Why We Love Open Dialogue | ULC UPDATE

Each podcast confronts real-time struggles facing the local church and a post-Christian culture . Step into the action with the ULC at uniteleadershiporg . This is Leigh Time .

And I have three out of the four members of our team , jack Cowberg , a partner on Leigh Time consistently Awesome to see a brother in Tanya Hilton , who really makes everything happen , and she is an amazing leader in this wonderful movement . So let's start out with .

There's controversy from time to time with podcast guests that we have , jack , and I'm not going to name any names , but folks can kind of get a little sideways with us .

And so from my perspective and I love to get both of your perspectives as well the LCMS and we are members of a LCMS congregation is generally a closed community and I believe that it's becoming more closed , especially and this is no indictment necessarily of those who are leading the Synod .

But as the culture moves in a decidedly , we could say , neopagant secular direction , the response collectively , I'd say , by the average LCMS follower of Jesus is to circle the wagons and move into a defensive kind of pietistic posture around things that are , we would say , more adiabra , and we can get more specific on this topic , but our goal is to have

conversations where we listen deeply to one another and we find our points of common emphasis , hopefully around Christ and Him crucified and risen from the dead , our sacramental understanding and our confessional understanding as Lutherans here in 2024 and beyond , that is , we're trying to , by the power of the spirit , move to a more open posture rather than a closed

posture , especially with our witness to a watching world . Anything more to add to that , jack and Tanya . We'll go , Jack and then Tanya .

We do believe in facilitating conversation and we want to make a point that we are not endorsing all the opinions of every single person that comes on our show as a guest , but we do think we're healthier as a body if we do have a chance to talk to each other in a spirit of love and challenge .

I can't be associated with that person because they've said that thing . It's very unhealthy .

And I will say again I have about a dozen leaders in LCMS leadership positions , those that have been placed there by presidents and district presidents , who and this is on both sides of the confessional-missional conversation who don't want to get on a podcast because they don't want to be labeled a certain thing , and that's just very unhealthy .

So let me just move this to the congregational level . How well does it work for me as a leader to just say you know what , if you have any sort of idea that's different than my idea as it relates to leading the local church , I can't talk to you , I can't be associated with you . Like , this isn't real life .

I have to get into the gray , the messy with that follower of Jesus baptize in his name . I have to listen , even if I don't like what's being said . Like if I'm going to be a pastor at the local level , that's just the posture of humility that has to be taken If I lead from an air pastor maybe this is another thing that we're kind of speaking into .

If I lead from this place of this pride , like oh , I'm Yehud , how dare you challenge me as a call that I'm a servant of the word ? If I have that sort of a prideful posture , jesus better humble me very , very quick . I mean , this was his assault against the Pharisees right . This is a Phariseeical position , he goes after power Go ahead .

I do speak boldly , but I'm seeing less and less that the faith that our theology produces , when fully grasped properly , should produce this posture of an open hand which trusts in the Lord and not in myself .

And so if I'm trusting in the Lord , then I don't have to be anxious talking about people that don't agree with me about stuff right , amen , and then Tanya anything to add .

And I think that when you start becoming this mentality , if you have to hold everything really , really tight , you can't change things , you can't have conversations . It's based out of fear and our God is not a God of fear . So if you understand the concepts like Jack was talking about , then you can have these open conversations without that fear .

And then , on that same note too , I was in a conversation with somebody who was in a different denomination and she talked about her pastor having the don't argue with me , don't disagree with me , don't bring your , and that's a form of spiritual abuse .

She has a leader that she is told to respect and have this place of authority and he uses that authority to stifle when there was concerns , and that's dangerous .

So this kind of we all have this pharisaical tendency in us to prove ourselves according to what we do rather than what's been done by Christ and Him crucified , and we're living out of a faulty , shallow , unsatisfying identity when our identity in Christ gives us freedom . The two extremes right are antinomianism right , and the culture is going in that extreme .

There's no law . I'm a law into myself , I define truth , all of that . And so the other extreme is pharisaical legalism and we see a tendency in the LCMS around systems and structures and bylaws and all these sorts of things to , if anything is , stifling the gospel getting the gospel into people's ears and hearts . Preachers and pulpits proclaiming law and gospel .

If there's any sort of system getting in the way of that , that's a pharisaical tendency that we must obey God rather than man and just lovingly speak into it and invite those that can change it to talk about it .

You know , and we may be clinging to some idols in the LCMS that are hampering the gospel , and that idol could take the form of any sort of system or institution . The way we've done things in the past can certainly turn into an idol . Go ahead , jack . What else yeah ?

And I also agree that a lot of these traditions can be held with an open hand and there's freedom to use it very well , right .

You know , we need to do this , we need to do this , and it's like , well , where's the Holy Spirit ? He needs to come up , but he's the one faith comes through hearing and it's the Holy Spirit that gives us that faith . Right . So it's not something that we can do , and I think sometimes that's missing when you hold your traditions too tight .

It really is our tendency , mankind's tendency , to put God into a box , to make what is beyond us a containable , controllable , accessible . And anytime we try to do that around around systems and rituals , rights , et cetera , man , we're going to be found . If you think you've arrived , you've definitely not arrived .

If you think you're absolutely like you figured God out , man , god is very , very far away . So this tension between the imminent and the transcendent God is something we have to wrestle with consistently and I think it's the Gamaliel test right . You may be found to be opposing God by trying to put God into your Pharisaic or legalistic box .

And if you've got a church body of almost 200 years , we've developed a lot of boxes and God is beyond those respective boxes . So hopefully there's more comfort with chaos . Maybe that's a good way to handle it . The Holy Spirit is at work . Our God is a God of order , he is a Creator and he's invited us in to be co-creators with Him .

But at the very same time , the Holy Spirit is on the loose , doing what only the Holy Spirit can do , and we want to be attentive to that as well . One new learning for me is we kind of land this plane and get into more tangible things , see , because we want order rather than this kind of metaphysical , theoretical conversation we're having right now .

But Metanoia is a book . We're going to have Alan Hirsch and Rob Kelly , the co-authors of a book called Metanoia , on lead time here in the coming weeks and months and they define Metanoia , which is a word for repentance , as way deeper than just personal guilt and the forgiveness of sins . They view it as a collective paradigm shift .

When John the Baptist comes and says , repent , for the kingdom of heaven is near , jesus says the same thing repent . He's invited in them to place their minds above where Christ is . Meta simply means above , and then Neu to know .

So we start to think in the Spirit rather than in the flesh , and that invites us then to come down into the flesh with a right perspective of the traditions and orders , the structures that we've put together , recognizing that God is within them but he's also beyond them .

And this is a day by day invitation for individuals as well as churches as well as institutions to repent . Metanoia Anything to add to that , jack ?

So we think of ourselves as people that are doing to please God and the Metanoia changes our identity .

It's actually a shift in identity that's put on us and we , in this shift in identity , who we actually are , we start to think radically different about what we're doing to please God and how we're interacting with each other in our vocations , right and in the flesh , absolutely in the flesh .

So in the flesh , Jack , in my sin . I don't want to . I don't want to repent Right , I want to justify .

So , through kind of the movement of the Spirit , of the releasing of the Pentecost reality when the Holy Spirit sent all of the apostles three thousand some .

You want to talk about an out of control experience , you just take a look at the early church and the way the apostle Paul is simply responding to the metanoia work that the Holy Spirit is up to all across the known world .

He's like whoa , we got some things we need to figure out , but he's writing reactively , not proactively , for what God had already , had already been doing the metanoia shift that was

taking place . Tanya , theologically , any anything kind of sparking in your mind on that topic of metanoia repentance ?

We have to kill the old Adam so that the new Adam can raise , and I've written that book down as one of my half to read this this semester . So that's one more thing I'm going to be diving into .

T Allman at cglchurchorg . We get emails all the time and it's about relationship and learning from one another and if we've said something that could be said in a different way , we will individually repent and we will be better moving forward . Anything else to add to that , jack ?

It's not going to be recorded and that bridge is not burned . I can say this from what Adam said . He said it's just so hard and sad that the LCMS is not talking about evangelism more right now in our varying , varying context . So that's something we agree more and more people need Jesus , the light of Christ , because they're walking , walking in the darkness .

Let's get to more of the ULC's kind of big why . What is the big why ? If you get , we can get into a number of these kind of cultural conversations , jack and on the podcast , and I think that's helpful . But really there's a foundational why for the ULC regarding highlighting the topic of leadership development , leadership development . Say something about that .

It should be the most amazing institution out there . It should have all of the best practices . It should know what the heck it's doing it . It should have resources to know different ways to do things and different types of contexts . It should just be really , really , really well equipped to do that , and often the case that's not the you know .

Often we , the local church , just outsources that and maybe sends that to the seminaries or the university system to do that , without taking that responsibility on for itself .

I think there was a time in history when that model could have worked , but in today's society , I don't think it is the way that we think relationally , the way that we think authentically , the way that the education systems are changing .

I think people expect to learn in context and the institution needs to know how to equip people in context and just be really , really great at that .

Yeah , maybe that's just a default thinking right , maybe , yeah , but but now , man , I mean understanding the mission of God and the church's role in that .

To get the order of Christology to missy Ali , missy ology to ecclesiology , right , yeah , I don't , I don't know that we kind of we kind of skipped right over Missy ology and went to ecclesiology in a lot of my in our training and led us to think , oh , I'm a doer rather than a developer , right , I , we weren't , we weren't I , I don't ever remember hearing

the word multiply in Classes .

You know , I'm saying like , or or definitely not scalability , like because the church is already scaled , there's no need to even talk about kind of new things , because you're gonna , you're gonna find a pulpit , there's plenty of churches for you to go to , where you can be and ecclesiastical Supervisor for a lot of God's people who are already in the kingdom of

God . It was the world has just so I'm not saying this to disparage the seminary at all the world is just so radically changed today and unfortunately even like curriculums being Evolving and developing at at a seminary level . I can I know a lot of the faculty there like getting some mild Academic changes .

It was very , very difficult With an institution as old as Concordia Seminary in St Louis . So we're just trying to be responsive to what the Holy Spirit is doing in a radically different culture here in the United States of America Today .

Tonya , anything more to add around the big why , and even why in your experience , tonya , a lot of churches are hesitant To lead into the conversation of leadership development . What's been your experience ?

And I think that this is where , when we start using terms that come from the secular world multiplication , leadership , development and there the breaks come on and people don't want to get into that because they want a separation of church and Secular world . But the truth is there's a lot from the secular world that I think that we as churches can utilize .

We hold truth , we hold strong to our truth , the word . We don't change that , we don't compromise that . That hasn't changed for thousands of years . But we have different methods that we can implement that are successful . So a lot of churches , when they start hearing multiplication and discipleship programs , especially in the Lutheran circle , we don't do that .

You know that's not our job . We're supposed to just preach the word , which , yes , the church preaches the word . But if you want to have more people preaching the words , you have to start at that local level . You have to develop them , walk along , sign them . I mean , this comes straight from scripture this is Timothy and this is Titus .

Paul didn't just plant them in a church . He said here , preach the word and you're off on your own . He instructed them on how to do that , how to raise up more leaders . So I don't think it's a new concept . We're just using new words .

It's , it is cataclysm , but it is also identifying future leaders , future ministry workers and Working relationally with them , with excellent curriculum but also great experience opportunities To develop these people intentionally to be the next generation of ministry leaders . So we've seen it's a broader concept .

So we , we've organized ourselves especially in a Christian America around Discipleship and the liturgy . Which is it ? Yep , which is a beautiful thing , very useful .

Well , it is this , you could say it's a center point , like the church doesn't exist apart from understanding what is its primary aim to get people connected to the forgiveness of sins by grace , through faith and Jesus baptized , brought into the family of faith .

And yet , in this culture today , there's a lot that must happen before and we call this meeting felt needs , mm-hmm , jesus met , felt me , relational equity , right , relational equity . And and kind of changing the narrative because the church doesn't have a place of great esteem in our culture today , right ?

So what is the narrative of the church going on mission to attract people in the best sense of the word , to care for felt needs , and then there's great work to be done on the other end of the spectrum , which is the leadership , development , conversation , serve , lead , coach , direct . So we teach .

Yes , we need the core , but there's stuff that happens before and after , as the church is multiplied for mission and leaders are raised up to Start new , new ministries , to to reach people with the gospel .

We have these institutions that were established and it it worked well for a while and Because leaders have not been in , the systems have not necessarily been adapted , because we can only adjust , like training Mechanisms , every three years at Synod in convention .

The world has moved much faster than our adaptive ways at training up , especially locally , the next generation of of leaders for the church , who are all there within your pews . Everything we teach is they're there , the , the men who can be future pastors , the women who can be the future deaconesses and teachers , administrator leaders , like they're all .

They're all there , but we have not established the systems to identify , train and launch them .

We've outsourced that system to to our Concordia's , into our seminaries , and I'm praying for a season where there's more partnership with the local church , rather than kind of you , just you just send them all to us , because it's not , it's not giving the quantity of leaders .

It's necessary not just to start new ministries but even to sustain churches that exist right now . Not the quantity and we may say because of the Removal from respective contexts . This is where the debate can be . It may not be the quality of leaders that are necessary In our respective diverse contexts today .

So we just want to be we want to be a kind Adversary , a kind internal adversary , to highlight the need for leadership development at the , at the local level . Anything else to add there ?

Outsourcing I mean , that's an interesting observation outsourcing part of what we'd say is an important part of the engagement model , leadership development and then also not equipped At all really what the best practices are on the front end the before discipleship , the attract get retained part of it , and so We'll talk a little bit about this .

But there are a lot of things , a lot of dumb taxes that churches pay in order to figure out what are the best practices to reach your local community . And then one of the things that we are passionate about is helping churches Understand what these best practices are and giving that in a way that is contextualized .

Hey , we can take this best practice and we can contextualize it at the local level . So that's not just leadership development , but also how to be right , reaching new people who are unbelievers or under-churched and bringing them into the local church .

Well , they look at culture , they look at the systems , they look at the necessary organizational structures and they're consistently adapting those structures and systems with a healthy culture of love and care and respect and challenge to reach a diverse marketplace . That's just what a healthy organization does . And the church should be fantastic

at culture , systems and structure . Why ? Because our big why of reaching people with the gospel is so compelling . We will do whatever it takes and there's a blessing of even just pause and think about this that you even get to listen into this conversation right now A few hundred , maybe thousands of people that get to listen to this , all based on technology .

Should we live with our head in the sand and say I'm not a little in 2024 , you're taking in content via technology right now ? It's a gift from Jesus . It should be leveraged to reach people with the gospel and as those systems . But here's the thing those systems and those structures they do not want to evolve by nature .

So we just have to recognize that and be patient with the process , your systems and structures in your local church and the opinion leaders , or you may say the power brokers who hold said structures and systems . They don't want to evolve .

Sin within us wants to stay exactly the same and Jesus is calling us up , the Holy Spirit is calling us out to where he is to have this open .

If I could pray for one just brain shift right in the Synod would be a collective curiosity at what the Holy Spirit is doing , rather than a condemnation and then narrowing in on our respective boxes to justify ourselves as the congregation or even as a Synod . There would just be more humility , tanya , anything to add ?

I mean , we're not trying to reinvent the wheel here . We're just curating first article realities of how the Lord is at work in our broader culture . Anything more to add there , tanya ?

So it's being able to recognize that there are tools that we could try , and having the willingness and the boldness even , and the courage to say , hey , let's just experiment . We're not claiming to know the right way or the best way .

We are taking the best practices and trying to implement them and see how it works for the church culture , and I think that that's something that it takes bravery to just try and then , if it doesn't work , you know we shift . So we're not saying we need to change all the systems in the district or the Synod or you know everything needs to go .

We're just saying let's explore this . You know , and that's something that I personally enjoy with the work that I do with the ULC , but just in general , is , hey , here's an idea , let's just try it , let's see how it works . You know what's the worst that can happen is it doesn't work and we go back to what we already know .

The institution that reaches the unbelievers , gives them the gospel . The Holy Spirit right is dwelling here in the church , in relationship , inviting people into relationship with other believers , being discipled , yes , by ministry leaders , but also equipping the local church to do discipleship in their homes , with their friends , with their neighbors .

It's just a very different way of thinking , very open-handed .

You know it was meat sacrifice . We're gonna have to talk about it ?

We've forgotten the mission of God , we've forgotten the story of God's love for the world through Israel , through the Jews . It was never meant to be contained there , but as a container to release the goodness of God out into the world . So , yeah , we gotta be reminded over and over again . We forget so often and we make . We make the gospel .

It's me and my Jesus , kind of in a box , and me and Jesus . I've been reflecting on the fact that I can't even rightly interpret Scripture on my own . You know , my devotional practices me and Jesus are great , but when I'm with two or more , you know , or in two or three or more of us are gathered , then the Scriptures come alive .

There's something divine and mysterious about Jesus descending as the body of Christ . People simply gather to talk about him and his work in in the world . And Jesus is at work in beautiful ways and we just want to be attentive , attentive and found , faithful to his mission . So let's get super practical as we're heading down the homestretch here .

What are , what are , some of the future dreams for the ULC Tanya ?

So when we first started gosh it's been about five years ago , four and a half years ago we really had a concept that we wanted to reach people and congregations through our accelerator cohorts , our consultations , one-on-one consultations and then a certification , which we weren't quite sure what that looked like .

And over the last several months maybe , I don't know , it's been 18 , 18 months , 12 months or so we've been really partnering with Luther House of Studies . They are an online seminary program connected through the Kairos University . It is a Lutheran stamp , it is accredited , it's accessible , it's extremely affordable it's $3,600 for the entire year .

They offer the MDiv program , a BA and a master's program as well . So we're we're shifting to partner with them for the certification part and that looks like online teaching . So we are teaching classes for Luther House online .

We're teaching our second class now , the Leadership Development , and we're developing a new class , the Missions class , and then we also offer these programs to anybody . You don't have to be part of Kairos or university . You could just take these classes through our learning platform .

So if people go to the ULC website , uniteleadershiporg , and then go to learning platform , it'll take you to that platform so you can actually take the classes that we're offering in the seminary just as a standalone . So you can take it at any time and be part of our community with that as well .

a cost to to that right . There's a monthly membership cost $199 , putting these classes together , there's a lot that goes into filming gosh dozens and dozens of learning videos for you to take in .

So there is a cost there and we say if cost is an issue for you , just reach out to us and we'll do whatever we can so that you and your church can go on this leadership learning learning journey . Anything more to add there , jack ?

You don't have to do the homework then if you just want to hear the content , or you can go onto the platform that we're putting together , as Tanya mentioned . So there's actually kind of two pathways where you get to experience that .

But one of the thing that's really interesting is we are reaching more and more folks in the in the LCMS world , because there's been a lot of interest from LCM , up-and-coming LCMS students to participate in the Luther House program .

We've talked a lot about that , but every stream of leadership development in the LCMS is drying up right now . And so there are a number of districts who are working with , say , the Pastoral Formation Committee , seminaries , concordia's , the universities .

They all want to be at the table to try to have adaptive means to meet this need and , and our partnership with Luther House , I could eventually evolve with an LCMS kind of stamp on it and get a number of our theologians dispersed through this learning learning platform with . I'm praying that happens .

But , as we've , as we've said , systems and structures in the LCMS take a very , very , very long time to Adjust and we want to stay in that conversation While at the same time saying , hey , there's great , great content that you can take in .

And and Chris and Sarah have been fantastic I can say this that they're like , in terms of functions of the law , like we'll have different conversations around , but I love the Conversations .

So Chris and Sarah are way more of a two-function approach To to talking about the law , and I would love to actually have them on to discuss this and and we then Conversations about this on the podcast here . For sure we get into well . Theologians getting a conversation about this right yeah , like the Joel bearman , dr Bearman at the seminary .

So maybe he gets on because he's got now . He's got a lot of thoughts on on the three functions of the law , and and , and its role in preaching and in the life of the church . So right you know , we're having conversations yeah , go ahead .

And there's a misconception because with the Luther house program there's a three-part mentor team for every student that goes through this , regardless of their ministry context or role , and these mentors go through them for the entire three , four years . So consider it more like a four-year vicarage . It's really what it is .

So every one of these students not only are learning the content , but they are actually applying it as they learn with their mentor team . So , pastor Tim , you're , you're a ministry mentor Some of our vicar's that go through this , or some of our students , you're walking right along with them and so you are correcting anything in the real time .

So it's not you know . Three , four years later you spin them out and then they're completely ill-equipped . So the concept is beautiful . It's what is already in place , but then just kind of enhancing on it .

I mean there's eight now in partnership with the . You all see there's eight rotating classes that are really really deep . And if anybody says the Reformation Theology class , that's kind of the foundational class from Luther house , well , that's that short changing . It is robust our students come out like .

It's all about the whole conversation . You know , cuz , cuz , you're kind of being Reprogrammed , if you will , to read the scripture with a , with a robust law , gospel , lutheran lens , and that's kind of Disorienting . It should be disorienting . So yeah , the whole conversation .

We've got a number of students also taking part in Greek and Hebrew learning labs and and those types of things too . So it is not short changing the , the training mechanism by any stretch . And I've had , I've had some say well , we should , we should put them to a , put them to a test .

You know , I bet , I bet our students in this program would and I'm not gonna again , I'm not gonna name names here but our students would kick their butts . I've had , I've had me do it first .

So one of the best ways is to just follow us on YouTube , social media , you know , instagram , facebook , following like our posts . That's a huge support . And then some other people might want to do a donation so you can go to our website and donate financially . And then we have other ways that you can support us . You know , be a part of the team .

If there's people who want to serve From home , that doesn't even have to be here locally . We have a lot of different needs to be able to expand our reach . So social media support , community support , curriculum supports there's many different ways . So if people want to learn more about that , they can reach out through the info at unite leadershiporg .

Send us an email , just say hey , how can I support ? And then they'll get in conversation with me and we can just kind of dive in and see when they can support us .

So if you don't plan on doing it this year for one reason or another , please , please , plan on coming to it in subsequent years . It will be a blessing . I think they're on there like 13th year or so and I've not . I've been blessed . I came with my associate pastor or my senior pastor .

At the time I was an associate at Bethlehem Lutheran shout out to Dave language . There . We jumped on a plane , I remember , from Denver down to Phoenix in in February and I felt like I had just arrived . I remember golfing Jack in February with with David . A couple years later I happened to be a pastor down in the Phoenix area .

So our team has been blessed by it and you would . You would as well . This is Lead time . We want to have conversations like this about every quarter . So we're gonna have kind of a ulc Nuts and bolts kind of update .

We are simply better together as we go on a journey to multiply disciples , to learn to remain humble , learning , reading , sharing , as we grow up into Jesus , who is our head , our king , our Lord . That is , our ultimate goal is that hell would be depopulated and heaven would be populated by the power of the word and the Spirit . It's a good day .

Go and make it a great day . Thanks so much , jack . Thanks , tanya .

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