Beatus Vir

Part 3 of 4 - How I became a Frustrated Lutheran Pastor

Click here to start at Part 1

After graduation, I moved on to Seminary, getting married and starting a family in the meantime. I learned more and more, and grew as a Lutheran, appreciating Lutheran theology and Lutheran liturgical worship all the more. But I also became more and more aware of the divisions in the Missouri Synod. These divisions were acutely felt when my Seminary President was unjustly removed from office, and later restored as a figure head, and faculty divisions arose. Within the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, there were bitter controversies about worship style, the role of women in the church, the church growth movement, sanctification, and the office of the ministry, to name a few. These were not just aberrations in practice, but in doctrine. It was very clear to me than many, many congregations (and pastors) were abandoning their historic Lutheran identity for a spirituality much more consistent with “Evangelical Christianity.” Yet these controversies contributed to my spiritual and theological growth in understanding what being Lutheran really meant. I was guided by wonderful professors, mentors, and friends. I also grew in my appreciation for the Church fathers, and also for the rich liturgical heritage that was being lived at the seminary and my fieldwork congregation.

I received my first call to two parishes in rural, northern Minnesota, where there were nine months of winter and three months of really bad sledding. Well, it wasn’t quite that bad. I liked the country, and I loved the two congregations I was serving. For the most part, the people seemed to want to be Lutheran. I had some problems with requests to sing “Softly, and tenderly,” “In the Garden,” and other "songs people like to sing." I had some resistance to the LCMS practices of closed communion and not having joint-services with heterodox churches. On the very day I arrived at the parsonage, a retired pastor who had become a member of one congregation, accosted me with challenges to what I believed about the office of the ministry, and what the seminary had taught on a number of things. I remember telling him that, as far as I was concerned, I believed the seminary taught the Word of God, and if he had a problem with the seminary, he should take it up with the seminary. By biggest obstacle I faced in presenting Lutheran doctrine and practice, was this retired Lutheran pastor. He had also been a thorn in the side of my predecessor, who also made every effort to be Lutheran in his teaching and practice. In many ways, he made my task easier.

He had re-instituted Holy Communion on every Sunday, yet through much resistance, and the practice was abandonned during the vacancy. This was very distressing to me. I remember one particular Sunday, standing at the bare altar, and saying to God, with tears in my eyes: “I’m sorry, Jesus. I am sorry that your sacred body is not welcomed at this service.” I worked at restoring the practice, and was able to do so after 6 months in one congregation and 18 in the other, which is to say that after this amount of time I was able to convince a majority of the voter’s assemblies go along with it because they knew I wasn’t going to stop pestering them. The reality was that most people really didn’t care one way or another. While there are many exceptions of Lutherans who have a deep devotion and reverence toward the Sacrament of the Altar, my experience is that the prevailing attitude is one of indifference. This is evident not only when it comes the frequency of Holy Communion, the chit-chating that is all too common during distributation, and in the lack of care displayed in cleansing of the Eucharistic vessels. It is common place in the Missouri Synod, that the individual plastic cups used for communion are simply tossed in the garbage without any ablution whatsoever. I realize that this practice is not consistent with Lutheran Theology, and many Lutheran pastors will point out that this is an abuse and that they do things differently. So did I. But the abuse is the prevailing practice in the Missouri Synod, and most pastors couldn’t care less. I also came to recognize that for most “Lutherans,” Christianity would remain relatively unchanged had the Lord’s Supper never been established by our Lord. It’s nice to have, but on our terms, and we could manage without. Compare that to Padre Pio’s statement that the earth could exist more easily without the sun, than without the Eucharist. Suffice it to say, that it was becoming clearer and clearer to me that my heart was not one with the people in the Missouri Synod, and I could not drink the Lord’s Blood with those who would, five minutes after the service, pour it down the sink, or toss it in the garbage with their snotty kleenexes.

Back to my first couple of years of ministry. While things were not perfect in those two parishes, they were pretty good, in terms of Lutheran theology and practice. I was happy there. YetI was dismayed at what was happening in the LC-MS as a whole. There was bitter controversy between political groups, and there was fragrant disregard of Lutheran theology and practice on the part of congregations, pastors, and church leaders. I thought I had made a mistake in entering the ministerium of the Missouri Synod, and I remember writing a letter to then President A. L. Barry, who in a very kind and encouraing letter wrote to me that the fight was in the Lord’s hand, and he will be with us as we strive to be faithful and struggle for the truth. I decided to stay.

About the same time, although I don’t remember precisely, several youth from my congregation returned from the National Youth Gathering of the Missouri Synod. On the whole, the group was very disappointed in what they experienced there, which was, not very Lutheran, to say the least. Also, several pastors I knew were very indignant over the growing trend that they saw at these gatherings to deviate from sound Lutheran teaching and worship. It dawned on us, perhaps a bit naively, that we could organize a Lutheran youth conference, and Higher Things, Inc. was born. Our goal, very simply, was to provide conferences, a magazine, and other resources that would encourage youth to be Lutherans. “Dare to be Lutheran” was our motto. It was all very well received, even beyond our dreams.

Just prior to that first Higher Things conference, I accepted a call to serve as a youth pastor in my home state of Michigan. I served there for a year and a half, and after than accepted a call as sole pastor at nearby congregation, and began to work for Higher Things part-time.

I knew this congregation. For the most part, it hadn’t wanted to embrace it’s Lutheran identity. The congregation itself had been founded largely by people who were disgruntled in their conservative Lutheran congregations, and was supported by the District to be an alternative to nearby congregations that used the liturgy and were consistent with traditional Lutheranism. Yet I could see a desire on the part of church leaders and the people to be Lutheran. We started to make some progress. The small congregation was slowly growing, yet finances were always a struggle. We lost several members over personal hostilities, frustration over the financial problems, and minor changes in liturgy and hymnody, but loses were generally offset by new gains, at least for the first few years. Personal disagreements and politics between members of the congregation started to increase. Meanwhile, Higher Things was becoming more sucessful, but this led to some internal problems. Higher Things was taking more and more of my time, usually 25-30 hours a week, and yet only paid a small percentage of my salary and benefits, leaving my congregation to bear the brunt of the burden, which it struggled to do. Eventually, this led to my resignation from Higher Things. This had the unintended consequence of emboldening the disgruntled members of my congregation, some of whom wished me to leave. But I also had strong support in the congregation, and in the end, the dissident members left. We managed to survive for another 2 years, during which time, I expressed an opening to taking a call elsewhere, although I really didn't want to leave those members who had remained loyal. I also didn’t want to start all over again in trying to get another congregation to be Lutheran again. I also lost hope that any of the controversies in the Missouri Synod could ever be resolved. Meanwhile, the corrosian of Lutheran theology and practice increased.

Many times, I had told myself that, when things ended in my congregation, that would be the end of my ministry. Still, I didn’t want it to end. It didn’t matter to me that the congregation was small. I was willing to continue serving them, even if I had to make my living in other employment. But end it did. The district convinced the congregation that they should dismiss my call, which is contrary to Lutheran Theology, but common practice, and euphemized with phrases such as “reduction of staff”, but at least they could save their congregation, so the district promised. I won't deny that I was hurt by this, but most of all it was for my former members who were hurt in the process, and manipulated by the district, who got a nice property out of the deal. However, I was very, very relieved as well. On the way home from that last voters meeting, I stopped and bought a bottle of wine, a nice Zinfandel. When I arrived, my wife saw the bottle and said, “Are we celebrating or mourning.” I said, “celebrating.”

Click here to finish the story (Part 4)

Posted by Dan Woodring at 2:45 PM |  

Labels: My Conversion