Embark on an engaging journey with Matthew Schultz as we tackle the dynamic nature of church life, from the fresh energy of church planting to the revitalization of long-established congregations. Listen closely as we unlock the secrets to creating vibrant faith communities that balance innovation with the timeless message of Jesus' love. We'll reveal how churches are redefining worship spaces to resonate with contemporary audiences, ensuring that the essence of the gospel remains at the forefront of these transformative experiences.
Join us for an enlightening conversation that delves into the heartbeat of the church's mission, seen through the lens of Lutheran theology. We dissect the intricate dance between justification and sanctification, considering Martin Luther's vision for a church that doesn't hide from the world but rather reaches out with the good news. Matthew and I probe into the notion of 'remnant theology' and venture into a compelling debate on how true confession is inherently missional.
The episode doesn't just stop at theory; it also paints a picture of what growth looks like for churches both flourishing and facing adversity. We explore practices like asset-based community development and how storytelling can empower congregations to become beacons of innovation and learning—transforming them into 'little seminaries'. Whether you're a church leader or simply intrigued by the potential of faith communities, this episode offers a unique perspective on the church's identity and mission.
Visit uniteleadership.org
Embark on an engaging journey with Matthew Schultz as we tackle the dynamic nature of church life, from the fresh energy of church planting to the revitalization of long-established congregations. Listen closely as we unlock the secrets to creating vibrant faith communities that balance innovation with the timeless message of Jesus' love. We'll reveal how churches are redefining worship spaces to resonate with contemporary audiences, ensuring that the essence of the gospel remains at the forefront of these transformative experiences.
Join us for an enlightening conversation that delves into the heartbeat of the church's mission, seen through the lens of Lutheran theology. We dissect the intricate dance between justification and sanctification, considering Martin Luther's vision for a church that doesn't hide from the world but rather reaches out with the good news. Matthew and I probe into the notion of 'remnant theology' and venture into a compelling debate on how true confession is inherently missional.
The episode doesn't just stop at theory; it also paints a picture of what growth looks like for churches both flourishing and facing adversity. We explore practices like asset-based community development and how storytelling can empower congregations to become beacons of innovation and learning—transforming them into 'little seminaries'. Whether you're a church leader or simply intrigued by the potential of faith communities, this episode offers a unique perspective on the church's identity and mission.
Visit uniteleadership.org
Today we have the privilege of chatting with Matthew Schultz. This was a power-filled, spirit-filled, challenging conversation. We talk about church revitalization and a new day, new handles, new stories that could and should be told in existing congregations as they reimagine or re-envision their future. We talk about church planning and, like in a lot of our Lead Time podcasts, we talk about the culture of the LCMS and in the middle I may even say some things that you may take interest with or be interested in. I hope you find the conversation most especially just centered on Jesus and his love for you, his love for the world.
Speaker 2:Enjoy this conversation. This is Lee Time.
Speaker 1:I've heard some people talk about the lack of necessity for church plants today, and all the data shows, Jack, that man, we need more. So, Matthew, what do you love about church planning and what's difficult about church planning?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So, first and foremost, I just really appreciate you having me on today and I'm looking forward to our conversation. But the first thing I would say what I love about it is you're not trying to move 100 years of history forward, right? So in a former life, before coming to my current congregation, I helped turn churches around. That's what I've done for 16 years. Helped turn churches around. That's what I've done for, you know, 16 years.
Speaker 3:And so every single time you're doing it, you're you're bringing a hundred years of. This is how we've always done it. This is the way we do it. This is why we do it that way. You're bringing that forward and you're having that conversation, whereas when you're with a, with a, a new church plant you're dealing with, you're dealing with a uh, uh, just an energy and a focus and a vision. Where you're not, you're not bringing all that forward. You're literally starting from scratch and and get to answer that question why? For yourselves every single time. And so so it just really helps with the uh, the focus and the energy, and you're not spending all your time just dragging uh, dragging an organization forward.
Speaker 1:So how do you know that's so good? How do you know when's the right time to launch? Because we want to be about churches that multiply leaders and then multiply churches. Because every time an organization forms, there are norms that get established, sociological rhythms that get established. So give us words of wisdom, matt, on like when do you know is the right time to say we need a new thing here? Because Jack and I have been blessed over the years by a culture of entrepreneurialism. We want to release and launch, but there still is that dance of control.
Speaker 1:Jack, you and I were just having that conversation yesterday the dance between order and chaos new things bringing a certain level of unknown chaos, and it seems like churches very quickly want to establish this is the way we do it. So any more words of wisdom there, matthew is the way we do it.
Speaker 3:So any any more words of wisdom there, matthew, what? The first thing that came to mind was have you ever seen that video of the guy dancing Like? It says this is leadership and this is a movement. Right and so so so it's years ago.
Speaker 3:But there's this dude at a, at a music festival, and he stands up and he's the only guy dancing and the camera's just focusing on him, because he looks like a fool. I mean, he looks like a total fool. And then all of a sudden, like you know two or three people a little ways away from him, they get up and they start dancing too, and so so the, the, the, the speaker that I heard doing this, he said, he said that's leadership, right there, that's leadership.
Speaker 3:you just, you just brought forward, you know, two people, three people, whatever. That's leadership. And then he goes this is a movement, and pretty soon, like literally everybody stands up and they're all dancing like crazy. And I guess that would be my feeling is that I think you know when it's time to do something new, when you've got the people moving with you. I mean not just one or two, right, because especially in church planting, I mean we'll get to this probably later, but there is a critical mass that has to be there for the church plant or for anything new to be successful. And so I would say, if it was that it would be just hey, do you have the people? Did you get everybody dancing, right? You?
Speaker 2:don't all have to be dancing the same way but is everybody up dancing you?
Speaker 4:know the old and the new, how you bring, how you kind of present it that way, is really fascinating and also kind of thinking about your history of turning churches around. I don't know what your thoughts are on this, but, as in my experience, for example, like, even though you know, in the grand scale of things, our church is not necessarily an old church per se, it's got, you know, probably 40 years of experience. But even for us to launch contemporary worship, it meant putting it in a different space, right so that it could be its own thing and it. And then that new thing now has an opportunity to reach new people where they're looking for a different expression or their language is different, their context is different, and now you're able to reach them and I applaud that effort. I think that is absolutely kind of the great way to think about the value of the new start.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and just you know, on that, one of the one of the things that, both with turning the church around and with with what we've, we've, we've done here at Ascension, is so, so just physically, at some point physically, when you start making these changes, there's going to be a change that comes to that church physically. To be a change that comes to that church physically. You know, new paint, whatever my two things on that is. I used to joke people were like how do you get a church to move forward? And I'm like, slap up a new coat of paint.
Speaker 2:I mean, I know it sounds stupid, but it's right.
Speaker 3:And then the other reason why is okay? So to take it just totally into a different direction when is the only time you guys invite someone into your bathroom? I know that's a very personal question, could go in some dangerous areas, but when do you, when do you invite someone in to see your bathroom?
Speaker 2:When you mean at my house.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, they have to use the bathroom because I invited them into my house, new guests, that's true, you know.
Speaker 4:if you have a new guest you say, hey, you may want to know where the bathroom is. It's right down the hall, right, right.
Speaker 3:But what about your friends? What about your family? You're like dude. You got to come and see my bathroom.
Speaker 4:Why oh, oh, when you remodel it.
Speaker 3:You remodeled it Exactly Right. I love that Well you got to guess, you got to show them. That's good. But no, that's my whole point is like when are people excited about showing them their bathroom? It's when they've remodeled it. And that's what I've always found with that new and old is that there has to be something different to get the older group to enter church neurons. There's got to be something different to bring that pride, that healthy pride, back into the church.
Speaker 1:Well, people and organizations don't by nature evolve in a positive direction. We devolve right. Things get old, chaos emerges, stuff breaks, and so churches and organizations. The leadership desire is the remodel work is the refreshing, it is the new pain, and it's not just in the exterior, it's in the interior, bringing new things. I mean, I think this is a lot in the realm of repentance. You know, the turning about and the elevating Organizations need and churches need, like a corporate repentance, if you will, to say, oh, my goodness, we have become all about us and we don't even see.
Speaker 1:Let's just use that analogy of the coat of paint or whatnot. I'm looking outside at our church right now. I didn't even see how awful a couple of our doors looked wooden doors. They needed paint big time or some sort of a refresh big time. But because I lived here for so long, like I did, I just didn't see it Right. So we need people. This is what leadership is to notice what the majority of us don't notice and to start dancing around that so that other people would notice it. But go ahead, yeah, go off on that.
Speaker 3:No, no. So so you were just saying, you know, seeing, seeing things in a new way again, going back to the the the more of the church revitalization or reinvigoration. I like to call it re-imagineering, but that's a whole nother thing. But basically, basically, you know, you walk in and you've got, you've got new eyes. You've never, you've never seen these things right. So so you walk into these older churches and you can tell within probably about three seconds exactly what's going on, because all you have to do is look at their bulletin board or whatever they put up first and see how new it is, and and and see whether it's up to date, and see. Then you go and you see what their carpet looks like and you're like, yep, they don't care, they don't care because, they're not expecting somebody new.
Speaker 3:And so when you come in with those new eyes and you're like dude doors, they look like crap. What are we doing, guys? And now you have these different conversations happening because you just literally see things differently. And I think to your point, tim. It's absolutely that after a while you just you lose. You lose your new eyes, you just lose your new eyes.
Speaker 1:Well, we need planting and we need re-imagining for existing churches and or relaunching of a number of churches 700 plus without preachers in pulpits and platforms in need of the word of Christ.
Speaker 1:There's a whole bunch of re-imagining that needs to go on right now. So talk about people may use that word revitalization, matthew, but I like your word re-imagine Like if you come into because we got, we got a lot of pastors that are listening to this, like, uh, there's some doors I'd rather not acknowledge it, but man, and maybe even the shame of, I've been here for like five years and I have not, I've not done what I thought would happen, um, and, and I really have this propensity to fearfully protect, and so I really don't have a lot of those challenging conversations. I've said this in numerous settings. If I could pray for one trait, it's difficult conversation comfort, or at least discomfort, becoming less and less with those kinds of conversations, because it's painful to talk to the 20 or 30 or 40 saints and say, hey, there's some things that are going to need to be re-imagined here and guess what, the Holy Spirit, here are the things that aren't going to change the word of God coming, the sacraments being distributed.
Speaker 1:I mean to start there, but our, our mission and the way we're known in the community. Some things are going to have to be re-imagined. I love that that word. So give some words of wisdom for those that are in the church. Revitalization, re-imagining journey right now.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I think I think the first thing is and this is just what I personally think, coming from experience, more often than not the issue is is that churches don't know why they exist anymore. I mean, I hate to say it that plainly and that bluntly, but they know why they get together I'm not saying that and they know what they used to do and they can all point back to those glory days and whatever their glory days are, but they don't. They don't know why they exist anymore and they don't have that clear vision and that clear, that clear understanding of who they're trying to be, you know, because they can't be what they were right now.
Speaker 3:Let's, let's just do my first church. I'll just, you know, I'll tell you, uh, I'll tell you that, the first church, right out of the seminary, I thought I was going to be a church planter. That's what I thought I was going to do. I thought I was going to be on the cutting edge. It was going to be awesome, right?
Speaker 3:Nope, nope, god, in his infinite wisdom, he puts me in a church in the middle of Michigan, rural town, 3,000 people average age 72.5. People Average age 72.5. That's the average age of the church, and the church was not well liked at the time it was, I mean, it was. It had a bad reputation except for the fact that they had a sausage and sauerkraut supper the night before hunting season, which in upper Michigan, is a big deal, right, so anyway. But you get in there and they, they. They don't know what they want to do. All they know is that they're not what they were and they won't be what they were again. And the first conversation they had with me sitting down, I'm 28 years old at the time. And then they look at me in the gate and they go if we don't change, we're not going to exist in 20 years. And and so so just that understanding of that kind of clarity, right?
Speaker 3:And um, I can't remember what book it is or who wrote it, but it's that whole thing of like. If the house is on fire.
Speaker 3:What are you going to grab? And that's what's most important, you know, and and so. So I think I think getting churches to that point of being able to have, like you were saying, that point of being able to have, like you were saying, tim, just that hard conversation, but they don't know who they want to be, they don't know what they are anymore because they're not what they were and they're not what they see people being drawn to, and I think that causes that inward focus, that inward fear, and so they just keep meeting and hoping things will be different.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So let's go deeper there a little bit. Why? So go back, I love your. Why it starts with? Why? Why does the church exist? Matthew, be frank, be just straight to it.
Speaker 3:The church exists for somebody other than me. That's why, literally, I mean like I take Paul really seriously when he says I wish, basically I'm going to. It's the Matthew Schultz version, because I'm not real, you know, but I would rather myself be lost than my brothers and sisters, right, it's just that, complete this exists for somebody else. And our theology, our Lutheran theology of justification and sanctification, where they come together, it's not, you know, you're justified. Oh, and now I'm going to be sanctified. No, that's all the time. It's that daily repentance that you'll so often talk about, tim, and it's just that daily repentance. Right, so that justification and sanctification coming together at the same time. And our theology. Oh man, I just lost my train of thought. Crap, I hate when that happens.
Speaker 1:Where was I going Matthew, come on, I have brain farts all the time. Well, yeah, the intersection between the two kinds of righteousness, really, the convergence of the two kinds of righteousness is what you're talking about, Matthew, and that is we want everybody to experience that.
Speaker 3:So, that's what, sorry, now I'm back. Okay, great. So basically, if God has taken care of our relationship with him, then who else do we have to worry about? I mean literally, and that goes for the entire body of the church, that goes for the local church, that goes for the individual member and that goes for the church at large. If we are taken care of by Christ because of his death and resurrection, then who else do we have to care about?
Speaker 2:It's somebody else right, that's it. You have the freedom to empty yourself and think about others, right?
Speaker 4:Yes, yeah.
Speaker 3:Romans think of yourself less. Philippians think of yourself less right.
Speaker 4:And this is not just an individual expression, this is a corporate expression yeah Right, absolutely. This then becomes the thing that drives the big why of the church we exist. We're secure here, right, we are the most secure. We've got the word in sacrament. But people outside, they don't have what we have, and that should be driving us every single day, exactly.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 1:God has to get all of his kids back, and some people even wonder. I'm writing a really long blog right now. That should probably be the foundation of a future book, but it's based on a vision for our church body with this book, mission from the Cross. Dr Schultz is going to be a guest here soon, but he references that Lutheranism, by its nature because of justification the sinner being justified is remarkably mission oriented. And he's got so many quotes from Luther.
Speaker 1:I just got to give you one here, a Lutheran sermon. The Holy Spirit will remain with the Holy community, or Christian people, until the last day Through it he gathers us, using it to teach and preach the word in, or Christian people, until the last day Through it he gathers us, using it to teach and preach the word. In this Christian community, the church, we have the forgiveness of sins, which takes place through the holy sacraments and absolution as well as through all of the comforting words of the entire gospel. I love that. And then he closes by saying for he God has not yet gathered all of this Christian community, nor has he completed the granting of forgiveness, and so even in a Christian church day and age, luther has this strong pull for the Jew, for the Turk, for the outsider, for the pagan, for the lost, to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is not compromising good, pure Lutheran theology. That is why our theology exists.
Speaker 3:That is our good theology, and that's okay. I'm going to jump all the way to the end and then I'm coming right back.
Speaker 3:That's one of my greatest frustrations with the church is our theology, is missional theology. It is our service. The whole idea of our liturgy was so that people understood right Everything we did. Luther wrote the small catechism so everyone people who couldn't read could learn to read. That's a mission, and then they would be hearing about who God is and what he's done for them in Jesus Christ. It's absolutely our theology, and everybody who's getting into this remnant theology I mean they're the ones that are ruining ruining our confessions.
Speaker 2:That's my opinion. Come at me, I get it. I'm just some dude.
Speaker 3:I don't get it, I understand.
Speaker 4:I don't even have the keys. I think the assertion that you have to choose between missional and confessional is heresy. I agree.
Speaker 1:I agree To be, confessional is to be missional. Yeah, Remnant. Say more about remnant theology.
Speaker 3:Oh, so this is just something that I've heard other people talk about it within our family context. It's just the idea, and you hear it, where you do see the stark difference between those who are thinking that church is missional and those who are thinking that church is nothing but the gathering right.
Speaker 2:Not the gathering of people outside.
Speaker 3:Thank you yeah. And so it's this, and what you'll hear is that you'll hear things like you know, god doesn't. God doesn't ask me to grow my church. He asked me to be faithful.
Speaker 3:You'll hear things like you just have to be, you just have to be there for the people that God has given you, and they just take away. They take away this entire, that entire idea, you, and they just take away. They take away this entire, that entire idea in Timothy, you know, do the work of evangelist, and they go back to this idea that somehow we are the holy remnant that we are, that we have to hunker down and we have to. We have to just, we're just surviving until the end, right, which is kind of what they were trying to do in Thessalonica too, but that's a whole other conversation itself. So, yeah, they're just hunkering down, and so you get to this idea that they're the remnant, the Daniel remnant, the latter prophet remnant of Israel, right, and so that's where the remnant theology comes from.
Speaker 1:Oh man, Jack, I got so much to say. What do you got to say? Do you want me to go first?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how a pastor can say it's not my job to grow the church If they actually believe that they've been commissioned. Oh, if they're commissioned, I don't see how you can make that theological case that it's not your job to grow the church. Right, yeah, I get the fact that it's the Holy Spirit working through you to grow the church and working through the priesthood of all believers to grow the church. Amen.
Speaker 3:Oh see, you're just jumping all over and working through the priesthood of all believers to grow the church Amen. You're just jumping all over. You're just jumping all over. Bad theology there, though, Jack, I mean you're just jumping all over it, right.
Speaker 3:Here's why your theology is bad, according to other people. I don't mean to do this. This is just where we are right now, but I apologize in advance. I say what I think and that's it. So you know, I apologize, but basically you will hear people say that the Great Commission is only for the Apostles. That's it.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:No, I'm not joking. I know I've heard that and it's ludicrous.
Speaker 4:And I would say if you believe that you're not a Lutheran because you're not adhering to the priesthood of all believers, I agree, and then you get to that priesthood of all believers and it literally goes to yeah, that's not really what it means.
Speaker 3:It's not really that we're all priests. It's something different, because there's this separation between priest and priesthood of all believers that they make Not the idea that we are all ordained by God. Yes, I did use that word correctly. We are all ordained by God to do the work of building the kingdom of God Right.
Speaker 4:Then you've never read Luther's commentary on freedom of a Christian or any of these things, where he goes deep on the priesthood of all believers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so I'll take it up just a notch. I think it's a dark and depressed spirit that has fallen upon some of our leaders, and it's the spirit of Elijah. When God works, I love. I don't remember where I was talking about Elijah here recently, but God brings fire down on the prophets of Baal and then he is chased right.
Speaker 1:This crazy queen. She's coming after me, he's chased, and what does he say as he gets out into the wilderness, I'm the only one left. And God comes to him and is like shut, what are you talking about? You have so much pride, thinking this was all about you. I'm the holy one of God. Elijah even comes praise God as he's calling down fire. He inserts himself into that whole narrative. It's nuts. It's the spirit of pride that leads us to say I'm the only one, and then, when it doesn't go well, we'll hunker down, let's control.
Speaker 1:That is not the spirit of the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit is expansive, open, progressive in the best sense of the word, progressive in the best sense of the word moving, growing, leading, dreaming, going on adventures. And and yes, there is this. So I'll just give where the remnant is. Will everybody be saved? God wants everybody to be saved and come to a knowledge of who he is, but not everybody. Not everybody will be saved. And oh, by the way, there are some within the big C church that are actually not the church.
Speaker 1:And where does apostasy comes from? It comes from within the church. It's often not outside, it's inside. This was Luther's call. Like we need a continual repentance and reformation of spirit, because we've forgotten the goodness and grandeur of God, that it is all by grace, through faith, signed, sealed and delivered in the waters of baptism, given to us the forgiveness of sins to taste and see the goodness of God in the Lord's table, and then sent out, mobilized by the liturgy, to go on mission in all different vocations. This is all very Lutheran all different vocations of priesthoods and priestesses of the Lord carrying the message of the gospel from homes into their communities. So I don't this is when we elevate over elevate the office of holy ministry, we go down some really bad theological lines. That justifies a lack of zeal for our neighbor who's far from the Lord, and I don't know what other spirit to call that but dark.
Speaker 3:Amen, Like I. Just I wanted to just keep yelling. Preach it, brother Cause. Like that's. No, I'm right there with you.
Speaker 1:So we need more church plants. Some will say that we don't, but we do. We need more leaders, obviously and and I'm praying for you know open, curious, courageous leaders to be raised up out of our churches. They're all there if we have the eyes to see them, young and old, by the way. They're all there. The workers are all there. So we need more smaller churches, probably going to start out small until critical mass grows and we even start to dream about launching other churches out of an existing church.
Speaker 1:So Jack has talked a lot about the Don ratio. If you've been listening to this at all, we need ample more churches here in the Valley, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of more churches, even though there are hundreds of churches to reach, to get to gospel saturation. That is our goal. So, matthew, what would be surprising about starting a church plant that folks may not think about and we may have some listeners like maybe the Lord puts on my heart because I've been out in the business world, I've started something, maybe he could use me to start a church. What would you tell that leader?
Speaker 3:I think the positive of it is just the joy of everyone pulling in the same direction Again, again, when you've been in a church that is more established, like you said, it becomes more herding cats, right, just to keep people focused on the main thing. Right, because now we've got to talk about what donuts we're going to serve, or if we're going to serve donuts, and then we've got to deal with the color of the carpet that we got to redo, or if we're going to just put in tile, you know all that kind of stuff which is which is good stuff, but it, it, it, it kind of it kind of helps to draw you away and bring in, like you were saying, tim, that chaos. Right, but man, when you're starting, it's that same, it's that same joy that you have when everybody's pulling in the same direction and everybody knows, and this leads into the bad part too but there's no safety net.
Speaker 3:That means that you're not sitting there going, oh well, we can deal with that tomorrow. No, if you don't deal with it today and if you don't work on it today, then there may not be a tomorrow in a very, very real way, you know, like not tomorrow literally, but like maybe next month, right, maybe two months, and so that kind of clarity. It just brings this joy and also just the visible, the physical change in the church that you get to see day in, day out. Um, because you're because of the closeness, uh, and because everybody, everybody is watching kind of for the same things like hey, are, are my? Are my family members coming? Do I finally get my family members here? Is my, is that neighbor that's been saying hey, you know I've been thinking about church? Well, sweet, you should come to mine.
Speaker 4:We're just starting, you know, and it's just that joy that makes it so, so much fun and so amazing and all at the same time exceedingly scary and difficult, but it's awesome. Just this conversation has me thinking about the fact that there are churches that are growing and that there are congregations that are declining. And you know, we talk a little bit about the theology here. If you happen to be in a church that is not mobilized for mission, you're still baptized, believers. Jesus' forgiveness is for you. God loves you very, very much. And at the same time, we can expect that God will prune the resources from those communities which are not mobilizing themselves to reach the lost, and he will redistribute those resources to congregations that are lit up and on fire to do that. And that's just the harsh reality of how God works.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I mean, we're Go ahead Matthew. No, I was just going to say I was going to say that, like you know, before, when I came out of the seminary, I'll be the first to admit I was, I was, I was a, I was a, I was a burn it. I would call myself a burn it church, church planter, right If? You're not growing burn it down right, just go start something else I don't agree with that.
Speaker 2:No, no, I don't even see. That's my point.
Speaker 3:Coming out of the seminary, that was that was my, that was my lack of understanding, my lack of humility and my lack of understanding what God, what God does and what God is doing all the time in his church, cause it is his church, and so so now it really has become, you know, kind of to that same point where no, there's. There are so many resources that we have, and and that's the beauty of the re-imagination- right.
Speaker 3:So, so the thing that sucks about starting a church is that you got you got very few resources, even if you're dogs, right. So the thing that sucks about starting a church, is that you got very few resources. Even if you're dogs, right, you got very few resources. People, musicians, tech, buildings you know you name it, you got nothing right.
Speaker 3:And so you really do live out the five loaves and two fish all the time Like, oh wow, look at what God did with that. But when you're reimagining a church, when you're revitalizing that church, they got the resources and they've got. They've got if you can get them, if you can get them moving all of a sudden you, you find that while you may be 72.5, so you're not out there. You know, maybe you're not out there. You know doing vbs. You know, maybe you're not out there. You know doing VBS. But man, you can make a sweet VBS with those with those gifts. You know and you can. And yeah, so it's the resource thing, right.
Speaker 1:It is and this is a principle from a book that formed me, especially in working cross-culturally and socionomically in diverse spaces called when Helping Hurts, and it's this is, a sociological principle of folks owning their own assets, recognizing so it's A, b, c, d, asset-based community development and in re-imagining congregations. That's where you have to start. That's where you have to start. Don't start with the law necessarily, like I can't believe you know, no, no, no, got a lot of assets. The Lord has done a lot of good work here and he still has a plan and a future for your life. Hopefully we start with naming clearly those assets. One of the things I think that has to, while we're still kind of oriented between launching and re-imagining some churches which is great to pivot between both of these realities, because this is where this is where a lot of our churches find themselves, ours included is that they have to. They have to start with this place of abundance, when it's so easy to work from, from scarcity to, to recognize all that Jesus has done.
Speaker 1:And I often talk with our vicars, our student pastors, about watching your pronouns, how quickly a pastor gets to say this is me and this is us, rather than no, this is you. I've talked to some pastors that have been in a place for three, four years and he's still referring to them as those people or that church, you people. That just proliferates this hired gun mentality with a lot of strong opinion leaders who read right through that. You're not with us, you're not one of us. Imagine if we raised up more like local leaders, where a former elder actually became the pastor. He is intimately one of them, right, and therefore the trust factor is high and therefore the risk factor to go the ABCD journey is much, much stronger, because he recognizes the assets intimately, he's experienced them and he just needs to kind of reimagine how they get leveraged in a new way to reach new people with the gospel. I think there's so much, so much opportunity right now. Any response, though, to that ABCD approach Matthew.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so actually what's funny is when I was, for a while I worked for the Missouri District and the Lutheran Foundation of St Louis with an organization they started called Send Me St Louis, and I was actually trained in ABCD and so I trained churches on asset-based community development and really asset-based church development, and that was one of the things that was one of these pivotal moments for me in my understanding of God's church. When you're sitting in the district meetings which I was and you are talking about churches who aren't maybe doing what you want them to do, it dawned on me as we were sitting there having these conversations I was like no, this is Jesus' church, this is his church. And the more I went around, instead of it being those guys, the more I went around to different churches because I actually got to work with churches and nonprofits and the more I went around, the more I saw that more often than not, people just are missing the assets that are right in front of them, right, and they're not considering even some of the assets, the simple assets of like the building and who your neighbors are. I mean, I've got stories for days about churches and literal neighbors and you're like that's a mission field. You know so.
Speaker 3:But just exactly what you're saying, that more of that asset-based mentality. And if gosh, I'm gonna drop the title, but I remember the guy's name. The author's name is Luther Snow and I think it's asset-based thinking for churches. Don't quote me on that, but the guy's name is Luther Snow and he does a whole book and you can go through. You can go through an asset-based you know, just understanding your assets with your leaders. It's fantastic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's good. You're remarkably creative, matthew. I love the way the Holy Spirit hardwired you. There are not as many Matthew Schultz, who are open to change and and growth as you are in the Missouri Synod. I'm praying for more pastors like you, brother, and growth as you are in the Missouri Synod. I'm praying for more pastors like you, brother, to be sure. So tell us about Church's tailgate and the culture. I thought this was fascinating Church's tailgate and the culture of your church plant in particular. Let's get a little bit more specific with your context right now.
Speaker 3:All right, so I'm going to break this down. I'm going to start with bringing back to our previous conversation for just a second. So this whole, this whole church as okay, church as is, the is the thing, but church as tailgate is what we're doing here in Ascension, and it really goes back to this whole idea how do you get a church to read to, to have that, to have that sense of vision and mission again, when, when they haven't had it for 20 and 30 and 40 sometimes years, right, so, so that, and that was that again, that was my ministry for 16 years, is that's, that was the world I lived in, and so, uh, through a whole bunch of different ways, uh, god gave me, you know, god kind of dropped this idea in my lap that's the best way I can say it. I stole, I stole basically all of it from somewhere else and just amalgamated it, mainly simon sinek, and start with the why, but that's another thing. So, anyway, so, current context, and then I'll get to church's tale.
Speaker 3:So my current context pratt, kansas is a town of 6 000 people. We are about an hour and 15 minutes west of wichita, kansas, which is the largest city in Kansas. It's not Kansas City, because that's all over in Missouri, and so we are rural Farming and ranching. That's what is here, the people who live here. You don't get a lot of people moving in, but there's just enough to keep our town vital. We have the Walmart in the area, which is a big deal because everybody comes to the Walmart, right?
Speaker 3:So, anyway, so that's my current context, and so the whole church's picture thing is this. The whole church's picture thing is this Every organization starts to think, okay, if we just have a vision statement, then we are going to have this ability to move our people forward because we're going to give them that vision, we're going to give them that thing that they, that they can live into.
Speaker 3:And and what I found was in working with so many churches, uh, through the years, is that they all had mission statements, they all had vision statements, you know some of them hadn't been re-invisited for 20 years, but they still had them and so so you know, when you start talking mission and vision, they, they point to these, these things, and you go well, how is that affecting what you're doing?
Speaker 3:And it's not so. So what happened is, uh, as I, as I was working in St Louis, um, I, I, I just remember stumbling it was I was working with the church and I remember stumbling onto this idea that like uh, uh, that as as the best way to explain who they were was to tell them that they were church's story, because that was what I was hearing from them and that's a whole other talk there. But it was just wow, your church's story, that's how you think about yourself. And so that started to kind of play with it. And then I went and started working with another couple of churches and it was like man you guys really think about yourself as church, as a community center.
Speaker 3:And then there's another church that I can, that I was deeply involved in, personally involved in. That was church as family, and by the time I got to that church, that's where I had taken this idea and what it is is. You take, you figure out the church's lived out values, not their aspirational values again, thank you, Simon Sinek, and start with the why you don't take their aspirational values. You take their lived out values and you drill them down to those lived out values. And the easiest question to find out whether it's a lived out value is are you willing to lose people over this? Will you let people walk out your door? Because when you're dealing with churches that are shrinking and dying and scared, that's one of the scariest ideas. But if you can get them to the place where they go, yes, I would rather lose people than change this how they live. Then the next part is going okay, tell me an organization, an event, a thing, a lived out thing that has those same values or those same ideas. So, so, so you know again, the church, the church's family, their lived out values were tradition and they really liked their tradition. They'd been around for 175 years and so they love their tradition. And so how do you take tradition backward facing and move it forward? It's the other side, family. They lived as a family. They weren't church for family, they were church as family. So all the family dynamics, it was all going on all the time. And once they understood that picture, now all of a sudden, their church became their home and now all of a sudden they started thinking, wow, we're inviting people into our home. And it started to change the way that they talked about what they were doing. It started to change the way, the way, the way they, why they. They figured out why they were good with visitors and not great with getting people to be integrated. Because, hey, if you come over to my house once, that's awesome. You know, I don't care what kind of a guest you are. You stay for a weekend, we might okay If you, if you're asking to marry my daughter and you're going to be part of my family. Now we got a whole other conversation right. So church's tailgate was the same idea, and I've done this now with a number of churches.
Speaker 3:But church's tailgate was looking at the lived out values, and the lived out values here were. Let me get these just so I say them correctly family by choice right, getter done well. And our town. Now, you know, in Simon Sinek's book he talks about how you have to take the value proposition and then you make it something that makes sense to you, and so that's what those are. Family by choice get her done well. And our town.
Speaker 3:And so when you think about you know, as we were thinking about this, what really started to bubble up was well, hey, family by choice. Well, you know, when you go to the tailgate, your neighbors become this family. But you're choosing to be there every weekend to cheer on the team Get her done well. If you don't have good games, good food, good stuff, like that, nobody's coming back to your tailgate. And our town? It's all about our team, it's all about my hometown team. You know the pride about the. You know around here it's kansas state or it's ku, and it's one or the other. You're not both um so so taking those values.
Speaker 3:And so it was like wow, what we're talking about is a tailgate, and once you give the congregation this idea of what they feel like, look like, and it's not churchy, but it's this thing that they've experienced. Now they can tell you exactly what they want their church to feel like. Now they can tell you exactly what they want their church to feel like, how they want it to reach their neighborhood, and what they're going to do, what kind of mission they're going to be, and they can talk about it because you just took it out of. Well, you know, we've got to reach the lost. No, we've just got to get people to come to the tailgate guys, that's all. The tailgate is mobile, it can go anywhere. We follow the team, and then there came this one, and then I'll stop. And you know, again, again, I get excited about this, not I can talk a long time.
Speaker 3:Um, so I came, I came across, I came across the the this, the stanford study. So for for a sermon series that we did, it was church's tailgate, and that was this past fall. Because it was this past fall, because it was the first time we were really really diving deep as a whole church into this, so it was teaching the whole congregation about Church's Tailgate. And one of the things I found in the Stanford study was the definition of why people go to tailgates. What is the reason? And the Stanford sociologist wanted to find out what it was. You want to hear why? It's the greatest statement I've ever heard.
Speaker 3:The reason why people go to a tailgate is because they want a deeper participation in the life of the team. If that's not discipleship, I don't know what it is Deeper participation in the life of Jesus Christ. That's what we are trying to do. And so guess what we get to tailgate? That means that we think of ourselves as fun. We think of ourselves, in fact, some of our decorations. We have cornhole boards as you walk in the church. We have an old truck tailgate as part of our welcome center. That's I mean it's. You take the idea and you go as far as you want, you know, but it can be anything. It can be church as Disney, church as museum, it can be church as factory, it doesn't matter, it's just what's your picture? Because God gave you a picture. This is your church's lived out parable. That's what this is.
Speaker 1:There's so much here. What would you say to someone who says, no, church is the body of Christ, church is word and sacraments. You're adding all of these other labels to what the church is. What would you say to that?
Speaker 3:So, first and foremost, I would say that churches, the body, comes from a picture that Paul is using for the Romans and also for the Corinthians, to help them understand how they are joined together and what they're doing. So he's using a picture, a picture. Secondly, I would say that the sacraments are nothing more than the visible and real, tangible grace of God given to us, because God knows that we're visual and we're tangible.
Speaker 2:He made us.
Speaker 3:So what did he do? He gave us something so that we could see him, touch him, taste him every single week. So, yeah, no, I got no problem. And if you wanted to say word and sacraments, that's cool, that's your church picture, that's fine. It's just is Word and Sacraments going to? Is that going to engage? Does that engage the mind of your people so that they can go and tell their friends, hey, I'm bringing you to Word and Sacraments, what does that mean? I'm bringing you to a tailgate, tell me more.
Speaker 3:Or the church in new york, my last church before coming here, church's pub. That's what they were, that's how they saw themselves and it and it was, it was fantastic and it helped the church. It helped a church that was on the edge. Not, they were the closest I've ever been to a church that was not going to make it. And you know God, we praise six years and you know they've got a great pastor now a very good friend of mine, and they're keeping going and they're doing some really amazing things and that's how they see themselves. So what do you invite people into? Can you explain it? Can you explain Word and Sacrament to me, or can you explain the tailgate?
Speaker 1:Well, it appears as if Jesus uses metaphor and story quite often. Yes, the kingdom of God is like Yep. Once a man had a son. He actually had two sons. He tells stories all over the place.
Speaker 1:Could pastors become just corporate storytellers, curious to understand the unique context, unique story that this congregation has been a part of? I love how you're doubling down on. Don't talk aspirational, because that honestly leads to comparison, and comparison is a killer of joy. Talk about what really is, and there may be some parts. You know, just like all of our gifts come with respective gaps, there may be parts of our story that we're not that proud of, you know, and that's okay. We confess it. We bring it to the cross of Christ and then we move forward.
Speaker 1:But what is really normed us over the years? If you can find that thing and make it a, make it a, what a tangible. What that? That brings a metaphor, a story alive for all of the believers. My goodness Game on. Our metaphor is family. Just like you talk family, you belong here, that's our, that's our statement, and so, yeah, we want to create, we're a school right, and so that's our unique. We're caring for moms and dads, raising the next generation and we're dreaming big dreams about how their homes become healthier and healthier. That's what our CG cares kind of orients around felt needs, etc. So yeah, find that story, find that metaphor. Leader and this is not a non-confessional thing to do I feel like I have to say that, like finding that unique story in your unique context, it takes all kinds of churches to reach all kinds of people is faithful pastor.
Speaker 4:It's a faithful thing. Go ahead, jack. The thing that is freeing about defining church's word and sacrament is that word and sacrament can happen at a tailgate, it can happen in a pub, it can happen in a factory, it can happen in a big Gothic stone church building. Right, yeah, and you know, by defining church's word in sacrament and then saying yeah at a tailgate party.
Speaker 2:I mean exactly.
Speaker 4:Like, wherever you are, the church. What is the church? Wherever Christians gather right, two or three or more gathering boom, church right. There's no reason why we have to say that it's only in a space that meets a certain definition of sacredness.
Speaker 3:And I think one of the things that you just struck me I just had a new thought is how often do we start churches in weird spots Because we have to? We do start them in pubs, we do start them in school.
Speaker 4:I just started in a funeral home.
Speaker 3:Exactly, we start them in houses, and why are people drawn to that? One of the things is, if you're a part of that church plant, that started in the restaurant because they're closed on Sunday morning, right, and you're still smelling the beer from the night before, you're going to go and tell your friends dude, we're meeting in a bar. This is amazing, right you?
Speaker 1:know like it's going to right.
Speaker 3:Why not just keep that? Why not keep that energy all the time by just making it who you are?
Speaker 4:I remember a guy made a very snarky comment. He said I will have screens in my church when movie theaters start having worship services in them, and which a lot of people replied saying guess what Many, many movie theaters have worship services in them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is the power of the mission of God and the creativity of the Holy Spirit, alive and well, in leaders who start new ministry to reach new people with the gospel. So last couple of questions here. This has been so fun, matthew. Love your passion. What do you love about the LCMS and what frustrates you?
Speaker 3:I think. I think the thing that I love the most about the LCMS has got to be our theology Right. And what I mean by that is that we are a theology for a gray world, right. We don't deal in black and white, we really don't. And and and we, we, our theology gets into St Sinner, right. Our theology gets into this weird, this oddity of two kingdoms. Our theology gets into Word and Sacrament, where the, the, the, the bread and the wine are still there, while the body and blood are also there, and it's just this whole thing. It's this. We live in the grave, and that's that's where people are, that people, people don't live in black and white. When you sit down and talk with them, you know this idea that you're either in or you're out, this idea that it's it's, it's this or it's that. And what I love about our theology is that we are a both and theology. We're a both and theology. We're not an either or theology. And the further we go down into this either or theology, the more we become Catholic, the more we become Eastern Orthodox or the more we become evangelical. And we're none of those things. We're proudly Lutheran, thank you, and that's what. And we have that ability and because of that, the other part would be that causes innovation.
Speaker 3:We, man, we used to be innovative, didn't we? First ones on TV, first ones, first ones with radio you might not know this, but some people might. We were the first ones to have an outreach to the slaves way way you know, lutherans, not LCMS. We were the first ones to do slave outreach for crying out loud, right. We were the first ones to ordain a black man in America. I mean, like we used to be like cutting edge, because we knew the gospel, we lived the gospel.
Speaker 3:And what I love about the church is that we still are that innovative church. You guys are such an awesome picture of what the church can do and that's why I was so excited to be able to come and talk to you guys because, man, what we can learn from what you guys are doing with technology and the way that you're thinking about what you're doing Wow, look at what you're doing and innovating. And you are being what Luther called us to be as churches, which is little seminaries. That's what he called us, little seminaries. And so this whole idea that we aren't innovative, no, on the ground level, churches are doing some amazing things. Even if it's small things, they're being innovative for their space.
Speaker 1:So that's what I love about our church right there, If you could pray. And one thing changes in the wider landscape of the LCMS what would it be?
Speaker 3:I would actually pray that we would go back to who we were in the 1850s. I would you want to know why? Because in the 1850s we understood how important it was to raise up laity in preaching stations, and those preaching stations would then become churches. And those churches, and we had preaching stations, we'd have three and four and five preaching stations within a few miles of each other. Because we had this mission mindset If it's Word and Sacrament, dude, great, let's get it out there. And because of the 1850s, because we were releasing people all the time, raising people, the lady were empowered, right, you know all this good stuff.
Speaker 3:Because of the 1850s, we had the 1950s, which is our glory days, because we knew we had the plant, we were out there getting it done, and so my prayer would be that we would remember our history better and remember that we used to say to Lady hey, you may have to lead church today because pastor's not coming today, he's a circuit rider, he's got six, so you're leading worship today, you know. And we were okay with it and we let it happen because it had to happen. Well, guess what? People were back in that place here in rural America and in the urban areas and, yes, in those suburban areas, there are churches that are empty and all we're doing, like I loved you, I went to your class at BPM and one of the things you said, tim, it hit me All we're doing is ripping people from one and hurting that church to put them in another church. Why aren't we thinking? How are we raising up those lay leaders?
Speaker 1:Man, matthew, this has been very, very encouraging. My mind started to go as you think. History of Seminex and Concordia Theological Seminary. This happened in 1974. Those of you who are listening, if you don't have this, you could look it up online for the life of the world. This came out of Concordia Theological Seminary, just their spring edition. There's like seven, eight pages on the story and Robert Preuss has this huge.
Speaker 1:They had his inaugural address for the beginning of his presidency at Concordia, Springfield, and he was the president when it moved from Springfield to which my grandpa graduated from, to Fort Wayne, and he talked about Concordia and what that meant unity, right. He talked about how deep our theology of justification was, and then he talks about the seminary and seminary meaning the verb to plant, and how the seminary was really a ascending station. And I think we're still like I loved his address. It was there's like nothing that any of us would read and kind of disagree with at all. But culture has just changed so rapidly and we still in the LCMS have the wounds of Semenex and the walkout and like I just would like to go back and could we have listened to one another more deeply, you know. And then a shout out to Jack Preuss who kind of in that season, this is not JAO but JAO's dad who held things together and the synod kind of continued. But did we have confession and absolution conversations then, or did we just write one another off and say, off with you, heterodox etc? Now, to be sure, it was a battle over the Bible, heterodox etc. But did we spend the amount of time building bridges to understand and to draw, to draw back? And today, praise be to God, our battles are not over the Bible or theology. Like all of our students, they love very, very conservative confessional Lutheran teaching.
Speaker 1:Like the more we've leaned into this, the more I have to, frankly, because I'm a rip it and you know let's get after it. You and I have some of the same personality traits. You know let's do and then think about what's been done afterwards. But no, no, no, I've got a whole group of people that are around me right now and I feel just more, more safe and covered. You know, it's a beautiful thing because there's the word of God saturating the hearts and then coming off of the lips of dozens and dozens, maybe hundreds of leaders here at Christ Greenfield that I get to be a part of just fanning the flame and telling stories and learning with them. I'm not doing ministry for them, to be sure. Yes, word and sacrament flows from the pulpit and the platform. That's great. But I'm with God's people and with amazing leaders who are on mission, confessing the name of Jesus out into their various vocations, and it's just an amazing, amazing place to be.
Speaker 1:And is there spiritual warfare? Oh, my goodness, to be sure, is Satan wanting to steal, kill, destroy and divide us right now? In many respects, it is Luther's time. Luther goes off on spiritual warfare, being present in all of his writings, right Because he recognized what the battle was actually over. It was a battle to win souls.
Speaker 1:People are carried. Are we going to be carried away by the law and the doing to earn God's favor, or is it going to be about God's favor being fully given by grace, through faith, signed, sealed and delivered in the waters of baptism? Are we going to go back to our core identity? And for those of us that are engaging in these days, man, we must recognize we have an enemy, and it's not one another, it is, it is Satan. And that's a very, very Lutheran, lutheran perspective, because the battle is real and I think the Lord wants to do a measurably more than anything we could ask, think or imagine through the Lutheran church Missouri synod. If we'll unite around our common enemy, satan, and the victory that's been won through the crossan Church Missouri Synod. If we'll unite around our common enemy, satan, and the victory that's been won through the cross and the empty tomb. So sorry for the little bit of a rant there, but we're still walking through the pains and the wounds of Seminex and I'm praying for a new day. Matthew go ahead.
Speaker 3:Just real quick. What struck me? How often in our meetings like one of the smartest thing you can do for a council meeting after a long day of work for your volunteers they're there, you know what's going on in their lives, and so how often do you know that you don't start the meeting? You say how's your day? Let's go around the table and, just like hey, tell us how your day is. Why? Because if you know their context, you know that maybe the answers that they're giving tonight aren't necessarily based on what you're talking about.
Speaker 3:Right, how awesome would it be if we started every single circuit meeting, every single synodical convention, every single time we are together. How awesome would it be if we sat and we actually did a service of confession and repentance, looking at each other, right when you know, hey, pick your side, I don't care, because we know they're there Just standing and looking at each other and going. I confess that I have wronged you. I have spoken about you in not kind ways. I have thought the worst of you. Will you forgive me? You know how awesome would that be.
Speaker 3:Maybe, it'd change the conversation.
Speaker 1:That's it. And then out of that forgiveness, I trust you, in your context, to be faithful and that we like nobody's gone through the seminary and that we like nobody's gone through the seminary and kind of said, well, I hope not said you know what? Like, the mission of Jesus is not a big deal. Like I think we all agree it's a big deal. Dr Dr Schultz, who wrote this mission from the cross. He's a longtime professor at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne. I know our brothers that have come through there understand the Missio Dei to be sure.
Speaker 1:So let's orient around what we agree on and then have charity in our diverse context. That seems so, so simple, but I guess it's simply hard to live out. So all we're doing on this podcast is hopefully modeling charitable conversations with people that disagree. So I'll give this shout out once again Done it before. If you heard anything today and you want to take issue with, maybe the comment I made about a dark spirit, lighten me up, Lighten us up and talk about your respective, your, your respective context and let's unite on the mission, uh, with the mission of Jesus. All right, Matt, Matthew, this we're at time Um, we're recording this on a Monday, Thursday actually, and I got people that were starting to come for our noon service today, but if people want to connect with you, Matthew, how can they do so?
Speaker 3:Uh, yeah, so it's a email you can. You can look up our website, which is ascensionprattorg, ascensionprattorg. You can email me directly at pastormatthew at ascensionprattorg. I wish we would have gone with ALC, but anyway, sounds like a synod, and then I would even take a direct phone call with my cell phone which I can give it publicly, right now it's area code 314-440-2168.
Speaker 3:Again, that's area code 314-440-2168. Two, one, six, eight and uh, with you know, I'm all when it comes to this, when it comes to the future of the church and and helping churches see their seats. Just get that first vision I mean, like this is, this is this is something I'm deeply, deeply, deeply passionate about and will give away for free. I, I cause I, I just want everybody to do it, you know.
Speaker 1:Dude. Well, we're aligned with that, brother. This has been so much fun, jack, great work, as always. This is Lead Time and what a joy to have you listening with us today. Please share and subscribe, comment, whatever the comment is, even if you disagree. That's great. We can disagree agreeably and grow up into Jesus, who is our head. Thanks so much, matt. Thanks Jack.
Speaker 2: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.