Lead Time
Lead Time
Building Strong Foundations for Lutheran Education with Dr. Thomas Wrege
Unlock the transformative power of Lutheran education with insights from Dr. Thomas Wrege, who shares his extensive knowledge and experience in this episode. Discover how Lutheran schools approach education as a mission field, welcoming diverse families and teaching the Bible in a distinctively Lutheran way. Explore the challenges and joys of reaching out to unchurched families and fostering faith formation among students, while also addressing the decline in Lutheran students attending confirmation classes.
Embark on a journey to understand the Lutheran Religion Standards Project, launched in 2023, which aims to integrate faith and education by creating cohesive standards for Lutheran schools. We'll discuss the collaborative efforts with organizations like Concordia Publishing House to align curriculum with core religious principles, strengthening Lutheran identity in education. This grassroots initiative demonstrates the power of collective effort to inspire widespread change, with potential expansions into other core subjects.
Support Lutheran educational leaders with innovative strategies from DAST Consulting, ensuring schools access lesser-known funding opportunities and maintain a healthy work-life balance for educators. Highlighting programs like SLED and Van Lunen fellowships, we discuss the importance of continual learning and development among administrators. We'll also touch on holistic health, church unity, and the Unite Leadership Collective's mission to empower Lutheran leaders through collaboration, ensuring a bright future for Lutheran education.
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Speaker 2:Welcome to Lead Time, Tim Allman, here with Jack Kauberg. I pray. The joy and the love and the hope of Jesus is your strength as we get to lean into a conversation today with Dr Thomas Regge. And let me tell you about Thomas a little bit. He has his doctorate in education. He currently is serving in a school funding executive role for a consulting group called DAST. And what does DAST stand for? Dast group Thomas.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's actually a set of Greek letters I won't go into all that but the CEO and the founder of the company. They're just very meaningful biblically to him and so he named it DAST. And then he has a readout of each of those letters that have biblical meaning.
Speaker 2:So that might be another lead time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. But they're doing consulting to help with Christian schools, primarily Lutheran LCMS Wells schools share additional funding opportunities as well as encouraging partnering for increased sustainability. And this is why Thomas is on the podcast today, because he has a wealth of experience, both as an educator in our schools he taught middle school for a number of years and then 25 years as a principal in LCMS congregations, praise be to God. He also is a veteran of the United States Air Force Thank you for your service there and he's got his master's from Butler University in Indianapolis in leadership and instructional technology. And Tom and his wife met at Concordia University. We hang out with a lot of Bulldogs. Bulldogs have quite a reach in the LCMS, myself being one. He and his wife met at Concordia University in Nebraska and their romance bloomed while both working at a nearby Camp Luther. They've been blessed with three children, one grandchild and Tom loves to hunt fish, spend time in the outdoors and you're a whittler you like to whittle wood. What do you like to make when you whittle, thomas?
Speaker 3:Pretty much just walking sticks or canes and then crosses, small crosses that I make for people Like palm, palm crosses type thing.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's such an awesome ministry. All right, well, let's get into it today. What differentiates, as you look at the wider landscape of Lutheran education in particular? What differentiates Lutheran education from other forms of Christian education? Thomas?
Speaker 3:Oftentimes when I interview families during tours, through all the years I've had the question come up same thing what differentiates the Lutheran school from other schools that we've toured? And what I learned through the years is that there's really two types of schools. There's covenantal schools and there's missional schools. And the covenantal schools, when you apply, at least one parent has to be a believer or Christian and they have to commit to that. And for Lutheran schools, the ones that I've known and experienced and know about, are missional schools.
Speaker 3:So if the family says we don't have a church home or we're Baptist or whatever the case may be, we say you are welcome here, but we will teach the Bible and be distinctively Lutheran. You just need to know that ahead of time. And do you have a church home? If not, I always welcome them to join our church and that's happened many, many times. And the missional part is really important because it's an opportunity to share the gospel with people who may not have had any opportunity to even be in God's word. And as I've taught confirmation through the years, I've seen the number of Lutherans decline as far as number and others who don't know the Lord well increase, and even in class I just noticed that you know, if I say turn to the book of Genesis, many of them don't know where that is, and so you just have to change your way of teaching and thinking. And it's an opportunity and I just love it. It's an opportunity and I just love it. I love that.
Speaker 4:I agree with you on that assessment of the missional versus covenantal schools. It might be even in a high school format. They may require the student to be some sort of a confessed Christian and may go through an interview process just with that as well.
Speaker 4:So this idea that the school is a mission and this I think this is deeply rooted, I know, in the LCMS tradition is like deeply rooted in that that you know we're here to feed the sheep Right, Not just to care for our own flock, but anybody who's willing to participate in it is amazing, and I think one of the things that's a tragedy for me is that I've heard lots of stories about churches that have shut down their school and I think ultimately, at the root of that shutdown maybe there were some business practices that needed to be improved, but I think at the root of that is a failure to see that school as a mission and actually understand how to leverage that school missionally in the community. Would you?
Speaker 3:agree with that. I do totally agree with that. And if the congregation and school doesn't embrace the missional aspect, you can still be distinctively Lutheran and, like I said, it's an incredible opportunity to share the gospel message and to create faith formation in students, whether it's preschool, elementary, high school and I'm sure, in our university system also. So, yeah, it's a culture that you need to embrace and understand and God blesses, he truly does.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so when we?
Speaker 3:think about our own school as a mission.
Speaker 4:right, it's not just that they're going to go into the school and get a curriculum, but there are unchurched families, right. There are families where the first time they're hearing having prayer at the dinner table is because a preschool kid says we should be praying for dinner. Right, and they're coming to chapel services as a family and it's the first time they've ever attended church services together. And do we actually, like I just get lit up with the idea of school as a mission. It just lights me up, yeah.
Speaker 3:Thank you for that. That is awesome and the number of baptisms we've had just continue to increase. And I have this little bench outside well, my former office. I'm working from home now, but I called it the answer bench and I just put the names right on it the answer bench and I invited kids of all ages when I'm sitting on the answer bench or if I see kids sitting there to come and to talk and we just talk about Jesus and many conversations about faith and baptism occurred on that bench. So kind of an innovative, unique thing, but it was fun too.
Speaker 2:So you're pretty well networked, given your consulting. Have you experienced many school and school leaders striving to be covenant type schools rather than mission schools? And I'm just going to be honest, in my experience I have not seen that as much. I think the mission orientation of our Lutheran schools is very, very strong, but did you ever hear any kind of undercurrents of we need to be? And because this goes, this kind of trickles up, if you will, into the wider Concordia, why do the Concordias exist and why? You know it's a school for Lutherans, by Lutherans and we've had, you know, a drift away from this kind of focus on that is the wider debate right now. What was the original intention of our schools? And you can go back to CFW, walther and a lot of them, and they definitely had an evangelical heart, a mission heart for our schools. So are you seeing any kind of drift toward the covenant-only type of approach, thomas, in your experience?
Speaker 3:No, I'm really not. I think, like you said, tim, it's really well ingrained in the Lutheran system, which I love, and there's nothing wrong with covenantal schools. I think it's a certain culture that they like to have to develop. I think it's a certain culture that they like to have to develop, that they're moving into that direction, that we know all of our kids are either churched or they're known as Christians. And yet in the Lutheran system we totally focus on sharing the gospel message and, like you said, I was just at Concordia University, Chicago, yesterday, and got a chance to talk to some students and it's just wonderful to hear the questions they have, being able to answer, being able to share faith together and being able to pray too. So I haven't heard that much. I don't think it's a movement in the LCMS.
Speaker 2:Well, that's good. I think our schools can hold all of our schools, from our seminaries down to our local schools. They can hold the church together in through some kind of curious, maybe potentially divisive waters that we navigate by the by the Spirit's power to remain united. Tell us a little bit about the National Religion Standards Project and what's the outcome of that. You've been connected to that kind of network of schools now in your consulting work. Tell us that story.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was actually a 12 plus year project that I started because I've always been concerned of the lack of collaborative efforts within our schools. I see silos more than anything else. I think that's starting to change in a good way, that we are trying to work together more. I've always been a proponent of having a strong standard system within our schools and then based the curriculum on those standards. But I never saw religion standards for LCMS schools.
Speaker 3:So I started the conversation with this person, that person, influencers, and I gathered a couple people, three people, four people, and when I talked to Concordia Publishing House, one of the senior editors said to me you know what, we're on the same page as you and we could partner with this and I think we could really make this happen. But we also needed to contact the Office of School Ministry because there's DR doctrinal review in every aspect of narrative or writing that comes out and whatever we came up with as far as standards had to be checked off by doctrinal review. Also LEA, which is an organization I absolutely love and I'm a strong part of. They have the ears of so many teachers and administrators and way beyond. So we needed to market this to opportunities for presentation. You know this is what standards would mean for our school. This is how we connect the curriculum to the standards. This is how we remain distinctively Lutheran, and LEA helped us to do presentations to write in their Shaping the Future peer-reviewed journal and just to get the word out.
Speaker 3:I also needed at least one district exec, because they have a lot of influence. You know the gospel group and we needed them to share the importance. And then we needed to put all that together and into a platform that is user friendly. So Concordia Publishing House had all the tools. They created the platform, they created the website. We all edited back and forth, pushed it through doctrinal review through Dr Becky when she was the director of schools, and it came to fruition and we now have standards. But, like I said, it took a simple conversation, a thought, lots of prayer and can we do this? And we made it happen. I think it's just a really good model for many other projects we could work on together.
Speaker 2:So it's called the Lutheran Religion Standards Project. Is that the formal title? Yes, and if people want to get it, they can get it through CPH. Yes, okay, when did it? Get released formally? Yeah, what was the timeline then?
Speaker 3:2023, summer of 2023. So it's very recent. And the other thing Concordia Publishing House did which I am just thankful beyond words is they contracted dozens and dozens of LCMS teachers to write curriculum that would be based on the standards. So that's how the brand new CPH Enduring Faith curriculum came about, with using the standards, and it's just a perfect segue. And now we're talking a little bit about okay, could we do science as a core subject? Could we do social studies as a core subject? I don't know if those things will come to fruition, but there's just a real prompting by the Holy Spirit that happened through it all.
Speaker 2:Thomas. Wow, that's a great story, congratulations. Praise be to God, man. That's like a mega life work that is going to have a ripple effect for generations to come. Praise be to God and shout out to CPH for working so well with you and having a having a guy at the grassroots. You know, uh, you're you're just in no offense, but I mean you were just a principal who identified a possible opportunity for growth that that shows collaboration that could have a ripple effect in all of our churches. And you they worked with you to to get that thing to ground grassroots man. Praise God. And now I got to reach out to Principal Amling making sure we're locked into what we're doing here, because this sounds fantastic.
Speaker 3:You also need to know that I don't take all the credit for that. I may have been a catalyst, I may have been an influencer, but we had wonderful people working side by side on this committee and some people just shared a few thoughts and that made us move a little bit further in the direction. We ran into some roadblocks too, but ultimately we never gave up because we knew we needed to have this system in our Lutheran schools.
Speaker 2:That's a great story.
Speaker 2:That's just the way it works. That's just the way it works. That's just the way it works, meaning people, god may put certain visions or opportunities or struggles, pain points and then possible solutions, and you get together with a group of people. Here's the problem. What do you? How do you think we can solve it together? And God always brings the right people to the table to bring the right solution, and it's a fun experiment, especially when you're all working toward the same.
Speaker 2:We're not competing with one another. We all have the same desire. We do not want and this is where I think there can be some misunderstanding, we do not want to compromise on any of our Lutheran You've used this Lutheran distinctives. We want to double down on it. But we want to double down on it not for the sake of exclusion, not for the sake of all the Lutherans, but for the sake of Lutherans being mobilized for mission. And if we get great Lutheran theology to our kids in the youngest years, imagine the missionaries that they are as they go out into their various vocations. That appears to be Luther's intent, jack. Anything to say to that?
Speaker 4:I agree. I agree I mean from my a market, but then also say this is also a mission and so it forces really creative thinking in order to reach people. And you're reaching the age of people that need to be reached, which is the very, you know, the youngest generation. So I've told this story to lots of people and I'll tell the story again because it's so applicable right now. I was at a conference, right, and this was a pan-denominational, not a denominational conference, but it was a leadership thing, and there's a bunch of executive pastors there. They're doing the same role that I do as an executive director. This guy is giving me a tour of this beautiful youth ministry space and this big mega church and it looks like Disneyland right. There's ball pits and there's arcades and there's slides and jungle gyms and there's, like you know, this great stage and stuff. And he says you know, every Sunday I've got 500 kids here learning about Jesus. I was like, wow, that is amazing.
Speaker 4:And then I thought about what we were doing here at Christ Greenfield. I didn't say it, but I said it in my head. I said I got 500 kids here every, every weekday, learning about Jesus, and they're paying us.
Speaker 4:And we're, we're, you know, we are a 10th the size of you as a church. You know, and I was like we couldn't do that without our school, like our school is like this massive amplifier of how we're able to influence the community and reach families that we would never be able to reach before. It's amazing, because people care so much about the wellbeing of their kids, that you deliver the gospel through this amazing mechanism of education, equipping them for vocation, for life. Not just vocation, but their faith, right, so I just love it.
Speaker 2:Beautifully said. Hey, thomas, do administrators, and I'm asking you to paint with a little bit of a broad brush. But I have to imagine I'll give a leading question. I have to imagine that there are times when administrators look at pastors and maybe potential divisiveness at a circuit level and pastors not getting along. And I have to imagine you're like what's going on here, guys, why can't we work together? Why can't we? Because schools start to collaborate. Why can't churches collaborate a little bit more and work from our strengths, not just disparaging maybe some gaps that each individual ministry and leader has. Any thoughts on your prayer for pastors to work together more consistently between churches? We've got a lot of pastors that listen to this podcast. That's why I'm asking the question.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's always being willing to be a teaching administrator, partnering in unity with the pastor and giving ideas that are pretty much proven to work, and examples of that are please be visible within within our school. You'll get to know the ministry. You'll get to talk to the kids, see the teachers engaging the kids and faith practices. Also, you might have the opportunity to share about our school, either in announcements or during the message, and say this is why this is such an important ministry of our entire congregation. I think that's important too, but I think it's one on one conversations. It's it's. We would like you to pray about this aspect within our school. We have a teacher who has cancer and we know, lord, that you can do all things. Pastor, would you please bring this to the congregation and that those prayers will continue to spread through God's people.
Speaker 3:I also love, in worship, having children. It just makes it. It's a dynamic worship service just to see kids learning about Jesus through worship and when you have that connection, it's an amazing thing to witness. And I think when those things are witnessed, then we can come back to the pastoral principle relationship and be very deliberate in those conversations. This is what we're doing well. This is maybe what we're not doing well, and here are some suggestions for the future. So it's certainly a process. I don't have all the answers there, but, my word, what a great question to ask.
Speaker 2:Hey Thomas, let's go back. We're going to get into some kind of next gen specifics, but I want to give you the opportunity to talk about your consulting services, what DAST does, the funding opportunities, the conversations toward increased sustainability. Tell us about your work now full time actually, as a consultant with DAST no-transcript and Christ is shared daily.
Speaker 3:Well, this past February, when I was finishing up on my doctorate, I had had some struggles with getting EANS funding. I just hit a brick wall. So I contacted our state non-public school association rep and I said Laura, I need some help, can you mention someone? And she said I have just the group it's called DAST Consulting Zoom, with the CEO and their director of finance. Within an hour they had the answer to how I could get those funds that were promised to us after all these roadblocks.
Speaker 3:As soon as we got off the Zoom, I received an email from the CEO and he said Tom, I was just on your LinkedIn profile. It said open to work, can we talk? And one thing led to another and I was kind of resistant because I love what I do, love what I did. But he kept it up. Every several weeks he'd contact me again and at the end of the school year, really before it was over, we talked one more time. And then my wife and I went on a camping trip and he texted me and he said Tom, I'm going to make you an offer. And so when we got back from camping, we got on a Zoom and it was like a Holy Spirit moment, like, okay, I've been able to work at Zion these last 10 years, but now I can work with 1200, 1500 schools I mean almost limitless and basically what it is.
Speaker 3:It's finding additional funding. It's government funding, it's state funding, it's specific funding that very small percentage of schools either utilize or know about, and if they contract with us at DAST, they're not considered federal funds or state funds. They're funneled through us. We ask for access to their school information system so we can mine their data and use our formulas and we can tell them this is how much money we can get for you $120,000. And then we ask them for a multi-year contract and it just works.
Speaker 3:And so it may seem simple but, like I said, the percentage of schools that actually know about these types of funding processes or use them is very, very low. So it's an opportunity to add dollars to schools that won't affect their budgets and perhaps they can use money in their budgets for real ministry and mission. So you know, yeah, it's cool. So I'm starting to contact Lutheran schools and having great conversations. It's a relational position, which I love, and I'm learning things about schools all over the country. I don't know the WELLS system that well, but I will get to that point too where it'll be a joy to be able to help with sustainability as well.
Speaker 2:If people want to connect with your services, how can they do so? What's the website?
Speaker 3:The website does not actually have my contact information yet, because so much of what we do is really new. We're building a portal, so what I would do is I would share my email and my phone number, if you want me to do that and that way. Yeah, you can do it now, since I asked-E at DASTconsultingcom, d-a-s-t-consultingcom, and my cell number is 586-381-2738.
Speaker 2:All right, hopefully a whole bunch of administrators will know yeah, oh, yeah, yeah. Well, we want this to be very, very practical for people no-transcript.
Speaker 3:In our Lutheran schools there's so many variables, so many dynamics, and so we just need to find effective ways to truly support those that we serve. And one example of that is when I came to Zion, and even in a prior school ministry, I asked for flex time. And what's that? Well, if I have evening meetings and I get my 40 hours in by Thursday, I don't have to come in at all on Friday, or I can come in late or leave early, and those are the things that help keep us healthy. We have to have the balance. If we're always working because there's so much to do right, our lists are long, there's a busyness, but we have to have those outlets, like what I love to do hunting and whittling and camping and all that and stay healthy, exercise, eat well. So that healthy balance, I think, is really, really important. They need to have a support system also. Another example of something that should be looked at very carefully at every school ministry and church ministry, I think, is the amount of meetings, and even if you have to have them and maybe come up with a different opportunity for there. I also think we need to have continual learners.
Speaker 3:I had some people ask me so, tom, why did you start a doctorate? You're, you know you're getting up there in years. I know you have a lot of years to go, but I said you know I need to be best equipped to be a minister of the gospel, and that has been an incredible experience through Concordia University, wisconsin, and I do feel better equipped because I got my doctorate also. And then the most important thing is we just need to be grounded in the theology and practice of Lutheran education. There are many schools that don't have administrators that have gone through our Concordia system, perhaps they've gone through colloquy, but there are many today that just don't understand what distinctively Lutheran means. So we have to work on that very carefully to ensure our administrators lead with biblical inerrancy and ensure that the faith is part of every aspect of the culture. When that goes away, we lose some of our distinctively Christian culture, which we can't lose.
Speaker 2:Agree, we talked leadership, development and pipeline here. I'm going to work back to front in terms of your characteristics here. What are some potential solutions to remedy the administrative? Because if there's less Lutheran administrators, there's got to be some sort of a shortage. What is being done right now in the administrative front to assure Lutheran confessional Lutheran administrators? There's got to be some sort of a shortage. What is being done right now in the administrative front to assure Lutheran confessional Lutheran administrators?
Speaker 3:The SLED program has been going on for many years. I actually went through SLED 1 in 1999, 2000, somewhere in there, and it's still going strong and it's an opportunity for those who desire to be administrators to learn their craft through mentors and I've mentored several times for SLED too. But that's one of the areas where it's a year-long process of learning from each other, being mentored. There's continual learning, there's practical applications to it also and I would say that's an incredible opportunity. Now, outside Lutheran circles, there's also a fellowship called Van Lunen. I don't know if you're aware of it or not.
Speaker 3:I'm a Van Lunoonan fellow and we call it the Big Tent philosophy and what that means is that there are Lutherans, there are Methodists, there are Baptists, there are non-denominational Christians, there are administrators from Canada, other parts of the world. We gather together and we talk shop what are the best practices in Christian ed and we learn from each other and we don't change who we are. But I learned so much from that opportunity to go outside the Lutheran system and be better equipped. As well simple as the church and school and congregation needs to ensure that there's also some type of policy in place where there's a solid amount of money available for continuing education, for advanced degrees, for Principal 360, which is another incredible group. So there are a lot of opportunities out there. I think the busyness that we have tends to take away from that, but if we keep those in front of us and we make sure that's part of the culture that we need to be continual learners and be best equipped, that's when the difference really takes shape.
Speaker 2:That's so good. Do most administrators start as educators? Yes, teachers in the lutheran system, yes, okay. So this is why sled was developed, um, to create that upward draft of of administrators. I'm just thinking jack.
Speaker 2:The lutheran church, missouri synod doesn't have a sled for pastoral formation. Meaning, meaning you you've been in a leadership position for a while. Meaning you've been in a leadership position for a while, be it elder or DCE, whatever. But we see in you the potential to possibly serve in word and sacrament ministry. But you need to kind of test it out before maybe you go to the seminary or enter into the MDiv, whatever it happens to be. To assess in mentoring I love that SLED has mentoring at its core. To assess in mentoring I love that SLED has mentoring at its core In mentoring with a current Lutheran pastor. What does this actually look like? Let's see if you actually like to do what the job requires. That seems to be an important thing the difficult conversations, the counseling, the leadership, the preaching, the communication, etc. The leading of teams. Let's see if you actually like that work and then we'll move you into one of our pathways. Could you imagine the upward draft that that would create for pastors too? Jack?
Speaker 4:If we offered that?
Speaker 2:opportunity for many of the laity.
Speaker 4:Pastors, and I would add to that executive directors, executive pastor types of roles which don't really exist hardly at all in our church body but is very prevalent in other church bodies, and I've seen it be such a blessing to actually raise people up into those roles and actually share the best practices of what it looks like to lead in that type of role. And, to be honest, in order for me to do this role in this church, I've had to look outside of our church body because there is just not a lot of any kind of best practices to follow within the LCMS but there's actually abundance outside of it. So it's kind of a shame. We really ought to think about what it looks like to create a development network or pathway for my role in the church to be able to do that.
Speaker 2:No, a hundred percent. Jack, maybe you should be the catalyst for that.
Speaker 4:Well that's actually something that's on our roadmap. We're hoping that the ULC can be a pioneer in doing that. That is when we do consultation with churches. Almost invariably, one of the takeaways that those churches do is to say we need to hire somebody in an equivalent to what my role is. And they realize, like, very quickly, they see the power of being able to amplify the effectiveness of ministry by doing that. And then you know, how do we do that? Well, I've been, I've mentored a lot of people personally, but I've had to look outside of our church body to do that. So it'd be great to have a baby created, a mentoring network within our church body. And, yeah, I think that's going to be something we're leaning into.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and this is just a shout out, a commendation to the pastoral formation committee in the Lutheran church, Missouri synod you, Concordia seminary and Concordia theological seminary presidents, president Bruss and Tom Egger. Dr Egger, you, along with Kevin Robeson and James Bannock, could have conversations with a number of us that are trying to work at the grassroots to create this upward draft and maybe we, in partnership, develop such a sled type pastoral executive director program upward draft of directors of Christian education or any other role that we thought we needed more workers of. Program upward draft of directors of Christian education or any other role that we thought we needed more workers of. An upward draft of potential teachers right, I mean, how do we start to have that conversation earlier with our high school kids that they could start and college kids that they could start to test? In our system, Like mentoring at the grassroots is the thing that will sustain us moving forward, passing on leadership development best practices to the next generation. Go ahead, Jack.
Speaker 4:That is the future of leadership development for the church and that's actually the model we saw in the Bible, right. So they didn't send folks away to seminary or to college in the Bible they just did one-on-one development with people. An experienced leader partnered with a less experienced one and mentored them. And I think there should be ample resources to be able to do a model like that within our church body and that is not to take away from our incredible schools. I think that it's kind of a both-hand approach for us and they can actually partner together really well to do that and they can actually partner together really well to do that Always, always, all right.
Speaker 2:Well, this has been so much fun. Dr Reggie, I love your last name. People looked at his name. There's a whole bunch of ways that you can say your last name, but Reggie it is. I love that you got your doctorate Commendation for you getting your doctorate, continuing to learn, and I love that you're focused on staying healthy healthy physically, emotionally, relationally. What are, what are, some of your rhythms that lead toward holistic health, dr Reggie?
Speaker 3:you know God works in mysterious ways when I found out my new position would be work at home I'm still not quite there yet you know what that all entails, but you sit a lot so you have to have a routine where you get up and you do things. So my development has been flexibility. It's been a little bit of weight training, it's been treadmill, it's been exercise bike. Today, after we're finished here, I have a lot of leeway in my position, but I'm going to go out and set up my hunting area because archery season is right around the corner.
Speaker 3:But I think it's embracing your family too that God has given you in a way that the personal balance with the professional balance. We just have to embrace the great gifts that God has given us and no matter what. You know we could work, work, work. But really we have to be effective ministers in what we do and I think there has to be a deliberate action. Just some of those things that I mentioned my brother who works at home. He said Tom, don't have snacks around either, because you'll gain a lot of weight. So I've also learned to eat in a much. Well, I've I've eaten in a healthy way, but I've learned to eat in a much more healthy way and not to snack, so that's been good.
Speaker 2:What, how? Now I'm curious. How'm curious what's your diet rhythm?
Speaker 3:Diet rhythm is yogurt and putting fruit within it, it's oatmeal, it's fruit, it's vegetables with hummus, and then just other healthy snacks that my wife helps me with because she's really really good at that, just other healthy snacks that my wife helps me with because she's really really good at that. And so it's not that I haven't done those things in the past, but I've done them more because I really need to in order to stay well, be well and to be effective in what I do.
Speaker 2:Well, praise God, self-care is not selfish. Self-care fuels us for ministry and relationship and just abundance and growth and creativity. Pastoral ministry, administrative ministry it is hard, it's stressful and stress releases cortisol. It does a lot of really dysfunctional things to our metabolism and I'll just drop this again. Your metabolism there's new research Stress releases cortisol. It does a lot of really dysfunctional things to our metabolism and I'll just drop this again. Your metabolism there's new research. Your metabolism stays the exact same. It's flatline between 20. It's a myth to say that our metabolism slowly declines. Your metabolic rate is the exact same between 20 and 60 years of age and so we can have more life in our years.
Speaker 2:We have a very sick culture and I think, and a lot of sick care that is fueled by the pharmaceutical industry and all these things and I'm not getting on like a mega health care, but I don't know that a lot of our leaders are the healthiest heart, body, mind, spirit and I believe that may damage some of our relationships. It certainly damages our energy and I think that first hour, own the morning, own the day. I think that first hour of the day has to be focused on self-care. Water movement, word, like if you just did that. Water movement and word Wake up and get water before coffee. I do a ridiculous amount of water in the morning to get my system moving. You don't have to do the ridiculous amount. I'm like 80 ounces of water. There we go. Dr Reggie's showing us his water right by him there. Water before caffeine, and then move the body. My desire is every single day I want to sweat.
Speaker 2:Now, will my routine be the same at 63 as it is at 43? Probably not. But you mentioned two things flexibility 63 as it is at 43? Probably not, but you mentioned two things flexibility. Flexibility, stretching the body. I spend 10 hours, 10 hours, 10 minutes every single day stretching. Sounds ridiculous, but like, if you want those stretches you could email me, but you got to find your own way. You need to be stretching and then you need to be in resistance training Our mental acuity.
Speaker 2:Last point here our mental acuity is commensurate with the size of our thighs. That sounds weird to say Our mental health is based on because our muscles can atrophy and it actually impacts the brain and we're seeing a rise right now in dementia and Alzheimer's, et cetera. So go out and do some body weight squats, for goodness sake. I mean, hopefully we can just start to move our body functionally rather than just becoming so sedentary, sitting down, because ministry is a lot of sitting down and we were not created to sit, we were actually created to move, and that movement, I think, could then fuel the movement of the mission of Jesus.
Speaker 2:So I'll get off my soapbox there, but I don't know that enough of us are talking about the health crisis that exists in the ministry and it could be one of the reasons that we don't have enough kind of conflict filled, you know, challenge filled, debate filled conversations with our brothers and sisters, because you just don't have the energy to engage in it. So I just like to stay in my, in my silo. So any thoughts on the health conversation, thomas?
Speaker 3:Yeah, our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and Tim. What you mentioned and the practice that I've started is to take that first 90 minutes in the morning after I get up and I'm in the word and I actually do professional reading. My latest is called the Road to Flourishing Eight Keys to Boost Employee Engagement and Well-Being and incredible book to read about developing the culture, but it has to do with staying healthy and keeping balanced. All of that is in here too, but I really believe in routines and finding what works for you. It might be you know bike riding. I love the mountain bike, things like that too. My wife and I, when we camp, we go on long hikes, so we just look for opportunities. The stretching I've learned too is incredibly important, so I'm with you on that one too.
Speaker 2:I think everyone should be doing that. Yeah, that's great. Absolutely, I agree, all right. Final question what are your top three values for maintaining a united church and school? We're Christ Greenfield Lutheran Church and School. That's a very long acronym. Then we shortened it to pretty much Christ Greenfield Lutheran Church and School. That's a very long acronym. Then we shortened it to pretty much Christ Greenfield. We're a family of ministries, but still the church and the school is unity-filled conversation. That's something that we can't talk about enough. How do we work together as a united ministry? What are some of those top three values for churches and schools? Presenting a united mission.
Speaker 3:You know I don't have these in priority order in my opinion, but I think the pastor-principal unity really needs to be there and that needs to be a deliberate discussion, a deliberate practice. Pastor needs to talk up the school, as I shared before, as a ministry, but the principal administrator also needs to fully support the mission of the church and when those two things work together it's just a beautiful segue to increasing the opportunity to always have faith practices, faith discussions and the urge to dig into God's word more and have a powerful prayer life. I would say. The second one is communication practices, and that's what I did my dissertation on. That's how strongly I feel about that. If we don't communicate well, things will start to break down and to the point where you know you'll start deleting emails because you get too many of them. Or, like I said, the meetings culture is exhausting. And so if we give like pulse surveys a month, two or three questions, what do you think about our communication practices? If you could name one way to improve them, what would it be? So, even having that on the agenda, a five-minute discussion how are we doing with our communication? How could we do better? I think great things could come from that.
Speaker 3:And the third and final one is the power of relationships. When I got hired at DAST, the CEO said, tom, the biggest thing I want you to do is build relationships. And he started our discussion with prayer and I ended with prayer and he said it's all about the body of Christ and we're united together because of our Lord and Savior, jesus Christ. So never assume things. We're always teaching things, we're deliberate, but we have to be really careful about realizing that everyone is our brother and sister in Christ. And you know, when the sinful desires come along and sin happens daily, we need to ask God for help to get us over those hills and to make us more in tune with the fact that we are God's children and that is the greatest privilege in the world and we're saved. And so if we can keep that discussion going in our culture, I can only see great blessings come from that.
Speaker 2:Couldn't agree more this has been so much fun. You already shared how people could connect with you. I'm going to ask you to do something that I don't think we do very often, but would you pray for us, Thomas and for the church too, and for unity within our churches and schools and the LCMS. That'd be awesome.
Speaker 3:As we close, Thank you, it would be my privilege. Gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for this opportunity, through this broadcast, to reach multitudes of people, and our goal is to share you in effective ways and allow the gospel to be spread throughout the world, to encourage us to live in healthy ways, because you've given us our bodies to embrace our families, to not be silos where we minister, but to reach out for collaborative efforts so that together we can be better. Help us, lord, continue these discussions. I thank you for these two incredible men who have the heart to serve you in the way that they do within their churches and way beyond. And I ask, lord, that as we go forward this day and in the weeks, months and years to come, that we would truly honor you in our actions, in our words, and that we would use the gifts that you've given us to further spread your message of hope. I pray all this in Jesus' name, amen.
Speaker 2:Amen. Such a joy to be with you, dr Reggie, and blessings in your consulting work at Dask and man. Good things are yet to come, as our church is the school's partner and our schools serve as the missional edge in many of our congregations, and I'm praying not just for more churches but for more Lutheran schools into the future. The kingdom of God will expand through our schools in beautiful ways, just as it's been the fuel to help the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod grow for almost the last 200 years. We pray the next 200 years is filled with robust, robust partnerships between churches and schools. It's a good day. Go and make it a great day. What a joy to be with you, thomas and Jack. Excellent work, thank you.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to Lead Time, a podcast of the Unite Leadership Collective. The ULC's mission is to collaborate with the local church to discover, develop and deploy leaders through biblical Lutheran doctrine and innovative methods To partner with us in this gospel message. Subscribe to our channel, then go to theuniteleadershiporg to create your free login for exclusive material and resources and then to explore ways in which you can sponsor an episode. Thanks for listening and stay tuned for next week's episode.