What does it take to challenge leadership practices and still maintain your faith? Reverend Dr. Scott Seidler shares his transformative journey, from confronting the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod's leadership in 2016 to revitalizing his ministry in Arizona amid the challenges of COVID-19. We delve into the importance of having a bold vision and holding oneself accountable, especially when faced with emotional and organizational turmoil. Reverend Dr. Seidler also offers insights into the contentious evolution of the prior approval list, a topic that touches on the deep-rooted issue of trust among church leaders.
Ever wondered how to balance international missions with the growth of local congregations? Reverend Dr. Seidler discusses the delicate act of nurturing local U.S. churches while maintaining a global mission focus. Introducing the concept of "love achievement," which blends metrics with the inherent love and faith that should drive church efforts, he underscores the necessity of active engagement and follow-up with potential new members. A powerful personal story illustrates these challenges, emphasizing that meaningful outreach and efficient ministry practices are crucial for genuine church growth.
As we look to the future of American Christianity, the conversation shifts to the alarming trends of declining congregations within the LCMS. Reverend Dr. Seidler highlights the urgent need for strategic revitalization and a rethinking of pastoral training to sustain active congregations. He calls for courageous leadership and accountability through programs like Redeem 21, urging pastors to remain bold in their gospel proclamation despite fatigue. Tune in for a passionate discussion on overcoming systemic issues and fostering a hopeful future for the church through intentional growth and dedicated leadership.
Visit uniteleadership.org
What does it take to challenge leadership practices and still maintain your faith? Reverend Dr. Scott Seidler shares his transformative journey, from confronting the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod's leadership in 2016 to revitalizing his ministry in Arizona amid the challenges of COVID-19. We delve into the importance of having a bold vision and holding oneself accountable, especially when faced with emotional and organizational turmoil. Reverend Dr. Seidler also offers insights into the contentious evolution of the prior approval list, a topic that touches on the deep-rooted issue of trust among church leaders.
Ever wondered how to balance international missions with the growth of local congregations? Reverend Dr. Seidler discusses the delicate act of nurturing local U.S. churches while maintaining a global mission focus. Introducing the concept of "love achievement," which blends metrics with the inherent love and faith that should drive church efforts, he underscores the necessity of active engagement and follow-up with potential new members. A powerful personal story illustrates these challenges, emphasizing that meaningful outreach and efficient ministry practices are crucial for genuine church growth.
As we look to the future of American Christianity, the conversation shifts to the alarming trends of declining congregations within the LCMS. Reverend Dr. Seidler highlights the urgent need for strategic revitalization and a rethinking of pastoral training to sustain active congregations. He calls for courageous leadership and accountability through programs like Redeem 21, urging pastors to remain bold in their gospel proclamation despite fatigue. Tune in for a passionate discussion on overcoming systemic issues and fostering a hopeful future for the church through intentional growth and dedicated leadership.
Visit uniteleadership.org
This is Lead Time.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Lead Time Tim Allman here. Jack gets today off as I get the privilege of talking with Reverend Dr Scott Scotty Seidler no one calls him Scotty, but myself over the years. Scotty Scheffler, you love golf, I love golf. It kind of connects me to one of the silkiest games today on the tour and you and I what's?
Speaker 3:that Ever. I mean, his short game is so good. I mean he's unconscious Clippy, clippy short game shots.
Speaker 2:So good. Scotty Seidler is in the house today and the topic of our conversation is going to be just praying for a new day for our church. We're going to talk some ministry as well. We're going to talk about the need for big vision, big goals, achievement by the Spirit's power and accountability, to be sure. So let's let's start here. Scott, Um, you were doing tip of the spear work in the LCMS when you were in the St Louis area in 2016. Gosh man, I've known you for a lot longer than that. I remember coming over to your crib when you were there in the St Louis area. Your hospitality shout out to Renee as well. You guys are so, so good, but then you kind of, eight years ago, dropped off the synodical radar, if you will. What has been going on in your life and ministry over the past eight years, Scott?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know I was.
Speaker 3:So I was involved pretty heavily as an organizer in 2016 for our national convention. There was a lot of stuff going on prior approval the baby days of theology, as I call them when our dear president and some other leaders said, you know, we just need to have more Lutheran babies, that's how you're going to grow a church. And I just, you know, six years after being elected to office, I just said someone's got to push back, we have to organize. And so, with a dear friend, jeff Skopak, he and I, you know, kind of did the organization called together, the team rallied, the troops tried to put together a national movement and my wife said to me after the 2016 convention if you do this again, I'm leaving. Well, it wasn't that much of a threat, but it was clear that the emotional toll of trying to organize a nation of Lutheran pastors and church leaders was really an almost impossible job. Church leaders was really an almost impossible job, and so I really dropped out at that stage in 2016 from national leadership and I just gave myself fully to the congregation.
Speaker 2:Folks may be wondering, scott, what had you been elected to, what you were called to, in addition to your congregation there in St Louis? Because I'm honestly asking I forget if you were in an elected role or was this kind of a commission by a network of leaders role? Talk about that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, it was commissioned by the district presidents, who were what we call the friendlies, you know, and just district presidents who were looking for help in the grassroots in order to move some kind of synodical change. I was teaching that time as an adjunct instructor at Concordia Seminary in St Louis, so I was in conversation with that leadership. That was when Dale Meyer was running for president, and so you know it was just trying to get something started whereby we just don't, you know, succumb to this illusion that if we just have more Lutheran babies, the church is going to turn around. We've got to be accountable, we've got to move forward. So then, in 2019, I got a call to come here to Arizona to be a senior pastor at a congregation that needed a little bit of a turnaround. I got here in 2019.
Speaker 3:In 2020, covid hit and then the real turnaround began. I'm a transition leader. I love to help move the needle so that things can change for the sake of positive achievement in the Church of Jesus Christ. And so, coming here to Arizona, getting to work near you Ron Burcham, jeff Schrenk, nate Shouse, troy Schmidt I mean it was just great. And that's what I've been doing for the past five years really focusing on congregational ministry. But now that we've got that kind of lined up and it's not going on automatic pilot, but it's close I've got a little bit more time now to engage our national denominational conversation.
Speaker 2:You talked about. I love it. You talked about the prior approval list and I actually had a conversation with Jerry Kishnick and I honestly ask questions for those listeners who are here Like I don't spend all day, every day reading the Constitution, bylaws, you know, resolutions, all that kind of stuff. So I was trying to tease out how did the prior approval list kind of evolve in that season? 16, 2016 was the first gosh. This is almost 10 years ago now. First synodical convention I've been to the last three that I attended personally and so talk about the prior approval, I guess evolution yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, it really is a matter of trust.
Speaker 3:It boils down to trust, and do we as leaders trust each other or don't we?
Speaker 3:And over the you know six years the first six years of Matt Harrison's presidency there was increasing distrust.
Speaker 3:We can't trust the Board of Regents, we can't trust college Board of Regents, we can't trust college and seminary presidents, and therefore we need to get in a single place all authority for those who would teach or lead in our schools, especially in the theological schools and in the administration.
Speaker 3:And so, by 2016, the conversation was do we give the synodical president what is called prior approval, that is, the ability to approve in advance the slate of candidates for theological professorships, educational administration? And so by doing that, you essentially create a chokehold on the synod in terms of trust, because no longer the way we've been doing it for you know decades and decades of our life together no longer is that acceptable. There's only one person we can trust to save this synod from heresy, from poor administration, and that is the synodical president. And so that was kind of the essence of what prior approval was all about, and it really took a lot of the authority that had originally been given to regents and college and seminary administrations to vet their own and know that we're not going to have raging heretics in our synods educational institutions.
Speaker 2:Well, you can understand Seminacs, etc. Why there is that fear. And when you get a few rungs removed relationally, then it's easy to just have identity politics take over. Who's in what tribe, what little camp, who associates with who? And if they are connected, then so what would be? What did we used to do? Scott Sorry to hamper, I, just a lot of folks have been curious about this. What did we used to do and what could be? Because I think the synodical president should be at the table, as it relates to a number of these theological leaders, right. So what could be? Because I think the synodical president should be at the table as it relates to a number of these theological leaders, right? So what could be a better way?
Speaker 3:Well, here's the deal, tim. You can't have a perfect way, and for me, that's the first thing to acknowledge. So, having the synodical president involved in a conversation great. At the end of the day, it does come down to collegial trust, and either we trust the people that we're working side by side with or we don't.
Speaker 3:And right now, just to jump ahead, right now, in our senate, we don't trust at all. The right side doesn't trust the left, the left side doesn't trust the, the right and whatever the right and left actually mean. But there's just so little trust and at some point in time, I don't know how we actually get it in terms of policy or governance provisions or constitution and bylaws, how we're ever going to get it back. But somehow we have to trust that there are good actors that have been trained by allegedly good seminaries to be theologically competent. We've qualified them, and yet there comes a point where we actually say no, they're no longer competent, they're no longer qualified, they're no longer theologically reliable, technologically reliable. That is really ironic that we want the gold standard of seminary education but we don't trust the product that the seminaries have been putting out over the past 20, 30, 40 years. This is fascinating to me, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Well, the reason one of many reasons possibly, but I would say one of the core reasons is we have leaders at various levels have rejected the difficult conversation in pursuit of power, politics, positional authority and, as a local pastor, scott, that doesn't work. I mean, it may work short term, it doesn't work long term right. So the rate at which you know from the top down which I would rather use the bottom up, because the top is the local church the mission of God, the expansion of word and sacrament to reach those who don't know Jesus, the rate at which we can have difficult conversations with those who maybe we previously labeled in a certain way or heard they associated with a certain person that we can sit down, break bread with them, love and care for and appropriately challenge them, the rate at which we can have difficult conversations and disagree agreeably and remain brothers within the family of faith, this is our, this is our call. I was thinking of First Corinthians, when there's disagreement within the church and the Apostle Paul. I think it's toward the end of chapter 11. And it must be so.
Speaker 2:The Apostle Paul says that there would be these disagreements among you. He's talking about the Lord's Supper there in 1 Corinthians, chapter 11. Corinthians, chapter 11. There's going to be. It's like he's saying we're going to name what the problem is. The rich are living against those who are their poor brothers and sisters. We're going to name what it is. We're not going to defame the Lord's supper and we're going to move on united, recognizing. I love the first. Corinthians 12 talks about the unique gifts within the body of Christ. Right, so can we live as if the scriptures are true and model the approach of the apostle Paul, who waded into a number look at 1 Corinthians a number of very difficult conversations and the church remained united and the church grew. So anything more to add to that, scott?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would just say, ultimately, going to your point about the local church, it comes down to accountability and achievement, and that for me, you know, I don't care whether you're on the left or right, you're liturgical or contemporary. Right now I want to know this and it really is kind of I'll just say it this way, I don't mean to be political, but it's rather Trumpian. I'm just going to use that as an adjective. I'm just going to use that as an adjective. We need to put our national mission first, and our national mission starts with our national congregations, and that, for me, is my heart song right now is how do our national congregations put in advance an accountable effort to actually expand the kingdom of God?
Speaker 3:We've got what 300 and some 20, 30, 40 million people in America right now, and we've got 6,000 Lutheran churches. Is it reasonable to think that of those 340 million people, we could help find 100 people in the next 12 months in our community that need the gospel and that we would be able to share with them the resources of Christ Church? It seems very reasonable. In fact, if I'm honest with you, tim, it's embarrassing that we stop at 100. And so that's kind of what I'm really keen on. I was keen on that at Concordia, kirkwood. I finally really got my mission feet underneath me during that tenure as senior pastor there in St Louis and now here at Shepherd, getting after it every day in order to build up the kingdom of God, to grow the Lutheran church, the evangelical Lutheran church here in these United States. That's my goal in these.
Speaker 2:United States, that's my goal and um, yeah, yeah, Well I'm. I'm right there with you, Trumpian and the national, when you define national church, what?
Speaker 3:what were you meaning by the national church? Go deeper there. Yeah, the Lutheran church Missouri synod has had um a preoccupation as of late with international missions, which is great, by the way. Man, god has a heart for all nations. We're in, we're in group VBS right now and we're studying Jonah this week. Right, and if there was ever a passage in the old Testament that spoke against um, you know not being open to God's movement in other cultures across the world, jonah, is it? Jonah, amen, yeah, right, so you know.
Speaker 3:My point is is that if you read our synodical publications the Lutheran Witness, the Reporter right now, what you see is a whole lot of energy around international missions and being this American resource to help theological education all across the globe, which by itself in itself is not a bad thing. But what I don't see is any real effort to meaningfully cultivate achievement in mission in America. And don't try to say that recruiting church workers is that expression or evidence that we actually are concerned about national mission. I want to see the congregations growing numerically in every place. I believe, by faith, that the Holy Spirit can accomplish that if and when we allow faith, trust, to move in our congregations in meaningful ways.
Speaker 2:That's great. I'm glad I asked that question. Let's talk about love achievement. Let's talk about love achievement. That's a phrase you use and you've even thrown out kind of achievement. You're not afraid of metrics, but it has to be centered in love. So what does love achievement mean to you, scott?
Speaker 3:So for me. So statistics, statistics don't lie right. The ELCA, some prognosticator up in Minneapolis connected with Luther Seminary there, said that by 2050, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America will be down to 50,000 people in worship nationwide. Just put that into perspective. The Missouri Synod is not going to be very far behind at the rate we're going. And again, statistics are the common sense. Statistic is that there is an attrition rate of about 10 to 15% in most Christian congregations per year in America right now.
Speaker 3:And so for me then I ask the question if I'm going to lose 15% of my membership in the next year, for whatever reason. They transfer, they get tired of our confession of faith, they die natural migration, whatever they move to another part of the place. We're a pretty transient society, we move a lot. Then I have to ask the question just statistically, how do I replace 15% and that's just replacing with people that might be moving in a baptism here and there? I don't want to just replace, I want to grow, and so that for me, is really kind of the gold standard that I've placed. At my congregation we expect by faith to grow by 20, 25% of our worshiping population every year. So that's accountability and I love that accountability because it puts a target for us to get to.
Speaker 3:Now, I'm not always certain how the Holy Spirit, who works wait, what was that when and when he pleases. I'm not sure what the Holy Spirit is going to allow to happen, because he's God, I'm not in my context. But what I can control is this I can control my inputs, my efforts, my actions and then let the Holy Spirit work. And if I can, I'll tell you a quick story. I had a member, a new member, of my congregation, whose family is very well known in our Lutheran Church. Missouri Synod say the last name and, generally speaking, most pastors will have that last name ring in their ear. The family came to my church after visiting six other Lutheran churches in the area and every time they went to a Lutheran church they signed their name, they filled out their contact information. They were eager beavers. They were here, they were Lutheran, they wanted to affiliate. Not a single church. The first ones that they visited ever followed up with them.
Speaker 2:Did they come here and we dropped the ball? I don't think they came to our congregation. I don't know.
Speaker 3:And, by the way, let me just say, without feeling overly guilty, at Shepherd I'm sure we've dropped the ball several times, so I'm not going to put undue stress, but here's what I know. When they came to Shepherd they filled out the information. The next day my assistant, tracy, sends out a stock email underneath my signature hey welcome, we'd love to grab breakfast, lunch or coffee with you. It's our value proposition here at Shepard. What we want to do is just to meet and talk with you. And she wrote back. The wife wrote back like within 10 minutes of receiving that, and then that comes immediately to my box and then now I'm on it. So now I'm actively engaged as a senior pastor of a thousand member congregation in the cultivation and acquisition of new members to our worshiping community. This is not, in other words, tim, rocket science.
Speaker 2:It is not. It requires, though, wildly important goals, also known as vision of growth. I'm not afraid of growth, I want, because growth is not just for growth's sake, it's for kingdom, eternal sake. I mean, give me a break here, right, so? But then I have to.
Speaker 2:I don't know exactly how this is going to happen, so I better brainstorm all of and I'm going to use some secular language here all of the lead measures, the work that needs to get done, the systems that need to be created and monitored so that the people do not slip through the cracks, so that we treat this is market segmentation.
Speaker 2:We have to think this way right now within the local church, because the way I treat that family who has this like deep connection to the LCMS and like they're ready to fast track into probably some sort of service leadership role but then I also have to like treat the brand new believer, the young family who's having their first child baptized, who have never graced a church door, you know, I've got to treat them differently. So segmenting and even getting into generosity, like the way I treat the first time giver, is different than the way that I treat the surplus giver who's going to give to the endowment. Exactly, Does this require work? Yes, we're not afraid of work. Pastors should not be afraid of man. This is, this is a big deal. So I better build a team, I better cast vision, I better build a team and I better have good reproducible systems that help us grow.
Speaker 3:Amen, that, yeah, and two things reproducible systems. Every Monday morning, the three pastors here at Shepherd, under the direction of a lay person by the name of Dorothy Kessner, who was a vice president of Lutheran Church Missouri Synod Foundation back in the day, one of the first female executive leaders back in the day when we had female executive leaders of that level kind of working out, of that level kind of working out she is the leader of our 9.30 in the morning system by which we go through the entire list of all new members that are inbound in the pipeline. Where are they at? Have they met with the pastors? Have they learned about Lutheranism? Have we confirmed that they are going to be Lutheran Christians sufficiently? Have they learned about our discipleship vision here at Shepherd, how we expect people to repent, change or be transformed? And then, finally, do they understand how we spend money, make decisions and are governed? Because if they get all of that, then they're really ready to be part of our Shepherd family. And Dorothy is the driver, she is the one who whips us into shape and she is nails on the blackboard. I mean, if we pastors because pastors can really, you know schlep along like, yeah, I'll get to that later. No, she drives us because she knows if we don't keep our nose to the grindstone, we will never get this done.
Speaker 3:And I would just add another thing, and this is coming from a guy who was a homiletics prof at the seminary on an adjunct basis in St Louis. If we're going to value the acquisition and retention of members growing more, and if we're going to get after baptisms and have children and adults be baptized, then the one thing that I need to do is I need to be incredibly efficient in how I prepare my messages. And so someone asked me the other day how long do you take, pastor Scott, to put together a message? I said about two to three hours at the most, because I realized that after doing this for 30 years, I can get up and give a B plus sermon, and by only spending two to three hours getting there, it allows me greater efficiency and effectiveness to do what is so important in American Christianity right now, and that is to find the lost sheep. Jim, and you have to decide how you're going to use time and man.
Speaker 3:I think there are way too many pastors who are spending way too much time reading you know, big old books in the office and everything else. And there are people dying in our communities that are begging to learn Ninevites right, begging to learn the Lord, jesus Christ. And God says, you know, at the end of Jonah, should I not be concerned for a city of 150,000? Should I not be concerned in Phoenix for a city of 4 million people? God's heart breaks for the city. My heart should also break Love and achieve Get after it.
Speaker 2:When that vision comes upon you. I don't know how anybody could listen to that kind of missional zeal and think that somehow that's like liberal or far from the mission of God has a church and if we get that backwards right, it's about my church and this kind of thing and it's really centered in me. Man, we get all backwards and just to double down if pastors don't model just actively being in the community, being where the people are. For me it's the coffee shop, it's the golf course, I'm around a lot of friends who are on their way to Jesus. I've got to model what I pray in the various vocations of our members, that they and are we training them to have the Jesus conversations to tell, to understand the macro narrative of God's love from creation to recreation. To understand the macro narrative of God's love from creation to recreation. Where we find ourselves now as the church? How do we go about our work with love and care and truth and the scriptures? Is it marinating in our everyday follower of Jesus' spirit so that they are ready to give a reason for the hope that they have in Christ? Like I pray? I don't know why that would be interpreted in the Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod as something less than faithful.
Speaker 2:We live in an interesting, interesting culture, and I bet you know there may be some folks who have already labeled me and are listening really, really, with great and we should listen to one another with great discernment, right? What are you getting after? Well, here's what I'll tell you. The Lord knows my heart, he knows your heart. We'll be held accountable for the ministry that we executed, um, that the spirit executed through us, to be sure, and and I want, I want, I want to hear well done, good and faithful servant, not because, not because you know it was centered around you, tim, but because I carried out an Ephesians 4 type of model of ministry, where I was equipping the saints for love and good deeds based on their respective gifts. Anything more to add there?
Speaker 3:No, I think you know we take a lot of arrows and leaders do, by definition, you know, take a lot of arrows. You know, take a lot of arrows. I, what I, what I really resist, is illogical arrows or ill theological arrows. I don't know which word I want to choose there. But if you want to throw arrows at me, you know, throw away. But. But the logic says one of our congregations is going to persist and just logic says, numerically, either we're going to grow or one of us is going to evaporate, disappear. And so I'm just trying to say whatever grooves you, if you're liturgical and Chasim, bell and smells and bells and everything else, great, have at it. I would wager that in a community there should be people who might gravitate toward that reverence and formality and structure and sturdiness of liturgical practice, just as there are people in a community who will never do that and they need a place that is a little bit more liturgically casual while at the same time being evangelically crystal clear, law, gospel, committed, unapologetic about the moral compass of the Christian church that we've received. So it has to be a both and and. I'm willing to trust. If you want to go hog wild with robes and everything else great, but strive for achievement and don't throw arrows just because you got nothing better to do. Throw arrows just because you got nothing better to do and that saddens me. When I'm like, taking arrows, you've taken a lot of arrows and I'm just, I just sometimes and I know you do scratch your head and you're like, do you have nothing better to do than to sit there and watch my sermons online and critique them and then send me a rager of a letter.
Speaker 3:Had a guy come in. He retired from synodical Administration, retired down here to Arizona, came to our congregation, the traditional campus. We have two campuses, one more traditional, one much more contemporary. He came in to the congregation, to the traditional service, which is pretty traditional, and left a note and then wrote me a screeding email the next day about how unfaithful I am and I'm like, dude, you came and visited this church for one hour and you are already throwing judgment and darts at me and you don't know the first thing about me as a theologian or as a pastor, or our congregation, and I was like you're a former synodical leader. How dare you? But that's what we're dealing with right now is people that are so fixated on being justified in themselves that they can't even withhold their judgment in order to get more information. To grab breakfast, lunch or coffee with Scott and find out what makes me tick. Fascinating to me.
Speaker 2:So I'll pause right there. Probably people that want to throw darts have done so about this point on YouTube, et cetera, and so the invitation is here. If you would like to have a brotherly conversation around disagreement, around achievement, you've got a theological position that says you know, we shouldn't even talk that way because it's all God's work or something like that, which I would agree with you on. And yet God is at work and he's at work through the church. So if you want to, if you want to hang out, just send me an email at talman, at cglchurchorg. You can leave the raging response to yourself and we would just have a brotherly conversation. We can rage for other people to listen to, with love and care and charity. So what is the tipping point that is coming for every American denomination? You've talked about this what is the 30% threshold and how will this impact the LCMS?
Speaker 3:Right. So at some point in time in our denomination there will be the survivors and those that are going to really be the ones that last 20, 30, 40 years from now. And once that 30% threshold is reached with clarity, then we're going to start seeing a little bit of change in how the world is created and governed and managed through conventions and policy and administrations and everything else. Every time I read the Lutheran Reporter and I read the closures or the mergers of congregations, I am intrigued by the fact that there is an avalanche starting. We are closing more congregations than we are opening. More congregations are merging into you know what I'll call momentary movements of you know last gasping breaths. They're merging but they're still declining, so the merged are only going to decline, and so I don't know what it looks like 10 to 15 years from now. But 10 to 15 years from now this 6,000 congregation denomination is going to be something substantially less. Out of the Lutheran Church worker benefit plans. My understanding is 2,000 congregations have no one in the benefit plans. 2,000 congregations have one person and another, you know third has two or more people in the pension plans. What does that say? It says that we are 4,000 people away from non-existence as we currently understand what denominationalism is, so that 2,000 congregation threshold of 33% that have more than one. Those are the congregations that, in time, are going to begin to determine the future and I want to start being part and parcel of creating.
Speaker 3:What does that 2000 congregation coalition value most? And for me it is our national mission I'm going Trumpian again, I'll use that word. It's make American Christianity great again and let God manage through the great things that are being done through African and South American and Asian Christians. They don't need the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, they only need the Holy Spirit of the risen Lord, jesus Christ, the Bible and the confessions. They can figure out their own ointment in their own context and culture. We need focus on American Christianity, otherwise we're going to throw ourselves into this. Either remnant theology or God's reign is passing from our country to another part of the world, which just makes me vomit. No, god's grace is rich for 340 million Americans and I want to be a part of the transaction in God's grace, according to God's will, to achieve a renewed experience of renewal in American Christianity. Can I hear an amen, thank you, I'm done. Back to you, tim. I'll stop talking, man, you can wind me up, brother.
Speaker 2:Thanks for the vomit, bro, it didn't taste too bad, it was all right.
Speaker 2:So for that to happen, creative conversations not around theology but around practice, leadership development et cetera have to take place, and I don't know that they are.
Speaker 2:I believe there's pushback against well, I'll just say it publicly the paper that was written by 13 district presidents, the white paper on a pastor for every LCMS congregation, kind of a strategy in raising up indigenous leaders from within those respective contexts, received with rave applause by many in the Council of Presidents and it wasn't even.
Speaker 2:I heard again this is from a few district presidents who were connected to this it wasn't even discussed at the recent kind of joint seminary faculty conversation recently which we were asked by that group and I was one of the pastors in the room, to be sure, but I was not a principal writer of the document, certainly loved it, but when you're asked by a group of professors to prepare such a document and then it goes to, it gets kind of hijacked, if you will, by the Council of Presidents and then it goes back to the conversation with the professors and they don't spend the time like digging deep into conversation, which would be uncomfortable, to be sure it just comes across for those who are at the table putting that together as rude, yeah, and that's unfortunate.
Speaker 3:So I just had a, had a, had another thought, and again this is. I don't mean to be insensitive or indelicate, but you just have to look at reality through the lens of numbers, right? What has been pushed in district conventions has been this kind of statistic we have I'm just going to make up a random number, but it's big. There's going to be 700 pastors who retire in the next 10 years, or something like that. I mean, it's just some gargantuan number. And the issue is we're not turning out enough pastors from our seminaries in order to replace them. Okay, well, that's all good. Them Okay, well, that's all good. That assumes if our synod remains congregationally in the condition it is and was and has been going back X number of decades. So we have this big push we need more pastors, and I raised my hand and I'm like well, if we have 700 pastors in the next 10 years I'm making up numbers and they're going to retire, but we're also going to have 700 congregations that go under. Why do we need new pastors? You see what I'm saying Now. I'm not against having more pastors, that's all good, but there's a fundamental flaw in the, in the logic, and the fundamental flaw goes to the very thing we talked about 20 minutes ago, which is congregations that are numerically surviving in order to have the financial resources at a minimum, not to mention the critical mass, excitement, joy and vision at a maximum to actually qualify to have a pastor. So that's again.
Speaker 3:I'm a big correlations guy. I got D minus in statistics in college. But, man, I tell you right now, correlations are it Never trust a statistic, always trust a correlated statistic. And that's where we're at right now. We're closing churches. A dozen, a statistic. Always trust a correlated statistic. And that's where we're at right now. We're closing churches a dozen a month.
Speaker 3:That may be a little bit much, but it's not far from the truth. And as we close down these churches, we all of a sudden become they don't need a pastor. And, by the way, those churches that are closing probably didn't have a pastor anyways. But get this, as those 12 leave our denomination through closure, there's another 12 that had a pastor but can no longer retain a pastor because of finances. So there's this slow attrition of congregations and with them the burden of needing a pastor.
Speaker 3:So why are we so fixated on finding pastors and putting them through a seminary education that in many ways is ill contextualized for the reality of the world we're living in West Coast, east Coast, south. We need to focus on helping the pastors that currently exist learn what it means to lead an accountable, achieving church, not just chaplaining a congregation to its ultimate demise, maybe after they retire. That's what saddens me and that's the correlation that I keep in mind. I don't believe a district president or a synodical president when they get all worked up about, you know, hair on fire. We're losing pastors. We don't have enough pastors to replace. We don't have enough congregations, ultimately, to justify all the pastors we're looking to recruit.
Speaker 2:Well, this is one of the reasons. Well said, this is one of the reasons that I've been talking about bivocational ministry to moving toward vocational ministry, raising up folks that really have a heart cry for that congregation, in that community. Because if we're just kind of cycling through and a pastor then comes in for the five-year kind of end of career stint, he's probably not going to cast a big vision to do it. But if we found that even even in a congregation of, let's just hypothetically say, a hundred people not in worship in the congregation worshiping 60, okay, on a Sunday I bet there's a guy who's about my age, 42 years old, that's a son of the congregation. That's like looking around, like does anybody want to like do anything about our decline, about our community being lost? I guarantee that guy is there. He's probably in the marketplace, he's leading at some sort of a corporate level, but he loves Jesus. He probably could be enticed to deeper Lutheran theology but he's not going through any one of our existing paths and frankly, he wouldn't leave because the congregation would probably die Like he realizes we're within five to 10 years of why would I give up four years, you know so.
Speaker 2:And even SMP he's. He doesn't fit into SMP. He's not even in a context where he's going to be under the supervision of another like senior pastor in the area. So what are we? What are we doing? Why aren't we having this conversation to raise up ways for him to get trained, stay in context, make it affordable. He'll be under supervision I don't really even care about, like we got to get toward ordination, like he can be ordained in time. But let him, under supervision of an experienced pastor, like serve and see if we can't cast some vision and start to reach our community with the gospel. Like this is how urgent this conversation is right now. But I don't hear set apart to serve, et cetera, talking by vocational, co-vocational, creative means toward leadership development.
Speaker 2:And then I get it. It's correlation dude. So let me just get to. We'll get right at the guts of it. So where am I, what am I supposed to believe, when that conversation isn't happening? Congregations are closing X amount a month. Where do the resources go? They go to the district. Where does a certain percentage of those resources go? It goes to synod office. Like I don't want to put worse construction on things, but this is a reality. Synod can be funded on the closure of ministry. Anything to say there, scott.
Speaker 3:You're absolutely right. You know, at some point in time we've got 30, what? Five, seven, six something. Districts, 35. How many? 35. 35.
Speaker 3:We've got 35 districts and in the heyday, we needed 35 districts because we didn't have email, we didn't have online cloud kind of based information systems, and so we had 35 districts in order to, you know, really handle all the administration of a very large church with a very large ministerium. The reality is, you know, with the Blue Ribbon Task Force back in 2010, we went to a regional organizational strategy and there is coming a day where the districts are going to become the regions. It's just, it makes all the sense in the world, by the way, to do that, but with that we'll go all the resources of the district into those regions, and that's substantial. I mean, when a church goes under and the Pacific Southwest District receives the property, they receive millions, potentially millions and millions of dollars. And so you've got Synod right now being funded through third source funding.
Speaker 3:What do I mean by that? It means that our districts are receiving assets that funds them. They're receiving, of course, the congregational, traditional way of receiving gifts, but then our synod, the denomination in St Louis, is working to cultivate direct gifts from individuals for them. So now you have a synod and district structure that no longer depends on the votes by dollars that congregations are giving to the synod. In fact, arguably, the congregations of the Synod will never be able to give enough money to exceed assets coming in, and now direct bequests and estate gifts that are coming in as well. Now you've got the head severed from the body financially, and what does that mean? The head never needs to actually listen to the body. The head can just do whatever the head does and be very happy doing it, and that is an unfortunate piece of the puzzle.
Speaker 2:For a while they can do that.
Speaker 2:For their tenure. They can do that. But like I'm here, I'm an interim pastor, you're an interim pastor, right, and I'm going to be held accountable. I'm an interim pastor, you're an interim pastor, right, and I'm going to be held accountable. Like, I take that. I take that seriously, yep. So I pray those in national offices and in district offices take it seriously as well.
Speaker 2:I've said it before, but these regional configurations and I want to pause on that but region districts, in that you exist for the local church, right, you're here to so that you wouldn't listen to constituents who are trying to be faithful and trying to be creative in a secular, post-christian culture to engage people with the gospel. I don't know why you I do understand why. It's politics, man. It's just all politics. And it's money, man. It's not the heart of Jesus. I'm sorry, just call it what it is.
Speaker 2:So do we want to have conversations about that? And can there be mutual repentance, like, let's use our liturgy, let's just talk about confession and absolution? I have put the worst construction on you, I have caricatured you and I would love to say publicly, as you come at me with something I've said publicly. We need to talk publicly more, by the way, not in dark rooms or with cigars and whiskey. We need to talk publicly and that's a general statement across the board, I don't care what side you are on. Like the caricature work that we're doing with one another, let's talk about the robust issues and where we have sinned we will confess. There needs to be mutual. We need to take responsibility for our role in getting to this point and then, based on the forgiveness that flows from Christ, we can maybe start to dream new dreams to reach people with the gospel. I don't think that's a pipe dream and, frankly, scott, you and I are relatively close in age. I think you're my senior by just like six eight.
Speaker 3:I don't know. We're close in age One or two, one or two.
Speaker 2:Just one or two years Exactly. Guys like us, in congregations like ours, we need to engage in this conversation more and there has been and uh, this is, this is, uh, maybe a shot, if you will, at some of the brothers who I've run with. A number of you have been at the table and, uh, when it didn't go the way you thought it should go, you pulled you, you left and your influence, your voice left, and that damaged the wider body of Christ. We need all different types of pastors in all different contexts staying connected, and it is a systems thing, scott. Last thing, I'd love to get your take on this. It is a systems thing, like there isn't one person that I'm necessarily attacking, I'm just calling reality what it is.
Speaker 2:We have grown apart from one another into our various siloed camps, and it's against the heart of Jesus. Frankly, it's against the heart of Luther and the Lutheran confessions. I love reading a whole bunch of deeply theological books, and historical books too, on the evolution of the Lutheran church. We have done disagreement. This is just kind of in our DNA. So this isn't like for those of you who say you're throwing shade at people inappropriately, like that's what Luther did, that's what Melanchthon did. We've and we gave it to Melanchthon in various respects. You know you overly compromised, you know. So this is just in our DNA. So are we going to embrace it and live into the new reality, or are we going to continue to silo? Anything more to say there, scott?
Speaker 3:You know, when I was in the political organization in 2016,. The lesson I learned is this is that the people I was trying to organize on quote unquote my side, right, they did not step up and deliver, and that was heartbreaking for me because I thought that, given enough organization and vision, that the side that I, you know, kind of resonate with in our church body would step up. Well, they didn't. And as we were making our way forward, and especially over the past, you know, several months, in a conversation with a district president, I said you know, I'm beginning to be more concerned that there is such lethargy, not just on one side, toward accountability, the typical side, but there's also lethargy on my side, and you know, you hear the phrase the enemy is me. I know the enemy and the enemy is me. Well, that's now where I'm at and I think there's a lot of fatigue.
Speaker 3:Culturally, ministerially, I started writing a book recently called Stumbling Across the Finish Line. It's going to be coming out here in the next year or so, but it's really written to late 40, 50-year-old pastors who are with the mindset you know what? I'm 10 years away from the golden parachute of the pension and I'm just going to work it out and I'm going to get across the finish line and the challenge of the book is okay, look, we're all going to stumble across the finish line and the challenge of the book is okay, look, we're all going to stumble across the finish line. But there's stumbling across the finish line with excellence and there's stumbling across the finish line in a self-serving way. I don't want to be one of those pastors and I hope that, whether you're on the right or the left or the middle, that you too won't be another pastor who's just going to stumble and get your pension and then live happily ever after and never really, for some, darken the doorway of the church again.
Speaker 3:We want to stumble across the finish line, but know that the call as we are pouring out our bodies 2 Timothy, chapter 4, that God is ordaining, that he's blessing, that he is telling us keep going, keep fighting through the pain, through the fatigue, because there's a crown of righteousness waiting for you on the other side. And when a God gives me that crown of righteousness by grace, not because of anything I've done Exactly, I want to know that with that crown of grace came the testimony. The Holy Spirit was still working strongly in me, to keep me pushing to the very end that the American Christian church can grow. I believe it. I'm going to continue to live as that faith is in me, and then I'm going to see what God does.
Speaker 2:So good is in me and then I'm going to see what God does so good. So why is that that a lot of pastors are at that point? I pray this is a clarion call. I pray it's a courageous call for you to say you know what? I have been kind of coasting a little bit. Why is that? There's a large percentage of pastors in the Missouri it's in any church right now as you look at how far things have gone.
Speaker 2:Most people do not like adaptive change, challenges. We do not like to be pushed. We don't like to step up to the line and say hard things. I know most pastors are against conflict. I don't like it. So let's just live and let live, and here is the call. So let's just live and let live, and here is the call.
Speaker 2:If you're a pastor, you are at the front lines and you must be a part of the 15% of people who say I have to be courageous right now. If the Holy Spirit puts something in my heart and on my mouth, I must speak it. It would be inappropriate for me to not speak, both for those to come into the faith and then for those who are trying to live just kind of a casual, comfortable life who are Christians. Pastors have to be bold in their proclamation of the gospel and live with casting bold vision. So last question here live with casting bold vision for the future of our congregation in our respective context, congregation in our respective context. So tell us about your Redeem 21 vision and your response to the white paper I referenced earlier, produced by 13 districts, titled A Pastor for Every LCMS Congregation.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So Redeem 21 is my effort to organize around accountability and I believe that every pastor in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod is theologically faithful. So therefore I'm not worried about pastors in our Lutheran Church Missouri Synod denomination being different from me theologically. I don't have any worry that pastors are different from me in terms of moral compass. The Ten Commandments are the Ten Commandments, including the Sixth Commandment and all of its glory and all of its ugliness. Ten Commandments, including the Sixth Commandment and all of its glory and all of its ugliness. We all agree on what the Sixth Commandment is and so I'm there and I'm pro-life and I'm fully invested in that advocacy and movement. But here's my deal I want to find out who's ready to move the American Christian church through the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the true visible church of Christ on earth. Taught that in seminary, by the way. Still believe it that the Evangelical Lutheran Church is the visible Church of Christ on earth and therefore I will not go silently as the Evangelical Lutheran Church continues to evaporate from the face of American Christianity. It's shameful. We need to repent, full stop.
Speaker 3:Redeem 21 is an opportunity to put numbers to paper and I don't care whether you agree with 21%. You're going to grow by 21% in your baptized population, 21% in your financial, giving the commitment, that's a strength of commitment kind of growth principle. 21% of new members, 21% in your preschool, your school population. But that is the challenge. I believe that that 6% delta between attrition, common sense tells us and 21%, just throw a dart, that's the redeemed 21. Throw a dart, that's Redeem 21. So over the course of the next year, tim, will you join me in trying to create systems, structures, behavior patterns, effort in your congregation so that you will grow by 21% in some way. And I don't care what it is, the Holy Spirit gives us freedom. You pick it. If you don't like 21%, fine, 16%. At Shepherd it's 25%. Because we live in a city of four or 5 million people with 900,000 people moving into our community every single year. Is God willing to give me three, three, four of those people every year to add to my number? I mean, I'm just saying I think so, I think so. So that's Redeem 21. And that's the white paper that I'm starting to circulate progressively in wider circles and trying to put together, essentially a synod within our synod that is focused and here's the key, tim, singularly a national mission achievement.
Speaker 3:We've got Mission of Christ Network and the LCMS World Mission. Great work worldwide. Have at it. We've got social ministries going on and we've got agencies Lutheran Church Charities you know Lutheran Family and Children's Services, we've got them. Lutheran church charities, you know Lutheran family and children services We've got them. Lutheran services of the South, social services of the South We've got all those agencies to help with social justice. Great Mercy, work, mercy work Yep.
Speaker 3:I want a singular, laser-like focus on congregational growth around the confession of Jesus as Lord. That's the goal, and to do that on a percentage basis every single year and to realize, if it's not 21% this year, then at least I learned the lead measures, the efforts that it will take, and now I'm more intelligent for year two, more intelligent year three, and now I'm no longer stumbling across the finish line, I'm sprinting with the grace of God and the wisdom of God in my heart and mind. That's what I want.
Speaker 2:Scott Scotty Seidler, the one and only I will join you. You had me at hello in this podcast. I am all in to growth. Our congregation obviously is. I mean, we've got a 2020 vision here 20 campuses in 20 years, so that's going to be way more than 21% growth. And we're at three right now and a whole bunch of leaders being raised up to start new things. And we're also here to partner with existing ministries. We're deploying a number of different leaders to smaller faith communities in the work of revitalization and so, yeah, we're all in brother with that and I pray that. That network, that movement, that national movement, let's make American evangelical Lutheranism great again. There was a day, let's be honest. There was a day, man, just post-World War II. There's a couple different iterations of times. We're starting so many churches. Let's be honest. There was a day, man, just post-World War II. There's a couple different iterations of times. We're starting so many churches and the day is now both with revitalization and with new starts. Any final comments?
Speaker 3:Scott, this has been so fun. I would challenge that and I'll come back another time because it's just too much fun. Was there really a day? Was there a day when our Lutheran ministry activity did not depend primarily on birth rates in Norwegian Lutheran and German Lutheran church families? We believe there was.
Speaker 3:That's the common narrative, but I think we've had it too easy for too long in our Western Christian experience and I believe today is the threshold day where we're coming to grips with the reality. There was never a day, and now we're going to actually have to learn what the first Christian missionaries had to learn, which is we're going in cold, we're going to go town to town and we can't assume or expect anything. And this is now really the time for pastors to show their apostolic, prophetic and evangelistic stripes. Those are the areas. Bill Woolsey always says that we need apeses, apostles, prophets, evangelists. I'm not that by definition, but I certainly cannot resist the Holy Spirit, who's challenged me to say you've got to step up your game on these things, scott, and you've got to find the apostles, prophets and evangelists in your congregation, because we are no longer in Western Christianity that we've known for years, decades, centuries. We are now in a true first century missional moment. We have to get our game on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's good. I think there were just a quick response to the days conversation. There were pockets of days. There were movements that were taking place that I think were catalytic, that inspired even though it was an easier day to start churches. That inspired, say, southern California to have a huge movement of pretty much a church at every square mile. We were engaging with the Native American community. I mean we were starting Lutheran Hour Ministries.
Speaker 2:We were kind of on the cutting edge technologically to a degree in that era, so we're not even in the conversation right now. Ministries we were kind of on the cutting edge technologically to a degree in that area, so we're not even in the conversation right now. Could we be in the wider evangelical conversation? And this means we're going to have to have a lot of humility. It will include repentance, learning new things which we can learn and we can thrive into the next generation. I'm just grateful that you're at the table and you and your conversation want to be a shining light on a hill and that others could start to get more bold in the vision that we cast to reach people, redeem 21,. Is there a way people can connect to a little bit more of what that is? Scott?
Speaker 3:You can write me. I'll be happy to share the white paper with you. Revsks at gmailcom, r-e-v-s-k-s. Reverend Scott K Seidler at gmailcom, and I'll be glad to interact with you. That's not that has not gone broadly public yet, but at some point in time here in the next two, three months that's going to start getting cultivated throughout our nation with leaders in each of our regions, districts, sub-regions, circuits, so that we can find out and gauge whether or not there truly is an interest in the redemption of this 21st century. Again, another variation Redeemed 21,. Redemption of this 21st century. American Lutheran Church experience and experiment. So let's go, you betcha.
Speaker 2:Yeah, proud of you, bro. This is lead time. Sharing is caring Like subscribe, comment, wherever it is you take in podcasts we promise to have provocative, hopefully inspiring, challenging, truth filled and yet love filled, jesus centered conversations like the one we just had today with the one and only Reverend Dr Scot conversations like the one we just had today with the one and only Reverend Dr Scotty Seidler.
Speaker 1:Love you, bro. Thanks for this time. Thank you, Tim. Thanks, bud Peace. 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.