Lead Time
Lead Time
WILD Stuff Happening in the LCMS with Nick Graff
Embark on a journey of cultural discovery and faith with Nick Graff, a retired Marine and esteemed Arabic linguist, on the latest Lead Time episode. As a valued mind in the Unite Leadership Collective, Nick unravels the threads that intertwine Arab identity and Islamic belief, challenging us to forge nuanced perspectives. His tale is one of a Midwesterner turned worldly sage, whose military service and theological quests have culminated in a profound understanding of both the universal quest for righteousness and the deeply personal nature of leadership and faith.
Our conversation plunges into the heart of Christianity, tackling the often-uncomfortable topic of hypocrisy within the faith. Reflecting on Matthew's parable of the unforgiving servant, we grapple with the complex dance of scripture, context, and the human tendency to cling to grievances. This episode doesn't shy away from the hard truths about our need for grace over deeds and the transformative power of forgiveness. As we navigate these spiritual waters, we affirm the centrality of self-examination and the liberating embrace of grace that defines our journey as Christians.
Amidst the shifting sands of worship styles and the challenges facing the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, we address the pressing need for doctrinal integrity and the nurturing of faith in our communities. We dive into the dynamic of theological education, the cultural adaptation of liturgy, and the vitality of Lutheran schools in the face of secularization. Join us as we call on leaders to embrace diversity with courage and humility, placing Christ at the core of our mission. Connect with the ongoing conversation that spans leadership, faith, and the intricate tapestry of modern cultural engagement, right here on Lead Time.
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Leigh Time is a podcast of the Unite Leadership Collective, hosted by Tim Ollman and Jack Caliber. The ULC envisions the future in which all congregations fully equip the priesthood of all the leaders through world-class leadership development at the local level. Leigh Time taps into biblical wisdom for practical solutions to today's burning issues. Each podcast confronts real-time struggles facing the local church and a post-Christian culture. Step into the action with the ULC at uniteleadershiporg. This is Leigh Time.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Leigh Time Tim Ollman here with Jack Caliber. Today, we have the unique honor and privilege to have as a partner in the Gospel one who's been contributing to the Unite Leadership Collective, our work, a couple of blogs, one recently that came out called the Unforgiving Slave. We have Nick Graff with us today. If you missed his podcast, you can go over to the American Reformation Podcast that came out a few months ago now, but Nick and I have developed a relationship from afar. He is also a retired from the Marines and then served GS-14.
Speaker 2:For those of you who don't know what that is, it's like a Lieutenant Colonel, just a high-level military leader who now is on a new journey, digging into deep theology. Tell us, though, what your role you just told Jack, as you guys were getting to know one another. You're an Arabic linguist when you were in the military, and I think so for a lot of folks. You're really well read, bro, and, as you're going to hear, well spoken as well. How did your time, though, before we get into the blog? How did your time like be an Arabic linguist student? How was that shaping kind of your theological mind today, if at all, nick? Thanks for joining us, bro.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I appreciate it, Tim, and it's great to obviously be on here with Jack. So we, yeah, so I had a great foundation and so I had a wonderful pastor and church workers. Growing up. I didn't get any kind of catechesis in the home, but I certainly got it at school and I certainly got it at church, and so when I got into a situation where I was actually joined the Marine Corps, I was learning the Arabic language, I was exposed to Islam and I really, through my teachers and it's also pretty important in learning the Arabic language, to really understand some of the basic tenets of Islam and then, when you apply that to an intelligence context, it's important to understand people's motivations and those sorts of things. So I really looked at it as an opportunity to sort of engage in a sort of a deep theological study to the extent that I possibly could of Islam, and the reason that I felt comfortable doing that is because I was so well grounded and confessional Lutheranism, thanks to the people who invested in me when I was a child.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, and then learning Arabic, getting out into the force as soon as probably two or three years after I graduated 9-11 happened, and so I was immediately thrust into this never ending global war on terror, and it was really. It gave me an opportunity to really see people for who they are, see even when the world, but also see the good in the world, see that they're. You know you can't paint everyone with a broad brushstroke. You know it alters my perspective of how I view what's happening in Israel right now. You know, I know that. You know, not all Palestinians are represented by Hamas, and there's a good deal of one. There's a good deal of Christian Palestinians and two. You know, just because we are Christians doesn't automatically necessitate support for the political state of Israel. So there's, you know, a lot of things that I wouldn't say it shaped my theology at all, but it, but certainly my theology is shaped, the way that I've viewed the world and I think that's probably the way that we want to do this. You know, as a rule, hopefully.
Speaker 4:When you did your study of Islam, was that in a school context or just kind of a self study? How did that go?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So you know it's kind of interesting. You end up, I think for the basic course we were basically studying Arabic eight hours a day, five days a week for 63 weeks, and so you can imagine you've got Christmas breaks in there and all those sorts of things. So it's an immersive experience. So you, you generate a relationship with your teachers, and so you know if you've only got five or six teachers who are teaching, you know, rotating in and out, you quickly develop a relationship with these people and so you know getting to see the wide swath that being an Arab represents Arab. Arab is a language. Being an Arab means you speak Arabic. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're a Muslim. It doesn't necessarily mean anything really. So getting a chance to engage in, you know, I wouldn't call it ecumenicism by any state, but having an exchange of ideas is pretty important and so, yeah, Are there any like commonly held misconceptions that people have?
Speaker 3:as you were kind of getting in there and maybe learning some aha moments, yeah, you know, I think for me I have a tendency to really put everything in two buckets. I have a tendency to say, like you know, either it's this religion is based on worksrighteousness or it's based on grace, and so, really peeling back, you know, people talk about God's mercy all the time, catholics talk about grace frequently, but when you really peel back the onion, what you find at the very center of it is worksrighteousness, and that was the same for Islam, and that was sort of seeing through. The top dressing of God's mercy was one thing. And then, you know, I'm a Midwestern kid. We didn't. I went to a Lutheran school. I went to a Lutheran high school. We were reflective of our general Senate's racial composition, so I had absolutely no exposure to, you know, people of other faiths, people of other ethnicities at all. So I think we had one African American kid in our school of 700. So, yeah, so so getting getting out in the world and being able to see people, getting you know, working on a team and getting to see that, you know, I think diversity in our Senate is is kind of a bad word, but I would say that anytime, if you don't value diversity, I would say you've never done anything sufficiently complicated. So when you really really get to it, having all those different perspectives is pretty important.
Speaker 3:I don't know, tim, I don't know if I ever told you this story, but I took over a platoon one time and we're getting ready to do a pretty dangerous operation into the middle of the Atlantic for a training operation one night and we had a bunch of new guys, and so the idea was we were going to helo cast, which means just jumping out of a helicopter, pretty low off the deck, into the middle of the Atlantic in the middle of the night, pretty dangerous. And we used to do this thing called a before action review. So we brief our operations plan and everybody else would red team it. And so I looked on a sea of faces that looked just like me and everybody this guy briefed his ops plan and everybody was in violent agreement. And it was that point where I realized I needed some better diversity of thought, because you know, this is a dangerous thing and if, if everybody's just like, yeah, that makes sense because they're all coming at it from the same perspective, then we're going to. It's a dangerous situation.
Speaker 2:So yeah, that's that's so good and really colors the the, I think, value you're bringing to the wider conversation now in the in the LCMS. So let's dig into your blog. If, for those that haven't read it, it's called the Unforgiving Slave, it came out gosh back in October. Now this is probably being released around 2024, close to that, at least. So what inspired you to write that, that really well written blog, the Unforgiving Slave, on one of your favorite parables of Jesus?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's one of my favorites because I think that we needed to be reminded and just to catch everybody up in case they haven't read it and in case they haven't read the the parable in a while. So here we have, you know, jesus, the perfect law giver, right. And so there's not a lot of gospel in this, and it's it. And I'm a, you know, I'm gospel first and foremost, but this is one of my favorites because what we have is a servant or a slave going into a king who's settling his debts, and he begs and pleads for mercy, and the king gives him mercy, forgives his debts. As soon as he leaves the king's court, he walks out, finds someone who owes him money and basically chokes him and demands his payment right, and the king brings him back in and sells him and his wife into, you know, whatever kind of bondage and he's immediately back into debt. And so the idea here we have the overriding theme of Matthew's gospel. Aside from secondary to the ministry of Jesus Christ, we have the abhorrence of hypocrisy. And so, you know, matthew, coming from his perspective, is constantly being attacked by Pharisees who believe that they are holier and more righteous than Matthew is as a tax collector, and so Matthew's gospel just cannot stand in any way, shape or form, any kind of hypocrisy, and so he calls it out frequently. So this is really about our hypocrisy. As Lutherans who live literally live in God's grace, we are given a free gift. We have earned it not through our faith, not through any works we've done in any way, shape or form, and yet we hold on to the transgressions that other people have committed against us. And it was kind of shocking to me on a Tuesday night Bible study and after that Sunday service my pastor preached a great sermon. He's not real comfortable with it either, because, you know, if this is your gospel reading and there's no gospel in it, it makes for a tough Sunday, and the dictionaries do that to people sometimes. This Sunday was another great example.
Speaker 3:If you're in lectionary series A. We had the bride and the bridegroom, and the brides have to, you know, be ready for the bridegroom coming back, and if they're not, then it's problematic. So this really unsettles a Christian's peace. And so one of the things that has always concerned me is that when we say soul of scripture and we mean it we mean that the scripture is primary, but we don't mean the scripture is it. And so we have to always do any kind of exegesis with the full analogy of faith at our disposal. And so when we read the unforgiving slave, unforgiving servant, we have to remember that, you know, we get this warning, this dire warning, from Christ, but when we read this in the full analogy of the faith, we come up with a different conclusion than if you just read the parable out of context.
Speaker 3:And so, on a Tuesday night Bible study, there were, you know, we were getting ready to start, and there was great concern over this parable. You know, I haven't forgiven my sister from 50 years ago, who you know did this, and I haven't talked to my you know whatever and however many years. And so, you know, people started to it really unsettled, the peace that they should have as Christians. And so what I wanted to do was, one, reinforce the fact that, if you feel convicted by this parable, you probably should and you should make a change. And then, two, that you're always remember that your, that your spiritual righteousness, your justification, is no act that you can do, like there's literally nothing that you can do to be righteous before God.
Speaker 3:And so I wanted to write this really to make people feel a little bit better because, you know, I think a lot of times we worry about, like, impendent tense, and that seems to be one of the things that a lot of people in our church are worried about today, especially people who tend to be a little more legalistic and a little more pietistic. They worry about impendent tense but I think that our fallen state, our human reason, our logic, condemns us all the time. I think the law is written in our hearts, I think we know it. I think what we have a hard time believing is the gospel, and so what I wanted to do was just put people's minds at ease, really, and I've also heard pastors who have an issue with this. You know it's not their favorite parable. They kind of dread it when it comes up in electionaries.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, having experienced that, Apart from connection to the wider story of faith, like if you're just reading this story, apart from understanding a creator who's going to send back his son to recreate all things in the last day and were his until that day comes by grace, through faith in the waters of baptism unless you know that wider narrative, you will read all law into a story story like that. So I love the way you kind of I know you're not, you're not a pastor yet, but on a, on a journey toward in the future you very pastorally shepherded that group of people with the laws on your heart.
Speaker 2:It's meant to. It's meant to, yes, kill and crush, and yet also, if the Lord brings something up for you to love your neighbor, to reconcile with your neighbor, go and act on it. Absolutely Anything more to add, though, to that, jack.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm just thinking deeply about the parable itself and actually like what the heck's going on there? Because this servant is forgiven and they go out and they unforgive, right, and so what you have is kind of a breakdown in identity.
Speaker 4:Yeah they're failing to see the identity in this other person which is their own identity and actually like recognizing that in another. And so that's at the heart of the hypocrisy, right and I think that's where we get to connect it back to the gospel again is like okay, now what is your identity? Right? Yeah, Forgiven, unforgiving, undeserving servant, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you know, jack. You know, one of the things that I didn't write this in the blog post, but one of the things that I've always that parable is always reminded me of is I always think, like what, if I was that unforgiving servant, why would I walk out of there and demand payment from someone else? And the reality is, because I don't believe I'm forgiven. Yeah, right, like I walked out of the community.
Speaker 4:Did you really forget more? Do I? Yeah, do I still need to get this money to pay it later? Right, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I think that that's at the heart of this is that we have a lot of people who don't really truly believe that they are forgiven, and that's an absolute key to repentance is contrition and of faith that they have been forgiven for their transgressions.
Speaker 1:Let's say it leaves no room.
Speaker 4:It leaves no room for us to pretend that we can't see ourselves in that story, right? It cuts to the bone.
Speaker 2:Right, yes, absolutely. Repentance. I've been thinking a lot about repentance and the way the Hebrew scriptures and then how the Greek word that's used for repentance. This was the new, new learning for me. So in the Hebrew it's an about face. You're going one direction. You recognize this is. This is leading me toward darkness and despair. The law is shining before me, the Holy Spirit turns me around and I see the loving embrace of Jesus, who claims me as his own. So it's just kind of turning. But in the Greek it's Meta Noia, which Meta above Noia, to know. So it's to set your mind on things above. This is Colossians 1, right, where Christ is. It's a kind of an elevation. And what elevates us, nick, it is the gospel of Jesus Christ and the forgiveness of sins. Where there's forgiveness of sins, there's life and salvation. Right. So it's the. Oh, my goodness, I know deeply what I deserve and yet I've been forgiven absolutely everything and I've been invited to the banquet with with the King. I'm thinking of the. The Luke 15, right. And the. The prodigal son. Like I have this older son tendency to me, like I don't know if I want to go into the party. Where's my party? Right? No, no, no, the party is there, the banquet's being thrown like come and take your, your rightful place, not because of what you've done, but because of the declaration of the sun for for you. So, yeah, this legalistic tendency is so ingrained in us and we're.
Speaker 2:This is the podcast of the United Leadership Collective. A lot of folks in the LCMS are listening, but you could go off on either direction right In a, in a super, super, oh, open, open or you could be no, no, no. It looks like this. There is, there is a room for all to be crushed in this conversation and every tongue to be silenced, that the voice of Jesus would would be preeminent in, in and through us today. So, from your perspective, what are some of your, your strengths, as you're looking at, we're all within the family, so we need to be sensitive for those who are within the family. But some of the strengths for us, culturally in the LCMS, theologically in the LCMS I think there's a lot to be said. That's beautiful and some of our challenges right now, especially considering the times, nick, in 2023.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I mean, I plain and simple our theology, our confessions. You know, especially, you know I'm working you know I think I mentioned this and I'm working on a systematic theology for, for children who are going through confirmation. And so right now, when I'm sent that, I'm working on the hypostatic union and the Guinness Myestotica for kids. You know what I'm saying. So how do you, how do you synthesize, you know, chemnitz and Peeper and make them accessible to children and that, and that's that's what I'm working on right now. But those theologians are phenomenal and people need to read them and and plain and simple, and or at a minimum, actually open the book of Concord and read what it is that we believe, teach and confess, and those are. That is our strength, period, end of story. And it's the common thing that every, every pastor swears to, to to believe, teach and confess what's in the book of Concord. That's a faithful exposition of, of holy scripture, and so I think that's our, that's what unites us. I think that that is the common thread and and in 2023, you know, I think that there is, I think that there's a push and pull in both directions. I think we have some, you know, I'll just say some, some relatively extreme views on either side. One is to say, you know, take, you know. Basically, sin is, you know, sin is not something that we really need to worry about because we live through grace and that we should. We should not, you know, have any sort of piety at all as Lutherans. That's, nobody says that, but that's what I think they mean. And then the other extreme would be this pietism that is taken hold in certain geographical areas within our Senate. I think that that's one of the things that we're going to have to overcome.
Speaker 3:I think we're still dealing with the outfall of the fallout of Seminex in some sense, because when you jettison, by whatever means, a large portion of the Senate that you know, you know, obviously we don't want to have the higher critical method being taught in our, our seminaries, but those people had with them a different worldview as well, and when you completely jettison that worldview, what's left is people who are on one particular side of a teeter totter ideal ideologically, and so that tends to just get self-reinforcing over time.
Speaker 3:And so what we have now is what's left post Seminex is a very pietistic influence and it's in it, and we've we fought this battle before. But what I think, what I think the Senate needs to be able to do intra-Senate, is be able to push back against those, those individuals, in the same way that they push back against higher criticism. And just because you happen to side with them on matters of, say, abortion, human sexuality and, you know, say, worship forms, forms of worship doesn't necessarily mean that you've bought the entire, the entirety of their pietistic sort of agenda or ideology. So, yeah, I mean we could dig into that if we want. But you know, I'm gonna have to start naming names at some point.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah. Well, let's not name names, but let's talk. Let's talk issues. Yeah, as you look at the broader landscape of the LCMS, let's get more specific. Where you could see a overly pietistic leaning around various issues, and I think it's in response to the the increase in secularism that's taking root in the United States. Go ahead.
Speaker 3:Nick, yeah, yeah, well, and I would just say too that, just because you know, if you take a view that, whatever the world does, I'm going to oppose it, what you end up doing is letting the world influence you in a very profound and meaningful way, and that's what I think that some of the pietistic influences in our Senate have done. I think they've. You know, I don't question their sincerity, but I do question their theology and their wisdom. And I will say this you know, one of our greatest strengths as a Senate, as like Senate Inc, is our education system, and that's literally pre-K through, you know, the Concordia University system, all the way through our seminaries, and those are under attack right now, and what we're left with is a pretty concerted effort, a narrative, to really undermine trust and confidence in the Concordia University system. There is it is not a coincidence that Luther Classical College is opening in the fall of 2025, as the Concordia University system has come under attack, and I will tell you that we may not always agree, you know, from the outside, looking in, with some of the decisions that people you know the church workers and ordained pastors within the Concordia University system have made, but I think we have to trust that they have made, to the extent possible, the best decision available in the context. And so so what? What we now have is sort of dueling university tracks, one which will actually end up in fewer church workers or church workers who have been radicalized in some sense, in a monastic gulag is what I would call it and then unleashed on.
Speaker 3:Unleashed on our seminaries. I think that's the point. Yeah, yeah, jack, jack and Tim, I think, I think when we retire, I think I think their plan is that when we're sitting on a call committing someday, the only people we have to choose from that are available for a call are some of these pastors that they flooded our seminaries with. And I'll give you, I'll give you one example, and I think, I think that there's a big difference between our two seminaries, unfortunately. But I'll give you one example I was watching the installation day in Fort Wayne, and the opening prayer was three lines long and mentioned sanctification twice, justification, zero times, and so that's. I think that's problematic. I mean, this is the, the, the opening prayer for the. You know, the beginning of the school year, the installation of new people within the, within the seminary, new professors, etc. Etc. And if we think that we've skipped past justification, that we're just on the sanctification road. There's it really starts to have been calvinist.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we do. Well, it has very Catholic infused grace kind of feel to it as well. Yeah, so I'm not sure we should be praying for justification every day and every way, because we need it moment to moment. So, yeah, I just, yeah, go ahead, tim.
Speaker 2:No, I'm reading a book. I just got a book Healthy Conrogations. It's one to dust off the listener. If you haven't, haven't taken a look at it. It was written back in by Pete Stanky back in 2000.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no, wow, 1996, from the Albin Institute, and it's it's family systems theory, and just how do we maintain differentiation and connection and how do we maintain peace so that we can keep our heads heads about us. But what it talks about uses the analogy of the immune system in how the body takes care of itself. Our immune system is very, very helpful and it it goes in and recognizes what is of us, what is of a healthy body, what's leading us to thrive, and what is an external force that's come in, you know, a germ, a pathogen of some sort, right. And so the immune system kind of separates what is what is from what should not be a part of that body. And the same thing happens within Conrogations and and Synod. Now the fascinating part there's also something called an autoimmune response, right, sometimes from within we can end up no-transcript, misappropriating what is us. This should be a part of us. Why? Because it's leading us to be balanced, it's leading us to be healthy. So there needs to be, within a congregational setting, the ability to challenge with love and care and respect.
Speaker 2:If we see something at the local level or the Synod level, it would be unkind of us to not speak. But right now, I think in the LCMS, we have this we've divided ourselves into various camps and we're only speaking to those who agree with us. We need to let the immune system work to bring us to the center, which is Christ, which is the foundational principle of the Scriptures, which is our justification by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Anything that moves out on a legalistic or a pietistic or heretical, we're compromising Scripture in some way or another. We need to have an immune function that draws us back to the middle, or else we're going to end up eating ourselves, destroying ourselves. I think that's a helpful analogy for what we're walking through today. Any response to that, nick?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean it's really a really difficult thing to do. I mean, I think some of these, some of being able to have this sort of ecclesiastical supervision, is something that we don't have in its result of our polity. Our polity was formed really, you know, walter did his best, but I mean he had some trying situations and we're still living out. You know, they have a saying that says you know, bad case makes bad law, and so Walter trying his best to put this thing together in the wake of the Bishop's Define issue really resulted in the polity we have today. And you know, there is almost no way, no mechanism other than hoping that a district president will step in to fix some of these issues, and so we, you know, other than a congregation, fixing it there really is no ecclesiastical.
Speaker 4:Can you get more specific on that, nick? Like when you talk about stepping in and like what type of an issue would you say?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I'll give you an example. I think it was probably at the Casper Wyoming Airport Marriott Conference Center, but it was supposed to be Luther Classical College. But they had a guest speaker who was a former professor at one of our seminaries, who got up and said the reason that the LCMS is having issues is because we allowed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to pass. What, yeah, and so? Former professor of exegesis, and so that's ridiculous. And so, basically, the idea was that the demographics in our neighborhoods changed, and they did, and that those demographics didn't support the Lutheran Church in their neighborhood. Well, the Lutheran Church in their neighborhood, the reality is, didn't reach out to them, didn't reach out to the changing demographics of their neighborhood, and instead decided to be insular and German. And that's really the problem. But you can't, yeah, but I mean, this wasn't like a, this was a prepared lecture that he was giving, and so who am I going to call His district president? He doesn't care, so he's let this thing happen.
Speaker 3:So then, what do I do? Go to Senate Inc. They're not so, and it's problematic. And let me tell you why it's problematic. I have a large group of unchurched Guatemalan immigrants in my area in Tuscaloosa. If one of the people that I'm reaching out to and, mind you, because of the political climate in America, they're told that we all want to deport them Like, don't trust white people, and that's completely reasonable, because all they hear on the news is this idea of deportation. If I go to those guys and they stumble across this video, I can't disown this guy. He is a pastor and good standing in our Senate and he is a former professor at our seminary, so there's not a lot I can do about that. So this is actually becoming an issue with gospel proclamation, with outreach, with missional activities domestically, which is the only way that our church is going to survive.
Speaker 2:Well, this goes back, nick. Go ahead, jack, and I got a higher level statement.
Speaker 4:There's a lot to think about here. So we've seen, we know you study the history of the LCMS, you know from the times of Walther our body has always been very faithful to the Book of Concord and the Lutheran Confessions. Yet it seems in our history that we've gone through times where we have been much more healthy and maybe much more missional, much more entrepreneurial, much more innovative in the ways that we've thought about ministry. I'll give an example of Lutheran Hour as probably one of the most. I mean nobody was doing radio ministry when they went off and they blew it up. This is an example of using the Christian freedom that they have to be very missional to spread the gospel and it just seems like we don't have these same freedoms now. It seems like the system wants to clamp down on some of these sort of experiments that we may want to run that may have this incredible missional evangelical result. We just have to control it, we have to stop it. And then we see this scene, and this is another thing I've been reflecting on.
Speaker 4:We did an episode recently about the decline in church sizes of the LCMS, and then you could say this is very much in the wake of a slingshot response to the church growth movement that came in. There's many LCMS churches that got on board with some of the things of the church growth movement. I get the fact that there may be some theological issues. If you're looking at a non-denominational church, you're not going to agree with some of the things that they're doing. At the same time, you can have an open hand and say are there things that we can learn from this that are very, very practical as we think about being missionals of church? And it seems like that permission is not given. So you come out with a slingshot response opposing church growth and guess what? You've proven that you don't want church to grow by your actions.
Speaker 4:And it's almost like a self-righteous thing by doing that.
Speaker 2:Everything rises and falls on Jesus. And then leadership and you both knowing this. In the military there's a chain of command. For a reason. We need appropriate communication to come down. There's an enemy and we need to know the objective and we need to have that objective pushed down to those that are at the grassroots. I think we can learn a lot from military and chain of command because, just going back to your story, nick, where was someone in a leadership position? And I come under authority, I'm always under authority, like right Of our president and our congregation, of our board, of the bishop, the president, district presidents here we don't call them bishops necessarily, but under Mike Gibson in the Pacific Southwest district, like if I say something, it would be unkind for him and others to say whoa, tim, hold on, hold on, like we have.
Speaker 2:It's an abdication of leadership and it's a failure of nerve. To go back to Edwin Friedman, it's a failure of nerve, it's a lack of courage for someone in an appropriate role who is above. I've had people challenge me. There is order in human relationships Before God, no order, all one. But there is order in structure and so it's a failure of nerve a number of different leaderships at different levels to say whoa, let's hold the phone, let's have a wider conversation about that. This is what I heard was at your intent, and let's let's break it down why. Because you're in the family, you're a brother in the family and I don't want anybody to be you know. Eighth commandment to wait. I hear that thrown out all the time. Right, you're breaking the eighth commandment. Well, what's? What's going on? It's because someone hasn't had the conversation to help them discern how what they said could be inappropriately understood and and maybe, and this is the worst part of leadership possibly moving people away from the person in work of of Jesus Like this is a heavy thing.
Speaker 4:Nick, you know what I'm saying. We're not just throwing. The eighth commandment is not a commandment to shut up and do what I say Exactly, don't challenge anything Exactly, and I think that Jack is how it's interpreted from time to time.
Speaker 2:Anything to add toward that failure of nerve Nick.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So look, in the military, there obviously is a chain of command, but the way that you know, Jack, I think you were a Cold Warrior. I don't know how old you are, but I think you were probably.
Speaker 4:I retired in 2016.
Speaker 3:OK, so maybe not a Cold Warrior, not quite. Yeah, but so the idea that how we were going to defeat the Soviet military because if you look at the way our forces were arranged in Europe, everything we had over there was going to be a speed bump for Russian armor, right. So what we were going to do was going to target their general general staff and their communications, and the reason for that is the Soviet soldiers wouldn't do anything without permission. They would just literally stand there and get killed or captured or whatever. The way that we function as US military is we delegate authority to the proper level and then we execute.
Speaker 3:We don't violate within that.
Speaker 4:Yeah Right, exactly so. You have a non conditional Authority that a squad leader has when they need to make decisions independent of a chain of command. Is it's very high? I mean, they were making life and death decisions. And now that goes back to World War Two. The German soldiers did not have the authority at like the squad level, at the platoon level, that the American soldiers had and that made a big tactical difference.
Speaker 3:Now, now imagine, in a Lutheran church, missouri sitting context, I have at least one pastor and I have a board of directors or elders, or whatever you want to call them all reviewing this decision making process. And those congregations should be a laboratory to figure out what it is that works and what doesn't. Instead of having these committees and, by the way, my pastors, fond of saying that a elephant is a committee, is a racehorse designed by a committee, right. And so you, you, we have all these committees who decide whether they're going to give permission for something, rather than synthesizing information that's coming in for at the grassroots level from from various congregations around the Senate, deciding what best practices are and then incorporating that at the Senate Inc level and pushing that back down. That's, that's how you run an organization. But, but unfortunately, they're in survival mode, and so what they recognize are threats, not opportunities. They are completely closed to opportunities. All they are is in threat identification mode.
Speaker 2:Wow, yeah, I think we're confused about the polity of the Missouri Senate. To be quite honest, do we want to be? An an episcopal episcopal episcopal, you know or congregational or congregational, that right and we're trying to we're trying to do both Like it is very confusing.
Speaker 2:I'll be quite honest, very, very confused at the local level to understand how exactly we're supposed to function. And if we are congregational, you'd think a lot more of the and these are all people that I care for and pray for in positions of leadership in LCMS Inc and in our institutions, you'd think they'd want to go grass roots a little bit more to kind of try to figure out what's working in our various contexts. And I would think that there would be more charity and understanding about the diverse contexts that all of our churches find ourselves. And I would think that they would want to know what does it look like to train up leaders to reach people in these diverse contexts while standing on the truth of Scripture? Like that's something I would think they'd want to know, but right now is.
Speaker 2:I'm just taking a look. I don't think they really want to know that that's. That's unfortunate.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it's a great point. I mean, look, I mean I, you, we may disagree just a little bit on worship styles, but what I think, what I think that we should do, is how is high culture should be? Whatever that is. So, if you're from Botswana and it's more percussion, then that's, and that's what high culture is for you, fine. If you're from the global south and it's, you know, syncopated rhythms or whatever it is in music, fine, I don't care, but what I?
Speaker 3:My only thing is it let's just not have it be, you know, a transient stylistically, because there has to be some permanence, reverence and worship music. That's, that's my only request. And so so to me, some, some guy, and you know El Paso, some pastor, and El Paso has already figured out what that looks like, and so, but I don't know the answer to that, as I, as I reach out towards members of my community, I have no idea what that looks like, and so there is no mechanism to really gather that and decide. You know, what works from an outreach effort, what works from a missional perspective, what? What does your worship look like for certain communities of immigrants? And, and, by the way, we are as non immigrant as we are non anything other than white demographically as well, and which is completely ironic when you go back to 1860 and find a church that is nothing but immigrants. So we really need to get. I mean, if we're looking for higher birth rates, that's where they are.
Speaker 2:The only thing that's back.
Speaker 3:No, very true.
Speaker 2:Yep. So the only thing that that kind of is a uniting principle is relationship and trust that's formed over time. For me to help a brother in El Paso understand in his unique context what it looks like to hold to the liturgy, I think this is a helpful conversation for us to have today. I believe that the way we structure the divine service, God serving us through Word and Sacrament, is a helpful tool that crosses cultures because it centers us in our baptismal identity in Jesus, our need to confess sin and be absolved, to hear the Word of God you are forgiven for you.
Speaker 2:Right To apply God's Word to my life, the law that crushes the gospel that makes us alive, the prayers of the church, Lord's prayer, Apostles Creed, Nicene Creed, etc.
Speaker 2:Obviously the Lord's Supper to give me his very body and blood and the benediction to go with the blessing and presence of a God who loves me and cares for me and sends me out in mission to make him known. Like I think the general guts of what I just shared can cross culture, cross culture, should cross culture. And if we're just saying there's a well, because this culture and maybe they're connected to the Pentecostal church or something like that, like now we're just going to compromise the divine, all of the structure of the divine service, just to satisfy. I think that's inappropriate and at the same time, if they've got some rhythm, some beats that help shape their worship of the Triune God, it would be inappropriate for me to just totally discount that as well. My kids I just got to share a little story with you guys. My kids and I and my wife, my wife, going way back in the day, loved and through a harder time in her life, was pointed at Jesus. By now. Don't judge Kirk Franklin and his whole gospel movement.
Speaker 2:There's this one called the Lamb of God that they sang last night. It was a Jesus party that went on for three and a half hours. It was radically different. I was the minority, by probably five percent or so there in that space. And, yes, do I understand and had good conversation with my kids that a number of these kind of emotive leanings, maybe in a charismatic kind of, but they kind of I heard them countering that like over and over again, despite your feelings, despite your struggles, despite your obstacles, jesus is for you, he's with you. And, again, they're not a sacramental church necessarily most of those who go there. So it may sound a little bit nuanced, but, man, there was this call back to Jesus, but it felt and looked, totally. It looked way different, but Jesus was still there, he was still glorified. So can I have hospitality conversations with my kids so that we don't become legalistic too quickly. Anything to say to that. I'm hoping that what I said is a unity forming statements rather than a divisive statement. Go ahead, nick.
Speaker 3:Nick, yeah, look, I mean, look, if I go to an Episcopal wedding, I'll go up there and be blessed by a priest If they have communion. I'm not going to take communion, obviously, and there's a very big difference between standing up as a Lutheran pastor and a caller in front of a group of people and actually praying with or participating in any sort of. As long as they're praying to the right God, as long as it's heterodox and not you know and not you know, I'm not going to go to a Mormon church or a. What are the Arians called? I forget Anyway.
Speaker 4:so, yeah, I mean, I'm not going to go to one of those churches, unitarian.
Speaker 3:Unitarian is a non-Trientarian Jehovah's. Witness.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Jehovah's Witnesses are modern Arians, yeah, and so I mean I'm not going to go to one of those churches, but I have no issue participating in praise. In fact we it's kind of, you know, I mean I'm a liturgical guy, you know, I used to find it, you know, if somebody said the Apostles Creed on a Sunday we were having the Lord's Supper. That was a scandal for me. But you know I'm traveling. So I went to the you know closest LCMS church and they had a worship and praise service on Wednesday night, and so I sat there and sang Amy Grant and Michael W Smith songs.
Speaker 3:You know, it doesn't really doesn't really matter the form of worship, but I will tell you this that they're all confessional Lutherans, every single one of them, and so that's the important part from my perspective. But yeah, my entire point on worship music is just make it whatever it is, just make it high culture. And you know, if that looks like you know a percussion and a sitar, then that's what it looks like. It doesn't really matter to me. It's all about your local context.
Speaker 2:This is so, so fun. We'll have you back, Nick. It's a helpful conversation. What do you hope the LCMS looks like in 20 years? Yeah, I like this. I like this. I like this question. I ask a lot of people this question. Hope is the fuel for us moving toward Jesus and uniting to one another into the future. We've seen problems, Jesus' solution, and so hope gives us actually this. It unlocks his dopamine hit of joy in the brain. Things don't always have to be as they are right now. So what do you hope the LCMS looks like?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'll just say bluntly I hope we look less white. If we don't look less white, we're going to be half the size. If we're still 95, 96% white, we're going to lose. We're going to shrink away to posterity, especially when you look at the age of our average congregant. It's not going to work.
Speaker 2:So let's pause. Yeah, let's pause right there. If that is the case, then we should be promoting the Cross-Cultural Ministry Training Program. Yes, we should be exploring, especially because a lot of our non-white. We're not going to get into equality conversations necessarily, especially around economics, but this does mean that the economics of formation for future leaders has to be considered, and this is one of the tests we're running right now. So there are opportunities for us to move in that direction and to raise up missionary leaders, evangelists and pastors toward that end. And I would say to your point we must, we must. What else, nick?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we need to re-energize. Hopefully, in 20 years we have re-energized our school systems to the point that Lutheran kids going to Lutheran schools is the rule rather than the exception, and today it's the exception, and we need to change that. Our schools are a powerhouse theory source of strength, almost on par with our doctrine itself, and so we need to re-energize that school system and invest in it until it's painful. In fact, we have these large Neogath or revival castles that have 30 people who worship in them once a week, and I would much rather hang on to that school that costs you all that money than that building that is doing nothing for you.
Speaker 4:Yes, we agree on that. If they sold empty churches and built schools, I'd be very happy with that Absolutely yeah, without a doubt, because we can worship anywhere? Yeah, we can worship anywhere. You can worship in the gym of a school.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 4:That's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So good, so we become more diverse. Education is very, very appropriate, especially with rapid secularization today. Raise up a child in the way that he or she should go get them on that campus five, six days a week, including church, right? So good stuff, nick. What else Yep?
Speaker 3:Man, those are two big lifts. I think that's going to take pretty much. I think that's going to take all of our resources and all of our efforts. We have got to be more diverse and we have got to reinvest in our school system, and there's no question about it. And yeah, if we do that, in 20 years we'll actually we'll have 3 million 4 million Lutherans instead of 2 or instead of 1 if we don't, or fewer, Amen.
Speaker 2:This is so much fun, man. I love this conversation and, hopefully, listener, you found it useful. Walking the Jesus way, welcoming all recognizing my sin, that I have hypocrisy in me. We've located the enemy. If more of us can say this, this would be helpful. We've located the enemy. It's me, it's me getting in the way, it's my fear, it's my pride, and I need the humility and the love of Jesus to saturate my heart and mind so that I can relate to my brother, learn from my brother or sister and grow more and more up into Jesus, who is the head and the final thing toward this.
Speaker 2:If you were in a leadership role in the Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod, this is a call for you to have courage, to engage those who, oh man, I don't know If I, if I interact with them. I don't know what some people are saying. This podcast right now is starting to have, I pray, just a ripple effect for us to listen twice as much as we got to speak and to have overwhelming humility and to center our conversation on the main thing, which is Jesus, the center of all of human, human history, the lover of our souls. How people? How can people connect with you, Nick, if they desire to do so.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I don't hide behind anonymity online, so you can hit me up hit me up anywhere. I often comment on these Facebook or on these YouTube, on the YouTube channel, or you can email me at engraft79 at gmailcom if you want.
Speaker 2:Engraft 79, g-r-a-f-f. This has been so much fun, bro. You're a gift to the body of Christ. That continue on that learning journey and thank you for using all of your gifts. And last, this is being released probably way after Veterans Day. I and so many are grateful for the sacrifices that you made so that we can have the freedoms that we have today to have even conversations like this and to gather for Word and Sacrament weekend and week out. It's a good day. Go on and make it a great day. We'll be back next week with another episode of Lead Time. Thanks Nick and thanks Jeff. Thanks Tim, carlos. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to Lead Time, a podcast of the Unite Leadership Collector. The USC'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 theunitel leadershiporg 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.