TLHP 41 Mission Expansion In The Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, 1929-1983 with Joel D. Otto

In 1929, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) was a small church body serving primarily German immigrants with congregations in twelve states, mostly in the  Midwest; the only “foreign” work was a mission on the Apache reservation in Arizona. By 1961,  WELS was still only in sixteen states, but WELS missionaries were working in Japan and  Central Africa. By 1983, WELS was carrying out mission work in ten foreign nations and had a  presence in every state. This mission expansion occurred despite extensive crosses the synod had to bear: the burden of a substantial debt during the Depression years and other financial challenges, a world war, a shortage of pastors at varying times, and a lengthy doctrinal battle with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) that ended in the painful severing of fellowship ties in 1961. In addition, extensive building projects on the ministerial education campuses of the Wisconsin Synod and the establishment and expansion of area Lutheran high schools and Lutheran elementary schools, as well as building programs at local congregations, were also ongoing during this time period. These various challenges and obstacles contributed to internal tensions over budget priorities and synod mission policies. Some of these crosses became catalysts for mission work. By examining primary source materials, this thesis endeavors to demonstrate that WELS had to persevere under numerous heavy crosses in order to carry out a vigorous mission expansion program at home and abroad, resulting in a nationwide and
worldwide confessional church body.

Read the paper here

Transcript

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Welcome to the Lutheran History podcast where we cover over 500 years of Lutheran history. We hear new stories, examine old ones, and dig into the who, how, what and why of history making. So whether you're Lutheran, seeking to understand your faith rich roots history lover, or person looking for real stories of trials, tragedies, or triumphs, you'll find what you're looking for. Right here. Today's guest is Professor Joel Otto. He is a 1995 graduate of Wisconsin Lutheran seminary. Having served one year in Midland, Michigan, he served several years at first German Lutheran Church in Manitoba. I also have some family roots, five years at reformation in San Diego, and about five years at Trinity in Managua, Wisconsin, in 2011, he accepted a call to serve as professor of church history and education at Wisconsin Lutheran seminary since 2016. He's also served as the Dean of Students. He was on the committee that produced the 2017 wells catechism, something I use in the classroom three times a week. And I also he also served on several on the wells hymnal committee for the new wells hymnal. It's been a writer for the meditations and 14 Christ's through Northwestern publishing house. In 2019. He earned his master of theology and church history from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School chapter of his thesis, which we're examining today, one of the 2019 Abdl Ross pens award, an award I also won previously. And his entire thesis was given an award of commendation from Concordia Historical Institute, just just this past month here. So an edited version was published serially in Wisconsin Lutheran quarterly. And his entire papers entire thesis is available on the Wisconsin Lutheran seminary online online essay file. And I think we'll include a link in the episode description. So Professor Otto, thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast. Thanks for having me, Pastor Phelps. So your title has the year in it. So I think it's called growing under the cross. So Wisconsin, missions between 1929 through 1983, and maybe butchered the rest of the title, but I noticed that you had those those years in there. And often researchers find that for the sake of space and to have a scope on the research that maybe you have to put some years in there as parameters. So why did you select those years? Well, in 1929, was kind of a threshold and there was guidance in the Senate as far as number of things are concerned. The transition from German to English was was well underway. And you could probably say by that time, English was becoming more predominant. So it wasn't just such this so much, serving German immigrants anymore. 1929 marked the dedication of the of the new Seminary in August of 1929. At what's now Mequon, Wisconsin just north of Milwaukee, which was a which was a major undertaking, and only the year previously, they had also established the last prep school, ministerial education school boarding school at Melbourne, South Dakota, Northwestern Lutheran Academy. So while the school campuses were set up, and then of course, Great Depression hits, and there's this huge debt that the Senate is going to be facing. So that seemed like a time to seem like a good starting spot. We were in Wisconsin, Cindy was in about 14 states, and had no world mission work overseas world mission work. 1983 Mark did the ending in my mind, because now the Wisconsin Senate was truly a nationwide and worldwide church body. By 1983. The last two districts of the Senate were established and the Senate had Wisconsin Synod had Michigan had at least some kind of presence in all 50 states. So you go from 14 states to 50. And there were world missions were missionaries on the ground in 10 foreign countries. So just to see in that timeframe, the shift that you go from a church body that was serving primarily Midwestern German immigrants, with a few exceptions to a true nationwide and in many cases worldwide church body it and just the fact that it was done. The reason why I chose that title the church grows under the cross. It's kind of remarkable that all that happened with everything else that the standard was facing. I mentioned the depths during the 19. During the during the Great Depression, we might get into a few other things. I know one of your questions about different obstacles that were faced different crosses. When you when you add it all up, it just, it just struck me and kind of captured my imagination. That here all this was going on in the Senate yet, we still had a rather vigorous mission program. That was we were that we were unable to carry out by God's grace and strength. And it's definitely a strong and consistent theme throughout your whole thesis is on one hand, there are many challenges many obstacles. And the other hand, there are a lot of blessings, a lot of growth from a kind of a human point of view, just looking at the numbers or the geography, there's an undeniable growth going on. So you've got us into a little bit of of why you pick 1929 as the starting point. And what that looks like. Is there anything else you want to add to just kind of the I don't know, state of the union of the Wisconsin Senate in the year 1921? What did it look like? What characteristics did have? Well, like I said, it was it primarily been focused on serving German immigrants. It tended to be more rural. In small town, it's kind of where the center was, you had a few urban areas like like Milwaukee, Minneapolis, St. Paul, there was, I think, one church in Seattle, one or just a couple of congregations in the Phoenix area. That was kind of an exception that the fact that even as even in 1929, Wisconsin, say congregations in Arizona, was because of the Apache mission work that had been started already in the 1890s. And that led naturally to some submissions in in FEMA in the in the areas in Arizona. And so there were a couple in the Phoenix area. But primarily it's you know, you can Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, little bit in Ohio and Illinois. There had been some because of German immigrants moving to the Dakotas, you had North and South Dakota, there was a presence. And then because of some quirks, I guess you could say in history, which would be kind of interesting study to some time. How do we got under the Pacific Northwest, as early as the early 1900s. There was a presence and the first district and there was a district formed out in the Pacific Northwest. So but primarily again, it was kind of set centered in the Midwest, centered in rural in rural in small towns. efforts were made to do mission work, but it was it was kind of limited to those those areas. There was also some in Nebraska, of course to the Senate also was dealing with a controversy that had started in the in the mid 1920s. In our Wisconsin Senate history, it's referred to as the protest and controversy this had kind of really rocked to the Senate. It cost the Senate a couple of seminary professors including the seminary, including the seminary President JP Kaler, it was it's hard to describe it as a doctrinal controversy, more but more more controversy over spirit, almost an approach to things. But it had affected at a cost and Senate a number of congregations and pastors and some key leaders. And so by 1929, it was kind of dialing down for the most part that the worst of it had kind of passed, but it was still kind of hanging there. And it would not be and it would even result in a contributed to the to the change in presidency in the Senate in 1933. All right, well, thank you for giving us that background and the context. So in the midst of all of that, maybe some some negative things going on, or at least not positive. What were the factors that prompted this desire and the goal of now expanding the synod's reach already in the 30s? I think in general you had voices in within the Senate and maybe just a general spirit within the Senate that always said we shouldn't be expanding we should be doing mission work. That's what a church does. There was some conflict within that. I think even JP Kaler would sometimes be a little bit critical perhaps of you know is is the you're latching on to the Great Commission too much is that is there a little pie artist flavor there at times that that it's okay for a church body to be focused on doctrine. I think you'd have a guy like Auguste peeper who'd say it was both and not just it never should be an either or. But I think in general, there's obviously there's, you see the need, you see the need for Pete, you know, for the gospel to be spread, and there were opportunities that were growing and the frustrating part, especially during the 30s, you did have voices that even wanted to start overseas mission work. But it was always we don't have the money, and we have this huge debt. The debt was was, well, if it ended up getting to about three quarters of a million dollars, which in 1929, money would have been, I forget what the total was exactly, but it would amounted to three, I think it was like $3 per baptized member, which again, during the Great Depression would have been it was just debilitating. Senate President constantly had to make decisions on are we going to pay this month, the missionaries, or are we going to pay the professors. And so it was just very difficult to get anything get any traction. And it was the concerted effort over the course of about 10 years from 1935 to 1945, paying down that debt, that really set things up for more expansion occurring after the second after the Second World War ended. Yeah, and your paper kind of describes almost like the swing of just the mood seem to be very pessimistic, maybe for obvious reasons, during the Great Depression, everyone's a little depressed by it. But by 1945, you know, with the debt paid off, and not only that the World War Two is coming to an end. Seems like everyone was rather optimistic and just looking how to do more with what they had. Yeah, I think one of the you know, I talked about pessimism i You can just imagine, during the 1930s, and and into the early 40s. Most of the seminary graduates were not assigned immediately. And you can just imagine the kind of the blanket of enthusiasm that would you know, the blanket that would just cloud any enthusiasm for doing anything when you've got all these workers sitting around, but just there's no one, no money for them, no, no place to sign them. My grandfather, my grandpa Otto, graduated 1934, and did not get assigned immediately. But there were relatives and relatives out in the Apache reservation. So they brought him out there, you know, we'll put you to work, we'll find something for you to do. And then something opened up and he got his site. And then he got a call out there and stayed there for a few years and met my grandma out there. So who had come out to be a deaconess nurse at the, at the, at the orphanage that was out there. And he picked her up at the train station. And the rest is history, as they say. But that just you know, you had a lot of workers standing idle, and that and that was frustrating. Brenner. Even President Brenner even mentioned that in some of his presidential reports, the Senate conventions. So the maybe the opposite problem of many churches today, including Wisconsin Senate of having too many workers to know what to do with rather than you don't having the right opportunities to do anything with them. Whereas today, we have plenty of opportunities and not enough workers. So it's maybe good for us to look through history and see it never was ever perfectly easy, right? Just the challenges maybe change over time. So you mentioned some of the obstacles already, but your paper kind of uses the idea of there's a cross there's a challenge, and then it is overcome or at least dealt with in some way. So let's just, excuse me go through if we can. What are some of those other challenges that the Wisconsin Senate faced as expanded both its world and home missions? Well, one of the challenges I'd say is especially as you were coming out of World War Two, I mean, world we mentioned during the Depression, probably the biggest one was the was the financial just the debt, the Senate debt problem, muttering after World War Two. I think it was a matter of one of the one of the issues as a matter of Senate priorities. Every Senate campus with the exception of the seminary and Makwana needed built needed massive building projects. And throughout the 50s 60s and 70s, you end up seeing all almost like the Watertown campus were the college where the pastor Training College was at Northwestern college and prep school was almost completely rebuilt. New all the new all the teacher College had had numerous building projects. The the prep school and Saginaw, Michigan, Michigan Western seminary, had was brand new buildings, even in Old Bridge, they built a brand new building. And so just the expenditures that went into the capital expenditures. And so you had this kind of tug of war over finances. You also have the matter of during the 1950s. And then again in the 1970s. There was a an influx or founding of numerous area Lutheran high schools. A group of them were founded in 50s and another, another group in the 70s. And, and that took away that took energy and money, and even called workers to to Furman power issues that I'd say at the local level of Congress, congregations and schools were just going through unbelievable building projects in the 50s 60s 70s. And so there's just a lot of stuff going on. And then if that weren't enough, then on starting to 1938 39, going through 1961, there was a controversy with the Missouri Senate that really consumes a lot of time and effort and energy on the part of the Wisconsin Senate. And I know I go into that a little bit more in the paper. Up until 1961, the Wisconsin Senate often relied on the Missouri Senate to take care of a lot of things, the Missouri thing was five times bigger than the Wisconsin Senate. So if people try it, and they were all over the nation, so members of the Wisconsin Senate trance move to say, Florida or Georgia or wherever, Texas, you just transfer the membership to those Missouri Synod congregations Well, as the doctrinal controversy was over church fellowship was was ensuing, there was less and less desire to do that. And once the break happened in 1961, now you couldn't anymore and that, I'd say that served as a catalyst to getting into getting throughout getting mission started in throughout the nation, rather than just continuing in our, you know, enclave of maybe 14 to 16 states. Yeah, and then there's then there's, you know, you have the surplus of workers in the 30s and 40s. And then after then, by late 40, late, late 40s, you got a shortage of workers you get, you don't have enough pastures and, and that kind of continues, really all the way until the mid to late 60s. It's not until you get to the late 60s, especially, especially early 70s, where there was a number of larger, or there's a trend and larger classes graduated from the seminary, that you are able to have the manpower necessary to really get to all you know, start all these whole missions that you'll see starting and and get into more world missions. In many ways, there's almost a perfect The Perfect Storm occurs in the in the late 60s and into the early 70s, where you actually have the finances, and you have the manpower kind of converged in that time. Otherwise, almost every other time throughout this in its history, you either have a shortage of money or a shortage of manpower. I think you mentioned that Pacific Northwest earlier, I was had the opportunity to do a district presentation just for the 100th anniversary or district and just even looking at Alaska. All of our congregations pretty much popped up maybe very late 60s, or just through the 70s and maybe early 80s. It was just about a dozen years. And there they all were, were pretty much the same place where we've been. And part of that is local demographics to have a population but growth and such. But yeah, definitely looking at our Synod, we had that boom, just at a local level. I think faith anchorage was the first one, right? Yes. And that was sometime in the 60s. And then the rest all came rather quickly after and it's very interesting they how they dealt with the manpower shortages, then they used a little unorthodox way, the way the seminary does it today, but they sent the vicar out to the mission site. And the supervising pastor would maybe fly in on his own for in person visit once a week or something like that. But really, the vicar was kind of the he was the man on the ground at those locations while they they got started. So very, very interesting, creative ways to get that stuff done. All right. Well, you mentioned a lot of the obstacles then some of them internal, some of them are just external fact. Factors. A lot of that was with home missions. What about a world the Foreign Missions, we started off with Japan and Africa? Was that an easy thing to get started or? Were there some challenges there as well? Yeah, the challenge there was probably one of again, it kind of came down to fanatical priorities. 90 Tonight in 45. You have the Senate that's paid and there's actually a surplus. And that convention. There was a little bit of controversy and your Hey, Nikki was the was the key at the time he was the Apache Chairman, the chairman for the Administrative Committee for the Apache mission and in his Senate convention report, he said I we need to now go and start overseas mission work. And there was a little bit of controversy that President senate president Brenner kind of called him out of order discussions on the floor and eventually it was approved, the Senate explored or to set up a committee to oversee some explore exploration of where we might want to do more mission work. Now that committee kind of varying varying opinions among the members of the committee about you know, do we wait for somebody to invite us Do we go actively seek a place and it wasn't until 1949 that they finally got approval that Edgar Hey, Nikki and Arthur Wacker pastor, other pastor Michigan, hey, Nikki was in Plymouth, Michigan, the two of them went on an exploratory trip, which is just a fascinating story that's told in the wells 40 Niners published by the wells Historical Institute was whole whole issue of their journal. And just the whole story of them going over there over on a ship with a big camper kind of converted camper and making this big trip and finding eventually, the spot that would lead to our mission work that's still being carried out now and by the Wisconsin Senate in Zambia, and then expanded to Malawi. But even there, even after they got done, there's still I think there was still reluctance on the part of this fanatical leadership. We don't want to go into something without having sufficient funding. The especially President Brenner had lived through the 30s, when he had to make those difficult decisions, who do we pay, and just not wanting to enter something without a firm footing financial footing. And then there were still, I think, some concerns about manpower Do we have enough manpower to fund to manage a growth like this, and so, but by 1951, you'll, you'll see somebody who takes a call to start things in Japan. And even the Japan call was partly served the military person, American military personnel over there. And the other part was to start exploring the possibility of starting mission work in Japan. And then in 1953, a couple of missionaries were accepting calls to go to Central Africa. And it wasn't easy. There were again, even Japan the start, the first effort had ended up falling apart. Because of that doctrinal controversy. With the Missouri Senate that was embroiled in the Senate, the missionary in Japan felt that the Wisconsin Synod wasn't breaking with the Missouri Synod soon enough. He felt it should have happened sooner. And he ended up basically taking them everything was in his name. And that sort of we had to kind of start over in 1957. In Japan, that was pretty tough going when the only guy there kind of walks away, I suppose. So that's pretty fascinating, though. You mentioned the whole Africa story, I guess we can get into more of now how were they able to flourish and take Route more, but the men in that exploratory committee, did they just spin the globe and put their finger down? Or do they have any leads to why they started where they did do? Do you recall that at all? Well, it was, I think it was decided that through the committee's initial research during those four years, they kind of landed on Japan, and Africa, Japan, because of again, I think, partly because of the military personnel in the Korean War was just getting started and everything. They were just a lot of military there, too. So kind of combining the two military and admission potential. And then Africa, I think they had had discussions with various other groups. I mean, there were a few other places in Africa that they kind of had feelers out for but it was eventually decided that they'd send this to man team, and they'd start in South Africa. And just they had they had a few connections, and they check out those areas. And eventually, each, each area, each law in the way they'd get kind of like to check out this place. So I did check out this place. And eventually they were looking for a place where there really wasn't another church established that you didn't have you weren't going to have some kind of rivalry or competition. Where can we go where nobody has been been working at this time. So they eventually found that interesting, the initial place they found was called the hook of the coffee. I was part of it was a river in Zambia. But by the time we were able to get men over there, that region had already been snatched up, I think, by the Presbyterians or something. But there was another neighboring region and in that what was then called northern region idea that the Senate ended up doing its work and kind of center and began in Lusaka and eventually spread to other obviously other villages and towns and Bush areas throughout Zambia. All right, very interesting. And I'm sure there could be a whole nother topic in and of itself, like you said, there's already been research on just those those missions, but are very, very interesting to see how they got started. And I'm gonna go on a little tangent here, but I'm just kind of looking at the numbers. You know, Wisconsin Senate was founded in 1854, at least, officially, the Constitution was ratified, then. And it's only in the 1950s, that world missions take take root outside of the United States. And that's 100 years of not doing world missions. And I guess, if you don't know the answer that off the top of your head, that's fine. I'm just kind of curious. Do you think that's because they had that kind of theological question. If no one calls us we shouldn't go? Or was it more of the attitude of? Well, we have the Synoptical conference in the Missouri Synod, the bigger people are probably handling world missions, we'll just handle what we can handle locally, or was it kind of a both and attitude? I think it was a both and, well, I'm not so sure was as much theological, because already back in, you know, eight, when the when those guys have been enjoying this inaugural conference of this inaugural conference in 1872. Its purpose was let's work together and do and do some new mission work. Now they decided initially to do mission work among the African American African Americans in the South, in the 18, late 1870s. When the Wisconsin senate is on better footing, because part of it was I think, we're just trying to get our a handle on serving the people that we have around us and the German immigrants that are coming over, being able to handle financially and manpower and resources to go somewhere else is a little more difficult by 1892. When they weren't when they come together with the Michigan and Minnesota citizens to form a federation, one of the first things they do is okay, let's do mission work. And they decided we'll go to the Apaches and they found the Apache Reservation in Arizona. So it's I don't think it's for lack of mission spirit. I think some of its a lot of it was resources. They they were doing work well through this Niagara conference. When Nigeria when the work began in Nigeria in 1930s. And 1930s, the Wisconsin Senate have supplied a lot of manpower for that, in fact, the Chief Superintendent of that Nigeria admission was at Wisconsin Synod man, William sheppy. The Wisconsin Synod was also doing work throughout the 30s, among Lutherans who were in Poland. And so there was a couple of pastors that were working over there. So there was that it was just there were voices within the Senate that felt really strongly that we've got to go overseas, we got to do foreign overseas mission work. And there were others who said, Well, maybe let's make sure we've got all our ducks in a row first, and maybe we should wait for someone to say come over and help us. That's kind of how the work had gotten started in Nigeria in the 30s. It was kind of a group in Nigeria, that said, come over and help us. So I think there was a bit of that. We want the Macedonian call kind of thing. But it ends up being through the exploratory work, at least in Africa, those two men and Wacker and hey, Nikki, that eventually led to the start of work in Zambia and then spreading to Malawi. Yeah, it's probably a little unfair then to say, well, totally unfair to say that the Wisconsin Center didn't do any mission work for 100 years. It's just not a an accurate picture. I think sometimes maybe people get that impression when they hear our first world, you know, World Mission was in the 50s and Africa that maybe seems that way. But yeah, that's a lot of good context that you've added to that. And I'll say that was part of the reason for my, I think a little bit of the underlying reason for my paper was thesis was to kind of say, ya know, we were doing mission work quite a while before that. And it wasn't like we were even just, all of a sudden, it's after the break with Missouri that all of a sudden, we're going out into all the states. We're endeavoring, even through some hardships in the 30s and 40s. To do mission work. We get into some new states in the 50s in the 1950s. And of course, the catalyst is going to be the break with Missouri, to go into all the states in a much more rapid, rapid way. And I think there were other contributing factors to like the mobility of society in America that really accelerated in the 50s and 60s, led to led to that happening as well. Yeah. Good point. So I think maybe we can talk about then what you had just been mentioning now, now that we've discussed foreign missions. You know, the Wisconsin Senate, as you pointed out, had always had its hands For starting, were organizing new congregations and sending pastors there, you just read the history of, of the center, that's pretty much all they're doing is setting pastors to new communities where new towns are being built. And I think it's important for people to realize you live in 21st century America, you know, you drive down the interstate, and you've got all these communities. While they've always been, there always will be, well, that just wasn't the case in the 1800s. At all. You had nothing there as far as a city or a settlement was concerned. And then suddenly, there is one. And who's going to organize the church here that took a lot of work for decades, just as settling, because there's the frontier thesis, I suppose, of American history in general. But that kept the Wisconsin SideRed occupied domestically. And there's more than enough to do with the immigrant population coming in millions and millions of immigrants coming into the Midwest, plenty to do for the Wisconsin Senate. But as you mentioned, it's why you kind of make 1929 that turning point is the German immigration kind of dries up significantly, we're no longer a German speaking, centered primarily, it's certainly happening for many more decades. But we're now more a little more mainstream, speaking English. So can you talk us through how is this shift initiated in the 1930s and 40s, to move out of the so called Heartland out of the Midwest to other areas, and then I guess we can talk about Florida, California, and then eventually the every state by 78. But let's start in the 30s and 40s. domestically. Well, again, the challenge was just it's the biggest challenges to having having finances, the finances, but there was a desire to expand work in Arizona. And so that happened, you go from by the time you get done by the time you get to the early 40s. It was Arizona is able to have enough congregations to form its own pastors conference and I think even Michigan Michigan conference. Coming out in Nebraska, there was there and and Arizona for that matter, the Colorado was viewed as a good spot and so that we first get into Colorado in the 1930s. One of the more interesting finds that I came across was this 10 page report to pastors who did an exploratory trip into Colorado and just all the different places they found and that eventually led to a number of congregations founded and again, by the early 40s, you have the California Mission District being established to manage all the new the new missions in Colorado. Plus, you had ongoing mission work in the Dakota Montana's Dakota or the Dakotas and out in the Pacific Northwest to some extent. So it's kind of building what you had. You also had even in the heartland you still were looking for places to start mission. So you had some new ones started even in the Milwaukee area. I found one of the more fascinating ones because I was passed through Manitowoc, just knowing the history there. That first German and Manitowoc was was lauded by the Mission Board as as a kind of a neat example of carrying out mission work just by a local congregation. They got started. They were the City Church down downtown Manitowoc. And then they found they helped pretty much funded and founded Bethany Lutheran which is on that which was on the west side in an area where a lot of homes were growing going up because of workers who are building the submarines that were being constructed in, in Manitowoc. And then they were part of they were also part of the group that stepped or helped start another church on the north side of Manitowoc in the 40s. So you had numerous efforts going on just in in a town of a town like Manitowoc. But there were those mission efforts that were taking place. So they were just, again trying to find use the resources they had and trying to find places where they could where they could start new congregations. Alright, so what can you tell us about into the so called Sunshine, sunshine states? You already mentioned California a little bit. Florida, I think many so called Heartland congregations have a lot of members who have their congregations who are also in Florida or Arizona these days? It seems to be that there are quite a few opportunities down there. Well, how do we get into to the Florida area? Let me start with Cal if I can just talk California quickly. California was the interesting thing there was there had been apparently sort of a gentlemen's agreement between a couple of recent similar Wisconsin Synod guy back in the I think the early 19 first decade of the 1900s kind of seat kind of saying Wisconsin Synod you take care of Arizona and was in Missouri will take care of California, and then held true to about 1930 When Missouri Synod finally started some congregations in in Arizona took until 1950 for the Wisconsin Senator to go into California. And the Missouri Senate was fine with us doing that because they said oh there's plenty of work to do here. I'm to come out and even Missouri Synod pastors were even very helpful to our to the first Wisconsin Synod missionaries, so they didn't see it as competition. The Florida situation is a little a little more interesting, just the whole story behind it. And this is where, you know, extended Synod policies and things like that come into play that the whole mission, the Senate, the Senate had had a policy that basically said, you can't leap frogs states, when you're starting new churches. The reason you can go to California was because you already had you already had worked in Arizona. And the reason why Arizona was leapfrogged because of the Apache reservation. So that was kind of the exemption. But there was a desire, there was kind of a get a sort of Macedonian call type of thing in Florida, with with people who are wintering down there, Wisconsin Center members who are wintering down there, and particularly a guy named Louis, who was a member at the church in Collin Michigan, near your Bay City and Saginaw, and was on the district Mission Board in in the Michigan district. And so the Michigan district kind of took the Michigan district mission boards or took it on themselves, found a little loophole, I guess, in the policy that allowed for exploratory work to be done. And so they went in February of I think it was 55. Or 5454 55. They wanted an exploratory trip down to Florida. They were gone for a little over a week, Louis, I drilled them around, they pretty much went throughout the whole state trying to, you know, what's the situation where might we be able to start missions, that sort of thing. And they caught a little flack for it seems that there was some criticism that they were taking a winter vacation. And they had to kind of defended themselves a little bit in there. And one of their reports that no, you don't travel this far and, and do all this, if you're on vacation, and by the way, Paul accepted money and did mission and did exploratory works to kind of some slack. And then they ended up calling a pastor down there from the church and could call in to the pastor there took the call down to Florida. And there was still some debate amongst the from the Senate mission boards in the district Mission Board. Was this orderly was this maybe taking steps that shouldn't have been taken quite yet. The Senate the congregation's, and the Michigan district raised funds to help build the first church building. So it was just kind of a fascinating story. And eventually, things all seemed to get settled down. I think it took a special meeting somewhere along the line. All you see in the minutes are the decisions that were made. You don't see the discussion that would happen, which I'm sure was judging from some of the letters that went back and forth that I found in the archives. Were probably it was probably a little bit heated. But they, in Christian brotherly discussions eventually hammered things out. And and so then you had a congregation and Pretty by the end of the 50s, I think you had three pastors in the forecast four or five congregations in Florida. And the work was taking off pretty quickly. All right. So I think that leaves us maybe one last major topic as far as just the content of your research is concerned. And that is got a catchy phrase with it. It's every state by 78. I've heard that somewhere. You probably were the one who taught me that phrase and church history sometime it just came up. But now you wrote your your thesis, including it. So what was this program? I think it's pretty easy to understand. That seems like the goal is that Wisconsin Senate was to be in every US state by 1978. Is that a fair guess? It's yeah. Yeah. I think it was right, if I remember. Right, right. The first time it shows up was in a report. I think it was a district I think it was this was a mission report or admission board minutes or something like that by Ray Wickman. Who was the 1963? I think it was he was called to be the first full time administrator or Executive Director of the of the whole mission program. And, again, it was it was really a catalyst from the break with Missouri because no longer could Wisconsin Synod pastors in good conscience, encourage their members to transfer to the local Missouri Senate congregation if they moved out and I was, you know, where there wasn't a Wisconsin Senate church. So you're gonna end up having Wisconsin senate members and a lot of locations, asking that the request just came flooding in can you provide us with a pastor can we start a mission in this place and this plate and so you see it happening? The Michigan district Mission Board, and this is where you know, organizational things take take a while for a while. Pretty much every congregation and mission east of the Mississippi more or less, was a part of the Michigan district So all the way down to Florida and all the way up the Atlantic seaboard, all those, all those churches were under the auspices of the Michigan district, eventually you'll have mission mission districts formed. And then eventually 1973, you'll have the South Atlantic district, and then North Atlantic district gets founded in 1983. And then there'll be one in South Central, which basically is Texas and Oklahoma. But you just have this, this drive to get to get churches founded. And most of the time, it's going to be in the kind of kind of ideas, let's let's start a congregation in a city and then try to circle the city with churches and missions in the suburbs. So you'll see that like in Houston, there'll be a congregation in Houston proper. And then pretty soon there are other missions started, you know, in the suburbs, Dallas, the same thing, Las Vegas, just just a number of urban urban areas that you see that not as much out east that was a little bit harder, a little bit of a harder, harder goal. In the in the northeast, New England states, Mid Atlantic, those were a little bit more difficult to get things started. But for the most part, again, you see that just the efforts were made to get a congregation. And I think the last state was Maine, in late 1983, when you had a seminary graduate assigned there to start a mission in that region. So didn't quite make it by 78. But that was a that was a pretty aggressive goal at the time and figure in 1961. They're only in six early in 16. States. We get in manpower issues in the early 60s, which slowed things down, which slowed the start of things down. And then later we ended up having some financial challenges. One of the challenges was always how can we build just the request to build chapels and parsonages and the finance, the financial infrastructure that goes into all that. And so there was always kind of a backlog of requests to get funding for church for for the building of churches, and there were various Senate fun drives that made efforts that made some impact on those things. And but it is rather remarkable how when you think of how much money the Wisconsin Synod spent, on church work, in those decades, just this kind of, it's kind of mind blowing in a way. Yeah. And a tie in to another episode that we've had and and you've brought it up more clearly in your thesis is Mark Browns work on tailor to synods. And one of the issues that you had brought up in your paper at least was the small synovitis of which is a interesting term. But we had, like many other smaller church groups, it seemed as if Wisconsin Senate had an inferiority complex, or even this fear that if we were on our own without another larger center to lean on, we would just collapse. And I know that Mark Browns paper kind of in the conclusion or somewhere said, you know, by the time we did every state by 78, it was almost like the opposite of, oh, yeah, we really can do, can do work. And we can be a national body. And that to the point of, of pride, hopefully, but just this idea that we can be faithful stewards, and God can bless bless this church body with great things. And I think that was kind of the takeaway I had from your paper. But anything else you want to say as far as the content? Maybe the final question is, in a sentence or two, what what made the expansion of wells missions in the 21st century seems so remarkable to you? I think it's just that, despite everything else that was going on in the Senate was dealing with, from the debt initially, to manpower challenges, to the doctoral controversy with the Missouri Synod. And then to all the building projects that were going on throughout the Senate from from the fanatical school level down to the local congregational level, that despite all of that, we go from, like I said, being in what 1214 states and having no overseas mission, or to being in all 50 states and having work in 10 foreign countries. And that all happens within the span of just over just over 50 years. That just is what seems kind of remarkable to me. I was looking at looking at some of the stats again, what's also interesting, especially in the decade after we broke with Missouri and the two decades after we broke with Missouri, we the Wisconsin Senate drew at a at a higher percentage rate than the Missouri Senate did. I think we were like 36%. And they were about 20 27%. And that also outpaced the growth of population in America. And it was at the same time when you think of the 60s and 70s There's this There's this rebelliousness against authority. There's the liberal illness that's occurring. The downward trend in a lot of the mainline you know, Methodist Presbyterians and so on are shrinking. And here the Wisconsin Senate who has made that stand in 1961, to be faithful to God's word, it was a difficult decision to make a break with the Missouri Senate. And we didn't go it we didn't, you know, cocoon ourselves into a into our own, you know, but we what we said, we got to take this message out, and the Lord bless the work that was able to be carried out. And I think in some ways, we're sitting in a certain in a similar situation today, in some ways. Yeah, the numbers aren't necessarily trending upward in every way today. But, yeah, there's definitely opportunities there and not to, that's not really my place to get into the stump for this. But you know, our senate is doing the 100 missions in 10 years initiative. So it seems to me like that was at least inspired in part by, well, that every state by 78, was a good program. We can't call it that again. But let's do something similar to that kind of continuing that that mission mindset that has been part of our heritage now for quite some time. Or right. So that is the main bulk of our every podcast episode is trying to get at least a feel for the content of your research. Now, there's no way we could cover everything, you have a lot of interesting details on statistics for those people who are interested in that. So I encourage everyone to get a hold on Professor Otto's paper, his thesis, which is available online. But now we're gonna get into the historian side of this historical research. So Professor Otto, how did you get started on this topic? Well, I had to have a topic for my master's thesis. So kind of starts out by necessity there. But I've always had an interest in this. Back in 1999, when I was pastored, Manitowoc, and we were at the 150th anniversary of this of the Wisconsin Senate I, I wrote a paper on kind of how the break with Missouri moved us forward and forward in Christ to the Senate. And that sort of just that research I did for that project. Back when I was a young, much younger pastor, and wasn't able to do quite the extensive research that I knew I'd have available for this project. But it just got me thinking and I just have always had an interest in, you know, our, the history of our Wisconsin Senate. And I thought this, this timeframe is critical history, critical time, and I like Michigan history, as well. And so that kind of got me started. Plus, when you go to school at another institution that is not familiar with your church body, it's sometimes fun to write something on your church body and give that institution and the people their, you know, some flavor of what of what our church body is about. Plus, then my advisor really didn't know anything I was writing about. So there's that aspect too. Right? You're gonna be challenged with every detail is what you're saying? Yeah, I mean, not that I would make stuff up, but but it is, it just is it just I love our church bodies history. And so having the opportunity to dig into it more was, was something I really wanted to do. So it's kind of self satisfying for you anyway, and had another purpose as well. All right. So what was your research method? Like you mentioned, you alluded to archives I saw in one of the footnotes you interviewed. One of the older professors is no longer with us. But yeah, what did that look like? Yeah, most I would say most of it was was archival work. Digging into meeting minutes, reports, report mission reports, letters, I found the correspondence that went back and forth. Just fascinating. Game give you kind of the personal side of things, and sometimes the the disputes and disagreements maybe at times that are going on, but also the encouragement that's given. So a lot of it was a lot of it was a lot of trips down to the wealth to the wealth archives. And digging around in there looking at some local histories and, and some of the papers that were written by bypassed seminary students for their church history paper, that used to be an assignment up until 2011 For every senior at the seminary, so that was pretty much I think that was pretty much it. You meant I mean, a couple of interviews but not I didn't do didn't do a lot of interviewing work. Most of it was archival work. Alright, so what were some challenges you faced in conducting conducting your research? Having to make trips out to the welds archives all the time, which is a pretty which is about a 45 minute drive from my house. had I gotten on the project in a more timely way when the archives were still We installed at the seminary that was a little bit easier. But it was just it gets it's, I don't want to say tedious. But you've done some of that work before you know how that is you dig and dig and finally find what you're looking for, or the thing that kind of hits you. But there's a lot of paging through one letter after another one report after another, try to find those gems of information that really helped that really help shed light on, on what was on what was happening. And, and every so often you find that cool discovery that Oh, all right, there it is. So those are I think some of the challenges that are archivist archivist at the seminary or at the Senate archives, Susan Williams are just super helpful was very helpful and, and things one of the, I suppose many other things was paging through in our old Northwestern Lutherans, the Senate's periodical just need to see the again, the reports that were given the information that's given the pictures that were in there kind of kind of shed some light on things as well. out very neat. So you mentioned that this is the excitement of finding like a gym, or something in your research. And I think anyone who does any primary source reach researching archival work, they kind of have both ends of that where the tedium maybe you're sneezing a lot from all the old dusty files that you're going through the paper the pages that haven't been opened for a quarter of a century or longer. But then you get that thing that gives you that aha moment and that excitement. So do you have an example or two of those gems that you found in your research that kind of just broke down some some barriers for you? I think a few things, neat thing to find was in the porter Montana district, there was this large, large map with pushpins in it. That indicated where there were cat where there were Wisconsin Synod congregations where there were Missouri Synod congregations that are color coded, color coded by whether it was a self supporting congregation, or whether it was a mission congregation or just a preaching station. So that was kind of interesting, gave you a little bit of a feel for where all the work was was happening. Some of the, like the exploratory reports, the report that was on the exploratory work going into Colorado, exploratory trip down to Florida, and the maps that they produced, you know, kind of showing where they were going and, and we're congregations ended up getting started. Some of the correspondence I would say, was enlightening to the letters going back and forth. And it's just especially going through like the Presidential presidential letters, just floored me how much work and time was spent by some of the Senate presidents answering letters. And sometimes as you're paging through them, they're coming from the same guy. The poor president must have just his heart must have sunk every time you saw the return address of certain from certain people, but but they patiently answered questions and return letters and, and thankful for those for the fact that they were such good record keepers and had all that down. So I think those are probably some of the maybe one other one was was finding a number of the so as your hand again, his efforts to pay down, you know, the encourage the Senate to pay down the debt, was tasked by the Senate to produce I guess he called them bulletins. They were they were newsletter type type of things that were sent out to all this. Anybody wanted them in the Senate, giving information about the Center's work and kind of showing different graphs and pictures about how the Senate's debt was being paid down. And what could be done once we get it paid down and finding a number of examples of those that it seemed like they there weren't too many of them around before that. So been able to discover some of those kinds of fun, still holding out hope. Hey, Nikki said in a letter that he that he wrote to somebody that I came across that he had all of them in his files. I could not find that file that had them all in there. So I don't know where that is. But love to find that one. Yeah, but maybe it's in an attic somewhere that someone will? Who knows? Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, that is good. That's part of the challenge to have or expect to find something and it's not there. But then you are pleasantly surprised when you find the things you didn't know existed. So final final section, as we just talked about Lutheran history in general, but maybe the last one on your paper, your thesis, in what ways do you believe your work has contributed to the broader wells historiography or any other area? I think you touched on it before kind of taking the modern, contemporary application. I just think you know are centered at times I think today is still in a play is In a place where at least was that, you know, what are we going to do what we've been experiencing decline in numbers we've been experiencing sometimes some financial troubles. Right now we're dealing with manpower shortages. Oh, woe is us, we can't do anything. So telling this story, the history of what happened in these in this these decades, and then in the 20th century, maybe is contributing to some encouragement or inspiration for doing something today that we can still do this. We, the Lord has given us this call, he will bless our efforts to get the gospel out there. I'm hoping that it contributed at least to kind of bringing together some of the mission stories that that have been told in different disparate ways, trying to bring it together maybe in a more coherent, or some kind of narrative that maybe is something that that people will be able to read and then see some ideas, maybe for future, some for some future study. All right. Do you have any leads for people if you think there's future study to do what what that might look like? One of the top one of the things that it'd be interesting, it would take some, somebody who, who has patients to sift through stat reports and mission reports. Just, you know, we started all these missions, especially in the 60s and 70s, and 80s. But not all of them, you know, turned into still, you know, functioning congregations that are still in existence today. It'd be curious, I'd be interested to see what happened to some of those. Where did they end up? How did they you know, how long did they last? That kind of a study I think would have some would have some interest? Or they would be worthwhile I should say? I think any kind of history on personally, I think there are a lot of area Lutheran high schools that could use some historical treatment, a little bit different from maybe what I would I studied but as far as I look at the general general topic or general history, historiography of our church body, I think I think those are some areas that could use some study at and just maybe in general, you know, it's just kind of fun to you know, a certain different congregate like your congregation in Kenai, Alaska. I'm sure you've done some historical work on that and just kind of neat to see little short articles on some of those histories of local congregations. Like that I think wouldn't be wouldn't be helpful to our son and that's hopefully what we're gonna be able to do ideally with our with the new website for those wells Historical Institute. I just checked out that website the other day, and it looks like it's had some overhaul already and it looks very professional, very interesting. Looks like there's gonna be a lot of material on that. God willing in the in the next years, and so if you want to contribute anything faster films, yes, feel free. I've always got something cooking, but we'll see. We'll see where it goes. So But back to you then finally, do you have any upcoming projects in Lutheran history that you're working on? At this time? I just completed an article that'll be in the forthcoming discusses and quarterly on Martin Chemnitz. So that was my most recent project. i One of the projects I would like to write on is the history of the orphanage and esport on the Apache Reservation East Fork. Again, because of some personal interest with my with my grandma's my grandmother, Otto, went there and served there for a while. And to my knowledge, there hasn't been a comprehensive history of that, of that of that work. So that might be something I tackle next. I'm also going to be thinking a couple years I'm tasked with giving a presentation on the history of Northwestern College in Watertown. I think that's for the 2000 2025 So that's a little bit down the road but So like you said, there's always some some irons in the fire in different ways. And all all kinds of different irons to not one of those are particularly related to one another. But all interesting though. Yeah, I'm kind of a jack of all trades here at Wisconsin Lutheran seminary, I teach great this this current calendar year, at least current school year, I'll end up teaching at least one section of all three major church history class courses, so sounds like fun. I'm the guy. I'm the guy who's been here the longest now so that's what happens, I guess. Oh, there you go. All right. Well, thank you, Professor Otto for spending some time with us today and for sharing a bit of your research. Happy to do so. Ben and God's blessings to you and your and your historical research and your your ministry to God's people in Kenai. Alright, thank you. Now just a brief note to our audience who are listening today. I just want to let you know we've up Did every episode description so it has links for our website, Facebook page, email, and our YouTube channel. There are also links to support the show through Patreon and also Lutheran history shop where you can get gifts for yourself while supporting the show. This episode we get to give a shout out to our newest patron on Patreon MJ Hinman. Thank you MJ for choosing to support Lutheran history. Tune in with us next month and you'll hear another