I decided I'm not leaving here until I try this. So the only class he was teaching was wisdom literature and it was on the proverbs and I absolutely ate it up. Um and uh. I did well in it, I'm I'm happy to say, and he became one of my favorite professors ever. And what? What he showed me was um, not whatever, all the proverbs for uh and Dr Hummel, he saw the gospel and he saw Jesus all over in proverbs all over.
Speaker 4:So that's what I did, and what happened was I'd start doing a little daily devotions for some of my members and I gave it to him on Proverbs and I said, oh, this is really good. You know you ought to write a book. And so I started to write a book and I have a famous friend who's an author and he publishes at a kind of a non-denominational publisher. And he said to me hey, I think these guys would publish it for you. And I thought well, terrific. I tried CPH and CPH said no thanks, so I'd work with them. Their head editor said we're going to do your book. I said this is amazing. I stopped working on it because I learned the hard way with my first work. The editors get all the way. They change everything that you've written down. Your grammar is bad, blah, blah, blah. So I stopped and after a considerable amount of time, the publisher said this to me we don't think the Christian market that we're in is ready to find Jesus as much as you do in Proverbs. And I'm like are you kidding Jesus and the gospel are do in Proverbs. And I'm like are you kidding? Jesus and the gospel are everywhere in Proverbs.
Speaker 4:The Nicene Creed was contested over Proverbs 8. And that's what I learned from Dr Hummel Arius the heretic. He gave up Proverbs 8 as the place where they dueled. And so I said, well, this is craziness. And they said, well, yeah, we think you might be right, but we don't think Christianity is ready to see Jesus there. And I'm like wow, us Lutherans, we find Jesus all over the Bible. You know, the gospel is everywhere. So I went and did it myself and I would say that Proverbs is just an amazing book because it talks about, you know, a wise son who follows his dad's wishes and he goes on the proper way the path. And he knows the adulteress is out there, you know, by the size of the road, you know saying hey, come on over here. And she's seductive, and not just sexually but theologically as well. So that's kind of what attracted me.
Speaker 4:And Dr Hummel taught me also that most people see Proverbs and the wisdom literature in the Bible as moralistic good versus evil. But we see it as believers and unbelievers. So good and evil is believing and unbelieving. And you know a wise person and a fool who wrote our church's commentary on Proverbs. He translates the word fool, I think, in an amazing, accurate way. He calls it gullible. The problem with unbelievers is they're very gullible to be lied to. They can be deceived very easily. You know, theological adultery happens and it's very easy to do with gullible people. You can fake them out.
Speaker 4:So, that's kind of why I'm interested in Proverbs and what my devotional tries to do.
Speaker 2:How's that? Yeah, it's so good. Well, I'm thinking of some of the early Proverbs. Wisdom calls out yeah, that's it. Jesus is the wise one. Right? Jesus equals wisdom. So say more about finding Jesus in even that word wisdom. Can you say that?
Speaker 4:I had a painting done for my cover and it's wisdom as a female, because in the Hebrew language, uh, wisdom is a feminine word, so jesus is feminine, in, in, in wisdom, and and it's it's all about, uh, two women competing for, for people's attention and love, and uh, that's it.
Speaker 4:And so, um, you know the, the sharp comparisons that it makes are, you know, life changing and an eternal, you know destinies. So it's serious stuff and I just love it. You know, one of my favorites is that everybody in the world thinks they know the right way but that way leads straight down to hell, and so, you know, that's what we face and we've got, you know, we're out there trying to change that, to say, hey, don't be gullible, don't be deceived by the adulteress. She's out there competing in the gates of the city with us as Christians, with Lady Wisdom. We're shouting out the truth, and there's all these competing voice, adultery voices around us, and people are gullible to get faked out. So that's kind of what I try to share with people and get them to see it, what I try to share with people and get them to see it, and you find Proverbs matching up with so much the rest of Scripture, which is what I try to do in my little devotional effort too.
Speaker 2:So good Rod, so good Jack. Any comment on Proverbs Pretty insightful.
Speaker 3:Sounds like a delightful read. I'll have to check it out sometime. I have to confess I've not spent a ton of time in the Proverbs and I really need to check it out more. Spent a lot of time in the Psalms, but Proverbs seems to get over with. There's 31 of them.
Speaker 2:You can do a Proverb a day. I know a lot of parents and we had a season with our kids in younger years. There's a Proverb for every day of the month, pretty much there's a proverb for every day of the month, pretty much you know. And so first day you can go through Proverbs one. Go ahead, rod any any kind of words of wisdom for how people start to engage and internalize the Proverbs.
Speaker 4:That's why I think it makes such a great devotional and mine's unique in that that, you know, because on a lot of months that have 31 days, I can take a snippet out of each one of every one of the 31 Proverbs Tim.
Speaker 2:So you're right on. Yeah, hey, this has been good.
Speaker 4:Yeah, go ahead, go ahead, finish up it's a unused book and uh, you know I, I, if you guys, you know I could, I could. Uh, maybe something would be in your mailbox. You could start getting into proverbs and tell me what you think I love it, hey.
Speaker 2:Last question um, this is lead time. We're praying for local churches, we're praying for collaboration, we're praying for unity and mission in our shared confession in the LCMS. If you look 25 years down the road, what's your vision for how we're walking together as brothers and sisters in our denomination there? Rod?
Speaker 4:Well, you know, let me just put it this way I think that we do a fantastic job of feeding the sheep, feeding the flock. Our doctrine and our teaching is unmatched. That's why I'm a Lutheran, okay, and I grew up a Lutheran, but I fell away, played around with charismania for a while, found out that to be kind of bankrupt. So I'm thankful the Lord brought me back to the Lutheran church and I just think we have the mother load of doctrine and teaching. But we are not real good on the fishing for humans side. And that's what I'm trying to do.
Speaker 4:And so, through the Bible in two years is my humble little effort to help congregations go fishing and let Jesus catch some and sort the catch in the nets, throw some out, pull some into safety. That's what I'm trying to do. And I would say hey, and I tell congregations this all the time if you've got a day school and that's pulling in enough fish for you to survive, that's wonderful. Whatever you do to attract these fish is important. And then give them the gospel right and keep them in the gospel. And that's my look is that the Senate has not did a really good job on the fishing for men part. We're really good on feed the sheep, and we've got to get better on fishing for men, and so I'm trying to do what I can in my little way. If there's people out there in congregations that are interested in going fishing in a different way, get a hold of me. We'd love to talk to you because I like to fish.
Speaker 2:How can people get a hold of you? What's that? How can people get a hold of you and go fishing with you? Rod Biblein2.org. Okay, Bible in I-N.
Speaker 4:2. In T-W-Oorg.
Speaker 2:Okay Beautiful. We're trying to make Okay Beautiful those that are listening. Sorry that. It was a little stranger for Jack and I trying to stay engaged. So we have 500-some kids in our school from preschool through eighth grade and we just started a brand-new drumline for School Spirit and man, these kids were getting after it. I had not heard the drumline and it was actually quite impressive, jack, but I was really really anxious for it to be over.
Speaker 4:I wish I could have heard some I can were in the courtyard. I can't hear anything.
Speaker 2:I can't hear anything it was good, it was really good and, uh, yeah, so sorry if we weren't able to interact with you as well as we normally would there, rod, but I know our listeners were blessed. Uh, this is lead time. Please like, subscribe, comment. Wherever it is you take in these conversations, these jesus confessing conversations? Jesus is Lord and we must to double down on what you're saying, rod. We must get better by the Spirit's power. This takes humility at going after fishing. You think you're fishing for fish? No, no, no, come and follow me and let's go fish for people. The days are far too short to do anything. Otherwise, it's a good day. Go make it a great day. Good job, jack. Way to go, rod.
Speaker 1:God bless friends, 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 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.