Lead Time
Lead Time
Is the Term "Servant Leadership" Worth Using in the LCMS?
Joe Willmann shares his journey from wrestling coach to Lutheran Church Extension Fund leader, revealing how his perspective on leadership transformed from rigid systems to recognizing individual gifts and abilities. He explains that excellence should replace perfection as our aim in life and ministry, highlighting the difference between these mindsets.
• Moving beyond perfectionism to excellence creates space for growth while maintaining high standards
• The concept of "tending and keeping" provides a biblical framework for understanding our vocations
• True leadership flows naturally from being deep followers of Jesus rather than adopting leadership techniques
• The three greatest needs in churches today: embracing biblical stewardship, aiming for excellence, and letting non-essential things evolve
• Key behaviors for Christian leaders: developing winsome witness, adopting a posture of reception rather than critique, and loving difficult people
• LCEF partners with congregations and districts to start, sustain, and strengthen ministries through financial and strategic partnerships
• Changing a 30-year men's Bible study time resulted in attendance growing from 12 to 40-50 men
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This is Lead Time.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Lead Time, tim Allman, here with Jack Kauberg. Pray, the joy of Jesus is with you today. We're recording this during Holy Week it's Monday, thursday here, probably released in the Easter season at some point and I pray that the awe and wonder of resurrection power, the resurrection hope, is yours today, leading you up to learn and to love and to find the joy which is Jesus. Jack, you loving life, dude, are you? Seems like we've been talking a lot about your allergies, jack, for multiple years, multiple years allergies. So are you doing all right?
Speaker 3:Maybe we need a special lead time episode just about that.
Speaker 2:Oh man. Anyway, you look good, you sound good. Today, our guest is Joe Willman. He is a district vice president for Lutheran Church Extension Fund in the Northern Illinois District. He's the team lead for eight other districts. He was blessed to serve at CPH for six years prior to LCF. He completed his undergrad at Ball State University. As a master's degree at Concordia University, ann Arbor, he was colloquized into the teaching office of the LCMS in 2017 and is all but dissertation on a doctorate of business administration at Concordia University, chicago. That's cool. Maybe end up talking about that a bit, what you're writing. He writes a short devotional newsletter. He hosts a podcast on Substack. You can find that at lcefnidsubstackcom. He is married to Nicole and they have two great kids, ava and Carter. He serves as the president of his governing board at his congregation, st John's Lutheran in Wheaton, illinois. Joe, how are you doing, man Loving life?
Speaker 4:It's a lovely day. I can't believe that Lent is almost over.
Speaker 2:No, yeah, no, it goes so fast. What's good right now, joe, just as you look around at the world, your work, your life, your family. Let's hunt the good stuff as we get going, joe.
Speaker 4:My funny thing, my wife, right after the day before Christmas break for the kids, my son's second grade teacher quit all of a sudden. And my wife had stayed at home for 12 years. And and my wife had stayed at home for 12 years and she was a second grade teacher before that and she was asked to come fill in. And I would tell you what is good is she's been doing that now since going back into the new year. So for us, 12 years of her kind of leading everything and us not having to juggle things as much as we are now. But the goodness of yesterday, just things that happened during the day, and if she wasn't there would have not been as great for my son, but yet it was great. And the Lord, even through the stress of all of the things that we go through, he's good and gracious. So that's a that's a good thing going.
Speaker 2:That's so good. How old are Ava and Carter?
Speaker 4:So my daughter's in sixth grade. She's 12 and my son is in second grade.
Speaker 2:He's eight Dude. Enjoy, enjoy every day. Did you? Did you play sports at all growing up? I'm just curious, oh yeah.
Speaker 4:Wrestling was my life, so I yeah yeah, so I wrestled for a decade and then I coached for a decades. Um, like, I was a head wrestling coach at a big high school in Northern Indiana before I made my transition into church work. That was kind of my uh, a weird life of of going down that route.
Speaker 2:But uh, yeah, how has coaching shaped your professional?
Speaker 4:career. Goodness, Uh, I made a ton of mistakes in coaching. Recognizing where our identity is placed is really, really important. If you would have asked me when I was coaching what you know, that would have been my life. That was the thing.
Speaker 4:We're going to go win a state championship as a team, you know, I mean we kicked butt, don't get me wrong, but it was like you know we're going to go do this, but yet my identity wasn't found in Christ, like it should have been. Not that you know, I believe like I've been in the LCMS since I was in third grade, you know, like there's all of that, but it was wrong. And so now recognizing, when I work with people, that I can't turn everybody into me, that's probably what I tried to do when I was coaching, rather than helping them find their own unique, individual abilities. Like this is the one way to do it. This is the system that's going to function just perfectly and that's how we're going to win, Rather looking back and thinking. You know, lots of people have lots of different gifts and let me help you grow in those different gifts.
Speaker 2:That's probably my biggest today, as you know what 10 years now post ever stepping on a wrestling mat to today yeah, yeah, I'm coaching football and amping up for our fall football season and our coaches kind of coming together to say we're more committed now to the process than the destination and I think that applies in so many to team leadership Like it's not about winning necessarily. Unless you define winning as finding joy in the process every single day, then you're that that is ultimately winning. And trying to figure out for each there's a lot of kind of metaphors that are amplified, I think, in the body of Christ is trying to find what joy in the process looks like for each student athlete with their various levels of gifting. And at the end of the year the greatest thing I can hear because I heard it a number of times last year is the freshman is a freshman, young boy who's still developing, he's not remarkably athletic yet, but he comes up and says thanks for loving and encouraging me, coach, and seeing me and and, yeah, caring for me and challenging me this year you know they may not say it like exactly like that Thanks, thanks, coach, you know, for being with me and you're like, what did I do? Like you, you weren't on the field a whole lot, but he enjoyed. He enjoyed the process.
Speaker 2:Anything more to say there? Joe?
Speaker 4:I think the process is developing young people. When it comes to coaching, it's not about whether we win the state title or not. It's, you know, now on this side, you know 10 or 15 years past, some of these kids graduating high school. I get to look back and see like you're a great dad, like you, your kids are awesome, like you were doing well, and whatever small part I had to play in that, you know, I can rejoice in that and that should be the like we want to. We want to make great humans. That's it, like everything that we do is about making great humans.
Speaker 2:Jack, anything to apply as it relates to the church and our leadership day in, day out. Any thoughts there regarding the process?
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, I mean I would say that the entirety of life in a church staff is a life of mentoring and apprenticing people right, and that's true within our leadership structure, within our staff, that's true in small group networks that we set up, that's true in every type of serving opportunity that we bring people together in. That is the ideal that we want to set up and that is how we want to empower people within the church. We want to empower people to disciple each other Right, and that means, by nature, that we'll go into seasons of mentoring and apprenticeship with each other, people that we trust. There's been a lot of really powerful, wise lay leaders that have mentored me as I've developed into this role. Tim, you've been a mentor to me in many ways, and I think the church does that really, really well, and I think that churches thrive when they lean into that and actually give permission to that and bless that and encourage that, yeah, perfect is the enemy of process.
Speaker 2:I've been thinking about how consistent perfect gets used in our world and it's got to be absolutely perfect. You look perfect or like you did that thing perfect, and that keeps a lot of people from like stepping out to the edge to potentially do something that's not perfect, which always through suffering, you know, trial error to a degree, within appropriate boundaries. That's how we grow. Like muscles grow, in a certain way You've got to stretch them. They're not, they're not feeling perfect as they're being developed Right. So anything more to say about perfect and process, joe.
Speaker 4:People hit what we aim at, and so, rather than saying perfect, we should aim at excellence. That's the thing of that. And recognizing in our excellence that we aim at that, we're never going to get it a hundred percent right. But excellence is like, and if we aim at excellence and then we slightly miss the target on excellence, well we're still pretty great. So like, so, like. That's good. So don't be afraid to fail, and you know, and don't be afraid to stretch and to learn.
Speaker 4:And then I think what you also said with your staff is there's people to learn from all the time.
Speaker 4:Jack, you talked about how Tim's mentored you. I'm sure you have lots of people that have mentored you in your life. I think about when I was at CPH I know people probably only know Paul McCain from his like online persona of Paul McCain back in the day but I think about Paul as a mentor to me, as like a dad and a pastor and a boss and a friend all wrapped up into one. And so many of these mentors that I've had in my life I've gotten to learn from them in their season time, not in their like, where I am, you know, 40 years old, probably have way too much confidence in myself right now and it keeps going down, but towards the end of things that they shape and mold you and trust you to go do those things. It's when somebody like that looks at you and trusts you to go do that and they know that you're going to do it with excellence, that's awesome and when you missed up, it's great.
Speaker 3:It's fine. Well, joe, that's kind of a powerful, I think, reframing of things. I think of perfection as a destination and excellence as a journey, as a kind of a growth mindset that we enter into. And so I hope that we're never holding people to a standard of perfection, but that we are holding people to a standard of excellence which says that, hey, you may be doing something really really well right now, but even in this doing really really well right now, there's an opportunity for you to take one more step in your growth and you have to have a destination that you're pushing for to do that. But still, really, it's about that journey of growth, the willingness to take that step of doing one more thing, to challenge yourself Right. And I think, just as I'm thinking through this right now, there may be people that are doing something really really well right now, but and sometimes we get into this complacency mindset we say, because we're doing this really really well, we need to stop challenging ourselves. We've arrived.
Speaker 4:And I say, once we've hit that arrived mentality, then we've lost our excellence yeah, anything there we're never going to arrive I mean we'll arrive when jesus comes back and we're all coming here it's like I see us. I hope I'm outside when that happens so I don't fly through the roof, but you know like it'll be. Uh, that that's when we arrive. You know the rest of it. We just keep pressing forward and serving as best as we can well, and I don't know if we'll even arrive.
Speaker 2:I mean, we will arrive at perfection with god, self, others and the rest of creation, even even the journey of living as fully human in the gifts that God I think still on that last day uniquely give to us and the work that he uniquely gives to us. It will be a never ending journey of taking one hill and another hill and another hill, of increasing, never ending growth with God and others. It's going to be spectacular, so we just get. We get to live in that resurrection reality right now and recognize there's going to be spectacular. So we just get. We get to live in that resurrection reality right now and recognize there's going to be a peak. And then there's going to be another peak and the greatest peak. Well, you don't even know, because you keep running with perseverance, keeping your eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and perfecter of your faith. It's a continual move. We do not stop, but our perspective changes about what is the appropriate peak, right. That's why wise mentors at the end and Jack, you've been a wise mentor for me in so many, because that's why wise mentors help you say you're looking at this peak, son or daughter, I think you could reframe. There's another peak that's right over here.
Speaker 2:A major part of the peak that we're trying to highlight in our leadership podcast is the peak is not just doing, it's developing and inviting others to find. The next peak of development, that's how Jesus, that's why Jesus is the greatest leader of all time is he kept that future vision in front of his apostles that he would be with them. But greater things, greater peaks you would accomplish. It's not gonna be perfect, it's gonna be very messy, people are gonna hate you, it's gonna be hard and many, if not most, of you are going to die. But it's the greatest adventure of all time, this journey toward becoming more and more like Jesus, carrying his message out into a dark and dying world. So let's get into your story just a little bit, joe. You were at CPH. What were you up to at CPH for those six years? Tell that story.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I was the senior instructional designer there so we built a platform that was called CPH Faith Courses and so I think you know in in our trying to branch out into that world I kind of ran almost all of that, from the editing to the recording to the posting to the managing, the backend purchasing of all of that platform. So I was there during that time. My counterpart, lisa Clark, was in charge of like print curriculum and things like that. So it was an amazing, amazing time. It was lovely and I was a public school teacher that then, when my wife said I want to stay at home when we have babies, I found myself in a Catholic school system, like the number two of a Catholic school system.
Speaker 4:At that point in time, and when you grow up as a public educator, you probably don't have the best views of parochial education. It's just kind of it's a part of the, it's a part of the journey when you're there and within like three days of being at the at the Catholic schools, everything was stopped. Like all of my misconceptions were stomped on, and then probably two weeks later it was like, well, I don't probably want to do this here forever. You know, we do have a great Lutheran education system. So I started my master's at Ann Arbor and somehow out of a whim which is a crazier story of how I ended up at CPH but that's way too long for our podcast today but ended up at CPH and it was the best for us as a family and for me, just an amazing six years. St Louis is a great place for young families.
Speaker 4:It is definitely a Lutheran bubble when you're there, but it is. You know, it was great. And I ended up at LCEF because my wife and I, when we went to St Louis, we agreeda five-year mark is going to be kind of our check-in point. You know, we moved five hours away from both of our families.
Speaker 4:This is going to be our check-in point of are we going to be here forever? There were some things that happened to CPH, and then COVID was in the middle of all of that and I had met Bart Day, who's our CEO Funny enough, he's a running buddy of mine and so, yeah, yeah, yeah, we were trail runners and so I saw the position that was opened up in Northern Illinois. It's where my wife grew up, and as a kid from Indiana, the thought of living in Illinois was probably like that. That seemed like that's the one place I will never go. But God laughed and ended up here, and so I went down a path of that here. And so I went down a path of that. God put a lot of things in place and I had started my doctorate of business administration so that's how an educator ends up as kind of a finance guy in a district and put that in place and ended up here, and it's been a blessing ever since.
Speaker 2:What are you so good at? What are you studying for your dissertation? What are you writing on?
Speaker 4:Well. So I got 100 pages into my dissertation and I stopped believing in it, so I'm completely rewriting it now. That was a really hard thing. Part of my personality is, if I stop, you know, I could have just pressed forward and finished what I had, and I don't. I truthfully don't believe in that. I actually think it's.
Speaker 4:Yeah, anyhow, my new one I'm looking at I'm using the marks of the Acts 2 church to evaluate churches that have above average giving, and so that's kind of what I'm doing right now. I've got to get through. So most of my chapters one and three, like my introduction, and the methodology stays the same, but I've got to really like I'm hammering on my lit review right now. Of that, I mean, it's really depressing when you have a lit review like 90% done and then you got to start over in a different direction, but it's much more fulfilling, yeah, so, so that that's what it is.
Speaker 4:My previous one I was using servant leadership to evaluate how you connect people that aren't connected to your mission with your mission. So, like at CPH, there's lots of non, non Lutherans that work at CPH, all of our entities. I'm sure at Christ Greenfield there's probably people that teach in the school and things, so I was using that. I probably should be careful in saying this. I don't know that I believe in servant leadership as a model anymore, after having studied it forever and a day.
Speaker 3:I'm actually curious to hear about that. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that? That's a super fascinating assertion.
Speaker 4:So I don't prick consciences. When people talk about servant leadership they mean it really really well and I think I would believe in what they mean by servant leadership. But as an academic study, how far it's gone down If you look at the history of this. Ceo of AT&T, robert Greenleaf, came up with this. It was a tautology the servant leader is servant first. And you start going down all of the research into the different tenets of servant leadership and how many places, and it seems like Jesus was kind of placed into that world. It didn't come out of like a teaching of scripture, it was just a like ramrodded in, and so as I kept studying this, I was like man. I feel like Jesus calls us to be followers of him, and so when we follow Jesus, we will be a leader in the fact that the decisions that we make will be completely filled with what Jesus would have us do. And so it's more so.
Speaker 4:Probably on my end, a critique of I think it's more important to focus on the leaders being deeply, deep followers of Jesus, deep disciples that stay on. As the didache would say, there's two ways the way of life and the way of death, and that way of life is walking after Jesus, and so I probably struggled quite a bit. Once I got through that literature review and I sat there and stared at it I was like I don't know that this is actually what the church should be using. I think it's more fruitful if we went the follower route rather than the servant leader route. That would be kind of my slight critique of it, but again, I would never plant my flag in being like I'm going to present at this conference about how servant leader is awful and none of you should ever use this again. Like that's not what I'm saying, but it's more a critique of. I think you get more benefit focusing on the follower side.
Speaker 2:Cool. How does the follower paradigm of leadership interact and it's okay if you don't know this interact with adaptive leadership models? We've like Vanessa Seifert, we've had her on and, yeah, do you know much about adaptive leadership models?
Speaker 4:So adaptive, was not one of the ones that I studied. Well, I mean, I've studied it slightly, but not enough to like in my dissertation. It wasn't one that I said. This won't fit my research of that, so I can't speak as authoritatively on that.
Speaker 4:But what I can tell you, tim, is that a follower of Jesus, as he sits back and thinks about seeing and saying and doing as Jesus sees and says and does, in that all of those other decisions, you're going to treat everybody differently in the fact of I'm going to treat you and lead you the way that Jesus would have me. This probably goes more towards my I thought of in the garden. God gave Adam and Eve two tasks to tend and to keep to avod and shamar, and so those are the exact same two tasks that were given to the Levitical priests when it came to the tabernacle. And so for us as royal priests, if we look at everything in terms of tending and keeping, all that we do and that's how we follow Jesus of tending and keeping, then that produces the fruit at the end of the day, that every decision that I make, if I do it through that lens and as I'm leading somebody and helping build them up and going that route, I'm going to apply the gospel to them in the way that Jesus would have.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, what you're talking about is a biblical understanding of stewardship, Joe and vocation. That's just stewardship, isn't?
Speaker 3:it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And keeping all that God has given to me in all of my various vocations, because it's not mine, it's his Say more about that interconnection between stewardship and tending and keeping.
Speaker 4:If I pull on that just a little bit, tim and I want to be very careful saying this because I know some people make this assertion that are also LCMS guys that are so it'd be good. What if the only vocation we have in life is that of steward? What if everything that we have flows out of that? So, for instance, I'm a husband and how I live out that vocation as husband is tending and keeping my relationship with my wife, and all that is good. If I, you know, I'm a dad, so I tend and keep my relationship with my kids. I also tend and keep what they have because God has given me to do that.
Speaker 4:As a member of a church, you know, I tend and keep my giving. I tend and keep my relationship at church and by tending and keeping my giving I care for my pastors and their families and my parish administrator and all of the other people, the preschool teachers and all of that at church. And if we look at things through our vocations, through that lens of stewardship, everything is legitimately tending and keeping. Like all that we do is that, and when and when you do that while you're walking after Jesus, it seems to work out a whole lot better.
Speaker 3:So then, our various vocations, whether we're in leadership roles, or in administrative roles, or professional you know roles, or manufacturing roles, whatever that might be, we're tending and keeping within that role, and that's our vocation. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's lived out. I mean, I there could be. It's maybe the maybe a better way is this is the conceptual framework to understand your vocations, right? Yeah, how do you tend and keep in this role that you've been placed in, right? So, for me, as a team lead, how do I? I've got eight district presidents that I have a relationship with and I've got my my team of what is it? Five other DVPs that serve those eight districts. And, and how do I tend all of those relationships?
Speaker 4:Everybody's a little bit different in the way that they receive information. So how do, how do I respond to different things? It's, you know, some people, if they call, I know if I don't answer this, even if it knocks me off of what I'm doing right now, it will cause more stress for them. Like, the long-term ramification of me not answering the phone right now will be more stressful than if I just pause what I'm doing and take care of this Now, whereas if another member of my team calls, it's okay because he knows that I'm going to get back to him once I'm done with the next thing and it's going to be okay.
Speaker 4:So those are the kinds of things of tending and keeping those relationships, of what is best for them, and that because God has given me now to look over them, so I need to take care of them, because God always keeps our eyes focused out. You know, his call to us is always, always outward, to where it is. It's not necessarily looking down at myself or how do I, you know, tend and keep myself? That's probably one of the other things of in student servant leadership. One of the tenants of servant leadership is accountability, and all of the accountability research in the last like 20 years is focused on how you keep yourself accountable and so, like, the original definition of accountability is you have to have somebody else to do that. So that's again like neither here nor there, but that's a unique thing of God always has our eyes focused out towards the other. So, yeah, Amen.
Speaker 2:So let's get into the story of LCEF just a bit. We've I've had BART's been on, but it's been a while. I love your new brand, by the way, thanks. Now do you have newer language too? That's kind of orienting, because when we kind of walk through a brand modification, it wasn't just the look, it was about the mission. So talk about the current mission and how you're building on like the origin story mission of LCEF, joe, and how you're building on like the origin story mission of LCEF, joe, yeah.
Speaker 4:So let me start with the origins of LCEF first and I'm doing that as I pull up our new mission statement because I haven't completely memorized it a hundred percent yet, because it's only been a couple of months since we had that. So LCEF was created in 1978 at a synodical convention is how LCEF was created. Prior to that, all 35 districts of Synod operated their own extension funds. So you're in the, you guys are in the PSD right, tyler Fewins is you guys' guy, and so you guys are out there, and so you would have had your own church extension fund, the PSD church extension fund, that point in time. So you can imagine, at some point, if your district doesn't have as many dollars on deposit as another district and you've got a big project that you can't fund, you already had to start partnering with other districts to make these things happen. And so somebody on the back end thought you know, it would be a whole lot better if we all just came together and did that. So currently now, today was 1978. So we're coming up on 50 years here in a few years, of LCEF being around 31 of the 35 districts of Synod are members of LCEF and so we are an entity of Synod. The bylaws of Synod and our bylaws are all run by the convention and there's all sorts of things of how that functions. But 31 of us are a part of LCEF. It's probably easier to say the four that aren't Michigan, texas, the Central Illinois District and the Southern District are still operating their own CEFs. We still partner with them in different ways. We're friendly with everybody. This isn't like some competition between all of us with that. And so the new mission of LCEF and our rebrand is the mission of Lutheran Church Extension Fund is to start, sustain and strengthen LCMS ministries through financial and strategic partnerships. And so we find ourselves uniquely placed in the Synod to be able to do some of those. You know, some of those different things.
Speaker 4:I saw your buddy, jim Stamped. What a great guy. God be praised that he's going to get to enjoy retirement at some point in time. I would give him a hard time him saying that. You know he's the only entity that has like a mandate from Synod on things with the wellness thing, I was like we all have that, you know. I was like, hey, we got that. I mean there's financial wellness, there's things that we're all given to in that I give him a hard time about that. I, you know, loving like hey, love you, jim, good job, yeah, yeah, I would tell Bart that he should do that too. But yeah.
Speaker 4:And so. So how LCEF operates for anybody listening that's like I don't know who LCEF is is members of the Lutheran Church Missouri, of congregations of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. The congregations and other entities of Synod place dollars on deposit with us in different investment products that we have and then we lend those dollars out. We do not buy dollars from the Fed. We don't do any of that. All of the things that we do are done completely because we have faithful investors that put dollars on deposit with us.
Speaker 4:And so right now I think we're just over $2 billion in assets and we have, I think, coming up on 1.7, I don't know exactly but like 1.7 billion of that lent out right now to the organizations and workers of Senate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's, it's extraordinary. I like the three S's start, sustain and strengthen.
Speaker 2:That's a good job, bart, that that rings, rings well and and team. We put that together Easy-ish to remember. Our permission statement at our congregation is pretty long. It's taken a while. We've memorized it, though, jack, and it is helpful to have this kind of memorialized language that in our leadership rallies, you know, there's team rallies 100 plus people on staff, you know, and they're coming and we're walking through mission, vision, values, all that kind of stuff. It's, it's not nothing, it's very important, it's a very important ritual for us. So I'm just how is that kind of language, the new mission or the? It's not new, it's just kind of reframed, I guess at LCF. How's that being kind of baked into your culture right now?
Speaker 4:I would say that in the last three years, that even, but in the last three years, even though that wasn't our mission over the last three years we've started, like our real estate solutions team, with people with excess property you guys in the Pacific Southwest, you actually have a person in your district.
Speaker 4:They're helping with all of those different kinds of things. And our continued role of partnering with our districts and making sure that, as we see things out in the world and we see opportunities to whether it's relaunch or start or an area that might you know, is underserved, in that how we can do that, how can we, as you know the relationship managers in the district, because we're also kind of unique in the fact that we are deployed we have, I mean, all the districts that are a part of LCEF, have a, have a DVP there, and so we're able to build relationships one-on-one at the local level. And so we're able to build relationships one-on-one at the local level Because, I mean, the reality is we can all LCEF can have ideas, the Synod can have ideas, districts can have good ideas, but the reality is everything we do in the world takes hard work and it's going to take the people at the local level to do it, so we can connect those people when we see that.
Speaker 3:Joe, let me ask you a little bit. I'm kind of curious to get your take on this. When I think about the history of LCEF, I think about the efforts to do church planting, which is largely driven by the local districts. They take a responsibility for church planting and I know that LCEF has been integral in that, in that property needs to be acquired and buildings need to be built and all that kind of stuff. I remember, peeling back the onion of the history of the property that we're on right now and from what I can gather, it was initially purchased by the district with financing from LCEF, and then the whole process of planting a church was, you know, getting a congregation here that could take over the financing of that property, right, so that was. I guess that was a type of model that was done. I'm not hearing what is the model now. And when districts and LCEF think about the initiative to church planting, what is the philosophy towards that? A like, who's responsible for it? And then, like, what is the resourcing strategy for that?
Speaker 4:I don't want to be wishy washy with my answer with you, jack, but there's many answers to that. So you know, like we walk alongside our districts, that if they have identified a spot, we can be there to help the district finance if they don't have the dollars to buy that, to buy that and then bring our ministry solutions team in to help strategic plan around all of that Mm-hmm. But it doesn't just have to be the district. It could be another congregation that said, hey, we've got this we want to plant, we found an area over there and so let's partner with you to help make this a possibility, things like that, utilizing the resources that they have. We'll help with those congregations work on their business plans around I don't want to say business, but their ministry plans how they're going to make this flow. Right, because we also have a fiduciary responsibility to our investors, right? I mean, it's not just like our investors are. We put dollars on deposit and if you set them on fire, that's great.
Speaker 3:You know that's not how they function. Most churches have a business office that pays the mortgage right, so there's a model that exists for funding right.
Speaker 4:I'm going to speak very generically right now because I have something that's like working in the very early stages right now. But imagine that you had a church that was one of the largest churches in Synod, like in the 90s, and now it's down to a small handful of members, like when I say small, like less than 10. And you have another congregation in that. But that area is super wealthy. Not that it's super wealthy, there's just a lot of means. In that area the property is super valuable. I mean we could just sell that property and go redo things, and maybe that's the wise decision to do that. Or you know, you have a church right down the road that wants to partner and replant and relaunch in that location because we don't want to lose our ministry foothold in that spot. And so we can walk alongside them, looking at other congregations in the area, pulling everybody together and say, how can we do this? This is the model to make this happen.
Speaker 4:This is how we have a five-year go of this, because you know so many people when they church plant, if they haven't thought about it, they're like, oh, we'll just make it year to year.
Speaker 4:We really need to have, I mean, if you're going to call a pastor in there. We need a three to five year plan that it's not just like, hey, you're coming here and then 12 months we're cutting you loose. That's not a good model of things. So working with them on that plan and then, if that causes financing of renovating that building or doing those kinds of things, and then systematically building out, if this, let's say, we get a decade down the road and this doesn't work, how do we all exit from this? You know from this at that point in time and the legal sides of that and the logistical sides of that. But then there's another model of that too, where, like in rural ministry, like, how do we partner between these? And you know, how do we plant, how do we acquire? Those are the things that we that's our day-to-day business of walking alongside that stuff.
Speaker 2:So Lutheran Church Extension Fund is both Lutheran Church Extension, bringing churches together to extend the kingdom of God, and then having a funding arm to partner. So that's kind of led you down the path of leadership development and partnering with churches around. Even you have an arm of the ministry for kind of mission, vision, value and long range strategic planning, those types of things. Folks may not be aware of that with LCEF. So tell the leadership development story of LCEF.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so on one side we have our ministry solutions team that those are all ordained pastors of the Synod. That they come out and they help your. They ask what does God have for us now in this place? And they help you build a strategic plan. They also do what we call ministry expansion campaigns or capital campaigns, but they do really well with that because I mean, it does take dollars to make many of these plans go, things like that. So they walk alongside that.
Speaker 4:Lcef also recognized a few years ago that we wanted to help our folks and our church workers that maybe needed to have some more business skills. That didn't that. We would do that. So we partnered with Concordia, wisconsin, and we have a cohort that keeps going. It's called Business Skills for Church Leaders, and so they do that.
Speaker 4:We've actually had district presidents that have signed up for that program and gone through that. It's basically like gosh, I think is it a third of an MBA or something like that, like it does that. And then now we're getting ready to launch our newest one, so it's called Called to Lead and we've got our first kind of pilot group going through that. It's a year long course I think. They're monthly, I can't remember exact six week courses that comes out that you get some college credit at the end of all of that, but they're focused on the leadership side of all of that. I'm actually pretty fortunate I get to teach the capstone course of that one. So so the very last course, faith-filled leadership, is that Love that yeah. So so that's kind of what we're doing in that world.
Speaker 2:This has been great man. We could talk to you for a lot longer, but we're kind of down the homestretch. Last 10 minutes or so you get a landscape of all of the breadth of all different types of churches suburban, urban, rural, various contexts, various kind of church histories. In the Midwest, you know, you've got a lot of churches that have quite a history. They've been around for over 100 years and then there's some church plants and everything in between. So as you look kind of at the broader story of the LCMS congregations you serve what are the top three kind of greatest needs.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and can I let me expand that, tim, because I think it's not just the synod that needs this, but Christendom in large. Like, I always joke with people, you know people talk about, you know they make the joke. I'm a good Lutheran because I sit in the back of church. Well, the Baptists sit in the back of church too, right? So, like, all of these needs are literally all of Christendom's needs for that. So the first one that I would tell you is that people need to. This goes along with this whole stewardship, that people should recognize that they're nothing but given to. That's a big thing of like having that understanding. That comes from one of your former sim profs, dr Norman Nagel. That's kind of his big line. Right, you are nothing but given to. There's probably a way in an Australian accent that you could say that, tim, that you've heard it many times.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's been a minute. But yeah, dr Nagel, I do remember him talking a lot about stewardship, to be sure.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah. So that would be that and growing in that, growing in our support of our congregations, growing in our understanding that you know Jesus says pick between 10 and 100 percent and go from there and then, like, grow towards that. You know, if you're not there it's not a finger wag, it's an opportunity for you to grow in supporting and caring for people.
Speaker 2:Hey, I used to think let's pause on stewardship just for a second. It's so important, pastors need to talk about it. Preach biblical stewardship for sure. Jesus talks about it an awful lot Early on.
Speaker 2:You know, jesus doesn't mention the tithe and I think even in my early years here at Christ Greenfield, as we started to cast vision for getting rid of our debt and also doing some strategic things in partnership with LCEF, I made the statement that Jesus doesn't talk about the tithe. So I think you could think, well, okay, wherever you are, you know one, two, 3%, the average giver in our congregation and even you've got the data average members probably in the 2%, 1.5 to 2% of gross or net income. However, you want to look at that and I think today I've become more resolute that Jesus, as a good Jew, a rabbi, doomed the tithe and then moved from the tithe. So more of my teaching is moving in that, even in like with my kids at home 10, 10, 80, 10, 10, 80, first to God, then to savings, then to living right, I mean simple financial principles. But, yeah, any thoughts about Jesus in the tithe and what he says about your whole life being given away as an offering.
Speaker 4:Jesus fulfilled the law so he would have tithed. I mean that's not a you know. I mean he would have done that. You know we're free from the law, but that doesn't mean that you know what does he tell the rich young ruler Go sell all that you have right and go do this. But again, if we've pricked anybody's conscience, if you look back and you hear that, you hear that as a like, this is a goal, like head towards this. You know, like you've probably bought a house and you've got a 2.3% interest rate and if you went to sell your house right now it'd be more expensive if you downsized and you've probably got two car payments and college debt and tuition, like there's all of these things going on. But work on a strategy of growing towards that number, because it cares for your people, it cares for your pastors, it makes these places otherworldly. So that is, you know, for me, I think that's really important for all of Christendom. And when you ask about the numbers, there's this organization I grabbed it because I figured you'd ask. It's called the Empty Tomb. It's in Champaign, illinois.
Speaker 4:They study the state of church giving across the country. 1970, the average gift in all of Christendom in the United States was 3.1%. Today it's 1.7%. The Missouri Synod, from their data, is 1.9%. I can tell you anecdotally from what I see if I take a 15-minute drive time around a church and look at the average household income there, average is probably 2.5% of gift Best I've seen is six, you know. So I mean those are all just number of things, but just practically just working on it and it's good for you, it's good to it, helps you get rid of the idols in your life. It does, you know, just from a practical side.
Speaker 3:Powerful spiritual warfare. That's what I've learned in my own journey with giving is that it teaches you to depend on God as your provider and to resist money as an idol in your life. And what's beautiful is to see that you give and are generous and God still provides for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, jack, you've been a model for me and for the congregation. I don't know if the congregation knows, but yeah, your story, marta's story, your wife, I mean she's got the spiritual gift of generosity. She, right, I mean you told that story and she's kind of spurred you on in your generosity journey. She would give more if you possibly could, right. And you can't out. I know this sounds pithy like a preacher statement, but you literally can't out give God, test me in this. And so there is, there is beauty, and on the other side, it's not more stuff, right, it's more faith, right. Just what we all need more trust in our provider, Anything more there, jack.
Speaker 3:Well, that's what was revealed in the conversation with the young wealthy man. Right Is where was his idol at that point in time? He declared that he fulfilled the law. You know well, the law is trusting God. So let's see Do you trust in God?
Speaker 2:Amen, amen. I went down a rabbit trail, knew we would, we should, and I'm glad we hung there for a second, second need, as you're looking kind of at the broader church there, joe.
Speaker 4:We touched on this earlier, but I would say it's aiming at excellence. You know, I mean one of my pastors I think this is a neat analogy would say that many people have flat tire syndrome. They've been driving their whole life on flat tires and they don't know what it's like to drive with filled up tires and so they just assume that that's what's great. So, aiming at that, I have a little anecdotal story about this. I was at a team meeting in Lincoln, Nebraska, and we met at University Lutheran Church there and the University of Nebraska's campus, and right across the street is the John Newman Center. It's this like beautiful Catholic, massive college ministry that was built in 2016. It's gorgeous. You walk in and it's unbelievable.
Speaker 4:I'm a church, I love church architecture. I walk in and I just like I could sit and stare at Jesus all day. And I walked in and they were having adoration. No, I'm not saying like we don't believe in that, like take and eat, take and drink, don't take and stare, but like that's their world, so we can appreciate it's their world. And when I, there were like 40 kids there this is the first week of school at Adoration. And then when I walked out, there was a sign up on the wall that said Jesus should never be alone, and there were 80 kids names signed up in 20 minute goes for the next month and this is the first week of school. And I sat back and I thought when I was 18 to 22, I can't imagine I mean, like getting to church was good enough for me at that point, not like signing up to like take care of Jesus at adoration during the week and I was just so struck I want to. I wish I could have ran into a priest there and been like what? Like tell me about this, I want to know more. Like you're connecting with kids in a way that is unbelievable.
Speaker 4:And I was telling the story later at a gathering of LCMS people. One of the people was from Nebraska and I was just telling him how I was kind of dumbfounded by this. And then another person much older in age, who had converted from Catholicism made this statement they're just trying to earn their way into heaven. And I sat back and I thought, man, that's just such a flat tire view of things. Like I know all of this stuff. This is the baseline of that and I didn't push on it because it wasn't the environment to push back on things. But it was also a can you imagine if tires were filled up and I actually did talk to a Catholic person from now and find out, like, what do you actually believe? But also like, isn't this unbelievable that they've got all of these young people like flocking to church and I want to learn about it. So moving from that flat tire of like this is what is great to like expanding and growing and learning about that. I think it's so important for us.
Speaker 2:Amen. That's the abundance, mindset and freedom that we have in Christ which leads us to see beauty in all directions and be able to speak the truth in love. When there could be something that's more beautiful, more lovely the human mind. We always want to go down these dark paths right. This is a part of our sin nature that looks at what is wrong before what is right and good, and true and beautiful, and the Apostle Paul encourages such things. Jack, any follow up on that?
Speaker 3:No, I don't have anything to add. I think it's a really powerful story that you know that I think people are looking for that type of significance. You know, when I think about that story of people signing up to do this, that there's a significance to that, right, there's a meaning to that. And when we sign up to serve, you know what is the meaning to that, what is the story behind that? In this particular case, it's knowing that I'm doing something to make sure that, like they framed it, jesus should never be alone, right, and so they're showing honor to Jesus in that particular instance. And I think sometimes we invite people to serve and do we do a good job actually talking about the meaning and the significance of that serving Right, how do we find, how do we find I'm trying to find the right words here how do we find actual meaningful vocation in what we ask people to do? That's probably the way I look at it.
Speaker 2:Whatever you've done for the least of these, my brothers, you've done unto me, and so when we serve, we are really serving the body of Christ, the living manifestation of the body of.
Speaker 2:Christ, as we care for one another, as we meet those who are lonely and vulnerable. There is Christ, christ, and he needed friends. Everybody needs friends. I'm thinking just this night in the garden stay here, watch and pray. You know the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak and he comes out three different times and they're sleeping. You know he wants to be around his friends so they can kind of bear a part of the cross with him as he goes and then ultimately is all alone, so that we would never, we would never be, and the heightened breadth of his love from the cross, his blood covering our sins, moves us out in love and community to the body of christ. So that's, that's beautiful. Final one, you say be willing to let non-essential things morph and die.
Speaker 4:Say more about that need, joe um, you know things that are not. Here's another story. There's a. There's a.
Speaker 4:My church that I'm at had a 30 year long, longstanding men's Bible study. At 6 30 AM in the morning there were Wheaton, illinois is a weird place. Everybody's a Christian there. It's home of Billy Graham, right? You know like he went to Wheaton college. You know like that's just where it is.
Speaker 4:And so eight of the guys of those 12 that were there weren't members of our church but they were members of other churches. They just had been doing this forever. When I would be able to go, I'd bring the average age down quite significantly by showing up in the room, and I shared with one of my pastors like what if we did this at a different time? You know we might lose that connection over there, but it might expand. And so it took a couple of years but we moved it to 630 at night and now there's between 40 and 50 guys there every night, you know, covering the broad swath of our church.
Speaker 4:It impacts me because every it seems like most churches want to have governing board meetings at seven o'clock on Tuesday and Thursday and so that's just a universal meeting time and so I have to miss, you know half of them or so, but that's okay, because there's 40 or 50 other people there that are doing that, and so that's what I mean by like some non-essential thing that, just because it's been that one way, you know, a timing is non-essential, right, like finding the place that it works the best for that is that. So that's what I would say in that world is and don't, don't take offense when somebody asks questions. You know they just just assume the best in that when, when they do that.
Speaker 3:Well, and sometimes programs need to be sunset and and you know, there's gosh. I was reading, uh, patrick Lencioni's book about the six types of working geniuses and they it was like a guy going into, they tell the little fable story and he's in this church meeting and they're doing this, this, uh gosh, this festival. And they just did it because they always did it and they never took the time to actually ask why are we doing this? Right, we always do this. So it's like you need to have mechanisms to actually challenge like is this thing that we created? It was beautiful for a time. It served a purpose for a time. Maybe it doesn't serve its purpose anymore. Maybe we need to look at new things to actually fulfill the discipleship needs of our community. So we have to be permission giving in that to some degree.
Speaker 2:Right, the church is always going to do word and sacrament work, of course, and we're going to gather for the divine service, right, but outside of that, I think there's a fair amount of freedom for sure?
Speaker 3:So let's.
Speaker 2:I like talking behaviors. This is the last question, joe, behavior analysis for leaders. Behaviors can change, personality generally does not, but behaviors the way we engage in the world, what we do and say, can change. So what top three behaviors do you pray every leader at every level in the LCMS and beyond in the wider church, possess?
Speaker 4:Joe, at the end of Acts 2, we hear that the people had favor with all the peoples. So, working on our winsome witness, you know, those people that Jesus bled and died for, that aren't a part of our world yet, that don't know him yet that we would have a winsome witness, even that we would have a winsome witness amongst one another, I think would be good. I think a second thing too would be, as the people, as the laity who will be leaders, but to have a posture of reception rather than immediate critique, and I mean that in the way of there's an important time to discern and to you know, make sure that what is being said and preached and all of that is correct and true, and at the same time, don't miss out on the fact that this sermon, or God's word, as you are given to you, as you hear it, is to be received. And if you critique first before you receive, it just seems like you're going to miss out on some things. You're always going to be grumpy, you know about that.
Speaker 2:Well, let me double click on that, because this is, I think, one of the best tools in a pastor's tool belt a leader at any level, but certainly a pastor, because you're going to have I always like to use Grandma Schmittke you're going to have a Grandma Schmittke longtime member at St Paul's Lutheran come up to you and say, have you thought about this pastor? Or have you? Do you know that this is the way you came across? Or this could get even more offensive to the younger pastor or the newer pastor. Pastor John did it this way. Have you thought about that?
Speaker 2:If your immediate move in that moment is to critique Grandma Schmittke, watch out, son, she carries a lot of weight, you know. And so I want to make friends with Grandma Schmittke. I'm thinking of Rena Roberts, now a precious saint in anticipation of the resurrection. Rena Roberts, jack, the little birdie who told you you needed to be a part of using your instrumental gifts, to be a part of the ministry. If I didn't make friends with Rena Roberts, whoo baby, watch out, you know Because she carried, she was opinion, she was an opinion leader and she because she loved the church. And then I was open. Now I didn't agree with her on everything, but I was at least open to hearing what she said and even growing, and maybe the way we message or the things we start or refine is critiqued. My receptivity to her had a cascading effect in building trust in the entire congregation and I think, that principle from the local church to district and synod.
Speaker 2:You can just scale that out. Is your first instinct to say critique, no, or do we develop a behavior that's slightly more agreeable, looking for the points of commonality? If we move in that direction more, that's going to be a very, very healthy behavioral move for us, systemically in our local churches and in our work together, our walk together in the Synod. Anything more to say there, joe?
Speaker 4:Yeah, and even in the Synod, but beyond, even in our relationships I think about. I got this group of guys that I meet with every Monday morning from my gym that we read the gospel reading for the next Sunday and there are a couple of evangelical guys, a couple of Catholic guys. We're all about the same time. I would love for them all to commune at my not my at Jesus's altar in my church one day. Right, Because I believe this is the realest, truest thing ever in the world. Right, like we have the truth.
Speaker 4:But if I jumped immediately every time that we read a baptismal text and like jumped all over my buddy that has a different view of that, you know, I might burn down that relationship. It's not that I don't say, well, this is what we believe about that and this is where we find that. But if I just like screamed and yelled at him about it, like I don't have my brother, I don't have the mutual conversation and consolation of the brethren that we have at that point in time, that doesn't mean that we should put aside our differences. We should talk about them, but we should talk about them in love, because Jesus loves you. Christ has no enemy, so I have no enemy. So that would be. You know from that that I love you and I'm going to be so confident in what I believe that I'm just going to have a public confession about like a positive confession about it, like this is what's so good.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's so good. Well, just think about Jesus, joe. Like he hung out for three years with a dude who's going to betray him. He knows it all. Another guy that's going to deny him, and the rest of them generally, are going to abandon him in his greatest moment of need. And yet he poured his life into them, spoke vision over them. This is the posture of Jesus. Did he perfectly agree with everything they did and said no, but he developed friendship with them, and that friendship fueled the early church for us to go in.
Speaker 2:And I see that you worship many gods. Let me tell you about the God who's revealed himself, this openness and wonder that the God of the universe wants to make every human heart his home. God's on a mission to bring every human heart. He runs, he sells, he gives it all, and the cross is the example, so that the whole world who did Jesus die for that? The whole world would be saved and come to a knowledge of how good he is and how loving he is, how kind he is. He is a God of judgment, to be sure, but that's his alien nature. His proper nature is love, and we should treat one another in like fashion. So I think that goes to your last behavior. Joe, take us.
Speaker 4:Yeah, just God puts a lot of people in your path and you were there to love them. You know that doesn't mean that you agree with them, that doesn't mean that you don't speak the truth to them, but he's given you to love them. Even your bum brother, even the neighbor that drives you nuts, like all of those people, are given there for you to love. And you know the best place for us to practice that is in our congregations. There's not I can't imagine there's not a single congregation that there's not somebody in the congregation that drives another person nuts. I bet Tim, and I bet you, jack, I bet both of you have members of your church that drive you Not one.
Speaker 4:I deny it, not one Okay.
Speaker 2:I'm just joking with you.
Speaker 4:You're exactly right, I won't talk about members of my family, yeah, and so in that instance, to practice, have love for them, you know, and to always find the I can understand. There's this book, father Joe. I don't know if you guys have ever read this book, father Joe. It's about like one of the founders of National Lampoon, tony Hendra, and so it's his life. He was going to become a priest. He has this.
Speaker 4:The story starts out with how he met Father Joe, this priest, at a monastery. He had, he was 15. He was over at this lady's house and he had, he had an affair with her. Like the lady came on to him, like all of those things had an affair, and he, the husband, calls him over. He's thinking, oh, this is going to, you're 15.
Speaker 4:There's this guy and he's like you need to go over to this monastery and you need to meet Father Joe. He sends him there and he goes to Father Joe to sit down for his very first confession and he's expecting you know, in their world there's penance, there's all sorts of things that go on with that. Again, don't? It's fine? Confession of absolution is great.
Speaker 4:And so he goes, and he goes to Father Joe and he tells him the story and Father Joe's first words out of his mouth before he said anything else, was that poor woman. And so in that you could see the compassion of, yes, this woman probably she's older, there's all of these things You're a 15 year old boy, all of these things but she's now made a wreck of her life. She's now like all of that and to have compassion through that, to still love her through that. Now he told Tony, it's probably best that you don't go ever see her again, like that's probably what is best. But but in that, to have that view of all of the people around you, of an immediate instead of hate, like hating them or be despising them to, to see that, uh, that decision that I think is a really, really terrible decision is probably going to wreck you and I'm going to be there when you fall. But I think of what Father Joe said that poor woman.
Speaker 2:Jesus looks upon the least, the lonely, the leper, the crowds as sheep without a shepherd, and he always has compassion on us. Even when, and especially when we which we're prone to do because of sin make a mess of our lives, he runs and he forgives, and when we, by the Spirit's power, turn and are called up in repentance, he's always there with a warm embrace and the kindness of Jesus. This has been so much fun. Joe, you're a gift to the body of Christ. I'm grateful that you're serving in your role. Faithfully pray for you and your family and the ministry of LCEF. If people want to connect with you, how can they do so, Joe?
Speaker 4:If they check out lcefnidsubstackcom, that's where my newsletter is and all of that, so they can get a hold of me there or send me an email at joewillman at lceforg.
Speaker 2:Closing comment Jack, how'd the conversation? Every conversation leaves a mark and touches and changes us. That's the way the word works, right. What are you leaving with today, jack?
Speaker 3:I think to me, what I loved about our conversation the most was talking about the difference between perfection and excellence and really leaning on that, and I think that's an opportunity, for I think that's an area where leaders burn themselves out and tear themselves up, and I think we need an opportunity to rest in the grace and the forgiveness and the restoration of Jesus and also then pursue excellence in the freedom that God gives us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Rest in the excellencies of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous, marvelous light. This is Lead Time. Please like, subscribe, comment wherever it is you take in these conversations, and we are about unity, and if you've heard anything today that you have a difference of opinion on, we have more to learn always, and I know that's the posture you have as well, joe, please, please share this and comment. That helps get the message out. And this is a great day to be alive. It's Monday, thursday. We're heading to Easter. The tomb is empty, alleluia.
Speaker 1:I know I can't necessarily say that, but when you're listening to this, it's going to be alleluia time.
Speaker 2:Christ is risen. He is risen indeed, Alleluia. It's a good day. Go and make it a great day. Thanks so much, Joe Jack.
Speaker 1:God bless guys. You a podcast of the Unite Leadership Collective. The ULC's mission is to collaborate with the local church to discover, develop and deploy leaders through biblical Lutheran doctrine and innovative methods To partner with us in this gospel message. Subscribe to our channel, then go to theuniteleadershiporg to create your free login for exclusive material and resources and then to explore ways in which you can sponsor an episode. Thanks for listening and stay tuned for next week's episode.