The Neighborhood Church, Bentonville, AR

"The Making of a Pastor: Tom's Seminary Experience"

• theneighborhood.church • Season 2025 • Episode 16

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Join us as we dive deep into the faithful world of seminary education with Tom Helmich. 

Tom shares his seven-year journey towards pastoral ordination through the Evangelical Lutheran Church and Wartburg Theological Seminary. This is an inside look at the rigorous process of becoming a Lutheran pastor. From psychological evaluations and theological interviews to clinical pastoral education and internships, Tom unpacks the multiple checkpoints and challenges of his seminary experience. 

Through this podcast, you can gain insights into the spiritual, academic, and personal discernment required to answer a call to ministry. In addition to Tom's personal reflections, this episode demystifies the path to pastoral leadership and provides a narrative of faith, education, and calling through the Lutheran Church.

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Pastor Joe Liles:

Don't forget the jingle. Alright, welcome to the TNC podcast. We have an exciting podcast today, kind of a unique one. I would say. I have two podcast hosts with me in studio. Roseanne is not here today. Let's just get that one out of the what happened to Roseanne? She's out today. She lives with her sister, running some things and helping her sister out. She's got stuff to do, so she is out today. But you know what? Today was an exciting day inside the church for a special thing that happened with our one and only. Oh, Tom, Tom, hell, that's right, I want your point. Yeah, I was pointing at you to say your name. That's great, because, Tom, you had an important thing in the life of seminary happened today, which is called approval, and we're gonna get to that in a second, but we're gonna make this podcast about your seminary experience. And like, what is the process of seminary coming up? All Comedy of Errors. Comedy, yeah. How many years? How many years just right, right at the gate? Seven years, seven years in seminary? Is that? How long it normally takes?

Tom Helmich:

No, four. Therefore, okay, yeah. Like taking the slow route, yeah,

Pastor Joe Liles:

that's great. That's great. And then joining us also on the podcast, we have the one, the only, the same table, the same table, the same as last week. Our podcast many other weeks and many other weeks. And so, yeah, we were kicking off a series this week called church shopping. And that series is really about the years of the different really church experiences and kind of, how did church form from the beginning? So we're talking this last Sunday, really, from, like, the early church, after Christ's resurrection, right, starting through the ascension, right? And then afterwards the apostles, kind of, starting these communities of faith. And like, kind of, I would say, really, 33 through 100 the church was persecuted, really, from like 90, from a 90 to 100 to all the way to, like 325 that's when, kind of, the church came out of, like the Roman provinces, and really became persecuted. And so you get this early church up through 325 next week, we're doing the Reformation church, right? The year 1500 that was a newly formed church, right? And the kind of the the split from really Catholicism to Protestant, which is not Catholic, and then, and then we're gonna go to 1990s on Mother's Day, which I'm super looking forward to. It's great. I had people talking to me after service about the music they remembered from the 90s, saying that they're inviting people just to that service because they're like, I want to go back into like, when I was in church in those days. And like, follow, what was the the Whoopi Goldberg movie? Is it? Whoopi Goldberg sister, with the Goldberg and movie, that's the only one that,

Tom Helmich:

yeah, that's, that's why I think 90s church. I'm thinking, like, yeah, purple silk ties.

Unknown:

Oh, what was the movie that she blew at the traffic lights, and then they went green,

Pastor Joe Liles:

yeah? Ooh, Angel. Oh, I can't remember. I want to say Angels in the Outfield, and that's so wrong. That's where they flap, like the angels in the boy can, you know, see angels and everything else

Tom Helmich:

like that. There was some really bad TV back then. And I look back on watching some of that stuff now, I'm like, wow, yeah, it was really some of the best us from back then. Yes, most of the best music back

Pastor Joe Liles:

then. You think the best music? 90s, 80s, 90s. 80s, 90s. We had a beloved funeral last Saturday for house show, beloved friend of mine, beloved member of the church, and he loves 60s music, so all they wanted he

Tom Helmich:

was probably grown in the 50s, yeah. So what do you realize people's favorite movies, favorite type of music? It's usually around the like, 20s, yeah, right, absolutely like when they're coming into their own personal identity, apart from their family, and then that gets concreted, yeah, the rest of their life, yeah, no matter how embarrassing that movie or music is, yeah?

Pastor Joe Liles:

So here's crazy. I've started to play music from my high school time to Kaylee and Landon just to say, like, Hey, here's what I went through, because Kaylee is now in high school. Yeah, that's, that's the that's 97 so, and as Landon would say, Dad, that's in the 1900s and I'm like, so brutal, like, you're like, wow, it just hits hard. But then I bet they hate it on purpose. No, I've actually got them like to enjoy it. I mean, really, yeah. I mean, you're going back to some good old punk, and you're going to decide just like, early pop, you know, like just some good things are happening during those times. So I've played them the the range, though, the range of things that are going on and so, so they kind of dig it, which is good. It still hits the run mix every now and then, I ran the half marathon this year to a 90s playlist of just old school music, which was great. And so, so things are good there. But speaking of playlists, we have a jingle for the podcast.

Tevo Christmann:

I do a 1-234-793-6722, 85 neighborhood church.

Pastor Joe Liles:

That's right, you too can call the neighborhood church at 479-367-2285, and talk to Roseanne. She'll answer. Pick that up. That is our church number. We say that so everyone will know it and memorize it. It's also they jingle to Empire. Yes, yeah. Well, we don't need to talk about we don't talk about that. That's not copyrighted. Take that away. We didn't steal it. We didn't steal it. We came up with it on our own. So let's talk through this a little bit. So we're doing church shopping. We're talking about the early church all the way. Through, and we have literally someone who is getting ordained in the month of May, Tom hellmuch on May 21 that is a Wednesday night. Everyone from the church is invited. We have a congregational meeting coming up before that, which would be on the 18th and that is after the second service, and that is to vote Tom hellmuch in. We hope that goes well, because three days later, you're getting ordained, the food will be good way Bishop's going to be there. What if it doesn't go well? Change Wednesday, we'll

Tom Helmich:

either celebrate the ordination or celebrate the No. Well, because it's also the last meeting for the warehouse for the semester. That's right. So even without the ordination, it would have been a end of the semester warehouse party celebration. And so yeah, if they say no, then we'll just have the warehouse party and

Pastor Joe Liles:

we're building this up. So this is a congregational meeting. So let's talk about neighborhood church, not traditional, like a congregational meeting type church we've been doing. We did one last year, right? I believe we did one the year before. And there's a couple things that happen during a congregational meeting. One, you do business of the church, right? Particularly this time, the importance is to vote in Tom as a called and ordained pastor at the neighborhood Church of care and education. We reveal kind of title position, right? And then we have budget, right? So we go through budget, right? And we kind of walk through, hey, here's our budget that we're approving this year and everything else. So we kind of have these different votes. We'll introduce core team members, right? So you have core team members, so it's really a business life meeting of the church. But here's the crazy thing, everybody loves the idea of a congregational meeting. They love it. They want it. It is something very important to them. No one shows up to congregational meeting. I'm actually hoping this meeting, we're going to get maybe 75 to 100 people. The last congregational meeting we had, I think we had 25 like maybe or low 20s, low 20s, right? And it was that,

Tom Helmich:

one that was that one was in the evening. Wasn't it in the evening? So I'm

Pastor Joe Liles:

switching it up, because I'm gonna get, hey, you attend second service. We will feed you. We're gonna cater a lunch free 99 so you can come over enjoy food while we're meeting. It's one hour. We're gonna do a one hour meeting, and then you're out the

Tom Helmich:

door. That's a hard part. When you get the logistics wise, and you go to two services. Is the first service, they left and been gone a while they've been gone. They're not gonna come back. Probably they won't they won't. They won't. The first service or the second service, they're going to be hungry. It's lunchtime, yeah? So you might get some of them, yeah, the first service, it's Sunday, they're home. They got their house shoes on, maybe even if it was me, and be back in my pajamas, you know, or chilling on the couch, you know. So it's absolutely hard to get those people back,

Pastor Joe Liles:

absolutely, absolutely. So that's going to

Tevo Christmann:

come up unless, unless they care. Yeah,

Tom Helmich:

right. Oh, really want to be there. They really want to be

Pastor Joe Liles:

there. We are providing these things. So you may know about the I understand

Tevo Christmann:

it if you don't care. Yeah, like, hungry,

Pastor Joe Liles:

but like, please Jesus just come and care that we have these wonderful things happening in the church. So Tom, I really want to break down the process of seminary. I want this to be like a discovery podcast. Hey,

Tevo Christmann:

actually, I have a question. Oh, wow. What is ordained? Where does it come from? Oh, what does the word even mean? And

Tom Helmich:

what superpowers do you get after it? Oh, superpowers. None whatsoever. None. Completely gypped on that. Yeah. So the idea of ordination, because the Lutheran church, we believe in the priesthood of all believers, which is what Joe is me preaching on that Wednesday night, and five for 5%

Pastor Joe Liles:

okay, I'm gonna remember that we're just learning that banking, or banking, the question of, What does ordination mean, and what superpowers Do you have? Yeah, that question is banked. Yeah. We're gonna hold that for a second. Tom, can you talk about but you just said, because this was new information to me as of Sunday, which was great, so I emailed you, like, three days before that. You didn't email me three days before. That's correct. I didn't get to that part. So no, so the

Tom Helmich:

ordination is in the a service of Word and Sacrament. So yeah, where you have, like, what we do every Sunday, and usually have somebody come to preach, and then the bishop does their thing. And so it's a whole liturgy, yeah, there's a whole origin, right? That we're paring down to certain things that have to be there because of ecumenical agreements, yup, so because of the understanding of ordination is, there's no superpower you don't get suddenly this, like this, you know, all sudden you get a direct, like, personal backdoor phone number to God to answer questions, you know, or any higher authority. When

Pastor Joe Liles:

I went through, I did,

Tevo Christmann:

yeah, you don't get to, like, shoot rays, no, no,

Tom Helmich:

nothing like that, because we understand the idea of the priesthood of all, all believers. It's the duty of everybody to preach the gospel that we have in the office of Pastor. That's why we don't use the word priest, because all everybody's called to the priesthood the office of pastors. Like as a Christian, you lead worship. You know, some people may work in a hospital, some people may sell shoes, some people may be a teacher. Some people may, you know, whatever they do for a living. And Luther even said that the shoe maker doesn't be isn't a good Christian by putting little crosses on his shoes, but by making good shoes, everything we do in society, every job is a way of serving those around us. Yep. And so we are all equal when it comes to authority over the gospel and Scripture and preaching the Word. I'm just the one that's been delegated to do that for a living while everybody else is doing their other jobs. And

Pastor Joe Liles:

I think I would, I would. Just add to it too, that it was really meant to create structure within the church. That

Tom Helmich:

way you there's control over who's preaching it, because we know in Christianity, all the denominations is such a wide variety, it's like this person has been trained, which is not required under all denominations. This person has been educated, trained, been been tested and reviewed and discerned, and that we are saying yes, this is a valid call, and we are choosing this person to proceed with preaching the gospel, presiding over the sacraments, doing all the things that I'll have to say yes to.

Tevo Christmann:

So the ordination service is just a sort of a celebration or a ritual, or I would write

Pastor Joe Liles:

a call or ordination, right? It's a right, yeah, so,

Tevo Christmann:

but it doesn't invest you with any extra power of any kind.

Tom Helmich:

It's, there's the the laying on of of hands, which is like that symbolic. We're, we're, we're like an anointing you like, this is now your responsibility. This is, you know, your charge to, to go forth. And it kind of tries to invoke a lot of what went on at Pentecost, where the, you know, the praying for the Spirit to come on and bless the person in their ministry, but no actual tongues of fire, or hopefully no doors blowing open from wind, because it's tornadoes, you know, tornado season and stuff like

Tevo Christmann:

that, you know. So then, just so then, if there is like, after you ordain, the the ordination is purely about sort of institutional structure, cohesion. There's nothing spiritual. Well, there's, there's, there's invocation of

Tom Helmich:

the spirit to to bless the ministry of the person. But no superpowers, no special powers or authority over God or anything. Just a spiritual the idea of a spiritual blessing to help the person doing it, you know, that will do it with the help and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And the

Tevo Christmann:

word ordination comes from what

Pastor Joe Liles:

I don't know. Yeah, it's actually probably

Tevo Christmann:

Latin or donatio, or, yeah, right,

Tom Helmich:

probably, probably, it may come from, like, anointing or something, yeah,

Pastor Joe Liles:

that's actually good research. I'd love to know where that word came from, like, your etymology, yeah. So the other important distinction about being ordained is that there were previously two rosters of ordination, right? And we still understand ordination of two different rostered individuals, right? We have ordained pastors and we have ordained Deacons in the church, right? So a couple things that Tom was talking about, which makes it interesting is one you might hear of a pastor from another denomination, right? So Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal, those different things, right? Your mainline Protestant denominations, they all have their own ordination practices and their own ordination path, right? So we don't have one path that exists for all Protestant denominations, right? The Lutheran ELCA has their own ordination path. You know, even Wisconsin and Missouri and Lutheran will have a different ordination path, and true of the denominations, right? So when you hear of pastor that is unique to the denomination or non denomination, and the reason I say that is because you can go to churches who say, hey, love that you've been serving here in the kids ministry. That's super awesome. We would love to make you our kids pastor. And they go, oh gosh, I would love that I feel called. And they go, great. We're going to invite you up next Sunday and we'll kind of install you as the kids pastor. And that's they're now the kids pastor. They are not ordained according to our understanding of what it means to be a pastor. The same would be true if you go to like the church of online, Jesus Christ, which many people have done, and I forget what it's called, gosh, there's a name. There's a specific name, where you can go be ordered Church of online, Jesus Christ. It's literally called like, the church of like online and like, you can be ordained by going to them, paying money, and they'll give you an ordination certificate so you can perform marital you do weddings, weddings, and it's like my brother is ordained, which we've had no conversations about, but I have feelings about my brother's ordained so he could marry some people, which, and even as a pastor, I particularly still love the fact that people are looking for this, even if it's outside the church, right? I'm always a believer that, like bringing God into people's lives is important. I believe there are levels of that. But at the same time, I see this happening all throughout, right, where people are now just pastors, right? They go. I do feel like for someone who goes to seminary for seven years, for someone who spent four years in seminary, right, steeped in tradition, steeped in kind of a theological grounding, there is a difference there, right? And so when we look at it as Lutherans, there is an understanding when it provides order to the church, right, when you come and you understand that you're in a Lutheran church and there's an ordained pastor, you understand that they have gone through four years of seminary and a process of ordination that includes candidacy. It includes a chaplain moment right, where you go out and you have your Clinical Pastoral Education. Includes theological understanding. It includes languages. It includes an approval right, includes an internship, right? Like, all these things go through, it includes psych evaluations right to make sure, like, if you want to go to the psychological side, right, I had many psych evals coming into this right, and was approved for certain things and not approved for other things. And so you get to this wonderful process that we have that is really trying to say. We have people caring for other people, right, in a theological and care way, for emotional and spiritual health of someone that needs to be cared for in and of itself. And so you have ordained pastors that's toward in sacrament. So Tom will be an ordained pastor to word in sacrament. That means that one you can preach, right? But you're not preaching on Wednesday. You told me to preach, so I get to preach on that Wednesday. I had the bishop in for that reason, so I didn't have to preach on that day. And Tom's like, why aren't you? And I was like, it's only five to seven minutes. No, yeah, right, I won't preach 30. Does it bring a hot and so you have word in sacrament. We have two sacraments in Lutheran tradition, baptism and communion. So we preside over the elements right of baptism and communion, and also the word, then you have the ordained deacons, right? They are also ordained, but they are ordained a word and service. They're the extension from the church to the outside world. It doesn't mean pastors can't do that, but what you do see is the distinguishes that deacons will not preside over the elements, right? Or they won't preside over baptism, and so they are not they have to get special dispensation from the Synod through the bishop in order to do something like that, and it's only in the absence of an ordained pastor. So that's where you get into some like, real kind of right of passage, right? There's a right that comes into what does this ordination mean? How does this exist in an order of the church we are then cared for by the bishop. The bishop has another element above us. It would be kind of our boss in the Lutheran church, right? That bishop has their own right, and they're installed as a bishop. And so we get to this wonderful process where Tom is at right now, and that was kind of this morning. But I want you to take us back, because you went through approval today. Approval is

Tom Helmich:

one of the final second approval of how many of two?

Pastor Joe Liles:

Of two? Yeah. And so before we talk about approval today, which you literally had the hour before this podcast, like you were fretting from your approval interview into this podcast, and I haven't even heard about it yet, so I'm excited to see the questions they asked. Can you walk us through what is the seminary process?

Tom Helmich:

Because it's not you think of seminary as education, but like for the Lutheran churches, I think all the different Lutheran churches, Roman Catholic Church, you can't just decide to go to seminary. That's why I thought I'd just go to seminary for the education. That's not how that works. Yeah, like you for them to to because of the amount of time and effort that goes into it, for you to take part in that program, even though you have to pay for it, you have to be approved to be there and do it. You can, you can register the first semester, but then you can't go on to the second semester without positive approval paperwork from the Senate. So when I started, I started talking to you about it on the ride to Senate Assembly. And then we what year

Pastor Joe Liles:

was that? 2018 2018 Okay, yeah, that was great, yep. And

Tom Helmich:

so like spring of was it 17? No, it was 17 because about a year before they able to get started. Yep. So 2017 because I had to meet with Pastor Karen in Bella Vista. She was the candidacy committee chair. And, like, you know, the conversation, you know, why are you interested? Okay, here's the process here, and they very much put it on you, like, here's what you need to do, and then you gotta go do it. Like they don't help you along the way, like it's, you know, you've gotta be able to to have the initiative to go and do these steps. And then I met with another pastor, as a retired pastor, for a second opinion, or whether or not they should even entertain the idea of the interviews for the process. And then once he signed off on it, I enrolled in seminary, started doing the paperwork for entrance. Yeah, and so for entrance, I did a the psychological evaluation with a psychiatrist. Yeah, had to talk to him twice, because I had to re answer some of

Pastor Joe Liles:

the questions. What

Tom Helmich:

do you talk to? I sent the paperwork in, and I had to drive to Tulsa, and he met me in the lobby at his clipboard, and he said, Hey, I want you to look at some of these questions. And the, it's the MMPI. I mean, I've done, oh yeah, this I did once for the Sheriff's Office, once for Rogers. PD, because to be armed as an armed law enforcement officer, you have to have psych eval, right? Yep. And so I'm familiar with it. I had psychology classes my undergrad. Like, I know what this is. And so being kind of snarky is, like, what I get some of them wrong. And he's like, no sense of humor. He's like, Well, you know, there's not really any wrong answers. And I want to say, Well, then why are you bringing the papers back out? You know, he said, I just kind of wonder about if these are completely honest. And I was like, Okay. He's like, Well, like you whether or they're not, you worry about, you know, on a scale of one to 10, how much do you worry about health, body image, finance, all this stuff. He said, Just something, like, you worry about that whole lot. I'm like, nah. I'm kind of, I mean, I was, you know, 40 years old, you know, like, No, I mean, I'm, I'm good, yeah. He's like, What about this one you say, you know, on a scale of one to 10, how often do you worry about somebody trying to kill you? That's like, a six. I'm like, Well, I'm a cop. I wear body armor for a living. And he's like, Oh, shit, never mind. Come on, in this that's fine. He's like, cops and firefighters have a completely different perspective on life. It's always different, yep, which means he didn't read the first page of the package. Yeah,

Pastor Joe Liles:

no, yeah. He didn't read because it has occupations, just looking at the test. That was it. So I did the

Tom Helmich:

psych eval, and then I did go to a psychologist for a career counseling session, yep, and he wrote out his evaluation, and then that all went to the Senate office, and then I got a date for. My entrance interview, yeah. And I had to do about 1520, pages of essay on different questions of theology, faith, background, and

Pastor Joe Liles:

this is without going in knowing, knowing nothing, just kind of give you a blanket just to see where you're at. Where are you at? Yeah, right. What have you learned? Right? And I had

Tom Helmich:

to ask questions like, when and where were you baptized? So I had to call my parents and dig that up, because, you know, it's infant baptism. Wonderful, traditional thing, okay, but it had to, I had to ask, because I don't, I don't remember, you know, and then do they, they bring you in there, and they ask you a whole bunch of questions after reading your essay, and then they send you out of the room for about 10 minutes and talk about you. And then they bring you back in, and then tell you yes or no, but before they tell you yes or no, they read a form and have you answer these questions about and some of them, I'm like, I have no idea. What are you associated with such and such group? I'm like, I have no idea what that is. And she's like, okay, then you're not, yeah, you know it's like, Freemasons and stuff like that, because there's issue about, like, apostolic authority, yep, and then they vote yes. Now you're entranced. Now you can continue in seminary. Yep,

Pastor Joe Liles:

and that is on that is only true. So just going back for a second, if you pass your psychological interview, yes, is that psychological interviews ago? No, go. Yeah. If you don't pass that, you're out. And

Tevo Christmann:

that's all after one semester already. No, before you ever during the

Pastor Joe Liles:

first walking in with most

Tom Helmich:

people do it beforehand, yeah, because the way my cycle worked, I was already enrolled, because I actually had to have somebody at the library proctor the psych eval, written evaluation to send off to him. So then I got entrance, so I got to go to start taking classes. But then every November, I have to do a weekend retreat with a candidacy committee, so they continue to get to know you. And you know, where's

Pastor Joe Liles:

your candidacy committee at Tulsa, Oklahoma, right? So it's where you've come from. It's your people are on site for seminary. And some people attend seminary from a distributed learning,

Tom Helmich:

right? But regardless that, that candidacy committee retreat is at the the bishop's office, yeah, it was in Tulsa, so I did that. And then, you know, then all the, all the academic stuff, doing that every, every November, right smack dab in the middle of deer season, and then deer season, yeah, yeah,

Pastor Joe Liles:

we're not concerned about the concern, because, yeah,

Tom Helmich:

Deirdre, but then you have midway through before you do internship, you have to get endorsement. And so now you have the Internship Committee that has to do the endorsement interview, and the faculty to do an endorsement interview, yep. And so it's another 20 pages of essay, theological questions. And now endorsement

Pastor Joe Liles:

is after internship before. It's before before.

Tom Helmich:

So you have to get endorsed to be able to go do internship, and then you have to do your CPE, which not remnant denominations. You

Pastor Joe Liles:

did your CP backwards, because I did my CP before internship I did too. Yeah. Okay, yeah. So

Tom Helmich:

I retired. I had to retire before I could do CPE, yeah, because of conflict with confidentiality, okay, like, there's some, you know, so that, Oh, I get that. So I retired. I did my endorsement interviews with the faculty panel and the committee panel, they both said yes, and then I got to do CPE, and then a full time semester. And then can you just explain to people what CPE, clinical, Pastoral Education, and what is that it's like, it's the care aspect, like when somebody's in the hospital and you go to visit with them, only you spend 400 hours. Yep, it's all summer. It's like three, three and a half months. And mine is split between a care facility in Fayetteville for the elderly that had a nursing home memory care in the Arkansas Children's Hospital. Yeah, through very different conversations, oh yeah. Oh yeah, both ends of life, yeah, both ends of life only both times. It's often dying at both ends of life, which is kind of tough conversation. And then more academics, and then the internship, a year, full year long internship that I had split between here in Saint Luke, yeah. And then I went back in for another semester. At this point, I've been there longer than a lot of the faculty, yeah? And then I had to do the endorsement, because to to finish the program, because you get the degree, the masters of divinity degree, which has nothing to do with Harry Potter, it's not divination, it's completely different divinity. That's great, yeah, that's the question I get to you, if they have that masters of divinity master's degree, which is a master's degree, but it's 116 hours, so it's like a couple hours shy of another bachelor's degree, correct? Yep. Which most masters are? Like, most masters are half years, yeah, half of that have a four year masters, yeah? Which is two regular for four years? Like, you can be a doctor, yes? Like, yes, yeah. So then I had to do more essays and send submit a couple of written manuscripts of sermons and videos of sermons that I preached, yeah. And then I get the endorsement, where the bishop's office to include the bishop do all the the questions, ask your random questions about theology and how you articulate this and that. And then they vote, and they tell you if you pass or not, yeah. And then this last one I did today was to fill up. They call the form d. I have no idea what D I have no idea what D stands for, the language from the seminary that the faculty panel after my interviewers bring that information to them, they vote on whether or not they want to to approve me for pastoral ministry. Yeah, and I have to have that faculty approval from the whole faculty board to continue on and. Be ordained, and that will happen the week before. So

Pastor Joe Liles:

let me just walk through the structure. So you have a psychological interview, which is a go, no go, yep, right for seminar, and a career counseling interview, and then a career counseling interview, and then you have entrance Yes, which is a go, no go, which is a go, no go. Then you have your first year, and you get to Clinical Pastoral Education. But I had with me I was three or four years in before, okay, yeah, so it was a little bit different process. It's only two years in, yeah, you do this, the clinical Exactly, right? So you do this, so that is also at the same time a pass fail, right? Because if that's from your Clinical Pastoral Education supervisor, which will give you a pass fail and how you did during that year, and then you have to come back to seminary and go through another interview process that's a pass fail. And when I say pass, fail, these are moments when you exit seminary, if this is not

Tom Helmich:

your dope. And I've seen people get that interview where they get a no, yep, and then they're just they're done.

Pastor Joe Liles:

So that's one to two years in, right? So by one to two years in, we've had four times at which right seminary, your seminary time could be over, right? Then you go through internship, right? And that's another and

Tom Helmich:

then you get an Internship Committee at the at the congregational level that evaluates you, yeah. And then that language goes to the candidacy committee at the bishop song, which evaluates about you, a evaluate you. And then it goes to to contextual education, yeah, that evaluates it.

Pastor Joe Liles:

So that's three times there just on internship where you could receive a No, right? Yeah. And you're done, and then you're done, and then you get through the internship. Now, your coursework is there. You still have to complete your coursework. Now, coursework is generally like a credit. No credit is kind of what they've gone to. They're still doing grades,

Tom Helmich:

and a lot of some of them, like I have some that are that are graded, and some that are just pass fail. So you still

Pastor Joe Liles:

have to pass those in order to actually graduate with the masters of divinity. They've got their accreditation standard? Yeah, exactly. So you have to be accredited, right? And then finally, your approval. In my mind, there's eight or nine times during seminary, which I think is gets a little bit back to this ordination, right? Is that there's eight or nine times when we go through seminary where we are literally walking through a process of, hey, this is a path or not a path, right? And we go through that entire time, and at each step there are people one that are receiving No,

Tom Helmich:

and it's a lot of people. It's a lot of people process that are doing all the interviews, yeah. And

Pastor Joe Liles:

there are times when people late into the process receive a no, and there are times late in the process where people discern this isn't the route for them. There's times late in the process where they discern Lutheran isn't for them, right? And so I've seen all those, especially when I went through seminary, and I'm sure you've seen it in the 19 years you've been going to seminary. Been going to seminary, and so, so, so this is interesting. So can you walk us through today? Like, I'm very intrigued. So I went through approval also, right? And I think I shared this with you, right? When at the approval, it's, it's really a kind of an understanding and a conversation about your theology, right? Like taking in the four years of understanding and how you've rooted yourself in the narrative of Lutheran theology and what that means. And then so they ask you questions about your faith, right, different things like that. And I remember Nate from bot, who I said hi to today on your approval interview, was also my supervisor, so I jumped on today and just said hi. But when I went through and they were talking to me, they asked me about, you know, just, hey, what would you say about your theology? And so I recited the Apostles Creed, but they didn't think that was funny. But I still think, like, at a base level, like we're grounded here, like we are grounded, but in your own words, but that's what they're going to say in your own words. Let's go So, and it's very important to think through that, right? It's not just this, this atmosphere where we repeat what we've learned, right? We really have to think through physiology. So today, in your approval, like, can you share with us some of the questions that they asked you?

Tom Helmich:

It's hard to even, you know, it was, it was good, short meeting. It's only an hour.

Pastor Joe Liles:

Yeah? They said it's gonna be real short, which I thought 15 minutes. Yeah, I did. They went for an hour and an

Tom Helmich:

hour, yeah? And both of the people my interview had been my advisors at one point, because I've been there long enough I had to have two because sabbatical came up for Nate and, you know, and so they, you know, they go through and they read my approval essay, there was like 20 pages beforehand, and then they could nitpick that, but they didn't really pick into that, okay, ask questions about, like, okay, in your preaching, because Professor Sam Gary is a former professor of homiletics, which is a fancy word for for preaching. It's like, you know what themes to people that hear you preach? We're currently here, yeah. And at some point time I brought up said that, yeah, I like the story based to be able to engage people in real world scenarios and to kind of keep their attention. And I did do the Gallagher thing at the neighborhood once brought in a watermelon and sledgehammer like you did not, that's good. I'm like, Oh, I absolutely did. Yeah, here's the situation, here's the reading and how it worked. I did not actually smash the watermelon because two services clean up by passed out ponchos. And the point people were worried enough, parents were picking their kids up off the front row and moving them back of the church. But here's kind of what I did, how I wound it up, and he's just smiling. He's like things you could do at the neighborhood that you could not get away with a lot of other churches ask a lot about you, like youth ministry and faith formation with teens, because I know I do a lot of that, okay? And then at one point, then they throw some wild ones out there. And sometimes, I think it's sometimes just to try to throw you for a loop. Yeah, right. Um. And talking about, like, how you how you proclaim the gospel, how you proclaim the good news and grace. And he's like, Okay, how you relate that to the cross, you know, to get and get into the idea of, you know, theology of the cross and the some symbolism of that for in a church. And like, what would you do different based on context you're at, you know, you know. So someone's like, what would you do different at the neighborhood about how you do some of that stuff. So I know through, like, if it was, if I were the senior pastor, these are some changes that I would

Pastor Joe Liles:

just said, senior pastor. What's the senior pastor? It's the the one who's there first. Gosh, I'm glad you said it that way, because, like, I'm hitting 43 this year. So times are coming. Doesn't mean elderly Yeah, it doesn't mean elderly.

Tom Helmich:

Pastor, yeah, because you'll, you'll turn 43 and round for that, I'll turn 50. Yeah, it's very true. Yeah, you'll take the senior it's just funny. It's like, you'll be the senior pastor, but I'll be pastor, but I'll be older than you. Yeah, that's right. And so go through, like, some of the things that I would do different, yeah? Oh,

Pastor Joe Liles:

well, let's pause. I'm intrigued. What would you do different? Tom,

Tom Helmich:

oh, well, like that cross mural kind of thing over there, the

Pastor Joe Liles:

cross. Can

Tom Helmich:

you describe it for people that are listening? Yeah. So it's and we had it at the on I Street, Yep, that was our that was our storefront. Or this is i street, but on the storefront church, yep, and Gary rebuilt it over here. And it's a sneak kind of wood collage that has a relief and that kind of the back and some of the shape of a cross, correct back light. It's a really, really neat artistic way of doing it, I would take the cross, which is central to all Christian theology and salvation, off of the side wall, and put it dead center in the worship space. Okay, yeah. Because what everybody see, you know, what you center in worship, is, like, the crux the most important thing, yeah. And what people are seeing is the most important thing when they come in here intuitively, is the screen and the band, yeah, so I wouldn't put the band in the back. That doesn't work for leading people through worship, right? Like a lot of churches, like, it was like, what St Luke, the choir is the very back. Like, everybody's got their

Pastor Joe Liles:

back turned. Oh my gosh, stream on it. It's like, the bounty setup of choir over there.

Tom Helmich:

You know, I would rearrange this a little bit, but I put the cross dead center, because everything should be focused on the cross, because that's the music helps draw in the emotive aspect of worship. But what actually does the deed, that promise of eternal life, is what Jesus did on that cross, and that is, to me, that needs to be front and center.

Pastor Joe Liles:

Can I just say, you know, what I love is that uniquely this week, because we had the funeral on Friday, we had placed our good Friday cross at the center focus right when people walk in. So the whole time we're saying this uniquely, there's a giant cross right when people walk in Sunday.

Tom Helmich:

Look at that. Going here on Sunday morning, on worship, it's, you know, it's behind them, yeah, you know, like, where are you focusing? You know, your your worship and the altar. Because we, we've got the cross off to one side the altar the other, yep. And it's, you know, symbolism only that goes as far as what people understand the symbol, right? But like, to me, the the altar belongs at the foot of the cross. So I would put the altar like, up here. I'd have to rear you'd have to rearrange stage stuff, because you have to be able to get behind it. I don't like standing at the altar. My back turned to people, yeah, which a lot of churches do. A lot of traditional churches, you have the altar against the wall at workburn, the chapel, the altar is against the wall. So the wall, yeah. And so you're looking at the back of the person presiding, whereas, like a Saint Luke King walked behind it, yeah. And so like, having the altar at the foot of the cross, and then, like, all the band stuff going on around it, so all the focus is the symbolism of the cross and the altar and the thing, all the elements. And then I would, we can't rip the screen in half, but I'd move two screens off to either side so that you have room for the cross dead center, so people can look at what's going on on our screens on either side, but their focus, because, like, my interest in maybe doing a PhD later on, is in practical theology. Like, what are the the practical things that we get? Like, when you talk to somebody and you get body language, yeah, that sometimes tells a very different story. Yeah, it's the same thing in worship. There's a body language of the church that tells a different story. And you can tell people that during worship singing a song that are really aren't into it and aren't engaged, and you can tell when people are and those symbols that we have have a kind of its own body language of the church, of what it is that we're projecting to to the people. And so for me, I would rearrange the worship space and get rid of the big screen and put two small ones on either side of the

Tevo Christmann:

cross. Yeah, what do you I think it's your rat fighting changes.

Tom Helmich:

But here's the thing with Avery pastor, like, the hard part is having two pastors at one church, because everybody, because they spent all

Tevo Christmann:

these years, that's why one is senior for right? Because you get all this, like, leadership

Tom Helmich:

training, how to how to lead it, and then you're like, there's two of you and there's like, one of you is leading, one's not leading. A separate aspect of it, you know, because everybody do it different, yeah, well,

Pastor Joe Liles:

it's funny when you say that, because when I first planted the church, I had to get approval from the bishop on worship, and that we did, right, which is still the same ledger that we do today, actually, and to come through on that. And the first thing I want to do was two screens on either side right. It was almost a similar setup, two screens on either side right. And then we had crosses focused in the center right. And there was two because it

Tom Helmich:

used to be at the other church. It was that cross was dead center.

Pastor Joe Liles:

Yeah, it was dead center in the back right. And so, so we started that way. I didn't get approval for two screens. That was, that was too much. Money. I was not allowed. No, just was no. Like, it wasn't even based on money. It was, I cannot have, like, like pieces got to, you know? Oh, yeah, well, yeah, I install screens for churches now. And so, like, one of those things that we do now is say, great, it's, it's really on helping people with the liturgy, right? And helping them walk so you just make it easy for them to see the literature, yeah? But they said, No, I couldn't do that. And then, and then I said I was going to have communion once a month, right? In order to embrace that. And I said, Nope, you have to have communion every single Sunday. And I said, Okay. And so we started from there, right? So, yeah, there was actually the original design and and we floated back and forth. So it's interesting thing, yeah, because we had two crosses when we started, we had, we built this behind, I

Tom Helmich:

remember, yeah, I remember, like, we did so many wall, wall knockouts and stuff in there, yep, but when we brought it over here, like it was from a much smaller space, oh, gosh, yes, the wood to match, like, yeah, doing that necessarily would be hard to do it, just otherwise, you'd have to do something else. Do

Pastor Joe Liles:

you remember where we got that wood from? Do you remember that story was that the flooring? Because there's that at Airport Boulevard, yeah. So we were over there in the store. It was like a salvage or something, wasn't it? So that was from JB Hunt, and one of their facilities in Rogers called us and said, Hey, we have all this walnut paneling that we're about to get rid of. And they said, Could you use it? And I had no idea what to use it for and look. And I was, like, walnut handling. Like, legit wanted, like, yeah. And I was like, Well, come take a look at and it's gorgeous, walnut family.

Tom Helmich:

Yes, that's one thing that I'm not good. Like, I can't, I don't have that creative side.

Pastor Joe Liles:

Well, like, that wall was a disaster. That wall came about out of it came about, as I would say, is only God intended because I had this beautiful, like, 3d thing that I was going to do where I, like, layered the wood on top of each other, and it was all the rage, like you just layered all this wood, and it was this really cool, like, modern, but rustic kind of deal. And I was like, great. And so we're building out the space, we're getting to our first space ever, and we're sitting and we're building, and I realized that this wood is about half an inch thick, so it doesn't look like doesn't slay it's too nice. So it didn't like, and we just started building it out, and I'm like, Oh, this is horrible. And I just sat, and we just sat in the space for like, two hours, and I just sat in the middle of the room just looking at the wall, going, this is a disaster. And all we had were the sides filled in right and the cross

Tom Helmich:

right. Now look at this. It doesn't look like a disaster well, so if you look at it, because I didn't see it in the process. I just came to church one morning and saw like, that's awesome. It is a really gorgeous piece, having it off to the side, yeah, I remember the conversation when we did that of trying to find a place because we wanted to put it into this building. Oh, yeah. We wanted to, yeah, because there was part of our worship, but there was nowhere it fit. Yeah, yeah. And try to find that wood again to fill it out into this was problematic.

Pastor Joe Liles:

But, yeah, yeah. And remember, we had the cross over here too. Yeah, if we get one more cross, we get three crosses in the space, which I think is great, yeah, but both crosses are to the side. Yeah, it's great. It's all over there. So, so Okay, so your approval. And now the final process, then, if I heard it correctly, is that you have your approval. They're now going back. The faculty will prove right what I hope, yeah, you hope, yeah. So the faculty, we hope, will approve. When does that happen? When is the date

Tom Helmich:

of approval that that committee meeting is on the 14th. On the 14th, okay? Because it because they told me. So we'll send you back. We'll draft the language send it to the committee. They'll sign off on it, I'm sure, and then we'll send it to you. And if there's stuff you want tweaked, you know, you kind of let us know. I'm like, Yeah, that's like, seven days before ordination. I don't think I'm gonna have time for that. I'll just go with what you say. And I don't know they would change it for me anyway, but they give you an opportunity to, like, this is what we think of your ministry readiness. Yeah. If you disagree, let us know. We'll reconsider. Yeah, but at that point it'll be over, so yeah, it'll

Pastor Joe Liles:

be done. It'll be done. Okay? So that's the 14th of May. 18 is when the bishop is here, right? And we have vote, and our vote, congregational meeting is that day. So you have approval, you're approved, then we have to call you, right? So you will be called to the neighborhood church.

Tom Helmich:

That means you'll have to write that letter like, Monday, Yeah, correct? Like, we have to do it in order, right? Yeah. Because then that's got to go to the bishop for preemptive beforehand, because she's got to approve the letter and prove the language that I sent

Pastor Joe Liles:

away. It's like buying a house, special certificate, everything else like that. We got to go to the title company afterwards and make sure that they sign off and so that will be 18th congregational meeting, and then the 21st so 18, literally, in those seven days.

Tom Helmich:

And while y'all are voting, yeah, I will be at commencement. Yeah, you're not here. You're up at graduation, which is interesting when you think like the Reformation aspect, because Commencement for Wartburg, for these Lutheran pastors, yeah, isn't at Saint Joseph the worker Catholic Church. And it is funny. So I'm graduating a Lutheran

Pastor Joe Liles:

seminar. Is that the one in the round? Yes, yeah. Oh, that's right, yeah.

Tom Helmich:

My commencement is that we're at Roman Catholic Church in Dubuque, Iowa, in Iowa. Okay, so we'll drive the 17th, because it's like 10 hours, and then I'll have commencement Sunday, the baccalaureate and the commencement that afternoon. And we'll get up Monday to drive back. Yep, that's true. That's true. And then I'll have Tuesday to do any final prepping stuff in here for the youth party and ordination Wednesday. Yeah, that's beautiful. And one thing I probably I won't see if she hears it on this or whether or not we had to think we need the, I don't think we need the approval from the bishop for the party theme. Oh, yeah. But you really drop that.

Pastor Joe Liles:

I heard it. You heard it. Tom, what are you doing on that Wednesday? Well, because

Tom Helmich:

it's if the congregation says no, or if we this wasn't happening right now, it was going to be the party for the end of warehouse, yeah. And my wife, who's brilliant, thinks that every party needs a theme, yep. And because the ordination, which I looked it up, the Latin comes from ordinari, which means to put in order, yeah. Because that's a more formal event. So I'll be wearing an ALB and then getting stole put on me, yes, which is like, the symbolic, symbolic of the yoke of the burden of discipleship. She's like, it's a lot of robes and formal attire we need to the party needs to be Harry Potter themes. All the kids can wear robes. Yeah? That's right. I'm like, sure, yeah, do like butter beard, like your cream soda floats and stuff, you know, and stuff like that, for the kids. So it'd be a Harry Potter themed youth party. That's beautiful. The After Party, after the ordination,

Pastor Joe Liles:

that's beautiful. That's beautiful. So what is so you're heading up on the 17th. You said, Saturday, yeah, that Saturday. And then is there anything going on a Saturday? Is only Sunday? There's

Tom Helmich:

like, a banquet, different stuff going on Saturday night. You can sign up for, I know we may kind of do our own thing a little bit. My wife's never been to Dubuque before. Oh, wow. Okay, so we're kind of see some of the stuff, the like the the Mississippi River Museum, yeah, that's

Pastor Joe Liles:

great, like that. That's great. Town river rock area, yeah, it's really fun. And then what time is commencement on

Tom Helmich:

Sunday? Uh, 3pm 3pm Yeah, baccalaureate, 11, and commencement at three. That's beautiful.

Pastor Joe Liles:

I love it. I love it. Alright, that's great. So interestingly enough, right? We've shared for an hour about what the seminary process is, and we still got a little bit left. There's probably stuff I left out on there. Oh, no, but, I mean, I think that's, I mean, it's a beautiful kind of process of just talking through what you've gone through. And normally, this can't happen in four years, right? If you go, yeah, I did mine in four years, but I was on campus, so, like, I was just focused on that solely, right? Did the exact process. Went through everything there. But honestly, as a distributed learner, right? You can actually do that process while you're still working. That was the first part of your seminary career, and then you retired, and now you're sir, you did an internship, yeah, right after that. And then now serving right as you kind of finished off school. And so then the J, the J term overseas to Yeah, so, and then you'll be called here as pastor of care and education. Okay, is

Tom Helmich:

that? What are the title of Pastor of care, of who was like, faith, formation, education or caring? That makes sense, because part of the, a lot of the interview, a lot of the languages are surrounding, you know, pastoral care and chaplaincy and so,

Pastor Joe Liles:

absolutely, absolutely so. So this is exciting. So Can people ask you questions on Sunday? So say like, they get to see you on Sunday and you're around to your right. Can they come up and ask you questions about the seminary process and things like that?

Tom Helmich:

Sunday the vote, I'll be in Iowa, correct it won't have my phone turned on, but anytime they see me, yeah, they can ask questions.

Pastor Joe Liles:

That's awesome. I've actually had some people come up and ask about seminary last couple weeks, so I'm going to send them your way so they can talk about it. Yeah, so that'll be really great. So So that's great. So we got an update on the seminary process and what that's like. So this was a discovery podcast of just what is seminary like next week in the church. Not

Tom Helmich:

that scary. Once you go through it a little bit at a time, it's not like, don't be scared of it, like you can be done

Pastor Joe Liles:

beautiful, bro. I loved my time at seminary. Loved it. So this Sunday is May the fourth, and what they call it is Star Wars Sunday May the Fourth be with you table. We're going to have to do like that, right? You know, just as something, right, something the Empire March, right, whatever. Put that under the countdown, yes. And they're just kind of starting with it, right? And I saw, I saw one great voice of the church put out and said, Don't be solo this Sunday. And it was a picture of you with you, yeah, yeah, it's good. And then next week is Mother's Day, or the following Sunday is Mother's Day, and we'll be doing a 90s theme music and then sacred Sunday on your commencement, which would be really incredible. Are they live streaming commencement? I don't know. I'm assuming, if they do, we might have a live stream event here to watch commencement, right, and see that. But you know what? We'll just we'll have fun, right? Yeah, it'd be great. So so there you go. TNC podcast for discovery of what is seminary truly like with our upcoming pastor, hopefully with all three votes happening in the positive of Karen education Tom hellmuch and all guys, people said, Amen. I.

People on this episode

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Pastor Joe Liles

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Pastor Tom Helmich

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Roseann Bowlin

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Tevo Christmann

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