Reverend Dr. Rob Kasper joins us to share his 41-year odyssey through ordained ministry and how his experiences have shaped his insights into leadership within the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS). Listen as he unwraps his journey from the waters of baptism in Wisconsin, through academia at Concordia-St. Paul, to his influential role in the Michigan district, where he’s pioneering methods such as deacon training and alternative seminary education pathways, all while leveraging the Kairos platform to revolutionize learning.
Parenting is no small feat, and doing so within the tapestry of faith adds layers of complexity and grace. In our heart-to-heart with Rob, he sheds light on the dual joys and trials of raising children with special needs, emphasizing the support that Christian education and community can provide. This episode isn't just about parenting, though—it's a deep look at the essence of leadership in the church, where humility and self-awareness play starring roles. We uncover the importance of a supportive network, not just for pastors' families, but extending to every family nurtured within a faith-based community.
Our conversation with Reverend Kasper takes a visionary turn as we explore the LCMS's approach to addressing pastoral vacancies and fostering new church communities. It’s a candid look at the challenges and proactive strategies that are shaping the future of the church. We also consider the legacy the LCMS aspires to leave—one marked by a fierce commitment to theology, diversity, and global impact. If you're curious about what it takes to nurture leaders at all levels of the church and equip laypeople to play a vital role in its mission, then this episode is an essential listen.
Visit uniteleadership.org
Reverend Dr. Rob Kasper joins us to share his 41-year odyssey through ordained ministry and how his experiences have shaped his insights into leadership within the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS). Listen as he unwraps his journey from the waters of baptism in Wisconsin, through academia at Concordia-St. Paul, to his influential role in the Michigan district, where he’s pioneering methods such as deacon training and alternative seminary education pathways, all while leveraging the Kairos platform to revolutionize learning.
Parenting is no small feat, and doing so within the tapestry of faith adds layers of complexity and grace. In our heart-to-heart with Rob, he sheds light on the dual joys and trials of raising children with special needs, emphasizing the support that Christian education and community can provide. This episode isn't just about parenting, though—it's a deep look at the essence of leadership in the church, where humility and self-awareness play starring roles. We uncover the importance of a supportive network, not just for pastors' families, but extending to every family nurtured within a faith-based community.
Our conversation with Reverend Kasper takes a visionary turn as we explore the LCMS's approach to addressing pastoral vacancies and fostering new church communities. It’s a candid look at the challenges and proactive strategies that are shaping the future of the church. We also consider the legacy the LCMS aspires to leave—one marked by a fierce commitment to theology, diversity, and global impact. If you're curious about what it takes to nurture leaders at all levels of the church and equip laypeople to play a vital role in its mission, then this episode is an essential listen.
Visit uniteleadership.org
This is Lead Time.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Lead Time, tim Allman, here with Jack Kauberg. I pray you're leaning into learning today, as this conversation is going to take some twists and turns, to be sure, we're going to talk about leadership development, we're going to talk about the LCMS, we're going to talk about what healthy leadership looks like today with our guest, reverend Dr Rob Casper. Let me tell you a little bit about him. When I asked so how long have you been in ministry there, rob? He says well, since I was baptized A very Lutheran thing to say, by the way. So 67 years in ministry, but 41 years ordained and 28 years in the parish, 13 years with the Michigan district.
Speaker 2:Now, if you're a part of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, the Michigan district has been known as one of the most mission-oriented districts in the LCMS as long as I can remember, and this is a major reason why this man and his work and partners who come alongside him is a major reason why. So he's been a mission exec and assistant to the president. He now is leading in leadership development as the leadership development director for the district, overseeing deacon training, alternate routes to the seminary and church worker care prior to going to the seminary. The Michigan district is on the cutting edge of missions and this is one of the reasons why, since 1989, they have had a Michigan school of missions with. You know that may have evolved a bit, but today it stands with 13 core classes on the Kairos platform.
Speaker 2:Yes, that is right, the Kairos platform. So if you're going through deacon training in the Michigan district, there's a path for you to maybe get an MA or BA, whatever it is, through the Kairos platform. It is so good. So thanks for hanging with us today, rob. How are you doing, brother?
Speaker 3:I'm doing very well. Thank you for your invitation, Tim.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, this is going to be great. So tell us your why, your origin story, a bit of why you do what you do, rob. What makes you you brother?
Speaker 3:of why you do what you do, rob. What makes you you, brother? Well, I shared with you that I really came from the story of my first pastor's conference when I was called to be a pastor in Missouri and I was associate pastor, assistant pastor, and I was at my first pastor's conference and they're going around a group a lot of gray hair there, which I now have now but around the table and they said the speaker said, hey, share how long you've been in ministry. And so one guy says 25 years, another one says 40. And one guy could barely breathe and he said, like you know, 43. And I said, hey, I've been in ministry now for like 27 years. And they looked at me and said, man, you really been in ministry now for like 27 years. And they looked at me and said, man, you really look good for that. You know.
Speaker 3:I said, well, it was July 19th 1957 when I was baptized and of course I was being a little snarky, but that's really true that. You know, the priesthood of all believers is like a real thing. It's part of God's call on his whole church to be instruments of his grace in the lives of other people, that we might be those who speak to God for other people, those that speak for God to other people, from his word that the Holy Spirit might work in their lives and transform them to be witness and carriers of the gospel as well. So that's been where I'm coming from, and I didn't know I was going to be a pastor until much later. Until you know, high school late high school, maybe even going into the first year of college you sign up, you know, and that was back before they had, like you know, signing up online for coursework. So you show up at this matriculation line. I'm surprised they even accepted me into the school. What school was?
Speaker 2:that what college.
Speaker 3:Well, concordia, st Paul, minnesota, St. Paul all right, yeah, yeah. So I was a, I was Comet. Now it's Golden Bears.
Speaker 2:Golden Bears? Yeah, whose name is Comet? Okay, were you in that area? Did you live close to St Paul? I actually lived in northern Wisconsin.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm a farm boy from Wisconsin and it was. I went down to look at Concordia in. It was in downtown Milwaukee at the time and I would have been the first the old campus, I would have been the first of their four-year program and I, you know, I wasn't sure I wanted to be the, you know, the cutting edge of someone else's project. So I went to where they had a program already.
Speaker 2:So thankful for that. I love it.
Speaker 3:And you were pre-SAM and then went straight to one of the summers, yeah, four years at Concordia-St Paul and then on to St Louis and yeah, in between there, you know just the summer months got engaged and then that fall got married back in 80 or 79, rather.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you and my dad are roughly the same same year I think my dad may be a year older, I think and he made the decision back then in the early eighties to go to Fort Wayne because we just had a guest on Dr Bodie talking about Seminex and did that go into your decision-making process as Concordia, St Louis. They were still building up the faculty in those days they were.
Speaker 3:I have to tell you, I'm a farm boy from Wisconsin. I don't come from roots of pastors. I am the root, I think, in my family. So I'm thankful for that and at the same time, that wasn't really a thing in northern Wisconsin for us to process, at least not at my age at that time. That's like 50 years ago.
Speaker 3:So I would say that the reason that I went to St Louis and chose that in fact I think we had 16 guys that were pre-Sem, that graduated with me from St Paul that year and almost right down the middle, eight and eight went to one or the other seminaries, one or the other the reason I chose St Louis was simply because St Louis was just simply saying this is what we do, this is who we are and this is what we teach and this is how it's going to be. And Fort Wayne was kind of saying, well, we're not St Louis or we're different from St Louis at that time. And I'm just going to suggest that that was almost a. Well, let me just say it was an effort to define yourself by being negative about something else, and not that they were negative about St Louis, just that we're not St Louis and we're we're better or something.
Speaker 4:So that was, that was my, that was my sense.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's. That's fascinating, I can think. You know I'm out now 16 years and how the seminary is like I never really understood. It's like aren't we teaching the same doctrine here? This doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, you know.
Speaker 3:And there's a different pedagogy I think that seminaries can carry.
Speaker 3:One might teach this is how you think as a theologian, or one that says this is what you think as a Lutheran theologian, or one that says this is what you think as a Lutheran theologian. I think there can be different pedagogy as to how to approach the educational process and formation, but the doctrine is the same and I would say that my experience at seminary I thought I was a committed Christian and ready to go. When I went down there and after my first year I was a committed Christian and ready to go and I went down there and I, after my first year, I was wondering whether I was a Christian at all, because they did, basically took my faith apart and all the things, the little sayings that I'd had, you know it kind of kept me focused on ministry and focused on in my faith and outside of the, outside of the catechism, I would say they had to reshape and reform me a little bit. So I'm thankful for that experience, as painful as it might have been that first year.
Speaker 2:Was that? Not to go too deep into that, but was that kind of some vestiges of, maybe, a theology of glory rather than the theology of the cross? Was it along those lines or just curious?
Speaker 3:No, I think it was just. I had very little. What should I say? I didn't have the verbiage or the vocabulary, the theological vocabulary. I picked up some, you know some, at St Paul, minnesota, and it was a great experience. I had good teachers and understood my languages Latin, greek and Hebrew and a little bit of German, just enough to get in trouble. But I didn't have the theological verbiage that was required in a to to communicate at that level at the seminary. So so I would not express myself as clearly as I might have at first.
Speaker 2:So good. Thanks for sharing that story. We all have to be shaped and and then reshaped, right? Isn't that what all of life is? It's like, well, I thought I knew and now I don't know.
Speaker 2:And what I've come to know is and this is the humble, hopefully the leader's humble journey is, the more I know about a certain, I must be on my guard because hubris, pride can come in, because I've developed all of these words and then the Holy Spirit has to kind of convict, kill, rush. I've developed all of these words, and then the Holy Spirit has to kind of convict, kill, crush and then remind us man, you don't know much. There's always more as God reveals himself through his word and how that word gets worked out in the world. So, yeah, I'm grateful for the seminaries and the shaping. And then you get out into the world and you're like I still have to continue to take that humble posture because I can become dogmatic, legalistic, because I know the words and other people don't know the words. Now, here's good. The flip is no, the word knows me and I'm continuing to be shaped by it and other people are coming right alongside me on that, on that journey as well.
Speaker 2:So I'd like to get, before talking kind of leadership development out in the world in your district, before talking kind of leadership development out in the world in your district, I've been impressed and an observer of you and your family, rob. You developed amazing leaders in your home. So tell us about discipling your kids a little bit, about your family and your kids, some of whom even grew up into now church leaders. How did you do that so so well? Praise be to God, brother, well done.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you I have to give a lot of credit to my bride and just the grace of God at work and then, of course, support of extended family, just praying for us and helping us meet whatever challenges the Lord allowed to be thrown into our lives as a husband and wife. I think, first of all just to have a great champion in a bride for me as a pastor and serving in that way, being on the same page with her, and not that we never had a difference of opinion or anything like that, it's just that our job is to steward our children. How do we steward the gift that God gives to us, whatever that gift looks like, and so we're thankful to God for the privilege of having our children in our home and then dealing with I think we leveraged, if I can use that term. As I look back, we're very, very intent on putting other Christian voices into the lives of our children, be that, you know, grandparents, our children, be that grandparents, be that friends and fellow workers in the church, co-workers, some great friends that we went to school with, to college and seminary that were kind of maybe raising kids at the same time or going through some of the same steps that we were going through and, I think, the challenge of having your kids in a Christian day school. I didn't have that experience personally, but my kids were able to do that, with the exception of my two oldest ones initially, who were born deaf.
Speaker 3:And so my oldest son started going to was in our kindergarten class down in St Louis as a you know. He came out of Central Institute for the Deaf and he was reading lips and his hearing aids assisted him and his speech was great good reader. And then our daughter later on, when we moved to Michigan she's our oldest child. She said why is it that my two brothers and my little sister get to go to a school that teaches about Jesus, but I don't? Because she was deaf. And so we worked with special education ministry here in St Louis or in Michigan and Lutheran Special Education Ministry, lsem, and they provided, they worked it out so that she could go to Lutheran High School North and that was a blessing to us. So she was the first deaf student that graduated from Lutheran High School North in Macomb, michigan, and my son was the second one. So it just kind of was working that way.
Speaker 3:And then, of course, if you know, my son, gabe, and he may listen to this, but I'll just say it because I say it all the time. He has what we call selective hearing. He has what we call selective hearing and our daughter is a Lutheran school teacher, married a pastor as they were going through college. So grateful to God, just other Christians and allowing that message of the gospel being lived out in different ways among all of our friends and family, among all of our friends and family, and when there's something that's less than what you want for your kids or it's not a good witness, to speak into that and to exercise grace as much as possible. You know, hold on tight to the truth while also holding on tight to the people that you love. And sometimes that tension we get to live in, that tension and that's the Christian message I think is to the world is to hold on to Jesus while speaking truth and loving unconditionally.
Speaker 2:It's good to be Rob Casper these days, brother, for so many reasons because you're loved by the Lord, baptized in his name. Days, brother, for so many reasons because you're loved by the Lord, baptized in his name. The Lord is using you in mission and ministry. But I yearn, in one generation from now, to be where you and my dad and many others are With kids. Yeah, they're beautiful messes, but the Lord is using them in beautiful ways and it takes a community that's what I hear you saying is that you couldn't do it on your own.
Speaker 2:Obviously, you needed the love and care of God, the Holy spirit, to be present in their lives. You needed the church, the body of Christ, to be present, to steward them, to shape them, to hold them accountable, to speak words of wisdom into their lives. Yeah, we can't follow Jesus on our own. That's a dust statement. But too many, too many Christians are walking in in isolation. And thanks for modeling living in community. As a pastor, brother, that's a beautiful, beautiful thing. And for all pastors because I'm a pastor's kid, you know I mean just treat them like normal humans, not super humans. The kids are going to make mistakes and love and care for them, and pastor's kids need other people to speak the law to them and the gospel, please. Thank you so, so good, and you had people that did that for you, so no-transcript.
Speaker 3:So maybe those two are kind of like learner with a humble spirit, as opposed to someone who knows everything. I think you're looking for someone who is, maybe has aptitude I think you need some aptitude for leadership but they're also just self-aware, that sense of self that there's a definite I'm a whole person. I'm giving myself wholly. I choose to give myself wholly to this other person. They don't need to find their identity in leadership. They simply are a leader and so they can respond to that.
Speaker 3:Anything else, they're supposed to react, I guess, and so they're going to make decisions that are for the good, and so they're going to make decisions that are for the good, led by the Holy Spirit, as leaders. But they don't need to have that. I want to be thoughtful about this. It's not that you don't care if people like you, it's just. You just make good decisions because it's the right thing to do. That's a leader. If no one is following, then you're just taking a walk.
Speaker 2:So what I hear you saying. Jack, I'd love to get your take on this. I mean, you may not have intended to say this, but I hear Pat Lencioni's humble, hungry, smart in what you just said.
Speaker 1:Humility You've heard of that, right From.
Speaker 2:Pat Lencioni oh yeah, humble, hungry, smart and humility, the learner, the hungry. There's a certain sense of self and I would categorize like your identity in Christ. I don't really care what. I care deeply about what other people think, but I'm not going to get drawn in, sucked into the petty political, you know, negotiating type of. There's a mission that we're on. The mission is to multiply disciples wherever the leader articulates it and then, as we develop teams around them, you're socially aware enough to know how other people are gifted and to respond to them in diverse ways based on their respective experiences and personalities, etc. Is that a fair characterization of what I hear you looking for in the, in the leader?
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Wonderful Anything to add, Jack?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so I've been reflecting on this a lot lately the difference between positional leadership versus influential leadership, right, and you know, when I was in the army, right, and I was a staff sergeant and I could tell a private what to do and they had to do it.
Speaker 4:It didn't matter whether they agreed with me or not they had to do it because I had this position and they had this position and it just kind of required them to do it. But it doesn't work that way in the church. Church leaders have to lead through influence. Church leaders have to lead through influence. That means people have to want to do they want. They have to want to follow the guidance of that leader. You know, because we have choices, we don't have to be, you don't have to be at a certain church. You can go to a different church.
Speaker 4:Like people vote with their feet in the whole process, and so if you're going to do anything in a community as a leader, you have to lead influentially, which means that you are, your character is on display for everybody and your competency is on display for everybody and the quality of the vision that you're casting is on display for everybody. And you have to lean into that intentionally. And that's where I think the self-awareness comes into effect. You know, why do I even want to be leading in this role, right? Why is this even something that I want to do, right? Sometimes it's not the right reason. Sometimes it absolutely is the right reason and we have to be very honest about that.
Speaker 3:Well, jack, just to tie on to that, you know, brought to mind just a stream of consciousness. I one time wrote down that leadership is influence and almost like nothing more. Leadership is influence, and influence requires relationship of trust, and relationships of trust take time.
Speaker 4:Yep.
Speaker 3:And and no. So influence, trust, shared experiences, and that takes time. So so where do we have shared experiences? You can build relationships, and where you have shared those relationships, you can exercise influence. And where you have shared those relationships, you can exercise influence, and that's really leadership. And then, who was it? Someone said that leadership is really people don't always, you know, are you. What's the distance, what's the gap between what you say you believe and what you behave you believe right. So a leader has the capacity to influence people. To look honestly at that gap and that's where leadership takes place then is helping people move from what they say they believe and what they're really behaving. You want to get that a little bit closer so you can say I believe this, but if you're not living that up, then that's like self-leadership. But also a respected, trusted leader of influence can help people move toward that. So, working in a congregation or working with a student or a friend or anyone like that, that's that's where you want to try and exercise leadership.
Speaker 4:And the relationship that you talk about, that I think of that. I call it the ministry of presence being authentically present with people, hearing their concerns, empathizing for people when they're struggling, letting people know genuinely that you care about them.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So as a coach I call that with my players closing the potential performance gap. And everybody has a gap. Pastor, we're all works in progress. So there is unfortunately in the LCMS a spoken and maybe non-spoken in some congregations gap between the priesthood of all believers and the pastor, and I hear it articulated. In some congregations they're bold enough to say lay leaders, because they've been trained in this direction. Pastor, that's what we pay you to do. You do the ministry for us and we'll just receive.
Speaker 4:We're the beneficiaries.
Speaker 2:We're the beneficiaries high potential, you know, business leaders, et cetera find the local church just lacking an invitation for them to participate on so many fronts. If there's one thing that the ULC is trying to bridge, it is that gap between pastor and lay leader that we would learn from one another deeply, and we have so much to learn, you know, for the lay leader yeah, I didn't go to seminary. All these words that you're using, pastor, bring me in. I'd love to go deeper. This is what I found Like there's so many women and men in our congregations that want deeper Lutheran theology.
Speaker 2:Are we sharing it in a way that they anticipate being able to share it in their respective context, or are we sharing it in an arrogant way, like I am the sage on the stage and I think we have some room for growth there? So you've trained lay leaders for so, so long. Why are lay leaders so crucial for the work of the church and what is your vision for helping the ordained pastorate and commission ministers too in the LCMS work together with the lay men and women, many of them with strong leadership potential in our pews? What are your thoughts there, rob?
Speaker 3:Yeah, Jesus said yeah, we're still basking in the season of Easter, it's not quite ascension yet, but I think about Jesus' words to his disciples when he comes among them behind locked doors, and he says says the father has sent me, so I'm sending you. And when you think about that, that sense of call, a called pastor, a called. You know, I've not been called to be your. I've not been called to be your. I've not been called to be your spouse. I've been called to be my spouse's spouse. I've been called to be your son's. You know what? I've been called to be your son's best friend. I've been called to be your neighbor All right, I mean in that narrow sense of neighbor. I've been called to be your co-worker. I haven't been called to be all those things that someone else has been uniquely called to, be they a lay person or a teacher or whatever. I haven't been called to be your best friend's friend.
Speaker 3:Okay, so my point is we all have our unique sphere of influence and if you're called to follow Jesus by the Holy Spirit, you're also called to lead others. Regardless of your gift cluster, of how you're wired, of your experience, you're called to lead others. And with that mentality, how do we preach to people as pastors? How do we teach people from the Scriptures? How do we affirm them and encourage them that in your baptism you are called to be a servant leader, because you're called to be a follower of Jesus Christ. As a follower, part of that witness is to. Part of that following is to lead others to Jesus, and that's like our main task, however, and wherever we happen to have that sphere of influence. So how do we help people?
Speaker 3:A see that and B they don't have to do it the way I do it. They don't have to do it the way I do it. They don't have to do it the way someone else does it. We all have our various capacities and all those capacities can grow through continued training, continued education, continued experiences. I think those capacities can grow through expanding relationships and practice. You know all those things can happen.
Speaker 3:So my vision, if you're going to want to talk about that, has always been to, if we can train people at this level, you know thousands and thousands of people at this level there's going to be some that are going to, you know, be identified either by themselves or by someone else. You know you really ought to maybe think about this, you know, and then maybe from that group there's also going to be some, you know you might want to also consider going on in your education to prepare for full-time church work or to be called officially or to be called, you know, in that sense of the church identifying someone and saying, yep, you're the person for that, we agree, we put our stamp of respect for that office and we're going to call you to that. So if that helps to see what I'm trying to see, oh, yeah, so I'm really curious, because you guys have been talking about this deacon program there.
Speaker 4:What does it actually look like for deacons to be serving in your district? Like, how are deacons being utilized?
Speaker 3:Yeah, no-transcript. And again, that's a piece of history I'm aware of and I've done study on it and I get that and it was really a need just to expand the reach of their pastors and so on and to serve in some real important ways that licensing for word and sacrament ministry under the supervision of a pastor. And that was kind of how things were going here in Michigan. And then 2016 came right and they wanted to—I don't want to use the word they In convention the church spoke and said we need to formalize that and kind of get that regularized. Deacons. And so they had that opening for deacons who'd been serving at least two years and were over the age of 55. They could colloquize to either SMP Prior to that. They could colloquize after 10 years of faithful experience into the general pastorate and have a general certificate. That's been closed. So has the SMP route for colloquy has been closed now, so it's timed out. That said, we still raise deacons because in the 2016 1302A resolution from Senate, districts were encouraged to continue their late training programs. So there's no end on that, because the 89 Wichita Convention, that resolution was not rescinded, it was simply let's regularize it and really press toward SMP and ordination. So we have two categories of deacons now. We have those that are 98.999 of those that are going to be going through our training now as deacons. They are going to be credentialed deacons, so they are not licensed, they're credentialed.
Speaker 3:I worked with the floor committee in 2016 and said, hey, I need another word. You can't just turn off the valve, I need another word. So we used the word credentialed, and credentialed is there so that we can identify them as men who have prepared for this ministry. They've been found worthy in their context of ministry. They've been successful in their studies, they're respected by their congregation and now they're credentialed, which means that they're going to serve, not in a public capacity, in those uniquely pastoral roles as observed by the regular preaching from the pulpit on Sunday morning, or in public know, in public worship or consecration of the sacrament in public worship, but under the supervision of their pastor. They can serve in education ministry. They can serve in teaching. They can serve in pastoral care. They can make home visits.
Speaker 3:We encourage pastors consider these men to be extensions of the reach of your pastor's, your shepherd's arms. So they're credentialed. Now, in those situations where the pastor is missing okay, I mean, there's not a pastor there right now there's not a called servant leader pastor, an ordained person. Our district president can still license them for a brief time, can license them for a period of time. If it's going to be more than a year and the congregation sees, hey, we really want you to continue to serve, we can't maybe afford a pastor, well then we're going to, based again on our sin's direction, we're going to press them toward and make provision for and encourage them to move into SMP Specialized Ministry Pastor, specific Ministry Pastor and provide adequate support so that they can. You know they have some buy-in, the congregation has buy-in and the district is also assisting them in their education costs.
Speaker 3:So, that's where we're at now. We continue to train deacons. We also want to specialize some of our deacons, for, you know, specialize in that. We have one deacon who serves as one of our reconcilers. He's been specifically trained as a reconciler, so he does that too. God bless him. Hopefully don't have to call on him too often. So is that it.
Speaker 2:No, that's wonderful, that's wonderful. And to be clear, they're using some of them or all of them, the Kairos kind of path right platform for their training. Talk about that. Are some not using that because they just want the licensing, et cetera? So how are you using Kairos?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're using Kairos. Yeah, we're using Kairos. Really, it's been a longtime desire to have an asynchronous process of learning, or at least an online process, so that the face-to-face is wonderful. But I mean, the snag is that, geographically, most of these guys are still working, you know. So how do you come and just give up that time? But then COVID pushed us over the edge and so we took opportunity then to work with Kairos, which was then Sioux Falls Seminary right, but just working with the team there.
Speaker 3:And that's when you and I first met, I think, by way of a conversation Tim of a conversation Tim that you know I wasn't we were able to bring our whole school, all of our teaching, our own instructors. We're still learning how this all works in terms of, I mean, I wrote the curriculum and did all the recording for the worship seminar and, man, I had those guys go into their mentor team with all kinds of stuff that, quite frankly, you could do just with your vocational mentor, you know, because you're on site. So that's where we went there. We do have some guys that are we've now opened up, since COVID has, you know, allowed us to come back together.
Speaker 3:We do have what's called now Classic Plus. So Classic Plus training is about 75%. You listen in on all the recorded materials that we have on our coursework and then you'll have maybe you have to have at least eight hours of face to face and that could be by way of a Zoom conversation, you know, it could be face to face on a campus with your cohort, you know whatever, but with with previous instructor it's still solid stuff. So they'll listen to that. But then they get another take with the instructor that is face-to-face with them.
Speaker 2:Like a faculty mentor.
Speaker 3:Yeah, a faculty mentor yeah.
Speaker 2:There you go and folks that are coming through this are some of them getting a BA MA MD or is it their kind of choice, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if they go through the Kairos and are successful there, they're actually. That's a master's of arts in missional formation that's a master of arts. If they're going classic, then that's not associated with Kairos' accreditation, so that's just kind of like a redo of what we used to do before we went online with Kairos.
Speaker 2:I would, and I've spoken into this so many times, so I'm going to be brief here. Hopefully I would love to see a program like you've put together that is respected, robustly, confessional Lutheran teaching kind of the guts, the core be acknowledged by our seminaries in the SMP process, because I know if they choose to go SMP it's still another four years and it's almost like they forgot what they've like. The seminary doesn't acknowledge what they've gone through, which is robust, and obviously we've got some students right now too that we'd love just some sort of acknowledgement, that one they've been in a confessing conservative Lutheran parish. They're lay leaders who have been identified as leaders as such by their local congregation, and could the seminary have adaptive? There are many, many, many institutions who have adaptive learning models to acknowledge prior learning, prior experience. So just another shout out If you have influence in the seminaries, we'd love to have that conversation with you. Any thoughts there, though, rob?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I agree. I would love to have opportunity to. I can give you case studies of students that, as they're preparing to go to the seminary, just sit in on our Old Testament, new Testament, introductory courses. They sit in on our Doctrine 1 and Doctrine 2. They sit in on our Greek courses and it helps them be so much more successful. I would think, man, let the students save a little bit of cash, you know, and not be strapped by having to take prerequisites when they can test out of. I can give you examples of students who have tested out of Greek 1 or Greek readings. They still want to do Greek readings because they just want to get better at it, but they've tested out of doctrine. The entrance exams are passed in New Testament and Old Testament just based on what we've been able to provide them in terms of training and education.
Speaker 3:I think there is a difference between being self-identified. If I self-identify that I think God wants me to be a pastor and no one else is saying that, well then I need to go to the seminary and get to work. But if others have spoken into my life and said we see in you a man of God, we want you to go and get prepared, because we want to have you serve us as pastor. Well then, I think that's really different. Then we want to kind of grease the skids on that quite a bit. What would that look like?
Speaker 2:Well, let's just since we're here, what are your thoughts on how the LCMS is going to fill 700 plus pulpits? Like that's a major. That's a major concern, and I've heard now this is secondhand, but I trust various district presidents who have been in rooms where very, I would say, un-Lutheran statements are made, such as well. One idea with those churches that can't afford a pastor, that are in decline in rural or suburban urban areas, they maybe should close their doors because they're not worthy to be a congregation if they don't have a pastor. Right, Nothing more anti-Lutheran. Well, we should have just stepped back on the boats and gone back to Germany, for goodness sake, back in the day, Like we made the case when everything fell apart in our early story, like where the word is, where the people are, there is the church, where the sacraments are distributed in faith, there's a church. So, yeah, there are some very Romanesque thoughts that have infiltrated the LCMS right now that are damaging the creativity of the Holy Spirit to fill pulpits and start new churches. So anything more to say there, Rob?
Speaker 1:Well, amen and.
Speaker 3:I would also add that it's not just about the 700 vacant pulpits although that's really significant and not all of them, quite frankly. I mean I can give you some case in points where you've got five congregations that are started, five of them are within a circuit of 10-mile circuit or 15-mile circuit. I mean Not necessarily.
Speaker 3:It's not. And in the city, you know, it's not like the case where they don't even have parking lots, because the day was when you didn't have parking lots right, you walked everywhere. So I mean, there's some real, so soften what you're saying. I just want to push back a little bit on that. There's some of them that need to find a way to work together, and I will also add this that more concerning to me, as I look at it as a missionary of the Most High God, is that we don't want to be maintaining, we want to be pressing into those places where the gospel is not yet. And how do we press into that? And so how do we release people to do that? Do they have to be ordained to be witnesses of the Most High God? No, they don't. But how can we lean into that and provide leadership and equipping them?
Speaker 3:You mentioned coming over on the boat in 1837 or 39. That was the big argument, that was the big concern Are we legit or not? Are we connected or not? And for how many years did they bring pastors over from you know, or sent them back to Germany to get their training? And they finally said this is nuts, you know. So we need to figure this out. And the Holy Spirit used all those circumstances and used the truth of the Scripture, understood our confessions in the context of their time and they were so faithful to Scripture and the confessions and they were able to be creative description of the confessions and they were able to be creative and I think that's where we need to continue to lean into that today, to find a way forward and not to maintain but to advance the kingdom, advance the gospel.
Speaker 4:Some studies show that in order for Christianity to be the normative faith in a community, that you need roughly one person who can preach per 500 people in a community. There's a lot of work to do to raise up people who can preach. There's a lot, and my prayer is that we think in terms of surplus. How do we create surplus of people that can preach so that we can start new churches, start new faith communities? I think that's exactly the right way that we ought to think.
Speaker 2:Everything rises and falls on Jesus and the work of his Holy Spirit, the gospel going forward, and then leaders who cast big vision to reach people with the gospel, just like Jesus did for the apostles, and the apostles carry that out in the book of Acts and beyond and we're beneficiaries of it. So what is the Michigan district vision? Right now, you and President Davis there shout out to Dave Davis, a wonderful, wonderful humble leader there I've got to hang out with him a bit and just so so inspiring the way he stewards and shepherds the district there in Michigan. So talk about the Michigan district vision. If you would Rob district there in.
Speaker 3:Michigan. So talk about the Michigan District Vision, if you would, rob. Well, the Michigan District Vision really has not changed a whole lot from when our beloved Dave Meyer was president. The four foci is great commission, great compassion, great commission ministries, great compassion ministries, healthy church workers and healthy congregations. We believe that we can engage people with just caring for people, loving on them, because it's the right thing to do, not as a hook for the gospel, but just because God has called us to be a people of compassion and to minister to the needs of people, to be people of grace in their lives.
Speaker 3:Opportunities will arise. Where we have opportunity, people say give a reason for the hope that is within you. Why are you doing this? Then we have opportunity to share the gospel. We trust the Holy Spirit to work on that. But we need thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of outlets for great compassion. Great commission, that's like every person, all right, living as a Christian and then responding to that question why are you doing this? And then we need receptive congregations and ministries that will receive them, that are healthy, that can receive them, build them up and strengthen them, and that healthy congregations and healthy ministries really rise and fall on healthy church workers and by healthy they're growing in their walk with God, they're growing in their relationship with one another, relationship with self. They're healthy physically, they're not all wore out and everything, and they have hope, just people of hope. So that I would say, continue to lean into those four foci of our ministry and raise up more and more workers that are lay people.
Speaker 3:Training my idea is to train, like I said, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people at this level. Some are going to be identified, either self-identified or identified by others, to go to the next level, and by that level I mean actually down in the system. I took a tremendous hit I say this when I was on the board of directors and parish pastor. I was on the board of directors of the Michigan district. Then I was invited, I was called to serve on the staff of the Michigan district. I took a great demotion, I think, there and when I was a, I used to say, even when I was in the pastorate hey, I could reach a lot more people if I weren't a pastor, because I'm tied up with meetings all the time. The thing is, god's people, wherever you happen to be, just need to be turned loose. And if we trust the gospel, assuming that the Holy Spirit is working through all that, just to be intentional about equipping people to be witnesses right where they are, how do we do that?
Speaker 2:No, that's so good. Our district has kind of made some bold assertions that we would like a hundred new starts in 10 years and I think we're going to blow that out of the water. I mean, we need a bigger, bigger vision as a district and those are multi-sites and and it could be new church plants, obviously, micro communities, new entrepreneurial ventures where people who are far from Jesus are going to hear the gospel and follow, follow Jesus. And so shout out to Dom Rivkin and Mike Gibson in our, in our neck of the woods. Have you guys thrown out any kind of numerical goals for church plannings and or leaders raised up Rob?
Speaker 3:We have not we. We were in a, in a mode of. We were in a mode of, you know, like three new church starts every year, but that was back in the day, when it was just called a worker and plopped them in and there you go.
Speaker 3:We're now really saying what does a new start look like? And we do want to have new starts, some of those I just celebrated with a group of folks that were a merged congregation. They had three congregations that merged together and became a new start as a new congregation. That's legit because they've got renewed focus and renewed energy and they're not trying to pay the bills on a building, on three buildings, they're paying the bills on one and they can really focus more on mission and ministry in their community. I think those are legit new starts to think through and be thoughtful about that. Yeah, we, we don't. We have not set a specific numerical growth.
Speaker 3:It's in terms of numbers of starts. We just need to lean into raising up more people to to lead those starts.
Speaker 2:Off the top of your head. Last question this has been fun. 50 years from now, all three of us are probably with the Lord.
Speaker 3:I'm with the Lord. Now, how about you, Tim? Yeah, amen, amen. I love that Rob.
Speaker 2:You're a wordsmith, bro. I'm getting called out from you all the time. I love it.
Speaker 3:So what do you hope? The LCMS is known for 50 years from now, next generation. Top three characteristics. When people from the outside look at the LCMS they're like, wow, why are they? Wow, they really lived out their theology, their theology of the priesthood of all believers. They lived out their theology of the word that Christ is central. They really lived out that they were not just a gathering of ethnic Germans and Northern Europeans that found themselves in a new place, but they lived out the mission of the church. That's what I want them to say. I want them to say that this really is a church that looks like Revelation every tribe and every nation and every tongue, because we have it all around us. Wherever you happen to live in the United States, just about you can have every tribe and nation and tongue, but around the world, the impact that we've had and could continue to have if we would. Again, I hope they say wow, that there was a time of repentance and we've moved into a new beginning, a new resurrection for us, a new reformation.
Speaker 3:They took God seriously.
Speaker 2:Boom, mic drop, rob. So good, jack. Big takeaways from the chat today, dude.
Speaker 4:No, I think it's very inspiring. You guys have a really great model there and you know, it's basically like the vision that you have is basically the vision that we have for the local church we call it the leadership pipeline right that there'd be people serving at different levels and that we could identify people leaders to become leaders of leaders, to become directors and pastors in the future, and that they would get a chance. We're equipping passionate people to serve and as they're serving, they're sharing the gospel with their friends and their neighbors. And this is the model for the church. This is how the church should function, so it's really exciting to see that play out in the Michigan district.
Speaker 2:In our context, rob, I was having a chat with a brother yesterday who said and it's always funny, pastors are always in relational triangles, right So-and-so said, well, who's so-and-so? Well, people are saying, well, they won't maybe name who they are, but they've got this sense. So the sense at Christ Greenfield is wow, if I start to serve, are they going to make me a pastor? Are they going to want me to be a commissioned visitor or something like that? Like that's how pervasive it is here. So we may have to pull back on some of the messages and say, no, we just serve, just serve. And some will be called to various different ministries, you know.
Speaker 2:But we really need more serve team members, to be sure, and leaders will organically rise up from there. But we do have intention around the leadership and coaching and directorship, for sure in our. So I'd much rather be on that end of the spectrum than having, like, no plan for people as they continue to grow. That's a different, we're on a different extreme, but it is. It is funny how people hear certain things man, if I serve, I'm going to be a pastor. Well, no, that's not necessarily true, rob, any any closing comments. As you've had the opportunity We've we've enjoyed this chat man so much.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you, I have too, and just I just really encourage you to continue to to do the work that you're doing, and I would also just echo that we have to be intentional about everything and when we just assume that things are going to take care of themselves, that there's. You want to be going faster than the current. I don't know if you've canoed rapids before, but there's such a thing as you want to be in the prayer position, which is low profile, on your knees in the canoe and you paddle like crazy because you have to be going faster than the current of our society, of our culture. You have to be going faster in order to steer through it, and we have, in general, laid back in the canoe and just floated on the current of Christendom, the Christian culture. We're not the center anymore. We're now I don't know if we ever were, but we're in the and we're now I don't know if we ever were, but we're in a.
Speaker 3:It's not safe anymore to just lay back. We need to actually take some risks within the context of our canoe, which is our statement of faith, the scriptures and walking with Jesus. But be in a posture of prayer. Be in a posture of prayer on your knees, paddle like crazy, work hard, talk Jesus a lot. Let the Holy Spirit work through us, but let him steer. But we need to go. We need to be going faster with our change than the culture around us is changing and I don't know how to get up to speed on that, but that's what we need as a church, amen.
Speaker 2:Jesus was not in the majority, nor were the apostles. When the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost and boom, look at what happened. They were all down, dependent, low and man. They were paddling by the Spirit's power very, very hard to multiply disciples, to reach people with the gospel and the world. All of culture, by the way, was changed and and the Holy Spirit wants to do that today, in our day. What an awesome, awesome privilege. This is Lead Time Sharing is caring, like subscribe, comment wherever it is you take in podcasts, and we promise to continue to have wonderful, jesus joy-filled conversations with leaders like Reverend Dr Rob Casper. Thanks so much, rob. Thanks Jack, good work, peace, thank you.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to Lead Time, a podcast of the Unite Leadership Collective. The ULC's mission is to collaborate with the local church to discover, develop and deploy leaders through biblical Lutheran doctrine and innovative methods To partner with us in this gospel message. Subscribe to our channel, then go to theuniteleadershiporg to create your free login for exclusive material and resources and then to explore ways in which you can sponsor an episode. Thanks for listening and stay tuned for next week's episode.