Video Preaching in the LCMS...Yea or Nay?? | Aaron Engelman

Mark Zender , longtime pastor there really kind of a spiritual father for me in many , many respects . So a lot of respect for what the Lord has done over really multiple decades there at King of Kings . In previous years he was a production director at King of Kings . He grew up in Kansas , lifelong LCMS follower of Jesus .

He's had some other professions that we'll talk about . He's married to an awesome , awesome lady by the name of Hannah . We heard about her . She's a Lutheran school teacher at Concordia Schools there in Omaha and she's an instrumental major and teaches worship arts there . And they have three young boys .

So the Engelman home is filled with a lot of energy , a lot of energy , aaron . How are you doing , man ? Thanks for hanging with us .

Out of the hymnal , divine service can sing every baseline that's that exists there , and , uh , every member of my family for a number of generations has been in that in that same book , and so I I had the privilege of growing up in a home that was centered around church .

It was uh , centered in the , in the Lutheran church , as , as far as the I can see , devotions at home , um , grandparents that read the portals of prayer , and we practiced reading using the Bible , um , it's just a uh , a happy childhood that I will treasure uh , forever , and that's um , uh , that's .

That's as much a part of my story as the , the the modern church as well , so I want to make that uh really clear . Uh , my family is the type that just they show up and do stuff . Like uh , I called home a few months ago and and chatting with my mom , I was like hey , where's dad ?

And uh , she said , well , he's in at the church mopping the gym floor because preschool has a concert tomorrow . I'm like , mom , that's like , if that's not our story , right .

Like that's just , if you need something done , you know we , we do it and that's and it's not you know , for our glory , it's for the glory of God , and that's just been an , an understood part of serving in the church . It's not about you . It's just you show up and do stuff because Jesus is worth it .

And so , as I grew up in the church , 17 years old I went on a mission trip to West Africa with our associate pastor at the time , dan Ramsey , who's in the Nebraska district , now in uh uh , I forget somewhere out West .

Uh , he was a missionary in West Africa for a lot of years and went back on a uh teaching trip to a pastoral school in Dupont , togo , and I I went with him just for just for fun , for the experience . What experience ?

What I didn't know at the time Tim is drawing into context of what I've learned from consuming your podcast is Dan was my mentor , I was his Timothy first in a series of mentors that got me into the church , a series of of mentors that that got me into the church .

But , um , what I , what I learned from that trip is I did not want to be a pastor , um , and that's , that's not to just to disparage uh , me or pastors . I just I learned from spending a great deal of time with pastors and missionaries that I wasn't suited for that .

I didn't feel the calling in that time in your life , where that's where you feel it the most , and so that was kind of a period on the end of that sense . I just didn't want to be a pastor , but I knew Jesus was awesome and Luther's my homeboy , as the old Lutheran swag says . So what do I do then ? As you said , to work in a church .

You're a pastor , or maybe a part-time secretary or accountant or whatever part-time whatever Professionals just didn't work in the church outside of those parameters in my mind and my mind for many years to come . So the next step in that story , then , is the LCMS Youth Gathering . So I went as a participant in 2004 .

Fantastic experience it was my first plane ride . I served in the gathering gathering choir . It was a mountaintop experience uh fantastic as it is for you know , thousands and thousands through the ages , fantastic and uh , fast forward to 2012 . Ish , I already have an undergraduate degree in uh broadcast journalism .

Basically , I'm in grad school and I'm looking at videos of the upcoming gathering 2013 , which would have been in San Antonio , and I just started writing some emails . I'm like , hey , how do I get involved in this ? And ended up talking to well , first off was Phil Grimpo at Inspire Media and Lincoln . If you're not familiar with Phil , you should .

He's a yeah , I know he's a . He's a genius and a standup guy and just does a lot for the LCMS and I appreciate him so much . Uh , turns out , I would go to work for Phil for a while , uh later on in life , but uh , he sends me to uh a good friend of his , norm Schaefer . That puts me on the media team for the gathering .

I'm like what is this Norm's like ? Hey , you seem like a good dude , come make videos with us . So I did so . Media team at the youth gathering . If you're not familiar , it's a very behind the scenes type of type of team .

If you've been to a gathering or can imagine this , there's just dozens of teams of planners that make an event like that happen , right ? If you have trouble , you call the little 800 number on your wristband and you talk to someone , right ?

Someone has been planning to talk to you on the phone that way for months and there are teams and people from all around the country that do that , and they do it well , because we're well prepared and the media team does that . Um , with you guessed it media . So social media . Uh , we used to produce a dvd that you all got .

Uh , afterwards it's , it's spearheaded and led by , uh , the full-time staff there in in st Louis . So Meredith now , and Mark , of course , yep , mark Kiesling , mark Kiesling , the coolest dude ever Yep , and the media team at the gathering Boots on the Ground . Gatherings .

There's stuff going on out in the interim years between the gatherings , right , but we all come together and and do what we do best , uh , to the , to the glory of god and to the support of that event . So , uh , for me it's video , for others it's photography . It's uh , uh , social media . It's instagram , the tiktoks , all the like .

There's a , there's a body in that room , for all of the different avenues there , and what I discovered there is wandered into this activity . That was fantastic and a joy to serve that way . But also I learned then , tim Jack , that there are other people like me in the world , lifelong Lutheran or not .

They're there , they love Jesus , luther's their homeboy , and they're like we have skills that we want to apply to the church and we found an avenue for that , and so what that did for me in 2013 was kind of reshaped . It gave me a community .

There were people in the world with , with skills , professionals like me , that would be like hey , we want to , we want to , we want to serve our church in whatever way possible and it was . It was life-changing in a variety of ways both just to support the event , continue to support the event for the next what are we on round four or five now ?

But just to have that perspective at that point in my life was crucial . So youth gathering will come up later . But the next step in our journey is a job that I did not get , and normally that's not a major part of your story , right , but for me it was . It was 2014 . I applied and did not get a job at St John Ellsville , which is now Pathfinder .

But what did happen is I went through the whole interview process , went to St Louis and hung out with them for a weekend . Pastor Dion and Steve Auer were still senior at that point and meeting that staff , seeing that worship being a part of that interview process , was not to be dramatic , but it was life-changing .

Behind the scenes of of a church and again I'm divine , service him , led everything up to that point and , um , it was wildly different . It just changed my perspective dramatically and I was . I was not right for the job . I told Dionne in our last chat before I left campus . I'm like , if I'm not right , don't hire me .

Right , this needs to make sense for everybody . But even if this was life-changing for me and I appreciate you for it . So then , fast forward to 2016, . Through a connection , norm , who I mentioned earlier , from the youth gathering , I moved to omaha to work , to work with norm uh for the university of nebraska .

So then we got into church here , divine shepherd , just across the way over there , um started learning worship music . Didn't know that existed for a long time . Modern praise praise in my mind since Smitty and Amy Grant , like nothing had happened in the church music world besides DC Talk , which we're not going to do that in church , right ?

Jesus freak man , classic , wrapping that on the playground in grade school man , that's right . But we spent time at a new church with a with a different perspective , um , on on worship , and it was there that I spent time with , uh , mentor number three for keeping track , dan ramsey , norm shaper , and now deb . Deb went he's a good friend of mine .

I've worked with her at two different churches now went kind of three . I don't know how you do the math , but , um , I just we spent a lot of time . I became a , a tech volunteer and she was coordinating all of that . We spent so much time together talking about church media , worship , how to , what it's like working at a church , all of those things .

Like she was on staff there and she mentored me , like she is , she is a , she's like a sister to me in a lot of ways and , um , kind of from that . So I kind of wrapped it all my , all my thoughts of I called a manifesto . It wasn't that dramatic , it was like a four or five page document .

It was like , hey , I have a basically a master's degree in mass communication and this is what I see as far as communication goes in this church . Let me lead a team of volunteers to support some of these things .

Like I can help out on the website , I can , maybe not so many fonts and all the things that you print , like all of those things written up in a document . I gave it to the lead pastor and was like , hey , this is here , so my thoughts , you know , let me help , and nothing for a while .

But then a few months later he was like , hey , why don't you just come work here ? Hmm , right , I'm like , well , that's neat . Uh , I can , I can work for a church . Yeah , sign me . I don't , I don't care what I'm doing . Like , uh , sign , sign me up . So I did some communication .

My role was communications coordinator officially , but ended up just like sporting everything that plugged into a wall , but ended up just like supporting everything that plugged into a wall .

And so worship technology that we expanded the preschool into a childcare and did support of church management system and their payment systems and like anything that needed to be done in tech world . I did it and I and I loved it .

I was on staff there for a couple of years and then went to work for Phil I mentioned earlier at InstraMedia , went to Lincoln and did events with Phil for for until COVID took all the events away and I started looking for other work and then landed here at King or King .

So COVID took me away from a job that I loved , working with Phil and Laurie in the group there . But all these things all these doors , every one of these little steps just led to the next thing , and for me in this context was directing production at this church here . Hey , yeah , go ahead .

I didn't know that this profession existed and through a series of God things like here I am .

We can't rely , jack and I'm glad you're on right now we can't rely on and we're having some tech problems , by the way , but we'll persevere we can't rely on a whole bunch of serve team members to run the church website or to run the app Like there's a lot that goes on behind .

Or , if you're in a medium to large size church , to run the finances Like the finances in our organization are very , very complex . So there are all of these other roles that are church work roles . I think , jack , one of our the joys is seeing people one like an Aaron say , hey , I can work in the church and it's going to be different .

There's a lot of similarities , but it's going to be different . I'm a minister of the gospel here in this place for the advancement of the kingdom of God . I think , when that shift comes and I'm even and this is what I love about your story too , jack is that I'm a theologian . I know you're a theologian too , aaron , but you're a theologian , right ?

I mean we want to talk about and help shape how the gospel gets communicated and what is actually shared . So , like 20 years ago , a lot of these roles didn't exist . It's an appropriate spirit-led evolution to understand the times and do whatever it takes to get the gospel into the heart and ears of people . Jack , any follow-up on that ?

If you go back to the original story , acts , chapter six right , the apostles are struggling with managing their benevolence program . Right , the distribution of resources to widows and orphans , and people are concerned that things are unfair .

And the apostles are struggling on this , saying this is going to be a huge time constraint on us , and we're supposed to be preaching the gospel . We need help .

And so what's interesting is I kind of show two different versions of this text , saying , hey , we shouldn't be neglecting the ministry of the word in order to wait at tables , but other translations say we shouldn't be neglecting this in order to manage finances , right , and so what's going on there ?

Is this a hospitality issue or is this a resource management issue ? And the answer is it's both .

And how do I run this church and how do I run this accounting software and how do I run this church management system ? So we need to think of these people , these people that are serving in these vocational roles as deacons of the church .

That's the way I like to encourage people to think of them and it gives , I kind of think , a fresh insight on the importance of that and the intentionality behind that .

I don't know how long National Youth Gathering goes back , but one of the reasons NYG was so kind of powerful at a certain period of time is because the technology , the worship expression , while still very liturgical , very Lutheran , it was different for a lot of kids and they're like they kind of saw and I mean I'm a product of going to well .

I'll mention a couple things here Promise keepers Now again , we're not fully into all the theology that went through promise keepers , but there was this mass event , feel there , like all of these people praising Jesus .

It was like heaven , every tribe , and like all of these people praising Jesus , it was like heaven , every tribe and tongue gathered around the throne praising Jesus . That was formative , very formative for me when I was 13 .

And then another formative experience was going to Atlanta when I was 17 for the National Youth Gathering and I actually got to be on an arts team , one of those small little teams that do creative dramas and stuff like that . Our district was chosen to be a part of putting that together . That was a major part of my maturation as well .

But on the tech front , nyg was always like way out in front , and I think there's a component of the church you know are maybe smaller churches and more and I don't use this pejoratively at all but more conservative churches , midwest churches , that just look at that form , how they're engaging with technology or story or drama , the arts in general , and kind of

scratch their head and say , is this allowed ? Can we do this ? But in Christian freedom , the LCMS over the years has said well , yeah , absolutely Do , things need to be done well and in good order . But yeah , there's right now , how about the printing press , tim ? How about the printing press Exactly ? But we're struggling right now .

I know a number of folks have said NYG is struggling to get the right folks to be , approved , to be and I don't know the right folks is right , but the wide breadth of leaders within the LCMS to be approved just to make NYG happen .

So this is , the church is kind of seeing NYG as a I don't know a dividing point and I think that's very unfortunate and here's why it hurts the next generation's understanding of what it means to be a Lutheran in 2024 and beyond , because they're watching , they're definitely watching and can the older adults kind of figure it out together and I pray we can .

Aaron any kind of follow-up on NYG , kind of the controversies and really how NYG led on the tech front Any follow-up ?

You know , if we put so much into into sports and concerts and all of this , like why can't ? Why can't Jesus be that big too ? Like that's exciting to see that on such a scale and to see 20 plus thousand of your friends doing the same thing at the same time . Like it's a , it's a big deal for my life you just mentioned it formed yours .

Like how multiply that by thousands upon thousands over generations and it's , it's a beautiful thing .

That costs too much , all of those kinds of things .

Right now in this season , multi-site church is on the forefront at Canoe King . So what does that mean ? It means we are going to people in their neighborhoods planting campuses not individual churches , but campuses and people will worship there . That is their church .

There's live local music , there are people shepherding there in that location , but we are delivering a video message , so the teaching part of worship is delivered from our broadcast campus . This is not a new practice , tim . Like everything at Apple and Cupertino , they're not the first to do all these things .

They're just trying to do their best to make that product the best . They're like I'm going to take this thing and I'm going to make it the best . So that's what we're trying to do here . We're trying to adapt a multi-site model , this kind of technology , uh , to fit what we're . What we're trying to do here .

Uh , it on the tech side of things , that's , it's , it's delivering a message .

Um , so on our end on the broadcast campus lighting , video , audio systems have to be more precise than they maybe were in the past to deliver that well , because if you're on the other end watching somebody talk to you on a screen , if that doesn't look good or it doesn't sound good , most of all you're going to check out immediately Like there's not a , there's

not a human in front of you physically present . So to do that subpar means that you're taking a critical part of of worship and their Sunday experience and and just making it okay . So from the very beginning of this , the , the , the technology played a huge role in that . Like you can , you can do it well , or you can maybe not .

So for us , we use a service called Resi . It used to be Living as One . It's a church focus . I don't know if you guys are familiar with that , but the technology is different , like it's not just a live stream from here to there where maybe it'll buffer , maybe it'll do this .

There's an encoder and a decoder that uses proprietary technologies and video up to the cloud where it repacketizes it , sends it down on the other end . If I lost you there , that's fine .

We have a well-lit , well-framed , audible human on this end sending the word to the other end , and we can guarantee that every frame of video is going to be there and it's going to sound good . So , from the technological side of things , that's how we are supporting gospel message here in our multi-site endeavors .

Are you looking at the screen that's on the wall , the iMac screen on the wall ? We're more used to that than we think , tim Jack , we do it all the time . It's not unusual for us . It's just a different context and a different way of thinking about what we're doing on Sunday mornings .

So I understand the reservations , but the people that have been doing this for a year we launched our second campus , if you will , last October , october . They , they love it . They , they know that they will get quality teaching and that that will be there and that's solid and they can then connect with their community . Um , the actual people in the room .

Like that's that's a priority too . Like uh , but , but we can share resources . You mentioned this earlier , jack . Um , if every one of your campuses has a pastor and they're preparing a message , even if you're sharing ideas and the core is the same , how many hours is that person putting into preparing that message .

If you consolidate that resource and say , zach and Greg are fantastic teachers , let's use their gifts to teach , what does that free up on the other end ? Does that make sense ? Like , how many man hours are we saving ? If you want to look at it very pragmatically , how many man hours are we saving ?

If you want to look at it very pragmatically , how many man hours are we saving by more people not preparing messages ? Kind of wandered into that one , but you know what .

If it's not like this , there's a part of me that wants to say , well , shouldn't the word just be enough ? And yeah , it's absolutely enough . But to your point , aaron , some preachers have been more gifted with communication skills , connecting skills .

And if a campus pastor here's a justification for what you're doing If a campus pastor in partnership with , kind of , the overarching ministry , if a campus pastor , even on Sunday , doesn't have to think about the message , what are they thinking about ?

The people that are coming through the doors trying to engage them spiritually and maybe meet with them in smaller groups , trying to pour into more leaders ? I mean spiritual development , leadership development can even take place a little bit more readily if that campus pastor doesn't have to worry , at least every Sunday , about a respective message .

So , yeah , I think there's ample room for conversation here . I used to be much more bullish on this and I've become and maybe COVID did something to me with this because we're just so . Where is church ? Well , the church has radically been deployed . You know what does it mean to pastor ?

I view this as a part of my pastoral responsibility having Jesus-centered , godly conversations , disagreeing agreeably , growing up into Christ right . Pastoring today is different than it was 100 years ago because of duh technology , and so we've got a number of different people that are helping make that happen , and I think it's something the church should explore .

Slow , well , tech goes fast , but we should explore it with sensitivity and thoughtfulness . But maybe there's some convergence here into the future between churches , especially like a King of Kings and Christ Greenfield . Anything to add to that , jack ?

Good shepherd uh was kind of the typical LCMS story at this point worshiping less than a hundred , discussing financial viability in the future , and uh came to King of Kings and said hey , uh , can we ? Can we be a campus ? And that's an oversimplification of a of a very long and thoughtful process , tim .

But campus , and that's an oversimplification of a very long and thoughtful process , Tim . But that's a good summary and we're like sure , let's do that Part of that process . We'll be hiring a pastor to serve there , but they will not be teaching every Sunday of the year , maybe once a quarter . And that's okay . We just got to find the right person .

That's okay with that , because you guys are bred to teach . That's what you've been working for . I don't want to put words in your mouth , tim , but that's what you've been studying for for a long time . Put words in your mouth , tim , but that's what you've been studying for for a long time .

And to step aside and say that teaching can come from someone else , not because I can't do it , but because ? What can I do instead ? That's what you said earlier , jack . What can I do instead ? I can be with my people more . I can concentrate on this , this and this outside of teaching .

How can they equip people to talk to each other ? The small groups , the Bible studies do that , instead of everything happens on Sunday morning .

You were very transparent about walking through a more difficult season of of burnout , um in ministry . How did you , how did you make it through ?

Because here , so set stage , king of Kings , we started talking about multi-site and all and all of the goals were there that we've been talking about . Uh , the technology has to be in place to do that , and so I said , hey , aaron , I've , I'm a video professional , I've , I've been in , uh , an integrator of sorts .

Um , I can , I can install all this technology . This will be hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of upgrades here and I am capable of doing it . Can we just handle all of this in-house ? Basically was my pitch Should we hire it out ?

And the pragmatic side of it that Jack will appreciate is , if we hire an integrator , we will pay them , you know , premium to do that job and that's , and that's fair , that's business . Uh , but in this context , I'm like we could save a couple hundred thousand dollars if , if I design it and put it in . That was an option , and so we , I went after it .

You know that uh has . Mentor number two , norm , said this is a project of a lifetime , like all the things leading up to spending time with the broadcast engineers at K state , like being in studios . Being a part of broadcast workflows like this has prepared me to do this job Right and it and I loved every minute of it .

But I spent a whole lot of time doing this project , designing it .

Months on end I would fall asleep with my laptop at home , planning this and that and the other , and then we got the boots on the ground of like we're going to move this projector over here and we're going to put cameras here , we're going to move the tech booth over here , and then there's new carpet , and then there's new this and we're hanging all these

lights in the ceiling . And I had a had a bunch of very dedicated volunteers . I had a 19 year old kid at the time that was just just getting after it . He was punching above his weight in a bunch of different ways and for months on end about a year I was doing this .

So to put that a little bit of perspective , on Zach , my young helper , on his spring break he logged 45 hours of overtime . That's all the time like we were . We were just at the church and I was there when he got there and I was there when he left , every every day and that was , and for for months on end .

There was one point where I told hannah , like don't expect me any night of the week until summer . Like three or four months from now , like when all this is over , then I will spend time with my family , and that's . This is not a hooray Aaron story . Honestly , like I'm not sure it was worth it . I'm glad we did it , we got it done and on time .

The systems were there , they were usable , we launched in October and that that part of it worked out and I'm very proud of it . I loved every , every minute of it . Right , uh , project of a lifetime .

But my , my little dudes that poked their head at the door just now cause I don't know what if it punched the other or something like I wasn't there for for them .

You know that was before baby number three for them , that was before baby number three , but I , if you want to put it in this term , I forgot my first calling and got very excited about something else and that's not healthy overall and so I hung it up , just to kind of wrap up that story , cause , um , I was like what can , what can be the message out of

this ? Uh , I , I left , I left , uh , king of Kings , the best job I've ever had in the 85% of the way through , the best product I've ever done , best product I've ever done . I was like I gotta , I gotta go hang out with my kids and I was like bye , bye , friends Somebody .

Part of that was I was trying to hire another full-time person for about eight months , couldn't find the right person , and then God brought us a person at just the right moment . I was like , hey , sorry , I want to work with you , but can you just take over ?

Just the right moment I was like , hey , sorry , I want to work with you , but can you just take over , cause I'm out , bye . And I had the . I had the flexibility to do that because I'm not a pastor . I didn't study for eight years to do this one thing and do this forever . I had , I had options .

I went and installed TVs and residential homes , like uh and I , and that was 40 hours a week and I just hung out with my kids more . But I missed it . I consider this a calling . I want to work in the church .

I for years wanted to work in a church and so this spring that opportunity came back up and I was like , yeah , I took a nap , I took a break , sign me back up . And I was like , yeah , I , I took a nap , I took a break . Uh , sign me back up , because this is , this is the work I want to be doing . But now I just do it much more intentional .

So , uh , patrick , the guy I work for that has my old job , if you want to look at it that way . Uh , he's got four kids . I have three kids . That's our calling . We understand that . That's what we're after first , and then we can have excellence . We can do our work very well for the glory of God and technology in this place .

Every pastor that is driven to love people gets to that point , hopefully , where your wife says hey , how many nights are you out this week ? How's this working ? My wife just recently told me it seems like you worked harder when you were in Colorado and I was like , really , she's like you're not , you're home a little bit more now .

And I was like , but my responsibility is exponentially more and I guess I guess it .

You get to that point , hopefully , where you build team trust , time and we're locking arms together so that I can release more things rather than control , control more things and I can develop better boundaries and I can look at the past , tim , and say , yeah , that wasn't going to work forever , but I still have that same passion .

I don't want to ever lose that drive . I never want to give in to laziness , et cetera . I just learned to work in team and I learned to set better boundaries . That's the leader's journey over time and I'm glad you've gone on that journey and that you're still working in the church . This has been a lot of fun . And there goes Jack .

Jack just popped off , off goes Jack . So one last question . We're at time , but what is your prayer for the LCMS ? Just going back to kind of our earlier conversations around NYG , what are your prayers for our church body , aaron ?

But can we , can we think outside the box a little bit and not not all at once , not all at once , friends , we don't need to jump on every uh fad and run with it . That's , that's not what we're after . But can we be intentional about everything that we're doing ? Let's , let's , consider everything that we do every week and be intentional about it .

That's does it ? Does it line up with scripture ? Does it line up with theology ? Is it intentional for the uh , for the rent of the kingdom ?

I mean , think about how , let's say , even in the example of live streaming , how many people are going to be impacted by that and we don't necessarily acknowledge that enough and talk about the importance of that enough , and I think the church needs to continue to lean into that . So , thank you , aaron .

I appreciate how you're being a minister in a very different way .

Missouri Synod that we would lead , that we would lead very , very well , all for the sake of those who know Jesus and invite them into the mission to go and reach those who don't . It's a good day . Make it a great day by the power of the Spirit . Good work , jack . We made it . Good work Aaron .

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