Embark on a profound exploration of God's mission and its undeniable impact on ministry, as Reverend Dr. William Utech shares his expert insights. Dr. Utech, with his deep roots in confessional Lutheranism, joins me to dissect the Missio Dei concept, revealing how God's mission permeates through the Church's work in our world. Our conversation traverses the historical and contemporary landscape, considering the example set by the apostles and its resounding echo in today's pastoral leadership.
Navigating the turbulent waters of church dynamics, we confront polarization and the dire need for kindness and unity within our communities. Dr. Utech's wisdom illuminates the path for cultivating leaders who embrace the priesthood of all believers, highlighting the impressive growth of churches in Ethiopia. Emotional intelligence emerges as a cornerstone of pastoral care, reshaping our understanding of leadership and the indelible social capital it can create within a congregation.
As we consider the vibrancy and health of the Church, particularly during times of transition and decline, Dr. Utech casts a vision of hope and resilience. We discuss empowering lay leaders and fostering multiculturalism, indispensable for a Church aligned with the Missio Dei. Together, we champion the call to build multi-ethnic church partnerships, stepping beyond traditional norms to forge a dynamic, inclusive future for the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod and beyond. Join us on this journey of discovery, where faith meets practice and tradition embraces transformation.
Visit uniteleadership.org
Embark on a profound exploration of God's mission and its undeniable impact on ministry, as Reverend Dr. William Utech shares his expert insights. Dr. Utech, with his deep roots in confessional Lutheranism, joins me to dissect the Missio Dei concept, revealing how God's mission permeates through the Church's work in our world. Our conversation traverses the historical and contemporary landscape, considering the example set by the apostles and its resounding echo in today's pastoral leadership.
Navigating the turbulent waters of church dynamics, we confront polarization and the dire need for kindness and unity within our communities. Dr. Utech's wisdom illuminates the path for cultivating leaders who embrace the priesthood of all believers, highlighting the impressive growth of churches in Ethiopia. Emotional intelligence emerges as a cornerstone of pastoral care, reshaping our understanding of leadership and the indelible social capital it can create within a congregation.
As we consider the vibrancy and health of the Church, particularly during times of transition and decline, Dr. Utech casts a vision of hope and resilience. We discuss empowering lay leaders and fostering multiculturalism, indispensable for a Church aligned with the Missio Dei. Together, we champion the call to build multi-ethnic church partnerships, stepping beyond traditional norms to forge a dynamic, inclusive future for the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod and beyond. Join us on this journey of discovery, where faith meets practice and tradition embraces transformation.
Visit uniteleadership.org
This is Lead Time.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Lead Time, tim Allman here. Jack Calberg is still on jury duty. Jack, you couldn't talk to me about what you're up to Very secretive, a very high-end case. I don't know. Jack's a big deal if you guys didn't know. In all sincerity, jack is serving our American government today and I'm grateful for that.
Speaker 2:But in the meantime I get to hang out with Reverend Dr William Utech. Let me tell you a little bit about Dr Utech. He was one of my first.
Speaker 2:If you look back at your seminary experience, you come in to for me, concordia Seminary in St Louis and everything is kind of new. I was a systems guy but you're like this is next level Faculty that have been around for you know generation, couple generations, like I remember my dad saying, hey, have you ever hung out with so-and-so and so-and-so? And I'm like, wow, these guys are amazing. One of the most accessible and take this in a kind fashion Dr Utech was being in your practical ministry classes. I had you for a couple three I believe over the four, three years and you just spoke words of love and care and challenge and fellas, this is what it's going to be like when you head out there. And I really, really valued your insight, your very practical wisdom, and that's what I seek to offer too, and the pastors that I get to mentor and coach. So thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2:Let me tell you a little bit about Dr Yutak. Hung out at Concordia Seminary for a while In 2013,. He was the mission executive for the Minnesota South District. He now we'll hear a little bit about what he's up to now, but he lives 50 miles south of Minnesota in a rural community on a lake, and life is very, very good Fishing, catch and releasing so fun. Two adult daughters, one who lives in St Louis working at Pathfinder, and his youngest daughter is actually married to a pastor now in Mankato, minnesota and a shout out to Hosanna Lutheran there and Pastor Mark Biemannhauser. So this is going to be a fun conversation today, bill. How are you doing, brother?
Speaker 3:Oh, I'm doing great. It's good to be with you. It's a joy and an honor. It's always fun for an old professor to see his students turn out right, and so it's just good to be here, and it's a good time to be having these kinds of conversations like we're going to have today.
Speaker 2:It is. It is the jury's still out I think it's only by the power and might of the Holy Spirit. For me, brother, but nonetheless excited to learn with you today we're going to orient this conversation a lot around the Missio Dei, the mission of God, and how confessional Lutheranism I think would do well, especially in this post-Christian, secular, you could say neo-pagan culture in which we find ourselves in embracing the Missio Dei, so that's a word that in pop evangelical circles gets kind of thrown out the mission of God. How do you, from a Lutheran, long-time Lutheran, confessional perspective perspective, define Missio Dei, dr Utech?
Speaker 3:Well, the way that I've looked at it and I think that I'm not alone in our church body in doing this In the Missio Dei we view God as ascending God.
Speaker 3:God has always been sending, from the time of creation and actually from the time of the fall forward. God is on the hunt to redeem and restore lost people. He wants fallen mankind back for himself again and will go to the furthest ends to accomplish that. So the Father sends the Son and we know what Jesus does for us and for our salvation the person and work of Jesus Christ. He lives, he dies, he rises again bodily, he ascends into heaven so that the Father and Son can send the Holy Spirit right. Son can send the Holy Spirit right, and the Holy Spirit comes with his gifts and he fills us with himself.
Speaker 3:And now, post-pentecost, we are the temples of the Holy Spirit. We carry him with us wherever we go and that makes us different. It makes us children of the Heavenly Father and brothers and sisters in Christ. And so now the Father, son and Holy Spirit send a church. That's us, that's people. He sends a church into the world so that we can be salt and light and we can be attractive, winsome witnesses who lead others to Jesus and make an eternal difference in their lives.
Speaker 2:So good, so good. What an awesome one minute long elevator speech for the sending God, the triune sending God. Sending God, the triune sending God, yeah, and so the book of Acts. The book of Acts is I was challenged on this recently maybe not our playbook, because it is God at work in a certain so you can't just like take everything that the book about. It was a unique time and a unique place for the sending God to do unique things, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to be sure.
Speaker 2:But it's unbelievable, as I'm walking through in our Easter sermon series right now, through the book of Acts, how the apostles start to mirror pretty much everything that Jesus did. Right, right, like I mean, like there you're. Just as I was persecuted, so are you going to be persecuted? Just as I spoke to people in power, both Jew and Gentile, so you're going to speak with power, just as I, as a sheep. I'm thinking of Acts chapter. What is it? Acts, chapter 16, philippi, when Paul and Silas are in the jail, they get beat down by the Roman leaders there and they don't say a thing. As a sheep before a shearer is a silent. So these guys didn't even open their mouths, both in front of Jew and in front of the Gentiles. It's remarkable that they embrace not just the work and the words of Jesus, but the way, the lifestyle of Christ. Anything more to add about the sending nature of the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts.
Speaker 3:Well, I think those disciples in the book of Acts were embodying, they were imitating their Savior because they had spent, you know, three plus years learning in ministry and they could not help. But, you know, once the Spirit was poured out on them, they could not help but preach and teach and live the Jesus example in front of everybody. And it was contagious. And the early church, empowered by the Holy Spirit, apostles and royal priesthood, they were the church on earth and they looked different, they acted different, they talked different, they had a different aroma about them. That was uh, was undeniable, and and and winsome and attractive yeahed for that today in our church body.
Speaker 2:Dr Utech, I don't really get let's go here. I don't really get how we can live with the labels of oh you're a mission guy, oh you're a confessing guy. I don't get that split. I've written and spoken about it on many fronts and I think it's more sociology than it is theology per se. But I don't know what we're even arguing about today in the LCMS and why. So in my little microcosm world as just a parish pastor here in Phoenix Arizona, why some people won't talk to other people who look different, who maybe dress with a collar or not or whatever.
Speaker 2:All these external things that are frankly adiaphora, that are leading us to maybe not connect with one another as well as we could and should by the Spirit's power, and we kind of isolate ourselves around the missional confessional camps and I could go down the RSO line that have been created in Synod. I love RSOs, I love creative ideas, but then I think people kind of, oh, you're that kind of a guy, you're that kind of a guy. I've heard people at district not district, but council presidents meetings because we're a part of we think there should be more pastors, we think there should be lots of different types of churches but different types of leaders reach different types of context, to be sure. But then folks will talk to my district president this sounds like you all see stuff or this sounds like what are we doing? It doesn't make any sense. Bill, can you help get behind?
Speaker 2:the sociology that's taking place right now in the LCMS.
Speaker 3:Yeah, bill, can you help get behind the sociology that's taking place right now in the LCMS? Yeah, this is. I mean there's always been divisions and different camps and different philosophies at work, not only in our church body but in the church. There's always been that, to be sure, yep, but I think it's more exacerbated than I've ever seen it and the camps are more polarized than I've ever seen them.
Speaker 3:You know, in these days, and I think that we have not been kind to each other along the way, and that is just kind of driven. I mean, you need to have a label to know where you go and you know, when I'm a mission exec, I'm willing to work with everybody, but you can only work with somebody who's willing to work with you, right, and the people on the so-called missional side of things who want to do new things, try new things, start new ministries, plant new churches that reach new people and we know it works that way they tended to be more open and more generous with their time and their money and their wherewithal to make that happen, and others weren't't, and they didn't seem to want to do that as much. So, yeah, you're, you're kind of stuck with having to work with the people who are willing to work with you, and it's unfortunate, but you know, that's that's where I spent most of my time energy and effort. Yeah, well, I, but that's where I spent most of my time energy and effort.
Speaker 2:Well, I think that's where that's very wise to do that. What else would we do? You can't take people someplace, one you haven't been and someplace they don't want to go, I'm just praying for a movement of leaders who say what are we doing?
Speaker 2:Why are we like if more folks who are walking just down? Because in any organization like the LCMS, you're going to have your fringe groups and frankly some may think the ULC is fringe because of our leadership development stuff but confessionally, from a theological perspective, we're far from the fringe You're going to have. You're at five to 10% on either side. But if more people like in the middle just started, and I think it has to start at the circuit level, within districts, within circuits, pastors listening and learning from one another, putting the best construction on on everything and then saying you know what your church looks different than mine. You may have some different values that you have, but here are the things that we agree on.
Speaker 2:People need the gospel right. The gospel of Jesus Christ has to get to the ears and penetrate by the Holy Spirit's power into the hearts of people. And more leaders need to be raised up. Proclaimers let's just use that not preachers necessarily, but just proclaimers in our various vocations. That seems to be a very Lutheran thing to do. It seems like an olive branch that could unite more of us in the 80% which is synod. Anything more to say there, bill oh?
Speaker 3:no, I think that you're spot on, and I think that we need to find ways to raise those people up, and we need more of them now than we've had in a long, long time. I don't think we're using the gifts of God. That means you know the gifts of the priesthood enough these days One of the blessings that I've had, you know, being up here.
Speaker 3:The Minnesota South District is very multi-ethnic and diverse. I mean, we have people from all over the world moving into the Twin Cities and in other places in Minnesota, and so I've been blessed to meet a number of people from the Makani Yesus Church in Ethiopia, which is the largest, fastest growing Lutheran church on the face of the earth, and so I would talk to them and said how is it that your church body is growing so quickly? Because we raise up leaders at all different kinds of levels and we use the priesthood of all believers and we expect the priesthood of all believers to be witnesses in their communities, in their villages, in their jobs, wherever they go, and one of the reasons it grows so fast is women in the neighborhood start Bible studies and the next thing you know, we've got a whole bunch of people studying the word of the Lord and that has power. And then an evangelist is brought in and he or she takes it farther, and then, the next thing you know, we've got a house church and in a way it goes right.
Speaker 2:In a way it goes. I'm laughing because it seems so elementary, right, right. And yet some people are saying, oh, you got a woman, come on, man. And yet some people are saying, oh, you got a woman, come on, man. She's been gifted to share the word with other ladies in a Bible study because they've got a little bit of extra time and you got women all over scripture. So that's beautiful. We need more evangelists. Today I had a this was about a year ago or so One of the leaders, one of the key evangelism leaders in Makani, yesu, do a podcast with us, and it was. It was fantastic. But then, about a day after it got done, he looked back and said, oh, I said some things that may make people in the LCMS mad at me and because of this he goes please don't release that podcast. And I was like what is going on here?
Speaker 3:if we could, just can we speak the truth about what is going on right, and we should speak the truth in love, in love. But uh, let's face it, uh, we live in the third largest mission field in the world. Other Christians are coming to our country as missionaries and evangelists. A mission is from everywhere to everywhere now and we need to be part of that. We really do. We have the best, most faithful teaching slash doctrine on the face of the earth. It's very attractive to other Christians if we will but love them and be friendly with them and reach out to them and help them. I mean, I've seen it happen again and again We'll have somebody.
Speaker 3:We have a young man who immigrated from Liberia. He was a church planter over there. So what does a church planter do when he comes to America? He plants a church right, and he's got a church made up of Liberians and Cameroonians and some African-Americans. But he's all by himself and he realizes it's not good for me to be alone. So he starts looking on the internet for church bodies to which to attach himself to and he drives because his wife is prompting him. He drives 45 minutes and ends up at our office building one day and thankfully, dean Natasty, who was the district president at the time was actually in the office and Matthew Cephas goes in and meets with him and he meets with me and the next thing you know, he meets with Ben Griffin of Link right and he is enrolled in the EIIT program. They love, they love our theology. If you just be a friend, learn their culture, learn to love them and have them, you know, eat some of their food, right, go out for lunch regularly or breakfast. That's what we did. We went out for breakfast regularly. And next thing you know, he's a graduate of EIIT regularly. And next thing you know he's a graduate of EIIT.
Speaker 3:His congregation is meeting in a building that is owned and operated by. It was a declining LCMS congregation. They were older, declining congregation. They allowed the royal family congregations to start meeting in their building and then, in time, because they couldn't afford a pastor anymore, they called him and now he's the pastor of two different congregations in one building and this is what the future looks like. This is where we need to go and these are the kinds of folks that we need to hang out with. And it's such a compelling witness in a city, in a big city, that has been torn apart by racial differences, right. And now you get black people and white. They're all in the same place and I got to preach for them last Easter and what a joy, what a joy. I mean, this is what heaven is going to look like. The church should look like that now.
Speaker 2:Yes, well, the kingdom of heaven is now. What is required for that to take place, for more stories like that to take place, is humility.
Speaker 3:A lot of humility and an accurate reading of what's going on in your congregation right now. I mean, if you can't be truthful with yourself about where you are and where you're going, what side of the life curve is this congregation on? What's likely to happen if we don't do something dramatic and probably a little traumatic? But God is bringing people here, so God is bringing other Christians here so that we can be the church together. And if, if, if we shun them, if we ignore them, if we don't help them when we can help them, then then you get what you get right. You get what you get.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, pastors, and being at this now for 16 years, the health of our congregation is only insofar as I and we as team, as leaders whether it's elders board, whatever identify where we're at, identify how we're struggling, how we need to grow, and come up with creative solutions to remedy that, together negotiated by the Spirit's power, to start new ministry, to reach more people, to adjust, adapt as the culture and our context changes. That is the ticket. And one of my biggest struggles then, as I look at those who are in national synod levels, who have the control over the levers of creativity and maybe stifle creativity from time to time, is that they're not adequately and this is a blog that came out just recently and I hope it's received with with love and care and I just don't think they have the same level of anxiety and there's an appropriate use of anxiety as those of us at the grassroots level do. And I think there's a number of political levers that are being pulled and I've been connected to this church body for a long time and I know how the sausage is made at Synod and Convention and there's a lot that takes place between synod convention. Every three years there's a rapid change from COVID to post-COVID realities. The church is just trying to figure it out to stay alive and hopefully thrive.
Speaker 2:I would love for there to be a more hospitable national conversation that would free up more district presidents to work with circuit visitors, to give what is most necessary, and I do believe it's not compromising scripture or confessions at all, but it is a sense of, hey, you can try that, you can do that. I'm here to support you Whatever it takes to reach other people and to learn. Hey, let me connect you to this brother who's tried different things so we can learn something together. I just am not seeing and I guess that's a major part of why the ULC exists we're trying to be that sort of a change agent in our, in our evolving culture today. So thank you for being one that poured into me. Anything more to add there as we kind of pivot the conversation a bit, bill?
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, just that. Ok. So I came here in 2013, nine years ago, and in 2013, we had 46,. We had at that time we had 245 congregations in the district and 46% of them had 100 people or fewer in them on any given weekend or Sunday. Right, and that's significant, because in our circles typically, it takes about a hundred people in worship every Sunday to afford a one, traditionally trained, a full-time pastor, salary and benefits right, that's right, right, so so that was 46 percent. When I left, that had grown up to 71 percent.
Speaker 3:So there is a lot of congregations who, if you're going to keep operating the way we've always been operating, they cannot, in and of themselves, afford a pastor.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, we have this, this congregations have to have to partner, to learn to partner with each other, and we have to come up with some creative ways so that they can be served and they can be blessed, and they can, they can, they can be led to be the church in their community.
Speaker 3:Which is why I'm so happy that my son-in-law got called to the church in Mankato, because that congregation is helping smaller, small-town, rural congregations be the church in their community again, and it's great. It's great that they're doing that I'm so pleased that my son-in law is there learning and growing through all of that. And let me tell you he's gassed up because every time we visit him I'll ask him how things are going at church and I can't get him to stop talking. He just, he just keeps going. He's so happy, he's so juiced up because that church is on mission and it's helping rural, small town congregations be the church in their community. It's not trying to turn off little clones of itself, it's just helping the church be the church. And that is a great way to be spending your time, energy and effort, isn't it?
Speaker 2:No, it's the best way. It's the best way, and that is a great way to be spending your time. Shout out to my classmate, pastor Mark Biebenhauser there. So so good. So let's talk about your time at the seminary teaching future pastors. If you could summarize, maybe, three practical leadership words of wisdom that you desired to pass on, if you could condense it to three, what were those three kind of practical leadership words of wisdom?
Speaker 3:First of all, I'll go to my grave thankful that I got that time. I was at the seminary for 17 years and I was blessed to be a small part, but a part of the formation of a lot of leaders in our church and that's no small thing and I'll never take that for granted. So I'm thankful to my former colleagues and Concordia Seminary for giving me that opportunity To answer your question. I think that, as I hear back from students that I had in class, it happens out of the blue I'll get a text or I'll get an email. What they tend to remember most were how I talked about patience and tact and how they are your friends, especially when you're starting in ministry, because you need to exercise them every day in your congregation with your leaders, with the rank and file members in your community, so that people will know and see that you care about them Patience and tact. And then probably the thing that I hear most about was when I talked about playing parish poker to win and the whole idea of poker chips.
Speaker 2:Right, I remember the chips, I was going to bring it up. If you didn't bring it up, just to let you know those chips, man, make sure you got enough chips you have chips to move forward, because it is.
Speaker 3:Every leader needs social capital in order to move the dial, and if you squander what social capital you have, you can't lead. And I think that even to this day, there are people who wonder what happened to that lecture on the campus of Concordia Seminary. They'd bring me back for that.
Speaker 2:Well, what happened? Go a little bit deeper. What, what do you mean? Well, you know when I left.
Speaker 3:They still talk about social capital and the and the importance of that right, but they kind of lost the narrative, the metaphor that I was using, which is which is which sticks with you over the years. I mean, I, I, I still talk about poker chips with other pastors and, as I'm thinking, you know, if I'm going to try and do something in or for the church, do I have the right kind of capital to make a suggestion or to push something forward or to try and start something new? Push something forward or to try and start something new, and every leader needs to take stock of those kinds of things.
Speaker 2:Well, to put it differently, eq trumps IQ every single day of the week, right, right. People don't care about what you know until they know how much you care, and and and the stories of caring for grandma Schmitke, being there for her getting close to those that you would rather not be close to. Why? Because Jesus loves them and they have a lot of social and they're going to be around probably after you're there. So showing thinking of a handful of folks here who have been the kind adjutants to me, and the more I embrace their words of wisdom, the better things go, the more I don't care about them. And there is a line, like some folks, it's understanding motivation. And there is a. There is a line, like some folks, it's understanding motivation. And, and that takes time to assess, because a number of the grandma Schmidt keys or or grandpa John's, you know they, they may have a motivation that's counter to the mission of Jesus. And so how do I stay connected enough to see, man, I got so many of these stories. You know where they come back and say you know what, pastor, I got so many of these stories.
Speaker 2:You know where they come back and say you know what, pastor, I really didn't like you the first year or so. Um, I and or I wasn't for calling you um when, when you came, I voted for the other guy. But I'm glad you came and I'm glad, I'm glad you're my pastor forever and we've cause. We've walked through a lot of time. I've been in this congregation now 11 years, so a lot of wounds.
Speaker 2:Ministry includes, uh, wounds, but then to be a wounded healer and to have those stories of, of reconciliation, of, I thought one thing turned out to be a different thing and now we're united, um, in mission. A lot of times, I think, pastors I'd love to hear you go off on this A lot of times we don't stay connected to the kind adjutant long enough, um, we put up walls and and that leads us, I think, a lot of times to say hey, I can't be here much longer than three, three years. It's more sociology not investing in social capital than it is about bad preaching or heresy or anything like that. Anything more to add to that, dr Ute?
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, I think that, yeah, the guy who has been in five different churches over 15 years has only got three years of ministry, right? He keeps redoing those three years over and over again, and one of the statistics that I used to share a lot was you know the leadership envelope, which is the age of your congregation, divided by the number of pastors that it has had. So do the math and you'll come up with an average, right? And you'll probably need to be there close to that average in order to lead the congregation as best as you possibly can. And that's just the way it is.
Speaker 2:Did you come up with that? No, no, no.
Speaker 3:I'm not that smart. That's something I read along the way, yeah.
Speaker 2:No, but I think that's true yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the age of the congregation divided by the number of pastors that it has had, and now you have an idea of how long you're going to have to stick around to get real traction.
Speaker 2:So I followed Dr Kevin Weisman, who had been here for almost 30 years, and I've been here 11. And God bless him for his faith. He was actually the church planner. I'm also thinking of a church in Florida actually where I did my vicarage, where the pastor had been there 50 years and he was a church planner and died with no succession plan, got Alzheimer's and went and my father-in-law, who I served with, turned into the unintentional interim director, you know, because he just wasn't, they hadn't.
Speaker 2:That takes a lot of time to grieve a man who's been there and done ministry for that long. So there's kind of an extreme. I think like I want a long pastorate. I think that's healthier than shorter pastorates. But I have to be very, very wise to the idols that can be created around personality in the church, and I can become an idol. The longer I'm here, the more I'm an idol or the more I'm built up, and that feels very unsafe to me. That's why I like being on a leadership team that's more flat, more egalitarian. There's lots of different people, women and men, doing lots of different things to bring the word to God's people, both in our church and beyond. Anything more to add, though, on kind of the tension of a long pastorate, but not wanting idolatry or the ego to kind of get in the way there, dr Utech.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, I think that you know, because there aren't as many of us being graduated these days and congregations have a really, really, really hard time now finding a good guy. So if you love them and you care about them, maybe you should start, you know, working out a succession plan sooner rather than later and moving towards that.
Speaker 3:It is, our congregation has been vacant well over a year and a half and we've called four people for declinations. And the districts can't give that much help anymore because the list of names that they have access to are made up of what People who are looking for calls and people who need calls, and they're not always a lot of the time. They're not the kind of guy that congregations would make their first choice right. They've done a self-study, they know what they want and they know what they're looking for, and if the people on the list from the district aren't doing that, then they're caught up in a really long and arduous search process and that's unfortunate.
Speaker 2:It is very unfortunate. You went after kind of three positive. I like the metaphor of chips. I like patience and tact. You're just talking around good people skills. I want to be someone that other people want to be around and I don't want to let other people in so far as I can control it.
Speaker 2:This is a great metaphor for kids. I don't want my kids or anybody else on my team to do anything that makes me dislike them. So it's unkind for me to observe things in my kids and other leaders, maybe younger leaders, that are ooh, that's a little off for me not to speak words of correction, rebuke, if you will. Um, that's a major part of of my role. But then what are some of those negative Cause? You say there are some characteristics of guys that are on lists or looking for calls and we're we're not getting personal here, but let's paint with a little bit of a broad brush. What are some of those pastoral characteristics that a healthy church that's? Maybe you know they're worshiping 100 to maybe 150, they can still afford the full-time pastor, but they're like, ooh, not that, that's not what we're looking for. What do you think there, dr J?
Speaker 3:Well, I'll use the example of my congregation. They did a very good job of doing the congregational self-study that they were asked to do, and so they prioritized things. And they knew, because Pastor Mark Biedinghauser was a really good guy and really got the community engaged. They wanted that to keep going. It's becoming a bedroom community to the Twin Cities, so there's people moving in all the time. So we need a pastor who's going to engage the community. We want him to get to know the mayor and the police and all of the city officials. We want him to know the teachers in the public high school. We want to have him be accessible to parents of the school. We want him to reach out to the children in the school, and so, in order to do this, we need a guy who's going to do a good children's sermon every Sunday.
Speaker 3:Every Sunday we want who's a good teacher, who's a good preacher, but the big thing is we need a winsome and compelling children's message every Sunday. And there are so few people who are doing that, so few pastors, that we've come across the names that we've got sent, there wasn't any one of them that wanted to do children's sermons. I don't know why. I don't know why they think the way they think about this, but if the pastor is not going to engage the community, the church will not engage the community. So he has to lead where he wants, where he has to lead like he wants his people to. He has to do things so that his people can imitate him and follow him.
Speaker 2:What do you? So yeah, let's get a little deeper there. What do they say the pastors that lets you know they don't want to do that? I don't do children's sermons. How do they say the pastors that lets you know they don't want to do that?
Speaker 3:I don't do children's sermons.
Speaker 2:How do they disclose that?
Speaker 3:I don't do children's sermons.
Speaker 2:Okay, Will they actively say like not just that. But like you know, as it relates to community development, engaging with the mayor or whoever else, like I, don't do that either.
Speaker 3:Do they say that engaging with the mayor or whoever else, like I don't do, I don't do that either. They make it clear that that they have a very narrow understanding of what ministry is supposed to be. I mean, that's, uh, I, I'm only engaged in. You know, the way that it often gets said is I've, I'm engaged in word and sacrament ministry and, and, yeah, so am I, but your understanding of that is pretty narrow. Yeah, and they don't. And this is more Go ahead. Yeah, no, I'm just. I get frustrated because in the church body that I grew up in, pastors were expected to not only be pastors of their congregations but pastors of their communities as well, and they're called to that community, to engage that community with, with the word of God, with the gospel of Jesus. And if you're not, if, if, if all you think about is the four walls of the church building, then you're wasting a lot of the good gifts that God has given you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, this is sad. What are we teaching?
Speaker 3:How does this?
Speaker 2:happen, because I think it's more than introversion or extroversion, because you can be an introverted I knew we're dropping Pastor Mark Bebenhauser. He's a little bit more of an introverted guy, to be honest. He's great connecting with people. So it's not necessarily introvert, extrovert or entrepreneurial or more managerial. No, it's something deeper, like at the core, heart level, that some of our pastors just aren't hearing that we exist. This goes back to the mission of God, because God is on mission to get all of its kids back. How does he do it? Yes, through word and sacrament, but he does it Like I don't know how you can look at the story of Jesus. Dr Yutaka likes that. You know what Jesus? Just he was just a Sunday guy. He just did his one hour a week thing and people just all kind of flock. Jesus was a hard worker that's like an understatement, but like Jesus got after it. You know, I just don't get where that comes from. Anything more to add there?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we must work, the works of him who called us while it is day and night is coming when no one can work. So let's be about it. And really, again, we are in the third largest mission field in the world. If there's people around you, half of them, you can count on it. Half of them at least half of them have no connection to their savior. So, whether you're rural, whether you're a small town, whether you're suburban or urban, there's work to be done, plenty of work to be done.
Speaker 2:Amen.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Amen and lots to learn. We're coming down the homestretch. A couple closing questions and I think we should have great, great empathy because, as we're transitioning from that topic like doing, ministry today is very different than, say, when you were first ordained. My dad was first ordained. The culture is different. We can't start churches and expect to reach all the Lutherans here. That just is not the way it works. So in what ways is being a pastor in 2024, in your estimation, different from when you were first ordained?
Speaker 3:I think it's way harder.
Speaker 3:I think that because the church that I grew up in, the community that I grew up, I grew up in North Central Wisconsin where everybody was like me for the most part. I mean, there were two LCMS congregations in town. I grew up in a town of 10,000. Our baptized membership was five, right. Their baptized membership was three. Yeah, between the two of us. Ours was three and theirs was two. So if you spit on Friday night, chances are you're going to hit another LCMS 50-50 chance of hitting another LCMS person. Yeah, so it was homogeneous, homogenous, right.
Speaker 3:I think that with the movement of all kinds of people from all kinds of places into our United States, I think that that challenges our existing congregations and puts them ill at ease and a new leader has got to work through that with them. I think that when I first got my call, I was called to a congregation that they said they had 150 in worship. They only had 120, right, but 120 was still a good number to work with and all in all it was a pretty soft landing spot. And the longer that I served at the seminary, the more often I saw that our guys unless if they were getting calls into team ministry that's one thing, but our guys who were going out as soul pastors they more often were not were going to congregations that had fewer than a hundred and sometimes much fewer than a hundred. So you take a very inexperienced guy and you put him in a congregation that has been declining over the last 20 years and rapidly after over the next six years, and there's a lot of dysfunction then in that congregation.
Speaker 3:You take a young guy, put him in a in a at a dysfunctional kind of situation and then we wonder why it blows up. Right, it's, it's, it's going to blow up because they have high expectations of him and he's just a beginning pastor. They want him to make the church like it used to be, and it can't be like it used to be because those times and those seasons are behind us. There's still people around, but the church is going to look different if we reach out to them, and chances are, historically speaking, they're not going to be our kind of people. They're going to be different and God still loves them and we need to love them too. But that's a hard change for congregations. So I think it's much more difficult now to be a pastor. You've got to understand and meet your people where they are. But in taking them where they need to go, they need to go a lot further and faster than ever before. Yeah, Amen.
Speaker 2:I'm writing a parable that prefaces a book that's going to be coming out here in early 2025. It prefaces a book that's going to be coming out here in early 2025. Still waiting on the title, but something around confessional Lutheran missiology. But I'm writing a parable to start each one of the sections and the character that's kind of the main hero of the story is a guy named Elder Dan and Elder Dan is just stepping in the gap as they're praying for a young pastor to come in and be with them and they're worshiping about 80 people and the placement director at the seminary call him Pastor Larry, I don't know.
Speaker 2:You know could be Glenn Nielsen, for all you know, who was there at St Louis for a long period of time. But he has to assess, like, the health of the congregation, right, and I think in the family there needs to be more lay leaders like an elder Dan who step in the gap and say I'm going to be there to take the arrows from a lot of the opinion leaders that don't have the Missio Dei at heart. And young, young man, I'm going to be here for you, no matter what, and we're young man. I'm going to be here for you no matter what, and you're not going to be doing this alone. We need more lay leaders in a lot of our smaller churches to say I'll do whatever it takes for this congregation to be restored to health and centered in the mission of God to reach our community with the gospel. Anything more to say there around lay leadership?
Speaker 3:Well, I think you're absolutely right. I mean, I have not become the vacancy pastor of our church and I did that for a reason Because that just keeps the congregation and its leadership from doing the hard work and making some hard decisions along the way about what they need to do to find their next guy or to get their next guy. I think we really are to the point now where, unless you're talking partnerships with other congregations, with other healthy congregations, all the good guys are out there and they're in good places. And you've got to give a good guy a reason to pick up and move his family right and to come to Southern Minnesota, especially if they're coming from Southern California or someplace like that, because there is a difference between the two places and you got to give a good guy a reason to move.
Speaker 3:And the Missio Day and how it can be carried out by partnerships in an area that is very, very diverse and is willing to head into that and to walk into that courageously, bravely, knowingly, cross-cultural ministry is really really hard but really really rewarding, and so that's what we need. We need to start doing that together more so that we can raise up more leaders from within. See, our elders have been taking lead on this. God bless them. They're consecrated men. They led the service this past Sunday. I was out of town and they couldn't find another preacher, and so they step up and they do it. You might get some kind of video feed for the sermon or for the message or whatever it is, but they stand up, they lead the congregation, they pray. They are godly men who are doing the right thing, as best they can, holding the congregation together to give it a learn, and I think we have to embrace a more multicultural, intercultural perspective in the LCMS, for us to thrive in the diversity which is already here.
Speaker 2:We are you know our culture the German Lutheran. We are going to be significantly, well, definitely German Lutheran, but just European. We're going to be in the minority here in short order. All the data is coming back in that direction. So what'd you learn of the multi-ethnic?
Speaker 3:symposium. First of all, kudos to Concordia Seminary for putting on that symposium every year. I mean it attracts leaders from throughout our church body but leaders of every ethnicity that you can pretty much imagine. I mean it's a great place for those kinds of folks to gather and to visit and to learn and to grow. So, praise God, the Concordia Seminary is doing that symposium every year. One of the presenters talked about how doing that symposium every year.
Speaker 3:One of the presenters talked about how, how, if you know so, we came out of COVID and we have all you know in the, in the we're post-church, post-christian and all of this. And what are the things that keep a congregation from declining or maybe actually facilitate its growth? And one of the things that they found there's a high correlation between a congregation being a multi-ethnic congregation and it didn't decline during COVID, or maybe it actually grew. So I think that God is showing us the way forward here, us the way forward here.
Speaker 3:If you are aware of other Christian congregations from other places that are in your community, it's time for you, as a leader, to make friends with their leaders, to get to know their leaders. Go out, have lunch once a week, get to know each other, get to figure out how you can, together, bless the community that you live in and then become friends and do some fellowship things together, share some meals together and the next thing you know, if you work at it, you might be sharing a building. Right, and then you might be sharing, you might be running a Lutheran Sunday school for their kids and your kids, and that's what you want, because that group is going to be a completely new culture themselves. And the homogeneous unit principle was used by church planters for a long, long time to plant fast-growing congregations that could become sustainable on their own right, but that's not working anymore. Homogeneous unit principle. And we need to take stock of who our neighbors are and include them in ministry as much as we can.
Speaker 2:This has been so much fun, dr Utech, because that appears to be what Jesus did, yeah, and what he sent the church to do. You will be my witnesses. Jerusalem, judea, samaria, samaria, what, to the ends of the world, are you kidding me? And by the Spirit's power, in the book of Acts, that's to Rome.
Speaker 3:That's where Paul went, and go ahead it was that church in Ephesus, right, it was that multi-ethnic church in Ephesus that should be our pattern for going forward. Not the mono-ethnic church in Jerusalem so much, but the multi-ethnic church in Ephesus. And they were the ones who sent out the first missionaries, right, they sent them out, and it's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2:And a messy thing.
Speaker 3:And a messy thing too.
Speaker 2:You're right For sure, so Jesus is in the middle of the mess and embrace it. Leader, if you're a pastor, if you're a lay leader, taking this in, please share it with someone who needs to be challenged and encouraged to partner, to collaborate, to see where God is at work, to join him in his mission to get all of his kids back. This is the call and it's our call in this time. Do not lament anymore. Like man I wish we were in. Well, look at reality for what it is. Be honest.
Speaker 2:Where our congregations are struggling, where I as a pastor need to grow, bring people around you who can love and care and challenge you, receive their words of wisdom, change by the Spirit's power and then embrace the calling which is life, which is following Jesus, your crucified and risen one out into the world, out into a messy world, to let people know there's a king, there's a new king in town and his name is Jesus, and you don't need to be afraid about things unraveling. I have to tell this to our congregation over and over again. You look at the world. It appears to be unraveling. It's broken, to be sure, and it's a beautiful time to be alive.
Speaker 2:I don't lament that I have kids that are teenagers right now. They're going to be leaders bringing the gospel to an ever increasingly diverse United States context with a Lutheran lens. And that's a beautiful, a beautiful gift, because it invites us to live in the tension. Satan's sinner now and not yet Law gospel. People need the gospel of Jesus Christ. Dr Utech, if people want to connect with you today, how can they do so?
Speaker 3:Well, I have I'm on LinkedIn, so you can find me there if you want, or I can be reached via email at Uechw at gofastam All right, I've not heard Go Fast, that's unique.
Speaker 2:What kind of handler is that that?
Speaker 3:is who we get our internet from. That's the account. That's how they label their accounts. Yeah, rural.
Speaker 2:Minnesota, rural, minnesota I love it so good.
Speaker 3:Be happy that you have internet.
Speaker 2:Oh man, Well, this has been so much fun. We promise, with lead time, to come back with fresh conversations that love and care and challenge you. We got a lot of wonderful guests that are upcoming. Just a word of an update we're starting a Hot Topic Friday, Dr Utech. Maybe we'll have you on for a Hot Topic Friday. Lead Time is being released on Tuesdays American Reformation learning from those who are mostly outside the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod American Reformation drops on Wednesdays, and then we're doing a Hot Topic Friday. So that's going to be fun. We're going to have three different points of view and some of them will be hotter, spicier than others, and you get 10 minutes and we're going to have a countdown 10 minutes to let's just go at it around this topic, that topic, that topic Boom, we're done in 30 minutes. So look forward to Lead Time Hot Topic coming out very, very soon.
Speaker 2:Dr Utech, this was so much fun. Sharing is caring and it's a good day. The Spirit lives within you and, by His power, go and make it a great day, all for the glory of the one true God who is ascending. God, Join Him in the sending. We'll be back soon with another Lead Time. Thanks so much, Dr Utech, God bless.
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.