Embark on an enlightening voyage through the tapestry of American Christianity with me and our esteemed guest, Reverend Dr. Bob Sundquist. Our conversation unearths the enduring imprint of Reformation theology on today's faith, revealing how seminal works and thinkers like Luther and Bonhoeffer continue to inform our spiritual journey. We weave through the fabric of Lutheran doctrine, exploring the transformative power of "Freedom of a Christian," baptismal identity, and their impact on interfaith dialogues. As we traverse the historical evolution from European traditions to American practices, you'll discover how these shifts shape our contemporary approach to faith and community.
As your host, I open my heart about my own spiritual awakening, a solitary pilgrimage towards Christianity that found unexpected kinship with a kind-hearted elderly lady. This pivotal moment propelled me into a relentless quest for theological insight, culminating in a burgeoning library of knowledge and a ministry born out of passion rather than academia. Our guest, Reverend Sundquist, and I share laughter over the motivations driving my scholarly works and language studies, revealing how one's calling need not be heralded by a PhD. Through tales of nurturing pastors and my own resolve, we celebrate the unconventional paths that lead to fulfilling vocations in the church.
Our final chapter steers us into the practical realms of preaching and the Missouri Senate's urgent need for revitalizing gospel communication. We dissect the challenges of delivering sermons with depth and authenticity, discussing the intersection between academic theologians and everyday pastors. The episode culminates in a candid look at LCMS missions—stories of perseverance and the Holy Spirit's guiding hand—and how these elements can invigorate parish ministry. As we conclude, you'll be equipped with insights on how continuous learning and heartfelt application serve as the bedrock for deepening faith practices in the American Christian landscape.
JOIN OUR NEW ONLINE LEARNING PLATFORM!
ENTER CODE - 75ULC2023 for 75% off!
Embark on an enlightening voyage through the tapestry of American Christianity with me and our esteemed guest, Reverend Dr. Bob Sundquist. Our conversation unearths the enduring imprint of Reformation theology on today's faith, revealing how seminal works and thinkers like Luther and Bonhoeffer continue to inform our spiritual journey. We weave through the fabric of Lutheran doctrine, exploring the transformative power of "Freedom of a Christian," baptismal identity, and their impact on interfaith dialogues. As we traverse the historical evolution from European traditions to American practices, you'll discover how these shifts shape our contemporary approach to faith and community.
As your host, I open my heart about my own spiritual awakening, a solitary pilgrimage towards Christianity that found unexpected kinship with a kind-hearted elderly lady. This pivotal moment propelled me into a relentless quest for theological insight, culminating in a burgeoning library of knowledge and a ministry born out of passion rather than academia. Our guest, Reverend Sundquist, and I share laughter over the motivations driving my scholarly works and language studies, revealing how one's calling need not be heralded by a PhD. Through tales of nurturing pastors and my own resolve, we celebrate the unconventional paths that lead to fulfilling vocations in the church.
Our final chapter steers us into the practical realms of preaching and the Missouri Senate's urgent need for revitalizing gospel communication. We dissect the challenges of delivering sermons with depth and authenticity, discussing the intersection between academic theologians and everyday pastors. The episode culminates in a candid look at LCMS missions—stories of perseverance and the Holy Spirit's guiding hand—and how these elements can invigorate parish ministry. As we conclude, you'll be equipped with insights on how continuous learning and heartfelt application serve as the bedrock for deepening faith practices in the American Christian landscape.
JOIN OUR NEW ONLINE LEARNING PLATFORM!
ENTER CODE - 75ULC2023 for 75% off!
Hello and welcome to the brand new American Reformation Podcast. We long to see the wider American Christian Church fall more in love with Jesus by learning from the practices of the early church and other eras of discipleship multiplication. We want to hear from you, make sure you comment and leave a review, wherever you're watching or listening, to tell us what God is doing in your life or how you feel about today's conversation. Lord, have your way in us. Let's dive in.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the American Reformation Podcast, tim Allman here, and I pray, wherever you're taking this in, that the joy and the peace and the love of Jesus is yours, your baptismal identity is strong and that you're buckled up. Maybe you're driving along you always got to be buckled up but we want your spirit, your mind, to be buckled up today for a fantastic conversation with one of my favorite humans on planet earth, bob Sunquist. Reverend Dr Bob Sunquist and I, we've not had an opportunity to hang out. We ran in similar circles, that kind of overlap through a college seminary, all of those types of experiences. But if you are listening and you're not watching, you might want to hop on over to YouTube because Bob's office is unbelievable.
Speaker 2:Several editions of Luther's works are over his right shoulder and I'm a book guy, but this library is off the charts, man. So before we get going, I want to hear about your love for the Word of God and then for people who write about the Word of God, because that's where we're going today. But opening question for this podcast consistently, how are you praying as you look at the American Christian Church, bob? How are you praying for Reformation? Thanks so much for being with me today, buddy.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me. I appreciate that. My prayer for the American Church is that it would take the treasure of the Reformation 506 years of solid theology and that it would continue to mine and to explore and to express those truths which were brought forward 506 years ago and that they're still being brought forward today. There's a lot of treasure there, and it reminds me of something Jesus said about treasures, new and old.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so get more specific on those treasures. When someone says, what are the Lutheran treasures that maybe were lost for a time and were unearthed, Get specific, Bob.
Speaker 3:One of the classes that we teach here at Faith in Las Vegas is we call it being Lutheran 101, but all it is is just guided readings through Lutheran and Lutheranism and that kind of stuff. So we have people read Freedom of a Christian and whereas it's something that we're obligated to read at school, when you're reading in the parish setting and I especially like the annotated Luther version the parishioners really, they start to see those truths come out and it really helps them to define what good theology is and it helps them to analyze the world around them and kind of the false and bad theology of, like the old sinful Adam. And then we read Walther's, god's yes and God's no, that little summary that was done and they love that. That's a real treasure. In fact we're reading through it right now. We just finished lecture nine, just great stuff.
Speaker 3:And then we'll read Life Together by Bonhafer and kind of dig into kind of his exploration of theology over and against what was going on in his day. And then we'll read things like Chad Bird. You know, I think what we're reading for that one is oh gosh, which one are we reading? They just came out with a second edition of it. It's oh, your God is too glorious. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the one, and so just continue to explore through those things and learn from them. These truths that seem antique are actually timeless, you know, because they're founded in Scripture, and just the way that they process it, the way that they do theology, is majorly important. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:It does. There's an innocence, an awakening of many of your and I'm not using this pejoratively but your every Sunday pew center in the church to say there's more and I want. And there's two different postures here. One posture would be this kind of against the world, so I need to have. It's almost like the right words to refute my friends who are pagan or something like that. But I don't see that nearly as much and I know in your formation it wouldn't be toward that end. It would just be one falling in love with the God who is first loved us more and his love being shown through the cross and the empty tomb, and then realizing this world is filled with tension and Lutheran theology embraces the tension. St Sinner, now not yet.
Speaker 2:Two kinds of righteousness hidden, revealed God, those types of things, and people want to be able to sit with their. This is best construction, I think, for a lot of our followers sit with their pre-Christian neighbor and meet them where they're at and invite the risen Jesus into that conversation. I think I'd love to get your take on this. You know the Reformation primarily is around justification by faith, kind of forensic righteousness. But I think there's some deep theology that comes before we're declared guilty and then innocent because of the blood of Jesus. And I think our baptismal identity, our identity in Christ, that Christ gives us meaning and purpose, is a fantastic starting point for a lot of conversations with the world who's finding their identity in a variety of different things that are not satisfying.
Speaker 3:Any response to that on the identity conversation yeah, I think one of the things that we've learned along the ways as American Christians because we had this kind of Nathan Hatch does a good job in his book the Democratization of American Christianity talks about how there was this surge in early American Christianity to go away from the things which were established on the continent or from Europe or whatever. We were free from all those things. There was almost like an anti-institutional, anti-clerical kind of movement. And then more recently in American Christianity, in the last 10, 20 years, american Christianity the evangelicals, the Baptists, some smaller reform groups have said no, we have to go back and we have to dig into the treasures from the past and it's led them to do really amazing things.
Speaker 3:I remember when I was in the Pacific Northwest, up in Cordily in Idaho, a local non-denominational pastor was totally amped to talk to me about Advent and he's like, have you heard this thing called Advent? I was like, yeah, just a little. And so they're finding those treasures and it leads them to the Reformation which has solid theology, leads them to go back further. I think Francis Chan now styles himself a pre-1100s Christian and so he went back and when he went back he, very unironically, now has a view of communion that is completely aligned with Lutheran Church and Missouri Senate, which is fun. It's fun. So as they go back, as they discover those treasures, it becomes a really good thing. Our parishioners. I love the theology because, like you said, it helps them to have a way of talking, a way of sharing and witnessing, to be polemic when it's important, but not to be a sandpaper Christian and be a jerk about it. So, yeah, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Tell me your ministry story. Why'd you go into ministry? What's kept you in ministry? You're probably what now? About 17 years ordained or so, 15 by God's grace 15.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So yeah, tell that story how you went into ministry and why you're still a pastor.
Speaker 3:Well, it's kind of funny. Well, it's funny to me. I learned about Christ through a little old lady and there was a lot of opposition to my early Christian years friends, family members, stuff like that, and so everything I knew about Christianity I had to learn through struggle and so I had to know the reason why and I wasn't raised in a Christian home in that kind of way and all that kind of stuff, and so I didn't grow up going to church and so everything that I believe I had to fight for and sometimes fight against people who would oppose it. And so, yeah, a little old lady invited me to church, started going to church, heard the gospel, believed in it. The pastor thought I was weird because I kept on asking questions. He mentored me as a great pastor, dennis Mourner.
Speaker 2:How old were you? How old, bob were you?
Speaker 3:14. I was like 14 confirmation age ish. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, confirmation was awesome. I mean, everybody else hated me being in confirmation because I was so into it and they were all like no, you don't get, you're just supposed to show up and you like be quiet and we'll get out of here, and I'm like I got questions. He gave me his old seminary textbooks. I think at first is like a joke, but then I read him and then he was like, oh, this kid's joke.
Speaker 3:Other area pastors. Andrew Byers was very formative and mentoring me, and so they just thought I think they thought I was a freak. You know, here's a kid who likes theology. That's how this library began, because I never wanted to be in a place where I couldn't research an answer that I wanted. So all these books are like on purpose. They're not like knick-knacky books. These are books I use all the time and all my work.
Speaker 3:And and so one day, the pastor, he said, you know, I've ever thought about being a pastor. And I said, no, I don't even know what that kind of means. I grew up in a very blue collar family. Mom worked hard, great lady, lots of construction, all that kind of stuff. And he said, well, it's what I do. I was like, oh, okay, he's like, and then that could be your career? And I was like people pay you to do that. I mean, all you do is talk about Jesus. And he's like, yeah, I was blown away, you know, because I grew up blue collar, I didn't know that. You know that could be like a life Vocation, you know, or anything like that. So so I pushed into that, you know, with that tunnel vision that I have, and and I never looked back. So, since I was 14, I wanted to be a pastor and I just pushed hard into that. And no, it's a college. I pushed hard into that when I was at seminary, pushed hard into that, so, so what?
Speaker 2:what would you say? I love that and shout out to Pastors who don't act like pastors who don't even I mean they, they're a pastor in you, but it wasn't like this heavy, they were just a discipleship man and, yeah, praise be to God man. So Tell me your areas of like, because I have. I have points of theology where, because the word of God is so rich man and there you can just go drill down, down, down, down down so resurrection theology Very much, very much into that.
Speaker 2:New heaven, new earth for Corinthians 15 and how that shapes then our new life in Christ right now. Obviously Catechesis and those those types of things. But what, what points of, and then and then the kind of Jesus. Some of the things that I've studied is like the leadership style of Jesus in the early church, right as it relates toward leadership formation. Today in a post-Christian culture like those are areas we're bad. I can talk about that all day. What are your areas of kind of like man the Lord is, fan this into flame in my life and I just can't get get enough of it and then and then tie that in your doctoral thesis too. I know that's kind of one of the culminations of that.
Speaker 3:Fan into flame, yeah what I, what I I have to. I have to be careful. I often get accused of having a PhD. I actually don't have one yet. I've had several failures to launch, but it's very flattering that when I get invited to something, they say Dr Robert Sunquist, but I'm not a doctor yet.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah, it's okay yeah.
Speaker 3:I've been. I've been officially cursed by a very good friend that if I don't get my PhD with a certain number of years, I think like my teeth fall out or something like that. It's kind of hilarious. But I'm taking him seriously because I don't live on her curse like Ricky Bobby.
Speaker 3:So Areas of theology I'm interested in. I'm very much interested in preaching and how preaching can, how to make preaching better. That's an area of intense study for me. Also. I really love biblical performance, criticism and kind of what they have to offer, the overlap between the performance of the word and its Interpretation and and the mixture of those two things. I especially like how that overlaps with Luther and how Luther creates, to use Charles Taylor's words, a kind of a Scriptural imaginary him. Where we can, we can retell the story in a way that it creates a whole new hearing.
Speaker 3:I work on, I'm working on a project right now translating Melanchthon's works from Latin, from the Corpus Refinitorum, and so I spent a lot of time in Latin. I'm just kind of trying to get his good stuff out there and kind of the same way that the American edition of Luther's works translated the Weimar edition that way and very interested in In languages as well, and so just kind of always pouring over those things and In terms of history, right now that's all wrapped up with the Malenken stuff, so just reading kind of the how Erasmus used classical rhetoric and all that kind of stuff and that all probably sounds very boring and out of touch.
Speaker 2:No, it's, it's fantastic. So let me drill down just a bit. When you say performance of scripture, that's a phrase that the average listener, maybe even some pastors like I, kind of know what you're saying.
Speaker 3:But yeah, drill down into that, bob, if you consider, for instance, that the Gospel of Mark Was written to be performed rather than to be read, and when you say perform your spoken, declared yes, well declared, but there there would be these conventions in the ancient world of good public speaking that would involve Gestures, hand movements, things like that in order to emphasize points.
Speaker 3:And so when I say performance, it's not simply just saying the words, it's how they're said, and you know what your, what your body movement is. We know that Saint Paul did this with his letters. You know so that he would send with his letter the person who would perform that for that church, which would teach them how to perform it again and again, and again. And so it's a great field of study. If you're interested in Tom boomershine, great guy, biblical storytelling that's how I got turned on to. It is Concordia, st Louis used to have these what they call days of homiletical reflection, and Tom boomershine came in for one of those great stuff, excellent sectional, and then the faculty at St Louis actually Performed mark.
Speaker 3:They memorized it and performed it and so several, several that did that yeah, yeah, very good stuff, and what the whole idea in biblical performance criticism is. You can really affect what people believe the Bible is saying by how you say what the Bible says.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so for instance if you, if you kind of bum out on a line Then everybody thinks of that it's meant to be heard, is kind of like a bummer Right. But if you're really vibrant and passionate, they see it as you're supposed to see it, as conviction. You know, sure now, at the seminary you and I were taught to read it flat. You know really.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, yeah, that was, that was a whole class on Reading the Bible flat. Yeah, we're supposed to read it flat. We weren't supposed to put any of ourselves into it, you know just did not get in the way of God. Or his word, and, and so what's the implications of that?
Speaker 2:and just think that's good for a second.
Speaker 3:Just just think of this idea that the Bible never saw itself as a book to be read and studied. In the earliest periods, I mean in God's providence and his wisdom and his, in his great Forknowledge, he knew it would be that. But In its earliest Form, the Bible thought of itself as something to be performed. And so I've done this in preaching before and in some of my classes. I I talk about this. I I'll throw up on the screen a piece of sheet music and and, and I'll ask the congregation what is it? And they'll say it's sheet music. We all have this great duh kind of moment, right, and I say, okay, well, somebody tell me something about it. And then somebody will raise their hand and tell me what key signature it's in. Oh yeah, good, good, good. And then somebody will raise their hand. They'll say it's for violin. Oh, wow, that's really insightful. And then I'll have like a plant, and the plant will say We'll stand up and say all kinds of really interesting things about this piece of music you know, manheim, rockers and all kinds of technical things and everybody will be very impressed, because nobody can talk like that except professionals. And then, and then I'll say, okay, now let's play it, and it's Mozart and everybody. When it's played, everybody knows what it is. But notice how, when you do that, you're dividing the room in the earliest parts. You're dividing the room into those who know and do not know, right, and the room becomes this kind of hierarchy between those who have more knowledge and less knowledge. But nobody really knows what the music is until it's played. And once it's played, everybody knows, they're all on the same page.
Speaker 3:And then what I do is I throw up a picture of a Bible and they and I say now what's this? And they all go it's a Bible, duh. So we have that moment. And then I just start asking them what kinds of things can you tell me about the Bible? And somebody will say it's about Jesus, so it's good.
Speaker 3:Maybe somebody will say it's long gospel. I'll say, oh, that's good, yeah. And then I'll have kind of like a plant and they'll say something very Theological. And then maybe I'll say something even more theological, right to show that I miss mr Smartypants. Maybe it'll have a little latin or Greek in there or something. But then I'll take a moment and I'll actually say what the gospel is, and in that moment, that's when you get the holy head nod from the whole crowd, because I think the Bible sometimes can can feel like, especially when it's read and studied like a textbook. It can create groups of those who know and those who don't know, but the thing that unites Everybody with the Bible is the proclamation of the gospel and they're on the same page, and I guess I would use that as kind of a primary example of what biblical performance criticism is is it's what's the connection between the music played and the sheet read?
Speaker 2:Yes, man, I got so many questions. First one was there an office of Performer in the new and old time? I mean, were these people, were they like on the path toward becoming priests, pastors etc. Like they were close friends, if you will, of Paul? We know some of that, but I've never heard of the office, necessarily, of Performer talk about that.
Speaker 3:Absolutely actually goes back to the Old Testament. Like Elijah would sing his sermon and Ezekiel would sing his sermons as well, and so it was. It was halfway expected that the prophets would sing the words and so they would perform them and they would set them to music, and sometimes that's part of the irony is like the song of the vineyard in Isaiah Sounds like a really sweet song until it turns to sour grapes right. And so even in that, the oldest, even the most ancient period, there was this understanding that performance was a part of it and that just carries over into the New Testament, especially when you have a hellenization come in and they had like the singing of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. That I mean, it's all very standard. There's people who still perform the Odyssey today and completely memorized, which is completely remarkable.
Speaker 3:You go into Turkey, turkey into Istanbul, and you can. You can find people who can rehearse the whole thing. So that was a normal convention and Paul Utilize that, especially since he was incarcerated. So you know, timothy or Barnabas or or whoever would actually take his letter and go and perform it Does. Does that make any would?
Speaker 2:they know it's fantastic. Would they memorize a lot?
Speaker 3:of it.
Speaker 2:The whole. Thing. Yeah that's so good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes, they'd memorize the whole thing. So this is I am, I'm on a kick and I do like preaching. I like to not preach.
Speaker 2:I come from a preaching family and I and I like listening to fantastic preachers without. I'm blessed to be surrounded by many of them and some who are Many of, who are also in in process in learning in terms of the performative art and science which is which is the communication of the word of God. But we have Our associate here, my partner Michael and I. We're we're not using Any notes anymore for our 20 to 25 minute homily. We're just standing and and it's been internalized and while they have, if I'm referring to anything is is the scriptures and and it's been, because I was probably like 95% the way, and then I just keep the stand there, kind of like low safety blanket, just in case you know, I had a brain fart or something. But it's been liberating, bob. It's like getting to a high dive with the Holy Spirit and then just that pregnant pause moment before the word Begins to work. And it's not, it's not me, I'm not not trying to show off, but there's a, there's a vulnerability, there's a presence, there's an authenticity that comes with. Hey, I've, lord Jesus, you've been so good to me and my prayer you know less of me, more of you. Let them see right through me and let them see you. King Jesus, give me joy. That's a big prayer. Awaken the joy part of my brain so that this word would be communicated clearly and winsomely for your people. There's some of my pre message prayers, but then just let it go. Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God, our Father, and let oh, here we go, entering into when, whatever.
Speaker 2:I got a number of different instructions, probably structures that we use. You know, go melody means me, we got you, we all of that. But that structures in my head. And then the scriptures been marinating in my spirit for gosh, for us, because we do collaborative sermon writing for months, for months the themes have been percolating in our, in our community, and so then you just release the whole experience to the Lord.
Speaker 2:So to land that plane, I have to imagine with, with Timothy or whoever it was, it was carrying it like they've won, they've got a journey and they're reading over, they're reading over, the reading over, and then they get to that, that community, that young, small church. I mean in my mind I'm envisioning 15 to maybe 50 people somewhere Somewhere in there, this small little upstart movement of Jesus followers, and they just there's no possible way, bob, that they bring this word with little enthusiasm, you know, with little joy, like the word has been marinating on there. They just can't wait and they do it an authentic way Like this is obviously Timothy, this is obviously Barnabas, but, man, it's a new and different thing. So I am not afraid of this word called performance, but I can think of some, bob. You're getting into enthusiasm. Bob, what's wrong? You're an enthusiast, you know.
Speaker 3:This is this kind of a thing. I don't know how that would work.
Speaker 2:No, I don't think it would work well, but anyway so fantastic man. I love this response.
Speaker 3:I think there might be a difference in that, as an oral culture, there was less and actually St Paul is very discouraging of improvisation, because improvisation would have been seen as a distortion of the actual message and so for them it was these. They were these strict and known. We know what they are because we actually have the manuals on how to from the ancient world on how to do this kind of stuff. It would have been a very strict memorization and performance. So there'd be performance cues where they would become excited and somewhere they would become stern or what have you. But all of it was highly structured and highly memorized. And what I think one of the things that we value in public speaking today, which is different than the ancient world, is that there is this value and people call it authenticity and it is. There's this authenticity to this kind of off the cuff kind of speaking, because then it makes it feel internalized and valued, and the ancient world you just wouldn't have seen. That it's kind of incredible. I actually have seen this done at the parish level. You remember Dan Weber? Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, okay, you know Dan Weber.
Speaker 3:He started a sermon off, was it Jude? Yes, it was Jude, and so he's. He invited everybody to open up the Pew Bible to the book of Jude, and then he just did it word for word, Word for word. And everybody was blown away by two things the fact that he did it word for word, but the second thing that they understood it better when it had been performed. Sure, you see. And so we invited one of these biblical storytellers, as a whole crew of them from Washington state, after Easter and he dressed like I don't know, St Peter or something like that, and he did the gospel of Mark and that was kind of fun. But it follows this long oral tradition of memorization and pattern and performance. Anybody who thinks that performance is enthusiasm or something like that is thinking that performance means theatrical right, and that's not what it means. That's not what it means Semantically, it doesn't even connect. Although at theaters there is performance, it's not the same thing as performance and so so differentiate that, differentiate that.
Speaker 3:So in theater, where there's sometimes a great discouragement for improvisation in theater, you have to convince people with your acting In performance, you are simply reconvaying the words. Does that make sense? And they're not convinced by your theatrics, your glossiness.
Speaker 2:Yeah, whatever.
Speaker 3:It's the word that's doing the work and that's its focus, and that's how I see that there's a connection to Luther and Luther's preaching, which I think that there's not been a lot of study, or at least enough study on Luther's preaching, which is a very big interest for me. And so, yeah, it was very strict in the ancient world, this whole performance thing. There was a book written recently by Ryan Tannetti called Preaching from the Heart, and he actually describes, and he does a good job of it. He describes how modern preachers can use the ancient method of Lotzi, which is this visual spatial memorization technique, sometimes called a memory palace, and that's something that I teach in homolytics as well. I teach people how to do this with Lotzi.
Speaker 2:I know that that's what I use.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So Ryan Tannetti has done a good job of kind of tracing, kind of that and then making it available for the modern preaching scene, which values things like a certain level of improvisation, because to our modern audience that relatability is what makes people feel is authentic, whereas in the ancient world the authenticness is did you get the words right? You know? Yeah, isn't that interesting.
Speaker 2:That is well. Are there other ways that would blow people's mind? That is very counter-cultural For us, anything from the ancient world that would radically surprise the listener, the hearer of the word today? Maybe that's the question just off the top of your head. Improv, bob, just give me some advice. Improv, that's so funny. Yeah, do some improv.
Speaker 3:I think the thing that probably would likely amaze a modern hearer is the absolute discipline of memorizing the word Word for word. It's not just kind of like memorizing a comfort zone, memorizing a confirmation verse or a chapter. They were devoted to the word so much that they accessed a part of their memory that I think is lost today.
Speaker 3:I think it's a terrible thing. Not that I'm good at it myself. You know I'm an appreciator of beautiful things. There's great. There's just so many great books out there I'm looking over at my bookshelf the Oral and the Written Word, dead Sea Media, ancient Literacies just some really solid works that I think people can get into to be able to access this whole world of the connection between the written word and the proclaimed word.
Speaker 2:Wow, it's, it's so good, it's so good. All right, I could talk, I could ask you about Malenka. I want to move past Malenka. I love Malenka, but I want to talk. He's a good kid man, for sure. He and Luther had their thing. But I appreciate the role he played in the Reformation. But I really like to pivot to the proverbial COVID pivots here, to your presentation on the history of the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod and missions at a recent pastors conference. Tell us about that presentation.
Speaker 3:I was asked by Dr President Gibson to speak at the pastors conference on the history of LCMS missions and I called him and I said I don't know. I mean, what do you want me to do? I said, do you want me to? It's a big topic, yeah. Do you want me to do the Lutheran Society of Mission thing? Or do you want me to do like a here's the history of missions offerings in the Missouri Synod, like forward by faith and all those?
Speaker 3:kinds of things, sure, sure. And he says no, no, no, lutheran Society of Mission. I said, well, you know, president Gibson, that's very flattering, but I want you to know that I'm not going to be very good at that, you know. And he says, oh, I think it'll be fine. Okay, all right. And when planning for this, I realized when you, when you're talking about missions, you're talking about something that is very close to the heart of congregations and pastors and everybody in the room, and so there's a way in which, if you mention this thing, you didn't mention this thing and people get really angry. All right, you didn't say my thing. And so the structure for that presentation, which was an hour long, it was an hour and 12 seconds. They always tease me at the parish that I'm at that, I'm the guy who goes long which I don't think it's long at all.
Speaker 3:But an hour and 12 seconds, and what I decided to do is use a structure, the same structure Jesus uses when he does the parables. You know he'll loop three parables together and have a common phrase the kingdom of heaven is like.
Speaker 2:Luke 15,. Luke 15, right yeah, right, right.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah. So if you're into 3DM, stuff it's kind of like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I knew I had to talk about things, and I knew that the other presenter was like Leopold Sanchez, who's like a new metologist, and then Ben helps talking about AI.
Speaker 3:I didn't even know what's going on there. It was great, though, and so I began. Every I did missions stories, so I had a central point and I would tell a mission story. My central point was it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and then I would tell a story, and then I would end it, you know, with John 21, 25,. But you know I could go on to talk about this and this and this, but if all the things that Jesus had done were written down, there wouldn't be a book big enough in the world, and so I use that structure, and that was my way of saying the history of the Missouri Senate's missions is the history of the work of the Holy Spirit, so it's rooted in that good theology, but then also kind of give myself an out, saying you know I could go on and talk about all these other things, but you know I don't have enough time for all that.
Speaker 2:Sorry, that way they could get some of the highlights. I mean, tell us a story or two of yeah, that would make those of us who are in the LCMS proud of the mission work of God.
Speaker 3:The first story. I started with the story of Frederick Winnigan, who was a president of the Missouri Senate and if you eat Schwann's ice cream you know that's his family and so I started off by doing this book. It's called the Preacher's Yellow Pants. When I worked at Concordia Historical Institute the other research guys of myself found this book in the archives and it is. It is clearly like a ghetto piece, like a cult ghetto piece, like who writes a children's book about Frederick Winnigan and his yellow pants, like this is deep in Missouri Senate paint right. And every Christmas we used to pull this book out and read it like you know a Christmas story, and it always it had mixed reception but it was always a lot of fun. And I tell I go on to tell this story. Actually there was a guy at the pastor's conference who was rewriting this book and so he and I had a kind of like a little continuous moment there and I tell I tell the story of Frederick Winnigan's Yellow Pants, which is this hilarious story that every pastor could relate to, because it's it's all the typical parish stuff. And then everybody's enjoying that story, everybody's getting a good laugh because everybody can relate to the story. But then I kind of turn it right at the end and say, but I mean, why do we have a book about Winnigan's Yellow Pants but we don't remember well his call for mission to Leia, you know, to get more pastors to America, and we don't remember his work amongst the Native Americans at the Bethany Lutheran mission. You know where's? Where's the books about that? And then so I'm doing two things. I'm telling a very familiar story, but then I'm talking about the Missouri Senate's mission to the Native Americans. The next story I tell is the story of Missionary Arndt, who wasn't supported by the Missouri Senate, by the way, and so he had to raise all his own money, and then he went off to China, because Missouri Senate didn't want to go to China because there's nobody spoke German there, and so he went to China and he had a very successful mission, and only after the mission was successful did the Missouri Senate say, yeah, that's our mission, which is hilarious. It's a hilarious trajectory.
Speaker 3:But there was a time when there was a controversy about which word the missionaries should use for God. Should they use the pagan word or should they come up with a new word? And so argument over words is something that everybody understands as a part of mission. And so that was another story, so that we could talk about Missionary to the Chinese. And I told the story of Rosa Young. You know who's that great Lutheran educator worked amongst God's people in Selma and so told that story.
Speaker 3:I told the story of the founding of Lutheran Church Missouri Senate missions in California, how one guy was sent out to those the wilds of California and actually first heard that story from President Gibson and when he told it I was like, oh, you got to tell me where that story is. And so it was in the book called the Romance of Lutheranism in California. It's a crazy title for a book, but just his wild story and what missions look like, and nobody believed that he was going to be successful. But then to talk about Hispanic and Latino missions of Pastor Sturt event and stuff like that, and of course you got to talk about Walter A Meyer. So I talked about wham, you know, not the band but the dude you know, and pop some bubbles on some false quotes from Billy Graham, but then talked about how Billy Graham was really inspired by Walter A Meyer, and to talk about the Lutheran layman league.
Speaker 3:And every time we go to that conference. By the way, they always have a table. They never get a shout out. So I gave a total shout out to Dick Gaston, the pedal pushers and that kind of work and that was fun. And then the Lutheran Braille workers and talked about this powerful story about how these blind kids were reading Braille Bibles and singing songs that they learned in Braille to these kids. Just great stuff. And then to talk about Andrew Byers who started a deaf mission, not because it was a program that he was following, it's just somebody told him that the most unreached people group were the deaf.
Speaker 3:And so he said huh, and he just started a deaf mission, you know, which was really amazing. And I mean he was one of my mentors and he was there, so it was kind of way of honoring him as well. But I mean, he taught me what Missionaries Eel was, you know, there wasn't some big program, there weren't pamphlets, there wasn't, wasn't anything. And he didn't know sign language right, and so he just went out and learned sign language and he created this little community that's still going on today.
Speaker 3:And then I talked about how the little old lady who you know, shared Jesus with me, was a member of the LWML, you know, and how they sent me to school at Concordia, irvine, and how I met Tomba and told a hilarious story about Tomba and cannibalism, which is totally hilarious, and talked about Irvine as a great commission university and shout out to the CMC creating, you know, a missionary pastors for 21st century mission field.
Speaker 3:And so through the whole thing, you know, you're just trying to tie people in the room together but to make them aware that the mission has been the work of the Holy Spirit, how it, to show consistently that this is the DNA of the Missouri Synod is to do mission and to touch all the groups that are in the room and to hold them together with this one idea that mission is Word and sacrament ministry, which is what every pastor in the room is doing. They are doing Word and sacrament ministry. So a way of kind of affirming them like, hey, if you, if you're working with Word and sacrament, you're, you're working the mission field, and to just kind of encourage them, dude Bob, he tells the story and stories shapes the culture and we, we need more Jesus stories.
Speaker 2:I mean, as I hear that third generation LCMS pastor, right, I stand on the shoulders of those who have come before and those who started stuff, those who saw an opportunity for the gospel to go forward and didn't look around like they said, no, yeah, I'm going to do it. I'll gather some people around me and do it and I pray for that. This is not a liberal word. I pray for that sort of robust, entrepreneurial leadership in the next generation, our post Christian culture today. That's what it's going to. That's what's going to take kind of congregations like ours, just fanning the flame, johns and Jains who are in our pews, man, to say you, especially for those who are falling in love with the Lord, as he loves them and connected to his word, like creating a space in our congregations. Yeah, you can try that, you can start that. Let's go do it. I'm here to. I'm here to lift you up. I want, I want to tell that. I want to tell that story. I'm praying the next 100 years. Who cares if they remember Bob or Tim or whoever they won't? Who cares, man, jesus could come back by them. But until that day comes, man, will there be stories of us saying in the LCMS we're starting new things.
Speaker 2:I think it's been a. We've had a generation or so right now and I think the wounds of the battle of the Bible over the Bible and Seminex and a lot of that maybe squelched a little bit of that entrepreneurial spirit in us. But I I see, especially in some of our younger leaders, informal and informal roles in our church, ready to go. So thank you for your deep work tying the room together and all of those new things. It's a very old thing. It's just sharing the word and reminding people of who they are forgiven and loved, children of God through the sacraments. That's it, man. So thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2:Let's come down the home stretch here, talking about formation a little bit. I mean, you've been in homiletics, you've been teaching in the specific ministry pastor program out of the seminary CMC. I heard you. I've been a professor for CMC kind of leadership development. Shout out to CMC. What are your primary points that you wish to pass on to your students, especially those that are going to be doing Word and Sacrament ministry, top two or three, top two or three points that you really hope to convey to them.
Speaker 3:It is an absolute tragedy and there is an epidemic in the Missouri Senate in preaching that. People don't preach the gospel and I think part of it is because they don't know how, and I think part of it is because they get this idea in their head of how they do their homiletical craft that they have to work the law first and then the gospel. But they spend all their good coin on the law and they're spent by the time they hit the gospel and they end up doing what is my biggest pet peeve, which is what I call hashtag gospel, which is this kind of phrase that says Jesus died in Rhodes for you, and then they think that by saying that just that that they've done the gospel and the damage that they can't see what is happening is in their parishioners. When their parishioners are asked by somebody, well, why do you believe? And they say, well, I believe because of the gospel. And they say, well, what's the gospel? And their parishioners say Jesus died in Rhodes for you. And then the person says, well, what does that mean? And their parishioners don't know how to answer that. So they may be kind of repeated, you know, and they get a little sheepish and the real tragedy there is that the parishioner goes huh, maybe I don't know what that is, and so they listen harder to the preaching, and still the same thing. And then what ends up happening is the parishioner starts to think well, maybe he doesn't know what the gospel is either. And so there's this real epidemic in our preaching that there is an unimaginative and unexplicated, a hashtag and bumper sticker gospel. And they think that by saying those words that they've done it, which is really good.
Speaker 3:Roman Catholic theology for ex opera operato. But and I get it, you know, developing the gospel for preaching is hard to do because it takes a lot of work, because it's outside of us. It's not something that naturally occurs to us. The law naturally occurs to us, so we can do that all day. But the law is, it makes the preacher feel powerful, and it makes him feel strong and it makes him feel like, yeah, I really gave it to him. Or the preacher does the opposite problem, which is they give a law that doesn't fully kill, and so then the gospel never really fully saves. So that's where you get moral, therapeutic deism, where you give a law that gets you on the couch and talks about your felt needs, and all that kind of stuff and your problems, but it's not a saving gospel. That comes after after that.
Speaker 3:And so I really hammered this with my students about the gospel and we have all kinds of like exercises that we do to like you know, learn how to kind of do the gospel off the cuff. But funny thing is I do the same exercise with our conformance. You know I do the exercise with everybody, and so that's one takeaway. Is they really need to? By the way, that's the only way you can fail my classes not do the gospel, and so they that's one point all of my students can say that they take away with. For my pastoral theology students, I think the one takeaway that they get is if you can't treat it with word and sacrament, you need to refer out, because that's the only thing that we have.
Speaker 3:I mean, that's enough but it's not every.
Speaker 2:You know it's not. I mean, it's more than a therapist, right, exactly.
Speaker 3:You know I'm not a small business manager. You know I'm not a CEO, I'm not. I'm not a conflict resolution guy. You know I'm not a project manager, and I'm none of that. The one thing that I've been called to do and the one thing I've been trained in is word and sacrament, and so that's, that's one takeaway I think my pastoral theology students walk away with and maybe they all regret my class, which is great, no, no no, no, no no. But they're there for us, so I'm grateful for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, last question. There there can be an oddness that's not the right word, but there could be conflict between academia. Because you're an academic, I mean you've been dropping Latin, we could go into blank and all that. I mean you love learning and you love sharing what you what you learn. There can be an odds between conflict between academia and then the local, grassroots pastor, and sometimes I don't know that we're listening to one another as well as we could and should. But how can the academy and the grassroots local pastor learn to work together more effectively? And specifically, we're in the Lutheran Driven's race in a context I don't know that we do that with great regularity. I think there's room for growth there. What are your thoughts?
Speaker 3:I think if pastors see themselves as practitioners, as as zales, orgers, as I think pastors see themselves as participating in this, this mercy, physician work of the soul, then there will always be a connection between the academy and the parish, because your local doctor doesn't go to school for eight years and say now I know everything and you're welcome. Your local doctor, your local physician, is constantly working, constantly investigating. They get a weird case and they start researching. You know why? So that they can be academic? No, no, so that they can help souls, you know. And so the more I'm in the parish, the better I am in the academy, because my examples are way better. But the more that I'm in the academy, the more I see that these big old concepts that people might say I'm never going to use this in the parish, actually really do matter.
Speaker 3:Just the other day I was sitting there folding like letters, invitation letters, with three other staff and one of our staff members says I'm working with group publishing and they're talking about these ideas and it's really confusing to me. Could you help me? And what they were dealing with was the concept of open theism, you know, in terms of prayer, and I was like well that's. You know that's something called open theism. And so we had kind of like a 20 to 30 minute conversation and she's like, wow, that is super helpful. And we talked about the practical way of talking about that, how she's writing kids curriculum, you know, and how to stay away from that. And then you know she's asking yeah, I mean, they're talking about, you know, god changing, but God doesn't change us. Oh yeah, you know, as Lutherans we we say God doesn't change but you know, his attitude towards us changes and we call that long gospel. So it was all very practical and I told her, I said you know, I've just summarized about a 1200 page book by Tyson called prayer and providence for you.
Speaker 3:And she was like I'm really glad I don't have to read that. I was like, well, if you ever need to sleep at night, it's a great book. But if we hadn't, if I hadn't engaged that text, I wouldn't have had a way to kind of lead her through that. And so pastors are their physicians of the soul. You know we're in this great and we take an oath on that, and so we must study the academy in order to be useful for our people today. Does that make any sense?
Speaker 2:No, it does, and I just love the fact that you're involved in formation and you have. You have fantastic stories to share, like you just shared of someone in real time, because I think sometimes in academia, seminar, education, wherever it is, and this could be I'm not I'm not going against residential or even for online or anything like that. I'm just saying that sometimes if, if a proclamer and academic is out of the parish for an exceptional amount of time, their understanding of how how much culture has shifted and how the way we communicate the never changing gospel of Jesus to different ears with different concerns, like that, that should be a very big necessity for those in academia and and pastors have to continue to learn and sit at the feet of those who have deeply researched. We should, we need one another desperately today and I guess I'd like the desperation to go to go both ways. So that's that's it. Anything more to add on that Bob?
Speaker 3:No, no, yeah, as long as we realize that we're in the the care of soul business, we'll always have a need for each other.
Speaker 3:But if we if we become theorists and if we become oh, I don't know how to say it if we become experimentalists, then then yeah, I mean, then then we, then we'll not need each other. But on the practical level, if the pastor maybe this goes back to something we were talking about earlier if the pastor can't translate to his people, then he's lost the ability to pastor them, because what a pastor is is the poet laureate of the congregation's experience of the Word of God. So he has been chosen to be the poet laureate of their experience of the text, and so if he's not speaking their language anymore, if he's not translating, then they'll find some other shepherd. I'm sorry, that's right, man.
Speaker 2:Bob, this has been so good. People want to connect with you. How can they do so?
Speaker 3:Faithlosvegasorg is a great place. You know I have an email there and if you see me on the street, you know I'm not homeless. I just dress that way and and you say hi and and thank you for having me. I hope that anything that we talked about could be a blessing or a benefit to anyone.
Speaker 2:It was beneficial to me and I know everyone that that listened. This is the American Reformation podcast sharing he's carrying like, subscribe, comment. Wherever it is you take in, hopefully, jesus Center, joyfield, enriching mind, enriching soul, enriching conversations like I just had with my brother, bob. Thanks for being you, brother, and going on mission with Word and Sacrament to make Jesus known. It's a good day. Go and make it a great day. We'll see you next time on American Reformation. Thanks, bob.
Speaker 3:Thanks Tim.