The LCMS could become the most talked about and potentially the fastest growing denomination by one weird trick that its leadership would die before considering.
I love this a lot. I have been pondering the software side of this for a while.
I would love to figure out how to handle the English District as I do like it being separate (my congregation is a part of it so I am biased) but I could see breaking it into the other geographic districts.
For sure. Not sure how far along you guys are (if at all) in making resources like this but I would be interested in getting involved if there is an effort. My software job takes a lot of my time but with the coding tools I use I could put in a few productive hours here and there.
Dr. Wood, sir. First, what an excellent publication you have here. Thank you.
I have only read a few lines, so I will only comment on a few lines. If you made opposite points down the page, then I am a dummy again.
Demographic crisis. I don't get it. The Missouri Synod didn't cause this mass insanity and falling away. They will come in in hoards when their foolishness comes home to roost by way of disaster, famine or war here. I do not have any information that God intends this church body to be growing in numbers right now. Everything I can think of right now says otherwise. Preach law properly, which is a thing missing, and expect it to get a lot worse. The Lord can do otherwise, but He does not promise, does He? So the synod shrinks a lot. Get the change agents out, the ones that actually have the sincerity to leave, and it gets even worse. To every thing, there is a season.
Geriatric candidates. We want wisdom and experience. What is possibly gained with less of that? Shortcomings in these two candidates are not about their age or vitality.
Every pastor knows not to unnecessarily alienate members of his flock. Harrison was and is a pastor. No layman, including me, really understands this in a completely internalized way. I think Harrison does not want to lose a single sheep, and that is nothing but good. So he is careful not to create unneeded offense, therefore the perception that he isn't doing anything about the problems. He does have many achievements in bringing our church body back to health. He is a theologian and a pastor. You imply some place that the two are barely distinguishable. I think that is way wrong. The other candidate had no such pastoral resume, and made a big and controversial (divisive) error (an academic one yet!) in a badly done publication that wasn't just a blog post or something, but the LC itself. I don't see how it's possible to downplay that.
Thanks for your great publication, but the first few lines of this article are wrong.
Thank you. You have written the indictment: Harrison was, ultimately, the final publisher of Biermann's LC commentary.
If we must preach law properly, why has Harrison palled around with the Fordeins and brought them into the Synod, including in the LCA?
Yes, wisdom and experience are wonderful things to have and to honor. However, neither candidate presented the wisdom and experience for the future, only a distant past.
The ordo embedded in the Western Rite is good, right, and salutary. We recognize that the liturgy is *evangelical*, which means it is *doing something* through the proclamation of God's Word and the administration of the Sacraments. Form must be in service to the proclamation so that the ceremony is not treated as the thing that saves, but as the thing that rightly teaches, orders, and dignifies a worship assembly preparing to entertain the angels and encounter the living God on His holy altar.
CoWo cannot do these things. However, we must also be cautious about the risk that the liturgy becomes a stage play that distracts from its intent. We must also recognize that liturgical "compliance" is easy to achieve, and it can mask all sorts of horrors. A strong liturgy should not be the measure of a church; the preaching should.
The danger of the ordo becoming a “stage play” (or worse, an opus operatum) is far less than the danger of CoWo becoming a charismatic revival. A strong lex credendi calls for an equally strong lex orandi or the union of doctrine and practice is severed.
Thank you for your reply. Practicing Lutheran doctrine isn't easy, and it seems it always has to be pastoral and applied to a particular person or group. Applying the teaching to the entire synod (and even the public, as the SP also has to do) is incredibly hard, in my opinion. I think I despise the Forde stuff for all I know of it, but on the other hand I don't know what Harrison has had to face where he would in fact have to really preach UOJ, which is official but subject to very much misunderstanding. For all I know this temporarily (tactically) appeared to align him somewhat with the reductionists or even antinomians. It's not unusual in our famous preachers to say something that by itself is outrageous, when the ministry is attacked by synergists, legalists or calvinists. But I have no idea. With Harrison's understanding, responsibility and experience, it's hard to imagine him getting roped into Forde-ist turkeys.
I have to think that you are advocating higher-fidelity preaching, which would contain more law, even the law that comes after the Gospel. And I can't reconcile that with your criticism about losing members. Purer teaching will bring the members the Holy Spirit draws in, but I don't see any human logic that it would increase numbers. It could, but I don't see any reason to sort of assume that, as a baseline for the criticism about losing members.
No sir, my logic is that purifying the teaching will, on its face, lead to a decrease. I know you pretty much deprecate both candidates, but many of us saw quite a difference. And for us, the challenger was the chameleon. It's well on record in recent public discussions, at least with respect to his regrettable article denying my duty to protect my family. And where I say a pastor needs to address his flock, or, say, the audience, pastorally, that does not mean that I think Harrison has been anything like a chameleon.
I would urge you to be assertive in directly exhorting the synod president to perform the good works you believe are lacking. If he won't hear you, you'll have to make that public, chips falling. I'm sorry the synod would not allow you space at the convention. That does not seem honorable on the synod's part. The synod should behave corporately just like the best and most honorable pastors that make it up, not like a self-preserving, lawyered up corp.
There is a strain of crypto-Calvinism hiding under the “3rd use of the Law” discussion in our midst. There are those who say that the goal of the Gospel is obedience to the Law and that the Law doesn’t not always accuse. This is what John Pless and others are speaking against. It is not “antinomianism” as some call it, but in the words of the apostle “preaching the law lawfully.”
I have no objection to that, but then why does Pless bring in Forde, Nestingen, Paulson, et al as if the LCMS has no scholars who can elucidate this without their baggage?
He can be commended for loyalty to his old friends and teachers, but that is not a license to import their teachings to the LCMS, especially since they were able to reconcile their doctrine with rostered ELCA roles.
If he brought Forde people in, I can only guess it was a tactic to fight a legalist faction. I need to find out what actually happened. I can see why a person would bring in one _gang_ to fight another _gang_, and it might work if they (figuratively) kill each other. But it sounds like a dangerous game. Better to eject the legalists. I am only guessing and theorizing without any knowledge of what happened.
I had a pastor who did Bible class on the crucifixion on Easter Sunday. I don't know if that was the best thing, but I am sure he was fighting a hollow notion of justification without the unimaginable suffering (logically described as eternal times billions of people) of the Lord Christ.
The publication of The Necessary Distinction is the case study. It could not pass doctrinal review, but CPH - at the command of the President - published it. Those names are in several other Synodical resources.
LCMS Bylaw 1.9.1.1 (b) allows boards, commissions, or other subordinate groups of the Synod to publish publicly "study documents and exploratory material" but the following notice must be included on or immediately following the title page:
“This material is being released for study and discussion purposes, and the author(s) is(are) solely responsible for its contents. It has not been submitted to the process for doctrinal review stipulated in the Bylaws of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod and does not necessarily reflect the theology of the Lutheran Confessions or the doctrinal position of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.”
This notice is on the book, The Necessary Distinction. The notice is not on the CTCR/CPH/ChiCom-manufactured LLCACA.
Another thought, sorry. Fighting people who sneak in limited atonement can lay some traps. WELS had a pretty famous case of overreach in trying to describe universal objective justification. I myself was an elder in a congregation that was attacked by a guy who launched a sneaky attack against UOJ. His guru was a former WELS pastor named Gregory Jackson.
I was just wondering aloud, commiserating perhaps, with one of my members the other day up here in Maine. Is there some special reason that the Lutheran congregations (all 3 of them) up here can't get a little help financially? Seems like money can go elsewhere to get new church buildings/school buildings/etc. I don't know. Just wondering aloud again. I'll always appreciate when you put a spotlight on the LCMS in Maine (selfishly perhaps, as the only non-retired LCMS pastor in the state at the moment). I advised the congregations up north recently to only call guys who are willing to go overseas, because that's what's required to get a guy to come up here.
Because, dear brother, Maine doesn't present any opportunities worth investing in, which will dramatically slow the decline-inertia of Synod.
Hope Lutheran-Bangor attempted at least once to be approved for a grant from 'Mission Field: USA' in the 2010s but was declined; a promising flower of a church plant from the late-90s with 50+ members, allowed to wilt to a pitiful drooping leaf on the vine. (All the missions/church plants winning those grants and related support, so far as I have seen, were in cosmopolitan mega-cities like Philly or major state university campuses in the Lutheran-saturated Midwest; smaller cities that made the cut seemed to all be along the southern border, or were known for recent civil unrest.) ACNA is there now, doing the work and getting the growth LCMS/NED should have done and had.
"Pioneers are needed to go into the frontier of America to reach out in mission to new places to populations that are different from the typical LCMS.” It was exciting to read that from Schave at the time. Our congregation was naive enough I guess to think that Maine was at least considered to be 'LCMS Frontier Country'.
But your assessment is the real truth:
Maine is 'Overseas', strongly in the 'Myth' category where the rest of the 'Traditional LCMS' whisper about whether certain things are true of the natives, and if it is possible for a state to have the most church buildings per person and still be in the Top 3 'Least Religious States'.
Thus it bears out that Maine does not have the "populations...different" that the LCMS is formally looking to $upport.
God bless your work in Maine, Rev. Strawn. I am leaving a WELS congregation in NY this week, having served here for 5 years. It is a 51 year old congregation, and I would guess that for 40 of those years, they have received subsidy from WELS. Are your congregations similar? Was there synod money in the past that helped plant these churches?
The WELS attempted a number of "mission restarts" around the time that I was assigned (which is how I myself ended up in NY). This program subsidized small, usually far-flung congregations to see if they could be revitalized. The program is being wound down. Post-COVID in particular, costs for this kind of revitalization now far outstrip initial projections. WELS' position is that a congregation such as the one I have been serving now needs to plan for a full relaunch (relocation, new name, etc) in order to receive operating subsidy.
If you are ever looking to commiserate with another young pastor who was assigned to one of these far-flung confessional hinterlands, I am all ears.
The LCMS has never had a president who left the office younger than 60. From 1847 to 1962, there were only six Synod Presidents, and five of them served into their 70s (H.C. Schwan was 80).
The trends were certainly established, but we did almost nothing to fill in the fissures where the dam was breaking. Based on the rhetoric around this election, and from the candidates themselves, apparently, they wield incredible power.
60s is geriatric?! That’s such a strange thing to pick on if the average age is in the 50s, which if true is much better than I expected. It’s like having your older brother be your president. Besides the US president is over 80, so being 60s is pretty young in comparison.
I don’t think young people particularly care how old the synodical president is, it’s not like we’re trying to win people over by being hip. The less hip, the better. I’m also glad he doesn’t have a huge beard like the Orthodox. 😂
We do have to face the fact that we might become a smaller synod. The group of faithful is small. I would love to see a rebuilding of the world relief and human care side of the synod, it seems like it greatly suffered in the cutbacks to get out of debt.
It kind of was strange to begin this article this way, focused on the candidates’ ages. But the diagnosis of our structural and leadership issues is spot on, indeed!
One would think that IQ is distributed statistically and therefore there are certainly more brilliant minds in the higher age group because that age group is larger. Maybe its not brilliance that we need to isolate for but other factors in addition to intelligence like leadership, wisdom, etc. Potentially we can simply state that the fruit born is enough to judge effectiveness and close the loop to fix it. The older generation is the least capable of self evaluation and because of their numbers they control any democratic decision. Hence, here we are.
No, I think there are brilliant minds in the older generation partially because brilliance develops over time, and also because the divisive ones have probably left by now.
In addition, Leadership and experience leading develops over time. I’m not sure how older people are least capable of self-evaluation, but they certainly don’t control the election of President. Any generation adult age could vote as a layman for their congregation, so that’s possibly 50%+ non Baby boomers.
My main objection was first of all calling people over 60 “geriatric” as if that’s too old to lead. In my experience, 50s and 60s are variable decades. Some people are old, but most people nowadays are in great health, body and mind, in their 60s.
“Centralized administrative parish support services (accounting, payroll, retirement, PTO, insurance, contact management, web site creation and management, copier leasing, bulletin production, background checks, and advisory legal) with voluntary paid subscriptions.”
YES, YES, YES!!! And your dispute resolution comment, also key. Thank you for great points in this article, minus men in their 60s being geriatric. Not sure where you’re going with that one. Do we want guys in their 40s? If so, why? What makes younger reverend presidents better?
64 and 66 are just a few years past the age of wisdom (60) and hardly “geriatric.” The last thing we need in the church is a youth movement in leadership like that in political NY that is ushering in the age of “democratic socialism.”
Why not simply say “And the lot fell to Harrison” In the way of “it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and us?”
The candidates' ages are not the issue per se, but a metaphor for the greater problem. Indeed, Biermann appears 10 years younger than Harrison and exhibits the physique and range of motion of a high-mileage road cyclist (no idea if that is true). We’ve had problems in the past when inexperienced young bucks were promoted without due regard for the balance of wisdom and vigor. The point is that everything appears to be focused on stasis and avoiding critical areas that are actually easy to address.
I'm in the middle of reading Dr. David Scaer's treatise "Is Law Intrinsic To God's Essence." I am stunned at what I have discovered about this new "theology of the cross" by Paulson and his allies. :O To me, if we have someone that is trying to convince people that the Apostles who actually walked with Christ and were given His Words, commands, etc. didn't know what they were talking about...and "Hey, we don't really know if Jesus Christ existed." :O How is the LCMS allowing this blasphemy? To quote, "For Paulson, justification happens in the present moment and is so properly described as existential. For him, justification is 'faith in Christ in the form of a promise made by Christ, and conveyed to you by a preacher." Luther did say that after he was gone, we'd be lucky to keep the Gospel intact. Well, personally, I think we're way past that now. Wow. If I'm reading it right, this thought has been percolating since 1968 and we still can't shut it down. This is like saying we've played Monopoly for 50 years and now in 2026 you're telling me we no longer get $200 by passing Go. Wow. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but I don't think so. The fox has been in the henhouse for a LONG time. WOW!
Well, it is an agenda. And there are some things on it that would be truly good. But there are some terrible things on it that would spend more time and money and accomplish nothing.
Transparency and Finance
I've been arguing for a decade that the entire digital infrastructure that every congregation needs should be a centralized function with a professional staff overseeing it. That one move would lift an incredible burden from our ridiculously small congregations. There is nothing wrong with publishing financials, but budgets are meaningless. If you are going to publish them, prior three years of actual finances are much more telling and understandable by someone not immersed in what the budget means. Explain what changes you made in actual spending and mission support. Your district census idea would have much more impact doing two things. Publish the high, low, mean and median compensation of district rostered staff and district pastorate. That would cause movement.
Governance and Structure
The splitting of the office of the President is one of your more consistent recommendations and would be completely worthless. You need a place where the buck stops. And you either have one, or you create more ways to say what everyone in current LCMS positions says "sorry, that's not the job, I'm just advisory." Which is both true and the ultimate dodge. That division is also the fast path to complete secularization. Witness what happened to all Catholic institutions when the Presidents stopped being required to be Priests or Nuns. On the other side, essentially eliminating the DPs and what we think of as districts and just moving to the circuits at the middle judicatory would be a good change. You'd have to agree to alter the current valid circuit allocations. You'd move to more a metropolitan basis. But making each metro responsible for each other would yield fruit. You could create a "join or die" effect and a real kingdom vision beyond the congregation which the current districts don't.
Competence and Personnel
Exams would be a legalistic response that would probably not produce what you'd want. You'd advance a bunch of beardos who have never figured out how to actually run a congregation. To get what you want - which is good highly competent men in the right positions - requires some significant pain first. Part of the pain is a dramatic curtailing of Congregationalism. Our entire "call committee" process would need to be scrapped. Every call committee is stupid. Instead of wise elders they get populated by axe grinders and honestly too many women who tend to be terrible at figuring out good men. You need to inject more episcopal authority into that process. The second significant pain is you need to set visible and very high standards for admission to the sem beyond "is he male, can he fog a mirror and is he willing to move to STL/FW." That would have short term effects on the supply. But it might also give some necessary leverage to address the ridiculously small congregation problem.
Formation and Mission
Sure, I wish CPH was run on a more communistic basis. And I think free hymnals and catechisms might be a mission achievable fact. But the better move would probably be to make Service Builder and Shepherd's Staff part of the digital infrastructure given to every congregation. The CPH version of the Book of Concord online has been a great move. Much more important to get those digital resources available. Thinking in terms of paper falls into your gerontocracy start.
There is nothing wrong with publishing financials, but budgets are meaningless. If you are going to publish them, prior three years of actual finances are much more telling and understandable by someone not immersed in what the budget means.
Not either or, but both. Performance to budget is a critical measure of competence.
Publish the high, low, mean and median compensation of district rostered staff and district pastorate. That would cause movement.
That would be good.
The splitting of the office of the President is one of your more consistent recommendations and would be completely worthless. You need a place where the buck stops. And you either have one, or you create more ways to say what everyone in current LCMS positions says "sorry, that's not the job, I'm just advisory." Which is both true and the ultimate dodge.
The buck is not stopping now. Two bucks can stop as well as one with the right governance structure.
Exams would be a legalistic response that would probably not produce what you'd want. You'd advance a bunch of beardos who have never figured out how to actually run a congregation.
Again, not either or. 7 consecutive years of parish pastoring is going to give you a clear indication of a man’s competence in the pulpit and with people.
You need to inject more episcopal authority into that process.
No argument from me.
But the better move would probably be to make Service Builder and Shepherd's Staff part of the digital infrastructure given to every congregation. The CPH version of the Book of Concord online has been a great move. Much more important to get those digital resources available. Thinking in terms of paper falls into your gerontocracy start.
The pews need physical assets. The digital items are a natural for everything.
Great post by A.C. Truly the boomer spirit of the age. They stand athwart the synod encouraging, commending, affirming and reaffirming the last 40 years of slop that didn't work.
Your proposals make me think that in the end, there would almost be two classes of congregations within a synod; "franchised" and "corporate-owned," that is, those who can run themselves competently and are making use of the "branding" and support infrastructure, and those which are ultimately run by synod.
I am unsure how closely the LCMS ONM mirrors the WELS Board for Home Missions, but my thought would be that these departments, with realigned missions, would be the best existing vehicles for such changes.
The Synodical Conference polity-heritage is congregationalist. Do you see that polity as a net negative? Some of the changes you recommend across the synod(s) could be difficult to carry out without reworking the typical congregational corporate structure.
Thanks, Pastor. The support services would have to be paid for on a volume/use basis, i.e., by the number of services requested and per-capita metrics. ONM can and should be the vehicle for this, with the Chief Mission Officer becoming a true executive, which would help to mitigate the problems we have seen where conflicts of interest arise in the Presidency. Objectively, hyper-congregationalism is a problem where parishes on life support demand the right to have a pastor on indentured labor terms. Ultimately, many of the precarious parishes will go under suddenly and the buildings - in terrible condition - end up in district hands and become cost sinks because they cannot be liquidated as is.
The LCMS could become the most talked about and potentially the fastest growing denomination by one weird trick that its leadership would die before considering.
I love this a lot. I have been pondering the software side of this for a while.
I would love to figure out how to handle the English District as I do like it being separate (my congregation is a part of it so I am biased) but I could see breaking it into the other geographic districts.
I forgot to add parish websites and CRMS to the centralized services package.
For sure. Not sure how far along you guys are (if at all) in making resources like this but I would be interested in getting involved if there is an effort. My software job takes a lot of my time but with the coding tools I use I could put in a few productive hours here and there.
Dr. Wood, sir. First, what an excellent publication you have here. Thank you.
I have only read a few lines, so I will only comment on a few lines. If you made opposite points down the page, then I am a dummy again.
Demographic crisis. I don't get it. The Missouri Synod didn't cause this mass insanity and falling away. They will come in in hoards when their foolishness comes home to roost by way of disaster, famine or war here. I do not have any information that God intends this church body to be growing in numbers right now. Everything I can think of right now says otherwise. Preach law properly, which is a thing missing, and expect it to get a lot worse. The Lord can do otherwise, but He does not promise, does He? So the synod shrinks a lot. Get the change agents out, the ones that actually have the sincerity to leave, and it gets even worse. To every thing, there is a season.
Geriatric candidates. We want wisdom and experience. What is possibly gained with less of that? Shortcomings in these two candidates are not about their age or vitality.
Every pastor knows not to unnecessarily alienate members of his flock. Harrison was and is a pastor. No layman, including me, really understands this in a completely internalized way. I think Harrison does not want to lose a single sheep, and that is nothing but good. So he is careful not to create unneeded offense, therefore the perception that he isn't doing anything about the problems. He does have many achievements in bringing our church body back to health. He is a theologian and a pastor. You imply some place that the two are barely distinguishable. I think that is way wrong. The other candidate had no such pastoral resume, and made a big and controversial (divisive) error (an academic one yet!) in a badly done publication that wasn't just a blog post or something, but the LC itself. I don't see how it's possible to downplay that.
Thanks for your great publication, but the first few lines of this article are wrong.
Thank you. You have written the indictment: Harrison was, ultimately, the final publisher of Biermann's LC commentary.
If we must preach law properly, why has Harrison palled around with the Fordeins and brought them into the Synod, including in the LCA?
Yes, wisdom and experience are wonderful things to have and to honor. However, neither candidate presented the wisdom and experience for the future, only a distant past.
Can you explain wisdom and experience for the future in terms of worship?
Not 100% clear on the meaning, but perhaps you mean the formal liturgy as opposed to CoWo?
Historical liturgical practices with hymnody, as opposed to CoWo.
The ordo embedded in the Western Rite is good, right, and salutary. We recognize that the liturgy is *evangelical*, which means it is *doing something* through the proclamation of God's Word and the administration of the Sacraments. Form must be in service to the proclamation so that the ceremony is not treated as the thing that saves, but as the thing that rightly teaches, orders, and dignifies a worship assembly preparing to entertain the angels and encounter the living God on His holy altar.
CoWo cannot do these things. However, we must also be cautious about the risk that the liturgy becomes a stage play that distracts from its intent. We must also recognize that liturgical "compliance" is easy to achieve, and it can mask all sorts of horrors. A strong liturgy should not be the measure of a church; the preaching should.
The danger of the ordo becoming a “stage play” (or worse, an opus operatum) is far less than the danger of CoWo becoming a charismatic revival. A strong lex credendi calls for an equally strong lex orandi or the union of doctrine and practice is severed.
Thank you for your reply. Practicing Lutheran doctrine isn't easy, and it seems it always has to be pastoral and applied to a particular person or group. Applying the teaching to the entire synod (and even the public, as the SP also has to do) is incredibly hard, in my opinion. I think I despise the Forde stuff for all I know of it, but on the other hand I don't know what Harrison has had to face where he would in fact have to really preach UOJ, which is official but subject to very much misunderstanding. For all I know this temporarily (tactically) appeared to align him somewhat with the reductionists or even antinomians. It's not unusual in our famous preachers to say something that by itself is outrageous, when the ministry is attacked by synergists, legalists or calvinists. But I have no idea. With Harrison's understanding, responsibility and experience, it's hard to imagine him getting roped into Forde-ist turkeys.
I have to think that you are advocating higher-fidelity preaching, which would contain more law, even the law that comes after the Gospel. And I can't reconcile that with your criticism about losing members. Purer teaching will bring the members the Holy Spirit draws in, but I don't see any human logic that it would increase numbers. It could, but I don't see any reason to sort of assume that, as a baseline for the criticism about losing members.
Our teachers are not to be chameleons. They must teach the same thing to all people.
If we extend your diagnosis about pure teaching leading to an increase, then we must conclude that Missouri is suffering from impure teaching.
No sir, my logic is that purifying the teaching will, on its face, lead to a decrease. I know you pretty much deprecate both candidates, but many of us saw quite a difference. And for us, the challenger was the chameleon. It's well on record in recent public discussions, at least with respect to his regrettable article denying my duty to protect my family. And where I say a pastor needs to address his flock, or, say, the audience, pastorally, that does not mean that I think Harrison has been anything like a chameleon.
I would urge you to be assertive in directly exhorting the synod president to perform the good works you believe are lacking. If he won't hear you, you'll have to make that public, chips falling. I'm sorry the synod would not allow you space at the convention. That does not seem honorable on the synod's part. The synod should behave corporately just like the best and most honorable pastors that make it up, not like a self-preserving, lawyered up corp.
There is a strain of crypto-Calvinism hiding under the “3rd use of the Law” discussion in our midst. There are those who say that the goal of the Gospel is obedience to the Law and that the Law doesn’t not always accuse. This is what John Pless and others are speaking against. It is not “antinomianism” as some call it, but in the words of the apostle “preaching the law lawfully.”
I have no objection to that, but then why does Pless bring in Forde, Nestingen, Paulson, et al as if the LCMS has no scholars who can elucidate this without their baggage?
Pless is old ALC. Those were his teachers and colleagues. He hears them through a different filter than we do.
He can be commended for loyalty to his old friends and teachers, but that is not a license to import their teachings to the LCMS, especially since they were able to reconcile their doctrine with rostered ELCA roles.
If he brought Forde people in, I can only guess it was a tactic to fight a legalist faction. I need to find out what actually happened. I can see why a person would bring in one _gang_ to fight another _gang_, and it might work if they (figuratively) kill each other. But it sounds like a dangerous game. Better to eject the legalists. I am only guessing and theorizing without any knowledge of what happened.
I had a pastor who did Bible class on the crucifixion on Easter Sunday. I don't know if that was the best thing, but I am sure he was fighting a hollow notion of justification without the unimaginable suffering (logically described as eternal times billions of people) of the Lord Christ.
I very much doubt that was the case. That would be the equivalent of exchanging the bite of a rattlesnake for the bite of a cottonmouth.
i'm trying to make some sense of the claim that he brought no-suffering-Jesus-required heretics in. In MO-speak, "best construction"
The publication of The Necessary Distinction is the case study. It could not pass doctrinal review, but CPH - at the command of the President - published it. Those names are in several other Synodical resources.
Other than the recent LC, is that the best publication I can read in order to understand the issues, problems, concerns or accusations you make here?
LCMS Bylaw 1.9.1.1 (b) allows boards, commissions, or other subordinate groups of the Synod to publish publicly "study documents and exploratory material" but the following notice must be included on or immediately following the title page:
“This material is being released for study and discussion purposes, and the author(s) is(are) solely responsible for its contents. It has not been submitted to the process for doctrinal review stipulated in the Bylaws of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod and does not necessarily reflect the theology of the Lutheran Confessions or the doctrinal position of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.”
This notice is on the book, The Necessary Distinction. The notice is not on the CTCR/CPH/ChiCom-manufactured LLCACA.
Another thought, sorry. Fighting people who sneak in limited atonement can lay some traps. WELS had a pretty famous case of overreach in trying to describe universal objective justification. I myself was an elder in a congregation that was attacked by a guy who launched a sneaky attack against UOJ. His guru was a former WELS pastor named Gregory Jackson.
I was just wondering aloud, commiserating perhaps, with one of my members the other day up here in Maine. Is there some special reason that the Lutheran congregations (all 3 of them) up here can't get a little help financially? Seems like money can go elsewhere to get new church buildings/school buildings/etc. I don't know. Just wondering aloud again. I'll always appreciate when you put a spotlight on the LCMS in Maine (selfishly perhaps, as the only non-retired LCMS pastor in the state at the moment). I advised the congregations up north recently to only call guys who are willing to go overseas, because that's what's required to get a guy to come up here.
Because, dear brother, Maine doesn't present any opportunities worth investing in, which will dramatically slow the decline-inertia of Synod.
Hope Lutheran-Bangor attempted at least once to be approved for a grant from 'Mission Field: USA' in the 2010s but was declined; a promising flower of a church plant from the late-90s with 50+ members, allowed to wilt to a pitiful drooping leaf on the vine. (All the missions/church plants winning those grants and related support, so far as I have seen, were in cosmopolitan mega-cities like Philly or major state university campuses in the Lutheran-saturated Midwest; smaller cities that made the cut seemed to all be along the southern border, or were known for recent civil unrest.) ACNA is there now, doing the work and getting the growth LCMS/NED should have done and had.
"Pioneers are needed to go into the frontier of America to reach out in mission to new places to populations that are different from the typical LCMS.” It was exciting to read that from Schave at the time. Our congregation was naive enough I guess to think that Maine was at least considered to be 'LCMS Frontier Country'.
But your assessment is the real truth:
Maine is 'Overseas', strongly in the 'Myth' category where the rest of the 'Traditional LCMS' whisper about whether certain things are true of the natives, and if it is possible for a state to have the most church buildings per person and still be in the Top 3 'Least Religious States'.
Thus it bears out that Maine does not have the "populations...different" that the LCMS is formally looking to $upport.
100%. Demographics in Maine are not conducive to photo opportunities and magazine covers. Imagine if the organization served its membership.
God bless your work in Maine, Rev. Strawn. I am leaving a WELS congregation in NY this week, having served here for 5 years. It is a 51 year old congregation, and I would guess that for 40 of those years, they have received subsidy from WELS. Are your congregations similar? Was there synod money in the past that helped plant these churches?
The WELS attempted a number of "mission restarts" around the time that I was assigned (which is how I myself ended up in NY). This program subsidized small, usually far-flung congregations to see if they could be revitalized. The program is being wound down. Post-COVID in particular, costs for this kind of revitalization now far outstrip initial projections. WELS' position is that a congregation such as the one I have been serving now needs to plan for a full relaunch (relocation, new name, etc) in order to receive operating subsidy.
If you are ever looking to commiserate with another young pastor who was assigned to one of these far-flung confessional hinterlands, I am all ears.
The LCMS has never had a president who left the office younger than 60. From 1847 to 1962, there were only six Synod Presidents, and five of them served into their 70s (H.C. Schwan was 80).
Too much carping.
Which of them presided over a Synod that looked more nursing home than nursery?
The trends leading to that were established long before Harrison. And how much power do you think the Synod President has, anyway?
The trends were certainly established, but we did almost nothing to fill in the fissures where the dam was breaking. Based on the rhetoric around this election, and from the candidates themselves, apparently, they wield incredible power.
60s is geriatric?! That’s such a strange thing to pick on if the average age is in the 50s, which if true is much better than I expected. It’s like having your older brother be your president. Besides the US president is over 80, so being 60s is pretty young in comparison.
I don’t think young people particularly care how old the synodical president is, it’s not like we’re trying to win people over by being hip. The less hip, the better. I’m also glad he doesn’t have a huge beard like the Orthodox. 😂
We do have to face the fact that we might become a smaller synod. The group of faithful is small. I would love to see a rebuilding of the world relief and human care side of the synod, it seems like it greatly suffered in the cutbacks to get out of debt.
It kind of was strange to begin this article this way, focused on the candidates’ ages. But the diagnosis of our structural and leadership issues is spot on, indeed!
Maybe. Synod politics is not my area of expertise. But I do know that some of the most brilliant minds in our synod right now are over 60.
One would think that IQ is distributed statistically and therefore there are certainly more brilliant minds in the higher age group because that age group is larger. Maybe its not brilliance that we need to isolate for but other factors in addition to intelligence like leadership, wisdom, etc. Potentially we can simply state that the fruit born is enough to judge effectiveness and close the loop to fix it. The older generation is the least capable of self evaluation and because of their numbers they control any democratic decision. Hence, here we are.
No, I think there are brilliant minds in the older generation partially because brilliance develops over time, and also because the divisive ones have probably left by now.
In addition, Leadership and experience leading develops over time. I’m not sure how older people are least capable of self-evaluation, but they certainly don’t control the election of President. Any generation adult age could vote as a layman for their congregation, so that’s possibly 50%+ non Baby boomers.
My main objection was first of all calling people over 60 “geriatric” as if that’s too old to lead. In my experience, 50s and 60s are variable decades. Some people are old, but most people nowadays are in great health, body and mind, in their 60s.
I meant the current cohort of old folks as opposed to the age group generally for the lack of introspection.
“Centralized administrative parish support services (accounting, payroll, retirement, PTO, insurance, contact management, web site creation and management, copier leasing, bulletin production, background checks, and advisory legal) with voluntary paid subscriptions.”
YES, YES, YES!!! And your dispute resolution comment, also key. Thank you for great points in this article, minus men in their 60s being geriatric. Not sure where you’re going with that one. Do we want guys in their 40s? If so, why? What makes younger reverend presidents better?
64 and 66 are just a few years past the age of wisdom (60) and hardly “geriatric.” The last thing we need in the church is a youth movement in leadership like that in political NY that is ushering in the age of “democratic socialism.”
Why not simply say “And the lot fell to Harrison” In the way of “it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and us?”
The candidates' ages are not the issue per se, but a metaphor for the greater problem. Indeed, Biermann appears 10 years younger than Harrison and exhibits the physique and range of motion of a high-mileage road cyclist (no idea if that is true). We’ve had problems in the past when inexperienced young bucks were promoted without due regard for the balance of wisdom and vigor. The point is that everything appears to be focused on stasis and avoiding critical areas that are actually easy to address.
I'm in the middle of reading Dr. David Scaer's treatise "Is Law Intrinsic To God's Essence." I am stunned at what I have discovered about this new "theology of the cross" by Paulson and his allies. :O To me, if we have someone that is trying to convince people that the Apostles who actually walked with Christ and were given His Words, commands, etc. didn't know what they were talking about...and "Hey, we don't really know if Jesus Christ existed." :O How is the LCMS allowing this blasphemy? To quote, "For Paulson, justification happens in the present moment and is so properly described as existential. For him, justification is 'faith in Christ in the form of a promise made by Christ, and conveyed to you by a preacher." Luther did say that after he was gone, we'd be lucky to keep the Gospel intact. Well, personally, I think we're way past that now. Wow. If I'm reading it right, this thought has been percolating since 1968 and we still can't shut it down. This is like saying we've played Monopoly for 50 years and now in 2026 you're telling me we no longer get $200 by passing Go. Wow. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but I don't think so. The fox has been in the henhouse for a LONG time. WOW!
Well, it is an agenda. And there are some things on it that would be truly good. But there are some terrible things on it that would spend more time and money and accomplish nothing.
Transparency and Finance
I've been arguing for a decade that the entire digital infrastructure that every congregation needs should be a centralized function with a professional staff overseeing it. That one move would lift an incredible burden from our ridiculously small congregations. There is nothing wrong with publishing financials, but budgets are meaningless. If you are going to publish them, prior three years of actual finances are much more telling and understandable by someone not immersed in what the budget means. Explain what changes you made in actual spending and mission support. Your district census idea would have much more impact doing two things. Publish the high, low, mean and median compensation of district rostered staff and district pastorate. That would cause movement.
Governance and Structure
The splitting of the office of the President is one of your more consistent recommendations and would be completely worthless. You need a place where the buck stops. And you either have one, or you create more ways to say what everyone in current LCMS positions says "sorry, that's not the job, I'm just advisory." Which is both true and the ultimate dodge. That division is also the fast path to complete secularization. Witness what happened to all Catholic institutions when the Presidents stopped being required to be Priests or Nuns. On the other side, essentially eliminating the DPs and what we think of as districts and just moving to the circuits at the middle judicatory would be a good change. You'd have to agree to alter the current valid circuit allocations. You'd move to more a metropolitan basis. But making each metro responsible for each other would yield fruit. You could create a "join or die" effect and a real kingdom vision beyond the congregation which the current districts don't.
Competence and Personnel
Exams would be a legalistic response that would probably not produce what you'd want. You'd advance a bunch of beardos who have never figured out how to actually run a congregation. To get what you want - which is good highly competent men in the right positions - requires some significant pain first. Part of the pain is a dramatic curtailing of Congregationalism. Our entire "call committee" process would need to be scrapped. Every call committee is stupid. Instead of wise elders they get populated by axe grinders and honestly too many women who tend to be terrible at figuring out good men. You need to inject more episcopal authority into that process. The second significant pain is you need to set visible and very high standards for admission to the sem beyond "is he male, can he fog a mirror and is he willing to move to STL/FW." That would have short term effects on the supply. But it might also give some necessary leverage to address the ridiculously small congregation problem.
Formation and Mission
Sure, I wish CPH was run on a more communistic basis. And I think free hymnals and catechisms might be a mission achievable fact. But the better move would probably be to make Service Builder and Shepherd's Staff part of the digital infrastructure given to every congregation. The CPH version of the Book of Concord online has been a great move. Much more important to get those digital resources available. Thinking in terms of paper falls into your gerontocracy start.
There is nothing wrong with publishing financials, but budgets are meaningless. If you are going to publish them, prior three years of actual finances are much more telling and understandable by someone not immersed in what the budget means.
Not either or, but both. Performance to budget is a critical measure of competence.
Publish the high, low, mean and median compensation of district rostered staff and district pastorate. That would cause movement.
That would be good.
The splitting of the office of the President is one of your more consistent recommendations and would be completely worthless. You need a place where the buck stops. And you either have one, or you create more ways to say what everyone in current LCMS positions says "sorry, that's not the job, I'm just advisory." Which is both true and the ultimate dodge.
The buck is not stopping now. Two bucks can stop as well as one with the right governance structure.
Exams would be a legalistic response that would probably not produce what you'd want. You'd advance a bunch of beardos who have never figured out how to actually run a congregation.
Again, not either or. 7 consecutive years of parish pastoring is going to give you a clear indication of a man’s competence in the pulpit and with people.
You need to inject more episcopal authority into that process.
No argument from me.
But the better move would probably be to make Service Builder and Shepherd's Staff part of the digital infrastructure given to every congregation. The CPH version of the Book of Concord online has been a great move. Much more important to get those digital resources available. Thinking in terms of paper falls into your gerontocracy start.
The pews need physical assets. The digital items are a natural for everything.
Great post by A.C. Truly the boomer spirit of the age. They stand athwart the synod encouraging, commending, affirming and reaffirming the last 40 years of slop that didn't work.
Your proposals make me think that in the end, there would almost be two classes of congregations within a synod; "franchised" and "corporate-owned," that is, those who can run themselves competently and are making use of the "branding" and support infrastructure, and those which are ultimately run by synod.
I am unsure how closely the LCMS ONM mirrors the WELS Board for Home Missions, but my thought would be that these departments, with realigned missions, would be the best existing vehicles for such changes.
The Synodical Conference polity-heritage is congregationalist. Do you see that polity as a net negative? Some of the changes you recommend across the synod(s) could be difficult to carry out without reworking the typical congregational corporate structure.
-Pastor Tim Walsh (WELS)
Thanks, Pastor. The support services would have to be paid for on a volume/use basis, i.e., by the number of services requested and per-capita metrics. ONM can and should be the vehicle for this, with the Chief Mission Officer becoming a true executive, which would help to mitigate the problems we have seen where conflicts of interest arise in the Presidency. Objectively, hyper-congregationalism is a problem where parishes on life support demand the right to have a pastor on indentured labor terms. Ultimately, many of the precarious parishes will go under suddenly and the buildings - in terrible condition - end up in district hands and become cost sinks because they cannot be liquidated as is.