The State of the LCMS: Insights from the New Pew Research Study

We have grass year-round here , yeah , green grass , rye grass that dies out when it gets to winter , grass that dies out anyway yeah , I have allergies to , to grass and stuff like that . But you want to be outside , but then it just makes it a little .

. The content today is going to focus on the state of the LCMS , and this is insights from the new Pew Research study that just came out . So , for those that are unfamiliar with Pew Research , Jack tell us a little bit about Pew Research Center for Religious Landscape Study .

It seems like they're doing this about every 10 years now , so this is last time they're doing this . It seems like they're doing this about every 10 years now , so this is last time they did this was in 2014 .

So you actually have some interesting comparative data between how things are doing now versus how they were 10 years ago , and it's pretty fascinating to see some of the trends .

in the religious landscape . To be sure , let's talk about demographics , an aging membership , so we have an aging trend and declining youth , so we're getting older . At the same time we're not getting younger . Share a little bit there , jack . So we're getting older .

There's the way we say aging out , right , and I would say we're probably not retaining as many young people as we should . So the overall population is trending older 19% . This is fascinating 19% of LCMS households have children in them right now . 10 years ago that was 28% , so that's about a nine percentage point decline . That's huge .

And so we've joked a little bit about some of the research coming out of LCMS Inc . Talking about the fact that there's fewer families having children . Well , that's true . I don't know that there's less of a desire to have children . There might be some of that as well , but you definitely have an aging demographic where people are too old to be having children .

Right , that represent our church body . So there's some there's definitely some , you know legitimacy in the concern that we're having fewer people to replace ourselves . Of course , we can't rely on demographics alone to grow our church body , but it definitely is the case that we are aging out .

Yeah , I mean , I'm encouraging , I'm right now with I'm a dad of three teenagers and I've had this conversation more than once Find a good and , I would say , lutheran , conservative , biblically-based spouse . Get married 22 , 23 .

Try to figure out life together , and not that you have to do it exactly like we did it , but we had , you know , three kids in our 20s , right , and we had some energy and things , and now we're moving into a new stage of life , like we need to replace ourselves .

I think we need to have that kind of conversation with our kids that , yeah , two , three , four kids , like that's , that's wonderful , or more fruitful and multiply .

Be fruitful and multiply Like yeah and I think , I think there's a tendency in the LCMS for people to think that those of us that have a strong missional zeal don't acknowledge the demographic decline right now . No , no , no . We definitely acknowledge it and our young people should get- .

I think that's something that we can highlight as a win , for our denomination is that we do tend to maintain healthy marriage and relationships and we see ourselves really entering into the vocation of husband and wife really , really well . So that's a win . It is a win . We need to keep it up and that is something that we can build on .

Adolescence is elongated , right , Adulting is taking . So how do we engage the pre-married 20 something year olds in early thirties right now . Any comments there , Jack ?

Now that I'm dealing with a teenager and don't have the knees to keep up with him , you know , I would say like Tim , I would echo your advice to do that kind of stuff in your 20s . If I could do it all over again , that's what I would do . But I think that is something that we build on . It's a strength that we build on and we have to figure out .

Like you said , the shadow side is because we kind of think of marriage as the norm . Are we good at ministering people that aren't married Right ? Do people who are unmarried feel like they're insiders in the church ? Do they belong in the church or does the church ? Well , I'm just going to say it outright here .

You know , when I was a member of Christ Greenfield , I really felt like I didn't have that . I really didn't identify with the other people here until I had kids , because we were such a kid-oriented ministry and that's great , that's something that we celebrate , but there is kind of what I call the donut hole there .

How do we minister to the people that are single or married with no kids right , pre-kids , and that's more and more of the population now .

And well , our LDS neighbors do this pretty well , right . They have young adult like wards , right , and it's kind of you may think it's a little strange , I mean , I kind of think it's strange they're doing this , expecting you to find your spouse

there .

Right , we see this in Luther himself , who's considered to be the father of public education , believe it or not , because he wanted everybody to be literate to read the Bible . So I think that is something that is culturally embedded into Lutheranism . So that's an area of strength it is .

I think one of the ways that we engage the country is probably through our strong educational systems Facts .

Now the shadow side to this strength is that you could develop a pharisaical , legalistic kind of approach Tower , the tower mentality that if you're lower income , working poor , homeless etc . That God is not for you .

Both things can be true at the same time and I think we're kind of living in an environment where you can have a ministry that is inclusive of a lot of highly educated people and those that are there can build bridges of love and care and understanding with those that are in a different socioeconomic place , recognizing that in Christ Galatians 3.28 , there is no

more Jew , greek , slave , free , young , old , rich or poor . We are all one in Jesus Christ . But we could have a little bit of ego to us as it relates to our education Anything there , jack .

Right , and that's an issue A lot of times in other church bodies they're raising up people based on their character and how well they relate to each other , right , more so than academics , and there's a pro and a con to that . There's a shadow side to to each other , right , more so than academics , and there's a pro and a con to that .

There's a shadow side to that as well , right ? So , yeah , I know what are your thoughts about that , the fact that we have such a strong sort of academic approach I'm getting into , like , the pastoral formation side of things Very , very , very , very academic , right ? Well , it's rigorous .

It should be rigorous and character should be assessed at every stage of that journey , and that's why the combination of not just content but character , craft , the doing of ministry , all that needs to be kind of intertwined in the process , or else the leader could come out with a big head right Thinking they're the center .

I was talking to a pastor recently and he goes . I basically was trained and this is not in either of our seminaries and I'm going to leave the seminary . It was an international student . But he says I was basically trained to have the pastor me .

But he says I was basically trained to have the pasture me be the sun around which everybody else kind of orbits , and if I don't say it it's not valid . And he goes . Now that I've got out in the parish he goes . I need a lot of help and that paradigm is not working .

And he was asking with all humility , kind of how do I set up a place where I'm developing other leaders ? So we talked , we talked that through and , um , it just could feel like if you set up the tower mentality , it's lonely at the

top right and the pastor could be seen as the top dog , you know educationally , and he spent a lot of time and money putting that in into place .

And then you get out and uh , if you're in a and uh , if you're in a , you , if you're in a lower income , maybe it's rural or you're in a , maybe an urban kind of mission start and you come in like thinking you're a big deal because you got a master , divinity or something like that , like there's gonna be so many people .

They're like nah , nah , that doesn't mean much of anything here . So yeah , humility .

There's a lot of other factors that go into that . Can you do that ? That's right . So I'm not saying that to denigrate the value of education . I believe very highly on it . We're a church body that really encourages continuing education . But you can that can turn into a tower mentality and that's not always healthy .

Anyone who comes to a Lutheran worship service is going to be embedded in a lot of prayer , which is really , really good . But worship is not meant to be once a week . Worship is something we do every day and prayer is part of that .

Chris Pavala , and he's going to be on here soon talking about prayer .

There's a he's kind of leading a a prayer revolution , prayer reformation , you know , reformation of prayer , right , and and kind of de-stigmatizing what prayer is , because I think a lot of times then it's you know , okay , I remembered , and now , okay , I'm closing my eyes , holding my hands , and he's like we should just have some handles , like I am praying for

that this happens , dot , dot , dot . Like I'm offering my entire life , this relationship , even this very moment as we're recording this podcast , to the God of the universe and if he doesn't show up and show off , like this is going to go sideways . So I desperately need your help .

Is it defined as prayer , that , or is it like did you take your one minute a day ? I'm just curious on the staff , like how are they asking people this question ? I don't know Anything more there .

We start off by saying your will be done right and realizing that God's will is greater than our own will and that's part of our prayer , right In the Lord's prayer . And then realizing that God is ultimately the source of everything good in our lives and that we're depending on him .

And even though , like we have all these anxieties and all these concerns to have God be our one true God , we have to send that to the right address , right .

The invitation is simply gratitude . That's prayer , right , directing everything that's good to God . Obviously the negative stuff , but , yeah , I think we narrowly understand , too narrowly understand , prayer . It starts with gratitude .

If you need a prayer acronym , you know praise , repent , ask , yield , whatever acronym helps you to kind of orient or using the petitions of the Lord's Prayer . All of these are very , very helpful . I would say in the LCMS we don't have a strong advocacy for expository prayer right .

This is always I mean , I've been a pastor now gosh , 17 , 18 years and why , why is there this weird thing ?

Like we've been talking in a meeting , jack , you know , or about this , that or the other , but then and somebody may be like super passionate , articulate around this issue , and when I were to ask them , could you just bring that to the lord in prayer , it's like their heart rates are not , you know , like what ? Yeah , I don't really get that . What ?

I would say , praying in a small group is like public speaking , you know , and which is one of the greatest fears that I mean people are more scared of public speaking than I think skydiving is in terms of , like , the amount of anxiety that it creates in people , and so I understand why . But I will say this I agree , we can .

You know , it can become too mechanical . Prayer can be become too mechanical . But let me share this fascinating story . So I was with my mother-in-law on her deathbed , really , and Marta was urging me to share some gospel with her in her final moments .

And I'm talking to her and I'm giving her encouragement and I can't really tell that she even understands a single thing that I'm saying . And then I said , ok , we're going to do the Lord's Prayer . And I started doing the Lord's Prayer .

The moment I did that , she zoned in on that like a laser beam , because she had heard it so many times in her life that that became something that she could hold on to in that moment , which was really beautiful .

And I've heard other stories , like pastoral stories , about that , where gosh , another pastor I talked to at the summer camp family camp I went to , it had the same thing . He was with his mother-in-law on her deathbed , completely unresponding , him and his spouse . They were doing the Lord's Prayer . All of a sudden three people were doing the Lord's Prayer .

Isn't that wild how that type of liturgy gets into our . It just gets into our soul , it just bores in there and it becomes something that we can rely on . I can think of times where I felt like terrified , you know , being on a plane that was like really bad turbulence , boom , lord's prayer . All of a sudden calm . You know what I mean .

So there's a , there's some beauty to that and I think you can go deep with that and I think there's also the benefit of like the liturgical sort of baking it into you . Right , that it's just you don't even have to think about it .

For sure Like we need to be saying it consistently and using it as a springboard for our own petitions , our own prayers of gratitude and request .

, tim , we have a very , very vital , vibrant prayer ministry and I don't know that every church has thought as intentional about setting up a ministry , a serving team of people that serve the congregation through prayer and actually highlight that as a serving opportunity , because prayer is not meaningless .

Prayer is extremely vital and we got a ton of people that are participating at that in our church , and so I think , if you know , that is one way that people can start thinking about adding more vitality to the church is creating a very active prayer ministry . Amen .

Let's move on to church attendance . Weekly attendance declined in the LCMS from 47% of our members worshiping weekly in 2014 , now to 34% worshiping weekly . And I have seen this , we've seen this . I think every church is now .

I mean , you can grow right now in your membership , but your weekly attendance may stay pretty flat right , because people are just worshiping less frequently . An average worshiper for us , a regular worshiper and I don't like this at all , but it is what it is is once a month . Like we count them as a regular worshiper .

But yeah , about once a month , I would say the vast majority of people would label themselves as regular worshipers if they come once a month , which I don't agree with . I don't think that's regular , but I'm thankful that we at least get the once a month to engage with people , and obviously a lot of people do that more than once a month .

But yeah , that's something that churches need to work on .

The council is to encourage people into in-person worship . Really , I think our worshiping community is a third , third , third . So a third of the people are like every if they're in town , they're there .

The other third is like the once a month or so , and the other third are made up of a mix between new , you know , first , second , third time guests and your less frequent folks , like the husband that comes with his wife just to get her off his back every quarter or something , something like that you know . So we should encourage in-person worship .

Unfortunately , we are behind in the LCMS , the national average . The national average is 37% . We're at 34% .

So if you don't have a really good , decent online worship experience for people , you may be missing the boat in terms of actually trying to get people from the community to come to your church and try you out .

In the US , there are two church bodies that are actually growing , and obviously we don't align theologically , but there are probably some practical things in terms of leadership , development , church planting strategies that these two denominations the Assemblies of God and PCA , the Presbyterian Church in America .

They're growing faster than the national increase in population . So PCA is a smaller church body , only 940 churches . Another stat , though , is Anandanam is growing at a 1% increase . As we're declining over that time , go ahead , jack .

So we're seeing rapid increase in what we call non-denom even though it still remains a small percentage of the LCMS , but that's about seven times bigger than LCMS .

, yeah , sometimes I think we have an over , we overestimate our significance . Right , there are other church bodies and the non-denom world are growing and yeah , so why do you think that ?

we don't do things that way Right , and I think in the non-denom world we interact with a number of these leaders Like they build a bench , local serve , lead , coach , direct .

Like these churches are nailing it in terms of raising up leaders internally , all the way up to pastor , the way they engage technology , the way they are able to create attractive and people bristle at this , but it just is what it is Attractive brands that meet felt needs . They just generally are better at it than many denominational churches . And we're we're .

We're right in the thick of it here , like people in the LCMS may look at Christ Greenfield and think we're like a really big church or whatever . Nah , I mean , we are exponentially smaller than many of the multi-site churches here in the East Valley and really the Phoenix Metro and every metro has probably a similar type of story .

They're just crushing it at scale , they're doing way better at church planting .

55% seldom or never read scripture , which is up from 39% in 2014 . This is rough , jack . Any comments there ?

So we really and I've just made some comments on here A lot of times I agree strongly with the view that our Orthodox Lutheran exposition of scripture is right , but I think and I think most members here would agree that it's right , but they're not as good at defending their positions in a conversation .

A typical lay Lutheran is not as good at defending their positions than a lay Baptist would be , simply on the basis that they are not in the word and that they're actually not actually examining . You know what ? What does this say and what does this mean and how does it apply to me ? And that's really rough .

This has been one of our habits we look at a gospel on the way to the cross , right , and so we've got a daily Bible reading plan that mirrors a lot of the topics that we're going to be going deeper on on Sunday , right , and that's not . I guess it takes some intention , some planning , I guess .

But my goodness , let's do it for God's people At the very least . There's so many Bible reading plans that are out there . Read through the Bible . In a year , you know , or two years have . Give Bibles , give Bibles away .

Like , if we're going to buy something as a church , maybe you strategically buy a whole bunch of a whole bunch of , you know , esv Bibles at cost and just have them . I had two guys come up here recently , jack , which we need to do this ? Have Bibles at our welcome center . We could get a whole few caseloads of them .

If you don't have a Bible or you want to give a Bible away , come and get it . If there's an action item for us at Christ Greenfield , this should happen right now . An action item for us at Christ Greenfield Like this , this should happen right now , you know . So a member came up said you know , I come down from the North and I don't . I didn't bring .

I got like two or three Bibles at home but I didn't bring my Bible . Do you have a Bible that I could have here ? We walked back into sure , we got a whole . We got a whole bunch of them , you know . So , yeah , just encourage it , talk about it . And I mean the recent study .

This blew people's minds when I dropped this data a few weeks ago and this was from I'm going to draw a blank , you can look it up . If you just Google or look on Grok AI , where did the four times a week or more Bible reading study come from ? You'll find it Exponentially .

This study said exponential mental , emotional , physical , spiritual health comes when you open up the words four times as likely Right Discipleship conversations grow exponentially if you just read the Bible four times or more . So , a pastor , you could share that study , that research . People were taking out their phones . It was bonkers .

What that's rough A 23% decline in people experiencing peace connected to the Prince of Peace , jesus , and a doubling of the number of people that say they have no spiritual peace whatsoever .

doubled . What I don't even know . How are we functioning ? I mean , this is just one sign that anxiety , depression , mental health crisis like we are at a major , major breaking point right now as it relates to mental health .

So if you're not speaking about meeting people where they are mental health , so if you're not speaking about meeting people where they are counseling , care , pastoral care , prayer over people , you know setting up spaces for grief sharing and you know economic , if you're walking through a lost job like how are we caring for one another ?

If you're listening to this and you're like , yeah , I listen to lead time so much and I just get angry or anxious , we're trying not to make all of our podcasts about that , but flee to your local church , flee to your pastor for prayer and run into the arms of Jesus , who is the Prince of Peace , get into the Word of God .

Spiritual habits are really , really helpful .

Because we know the ultimate end of this story Jesus comes back to raise the dead , make all things new , and we get to experience the inbreaking of the kingdom of heaven right now . How , through the word , through the spirit , through the body of Christ , the living manifestation of the presence of Jesus through his people .

So let us not give up meeting together , as some are in the habit of doing , but evermore , as you look eagerly for that day , gather to remind one another , right , I mean , the scriptures were given to us so that we could remind one another when despair , anxiety , fear , worry , doubt come . We're not alone .

There's a God who's radically in love for us and we know that through the person of his son , jesus . So this is one of the toughest the scripture reading and the spiritual peace . No peace man . The church has to care about that . Any closing comments there , jack ?

They get together monthly for ongoing conversation around those that are experiencing deep hurt , grief how are we connecting with them ? And ongoing training for becoming better at sitting with and weeping with those who weep and mourn .

So , yeah , the church needs to be a respite place for the weary and those that are experiencing anxiety , who need the peace of Jesus . All right , let's get into the next topic social conservatism . This is not surprising .

and politically conservative , and this was fascinating . So , yeah , the percentage of people that we're we call tolerant of I'm trying to come up with the right word here accepting of homosexuality has decreased . So it used to be 56 percent , now it's 50 percent . So there was more tolerance of that .

Now I'm not saying you should be tolerant of that , more tolerance of that . Now I'm not saying you should be tolerant of that , or you know , I think there's a lot that goes into the word , describing what tolerant means , right , but we are seeing a shift socially , politically and I would say , liturgically , in a more orthodox direction towards conservatism .

This was interesting in the political affiliation .

On the topic of homosexuality , as an example , general acceptance in society was 67% and that doesn't mean that everybody's like pro-gay marriage or whatever , but in terms of just like cool , whatever , do what you do , you do you about 67% , and that number is much lower in the LCMS , and that's no surprise , right .

If you want a handbook on walking the middle road of Jesus on this Jack , go ahead .

You know , gosh , I would say just in that tighter sort of more structured way of doing things , rather than being very at peace with more congregational model of doing things . We're seeing that as a trend as well , and you could say that that's an outpouring of what we call conservatism in our church body . That's just my own analysis on it .

People may get upset of that . Take on it , but I think that is definitely a take of what's going on here . Tim , you've seen trends in terms of more conservative student bodies with some of our seminaries . I mean , these are just some personal observations that you've made . These are not scientific by far , um observations . Any thoughts on that ?

We end up finding our identity , and this is where Pharisaism or legalism can come in and what we do , how well we do it , rather than our identity as baptized children of God , and there is no mandate , while I think we could have conversations , should have conversations about in this generation , of what it means to be confessional Lutheran in the LCMS a best

practice , if you will , for liturgical sharing . You're not going to get close to I don't know what the stat is probably 50% of our churches who have some form of modern worship . You're not going to get them to stop , and so we should be honest about where we've potentially erred , as it relates to maybe singing songs that were not the greatest .

It was too me-focused or not narrative-focused , gospel-centered , jesus-centered , it may be more emotive , etc . And so shout out to the Songwriters Initiative . They're just understanding the times and they're working with a number of different professors to help write great new songs for the church and hit them up on YouTube Songwriters Initiative .

You're not going to change some of these just by mandating . You should stop doing it like that's not . That's not going to work . Can some of our practices become better , more Lutheran , more distinct in the marketplace of the wider ?

You know a lot of songs , a lot of singing , a lot of long preaching Like I think we have something of value to offer connected to our liturgy . But we better not move toward a fair . It better look exactly like it looks in rural Iowa , in Phoenix , arizona . There's going to be room for and this is going to Dr Bierman's Dr Bierman's Adiaphora conversation .

The formula of Concord speaks very clearly about becoming wed toward the mandates of man rather than what God has said in scripture . Anything more to say there , jack , we might as well just go head first into it , yeah , yeah .

We don't want the last 20 years to be a part of it , we want the stuff that's before the 20 years and we call that the Lutheran tradition for worship . But in reality , the spectrum of Lutheran worship he used the word Lutheran worship as wherever Lutherans are worshiping , period , and I agree with that definition .

And certainly there's what you would see as the norm is some liturgical elements being baked into that because it's so good for people . We talked about the Lord's Prayer as an example . How does worship help to bake certain things into us which is really , really good ?

But that doesn't mean that it has to be done with robes or without robes , or you know the smells and the bells and all that kind of stuff . Not that anything of those are wrong . A lot of times those things are great , but do they ? You know , really the question is does it serve the community to communicate the gospel without distraction and get there ?

You know , that's really the ultimate , the ultimate goal here . If such a large number of the population is coming from a non-denom background . I'm not saying that we become non-denom , but can you show hospitality to people that don't have a Roman Catholic background in their worship style ? Right , how do you show hospitality to that group ?

And that's really at the core of it . It is .

The convention's coming up , see how many overtures come out that have the word heterodox put into it , right , not that those things shouldn't be talked about , but is there a bunch of overtures with the word heterodox on them ? How many of them are going to have the word mission in them ? Right , or outreach , or planting , you know that kind of thing .

So look at that in terms of like , count the number of overtures that have those types of phrases in it and see what the culture of our church body is .

You may be imbalanced toward a narrow . The interesting thing is , for those of us that have been Lutheran liturgical also have experienced some , you know , modern forms of worship . The group that's in the church songwriters initiative , like none of them , are saying you should stop doing what you're doing in the Midwest traditional .

But there's a lot of people in the Midwest which a lot of our're doing in the Midwest traditional . But there's a lot of people in the Midwest which a lot of our members are in the Midwest , those crazy people down in Arizona doing crazy .

You know , like , if that , if that is your gut response to this whole conversation , trying to move toward the middle , not going cause . This is Adiaphora . You can't . You can't argue that worship is is not in terms of the narrow forms that we take , right , that it's not already out for the formula of concord .

It's very , very clear about this and so , yeah , maybe we need to take that anxiety to the Prince of Peace Jesus .

the LCMS has become very much more Republican leaning . What's interesting is some of the stats from before had a much larger number of people identifying as independent , and basically the independents have disappeared almost entirely from our church body . So there was slightly more people leaning Democrat and a whole lot more people leaning Republican .

You know , and I think it's really easy if we only get the right guy and then sin is going to be taken care of . Give me a break . Jesus is the only answer . Go ahead , jack .

For what we would urge pastors and churches to do is to say we're not a political organization , we're not here to get people aligned with any political party . We put Christ front and center . Let's follow Christ and then let Christ be informing all the other decisions that we do . Right , yeah , so any thoughts on that in terms of how we engage politically ?

I mean , we , we did . We got into this spicy election season , tim you and I , we did a session about politics . It wasn't a , it wasn't a worship service . It was sort of a midweek kind of what do we call it ? It was a panel discussion panel where people could talk about not what to think , but how to think right . How do we think ?

How do we use our Christian lens to think about issues of politics right ? And the answer is it's not about having a strong affinity with a party per se . It's about being at peace , knowing that government has a function that you're being called to vote .

That's something that you're being called to do in the society , that not everybody gets to do in other countries , and how do you steward that responsibility for the sake of your neighbor ?

But think about you know again , think about that from a lens of hospitality . If you're making your service about politics , you're basically telling Democrats you're not welcome here , right , and that's not the position that we have . The position is sinners belong in church , whether you're a Republican or a Democrat .

Right , that's where you belong is in church , hearing the gospel , hearing , confession and absolution .

Yeah , totally , Because we're people of the way of Jesus and so we can talk about certain political issues like life , like sexuality right and love for your neighbor , God's love for the world and I love your statement sinners belong in church , and if you are not in agreement on some of those or have a difference of opinion , this is still a place where you can

come in here , receive the word of God , be reminded of your sin and be reminded of the work of your savior . Like you know , that's the middle way that we have to walk right now , and there's nothing against like we're going to be at a . Our church is going to be represented at a right for life rally here soon .

It's not like that's woo , that's like the main thing , that , no , but it's . It's a part of our biblical neighboring work is to care about things that are connected to scripture , that are hurting people in terms of knowing who God is and how much he loves them .

Recommended path forward , segment four I love this and I don't know if you came up with this or these are great , great points , so I'll let you go down our recommended path forward , so proactive outreach programs targeting young families .

There's such a mess trying to raise a family , tim Like especially sorry , my phone's going off here Especially , you know if you're a first time parent or you're just newly newly married . You're trying to figure out things that you didn't realize . You know you didn't realize how difficult it is to give your life away to become a husband or a father

or a wife or a mother Like the the . The amount of sacrifice is huge and the stress that it creates is huge , and having a strong spiritual community that surrounds you and supports you is a huge opportunity .

So can you have one of your youth ? Can you disciple them so that they're actually able to get there and give a talk about a particular topic or testimony about a particular topic , and think about how that impacts that community of youth when they see people being raised up to do that , that they are contributors rather than just consumers .

I think that's really what it boils down to is creating a contributor versus consumer mentality in your youth and young adult ministries .

That was huge for me my junior and senior year in high school and then you go off to college . I got to be youth and youth leadership .

You know , at Concordia Seward I got many opportunities before I ever went to the seminary to talk about Jesus to see do I like it and do I have the potential to be somewhat good at it , you know , and there were people who said , yeah , don't get the big ad , but you got potential to go and be a communicator of the gospel . That was huge , so good stuff .

Another strategic emphasis on spiritual formation practices prayer , scripture reading , spiritual support groups , small groups more there , jack .

So you know , setting up small groups Guess what happens in small groups ? Prayer , bible reading , right , serving , supporting each other . You know all of these things that we want to happen . So you start with small groups . Get people into small groups .

You're a facilitator , you're a platform for small groups , and then you can do additional tools for people in their individual rhythms . A lot of churches are seeing success by creating congregational Bible reading plans and having that tied to their app or some other technology . Or you know , texting people to try and lower the lift on that .

Because you know , if I don't know anything about the Bible , where do I start ? Do you tell people to go to Genesis and read the Bible through , or do you curate a more hospitable experience for people that might be new on that topic ? So that's where we have to think platform right . How do I help the person win in their strategy to do this ?

So you're encouraging people and you're giving them the tools to do that and for us .

You know there is a political trend of attractiveness towards conservative church bodies . That may be the reason why you're seeing the rise of Nandenam , because a lot of them are very conservative . So you know that may be a piece of the whole thing .

When you're reaching out to the community , we know , for example , tim you and I have seen this that there is an attractionalness to traditional worship that didn't used to be there , you know , a few years ago . A lot of young families are finding that very attractive . But at the heart of it is your identity is not conservative . Your identity is gospel .

Your identity is mission . Your identity is outreach . Your identity is priesthood of all believers , right , and so that's the key thing there , and you know the types of decisions that people make . That's the fruit of your faith and that is not the thing that is . You know that is not the core of what it means to be church .

We're engaging thoughtfully and lovingly on social issues that maintain doctrinal integrity while compassionately connecting with broader communities . Final , final point there , here we are pro-life .

We've partnered with local organizations on that and there's many other opportunities where you can say you know how can the church be immobilized to love their neighbors in a way that's authentically biblical Right , and on one hand , there's a lot of freedom in that we believe in Christian freedom .

On the other hand , there's a lot of truth that balances that and helps us guide us in the types of programs that we programs and organizations that we partner with , and I think it means a lot to see that a church actually engages in some of these activities and doesn't see itself completely divorced from it 100% .

Because when you read the word of God , especially as God's love story to get all of his kids back , god is on a mission from the very beginning of time , since our active rebellion , through Abraham , isaac and Jacob , through the nation of Israel , through a repenting message of the prophets , to focus us on the person and work and way of Jesus .

Don't neglect the way of Jesus , how he invited other people to come alongside him , how he ascended after his crucifixion and resurrection and the descent of the Holy Spirit . That would

have a mighty work in our church body . The Holy Spirit only works through the Word . Right , this is like deep Lutheran theology . We're not , you know , we're extra-nosed people . The Word descends to us , the Word changes us by the Spirit's power . It crushes , kills and raises up to newness of life , and then you cannot help .

I love this in the book of Acts . Look at how the world is being turned upside down by this small group of people who are radically . They're radical in their allegiance to the only King . His name is Jesus . Jesus is Lord . You can take my life , but my life . I've already been crucified with Christ . I no longer live .

I live in the one who gave his life for me . So if every member had that sort of a missional zeal to let the word of God read them like discern us , crush us and raise us up daily to new life by the spirit's power , everything , like all the conversations that we're having in the LCMS about a narrowing , controlling , we would move to abundance .

Like you can't even imagine the dreams to reach people with the gospel would be so , so persuasive and invasive into our community that , like everybody , every institution would have to take notice . Like we have to raise up more people to bring the gospel to folks , and it starts with getting into the word of God . So final final thoughts from you though , jack .

The harvest is plentiful , the workers are few , so let's get busy raising up workers .

Data doesn't cripple us , it grounds us in our present reality and allows us strategically as local leaders and district leaders , national leaders to make strategic changes to reach more people . With the gospel , it's a good day . Go and make it a great day . Thanks so much , jack , good work .

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