Nominees for Concordia Seminary President Announced

[Jeremy_Loesch]

That was an excellent speech. I wonder if he has the authority to put the original stained glass windows back in the chapel where they belong?

Jeremy

[PrTim15]

Enrollment...

[peter_speckhard]

Enrollment...

Agreed. And that is what makes being in charge of a declining institution such an unenviable job. You almost have to let the tail wag the dog and retrofit statements of mission purpose to whatever keeps the institution afloat financially. A Brian Stoffregen noted elsewhere, Concordia-Portland had entirely changed its identity over the years in an effort not to close.

Sure, we used to be community of dedicated believers dedicated to worship, Bible study, and raising up the next generation of Christian leaders, and we still strive to do that whenever we can. Additionally, we focus on the manufacture and retail delivery of toaster ovens. We feel this way of serving the community embodies the Christian, specifically Lutheran ethos of working through secular vocations to serve the neighbor and make the world a better place and is thus the natural next step in our development, one we believe the founders would offer a resounding "yes!" to along with their hearty blessing. And delivering our product on site gives us a chance to witness to the Gospel in real world settings, though of course we're legally prevented from doing so in the course of our workday and many of our employees are not Christians. But employing people who need jobs is also a great Christian mission.   

[PrTim15]

Agreed, got money, got tons of facilities, need enrollment.

[Rev. Edward Engelbrecht]

Dr. Thomas Egger has accepted the call to be the 11th President of Concordia Seminary.

https://www.csl.edu/2021/02/egger-accepts-call-as-11th-seminary-president/

Heavenly Father, bless Tom in his new calling. Grant him depth of wisdom for leadership and compassion for the people he serves, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

[Dave Benke]

Agreed, got money, got tons of facilities, need enrollment.

Low enrollment at both LCMS seminaries is in my opinion primarily an indicator of deeper more systemic problems.  I'd be interested in knowing about enrollment trends at the ELCA and WELS seminaries for comparison' sake.   Because of the concern about incursion of debt in a four year post baccalaureate education/formation, the LCMS seminaries have gone to some kind of tuition-free offer.  But it's still a long period of time, and there still are debts incurred.  Nonetheless - enrollment does not climb substantially when it's offered/marketed as a financial freebie.  How can that be? 

I would say first that the supply and demand feature is a laggard, because the "entrance level" positions are dwindling and being substantially covered by part-time/retired/merged-merging strategies.  And it will continue to be a laggard, becoming even worse because the second "entrance level" which was assistant/associate positions is drying up as the mid-sized congregations feel the pinch and figure out other ways to staff than seminary candidates.  Plus there will be more mergings and closures at the lower membership end of the congregation pool.

Secondly, we invest a ton of time and energy in discussing this stuff theologically, and/or separating the theological and practical aspects to "ward off" the practical aspects.  There is and can be no promise of a lifetime sinecure at full compensation for seminarians being formed for pastoral ministry.  That never would have occurred to us back in the day.  Opportunity was boundless.  That's just not true anymore at the "career" level.  And that's a big impediment to recruitment.

Third, the aging process of Lutherans means there are just less possible enrollees to begin with, and of the less confirmands/high schoolers, there are less who are interested or being directed anyway toward service professions/vocations.  Quantifying that is not impossible, and should be done.

Fourth, the level of family and church spiritual formation of children and youth has declined along with the decline in that population in general.  When there was a prep school system and I entered it, the Sexta/Freshman religion course was the Catechism, taught by the redoubtable Dean Ackmann.  Looking at the student next to me, who was from my Lutheran grade school, we just raised our eyebrows and took our A+, because we had a way more advanced level of catechetics under our belts.  And daily devotions in our homes including pretty much memorizing Egermeier's before bedtime prayers.  But - there was for freshman high school prep students, a four year religious curriculum in catechesis, old and new testament introduction and Lutheran studies that now would be the college course load at one of our remaining Concordias for church work students.  And we had an additional two years in junior college.  Where is that these days?  In the wind.

Having said that, the upside has been second career pastoral vocation, not only residential but non-residential.  There the combo of life lessons and parish catechesis plays an important role.  In the COVID environment, however, I think those progams are going to be challenged because of the raw economics of making career transitions, including the economics of congregations.

So - lots of challenges, and there are no doubt more than the few I've mentioned.   I personally think there's a need for more focused and determined leadership at the mid-level, in the LCMS the Districts, through honest dialog and persuasion to come up with strategies to deal with the underlying problem of congregational viability and rearrangement.  Daunting, but needed.  Secondly, two seminary campuses, faculties and overhead - come on.

Dave Benke

[Dave Likeness]

Bishop Benke's point about the decline of spiritual formation of our youth in the home
and church is a key factor in the low enrollment at our seminaries.  My Quinta year at
Concordia High School in Milwaukee, i had 5 room mates in my dorm. Four of them
were the sons of pastors.  PK's (Pastor's Kids) were  numerous on the campus.  It was
almost like they were continuing to build the family   business. 

Today, how many pastors encourage their sons and daughters to prepare for church work
in one of our Concordia universities?    How many parents in our parishes encourage their
children to become church workers?  The Lutheran families in our local Lutheran parishes
are still the best pipeline to our Concordia universities.  The local Lutheran pastor is still
a key component in the recruitment of our youth for full-time church work.

[peter_speckhard]

Bishop Benke's point about the decline of spiritual formation of our youth in the home
and church is a key factor in the low enrollment at our seminaries.  My Quinta year at
Concordia High School in Milwaukee, i had 5 room mates in my dorm. Four of them
were the sons of pastors.  PK's (Pastor's Kids) were  numerous on the campus.  It was
almost like they were continuing to build the family   business. 

Today, how many pastors encourage their sons and daughters to prepare for church work
in one of our Concordia universities?    How many parents in our parishes encourage their
children to become church workers?  The Lutheran families in our local Lutheran parishes
are still the best pipeline to our Concordia universities.  The local Lutheran pastor is still
a key component in the recruitment of our youth for full-time church work.

I had a professor make the same point. He asked all the PK's in the class to raise their hands. Only a few went up. He said in his seminary class the majority would have gone up.

Family devotions have waned as a normal thing that your kids could mention in the course of conversation with their friends without having to explain or being looked at like some sort of fanatic. Assign memory work in Confirmation and it is just as often the parents saying memory work is a waste of time as it is the kids. We're like an old classic volume, but the glue in the binding has dried up and the pages are starting to fall out.

I know the good old days were never as rosy as they exist in lore. The church culture that Dave Benke describes in Milwaukee or that my mom experienced in Seward-- not just the schooling, but the homelife, worship experience, and life expectations of the typical student one might meet-- it was by no means perfect. In some ways it might have been far to insular, limiting, or sectarian. But they grew up in a comprehensive, cohesive culture (or subcultural) that knew what it was doing and why. They had a clear sense of mission purpose to everyday life. It started running out of steam maybe the late 60's or so and continued on momentum into the late 80's or early 90's, but we've been grasping about at purposes ever since. We just sort of lost interest in being who we were and became like Peter Brady trying on new personalities. Church growth. Confessional renewal. Social activism. Preservation of moral standards. But it is all disjointed and has no central sense of identity animating it anymore. At least it seems that way to me.

We can't do what we used to be able to do, and it isn't because we have less money or fewer people. It is because to dedicate yourself to anything self-sacrificially with any kind of zeal, you have to be sure you want to do it. You either have to see the point or take it on faith that it is self-evident.

I think RJN saw this coming and wrote about how to deal with it all the way back in the late 70's in his book Freedom for Ministry. It's one of the reasons I'm far more up on The Benedict Option than many others, who see it as repristination, shrinking from challenge, disengaging the world or whatever. I don't think it is any of those things. I think many of the Lutherans who speak against the Benedict Option as Dreher presents it do so because they already have what the book recommends Christians be deliberate about finding-- a close-knit community of fellow believers who share their lives, not just their worship space on Sunday mornings. It is the willingness to work within the sphere of vocation in community, not alone. It means living among people who know what they're doing and why as Christians and thereby building up one's own faith, the Church, and ultimately the world.     

[Dave Benke]

Bishop Benke's point about the decline of spiritual formation of our youth in the home
and church is a key factor in the low enrollment at our seminaries.  My Quinta year at
Concordia High School in Milwaukee, i had 5 room mates in my dorm. Four of them
were the sons of pastors.  PK's (Pastor's Kids) were  numerous on the campus.  It was
almost like they were continuing to build the family   business. 

Today, how many pastors encourage their sons and daughters to prepare for church work
in one of our Concordia universities?    How many parents in our parishes encourage their
children to become church workers?  The Lutheran families in our local Lutheran parishes
are still the best pipeline to our Concordia universities.  The local Lutheran pastor is still
a key component in the recruitment of our youth for full-time church work.

I had a professor make the same point. He asked all the PK's in the class to raise their hands. Only a few went up. He said in his seminary class the majority would have gone up.

Family devotions have waned as a normal thing that your kids could mention in the course of conversation with their friends without having to explain or being looked at like some sort of fanatic. Assign memory work in Confirmation and it is just as often the parents saying memory work is a waste of time as it is the kids. We're like an old classic volume, but the glue in the binding has dried up and the pages are starting to fall out.

I know the good old days were never as rosy as they exist in lore. The church culture that Dave Benke describes in Milwaukee or that my mom experienced in Seward-- not just the schooling, but the homelife, worship experience, and life expectations of the typical student one might meet-- it was by no means perfect. In some ways it might have been far to insular, limiting, or sectarian. But they grew up in a comprehensive, cohesive culture (or subcultural) that knew what it was doing and why. They had a clear sense of mission purpose to everyday life. It started running out of steam maybe the late 60's or so and continued on momentum into the late 80's or early 90's, but we've been grasping about at purposes ever since. We just sort of lost interest in being who we were and became like Peter Brady trying on new personalities. Church growth. Confessional renewal. Social activism. Preservation of moral standards. But it is all disjointed and has no central sense of identity animating it anymore. At least it seems that way to me.

We can't do what we used to be able to do, and it isn't because we have less money or fewer people. It is because to dedicate yourself to anything self-sacrificially with any kind of zeal, you have to be sure you want to do it. You either have to see the point or take it on faith that it is self-evident.

I think RJN saw this coming and wrote about how to deal with it all the way back in the late 70's in his book Freedom for Ministry. It's one of the reasons I'm far more up on The Benedict Option than many others, who see it as repristination, shrinking from challenge, disengaging the world or whatever. I don't think it is any of those things. I think many of the Lutherans who speak against the Benedict Option as Dreher presents it do so because they already have what the book recommends Christians be deliberate about finding-- a close-knit community of fellow believers who share their lives, not just their worship space on Sunday mornings. It is the willingness to work within the sphere of vocation in community, not alone. It means living among people who know what they're doing and why as Christians and thereby building up one's own faith, the Church, and ultimately the world.   

Here's an interesting editorial in today's NY Daily News (of all places) on the topic of being a Christian in a strange land - speaks into this conversation:  https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-new-yorker-evangelical-20210216-mvcxy4ej75banfzfoufvzys5dm-story.html.

Dave Benke

[Mark_Hofman]

Bishop Benke's point about the decline of spiritual formation of our youth in the home
and church is a key factor in the low enrollment at our seminaries.  My Quinta year at
Concordia High School in Milwaukee, i had 5 room mates in my dorm. Four of them
were the sons of pastors.  PK's (Pastor's Kids) were  numerous on the campus.  It was
almost like they were continuing to build the family   business. 

Today, how many pastors encourage their sons and daughters to prepare for church work
in one of our Concordia universities?    How many parents in our parishes encourage their
children to become church workers?  The Lutheran families in our local Lutheran parishes
are still the best pipeline to our Concordia universities.  The local Lutheran pastor is still
a key component in the recruitment of our youth for full-time church work.

This is just one anecdote among millions, but the observation reflected above hit me very personally, like a gut punch.  My father is a retired LCMS pastor who is the eldest son of a now-sainted LCMS pastor. I am a PK. I attest that I did get some pressure as the eldest son of a pastor who himself was the eldest son of a pastor to join the "family" business, but not from my parents.

And I remember the exact moment in time when I said "no" to myself going down that path. I can't share the specifics because they still hurt too much, but I can summarize that decision by saying that children are watching how pastors speak about and treat one another, especially those who are in disagreement with each other. As a family, we struggled financially, so economic security wasn't the driver. We knew that the life of a pastor and his family is a life of self-sacrifice for the sake of the Gospel. My younger brother got that lesson every time he put on a pair of hand-me-down blue jeans which, in those days, were Sears Roebuck Toughskins with the extra patches in the knees. We rode around in used cars that my dad could repair and keep running. He even knows woodworking meaning we had the economic benefit of some hand-made furnishings. We dug rocks out of soil and weeded a very large garden to have vegetables to eat. So the "no" wasn't about making more money than my dad. We could see how "God provides" everything we truly need.

My decision of "no" was observing how (some) pastors were taking sides and going to warfare with one another, sometimes in very un-Christ-like ways, and going through a meat grinder along the way. In that moment of "no" I still clearly hear my brain saying to me "If that's the way pastors in the LCMS, who are forgiven and loved by Jesus, treat one another, I want no part of it." At the ripe age of 12, the truth that "some" pastors treated each other badly was generalized into an assumption that ALL pastors treat each other poorly, and thus I would be treated poorly.

Forgive me for sharing again something I've shared before: I now have an 11-year old son. He has expressed, from very early on, an interest in the pastoral office. I even used a photo of him "playing pastor" in a marketing/fundraising appeal focused on the recruitment and formation of future pastors (because I didn't have to get a signed parental consent form back). Those like him are out there, and the world is trying its hardest to beat that out of them. His flame of interest at age 5 is now down to a smoldering wick. We shouldn't be doing things that help The Enemy succeed. For me at age 56 it's too late; for him, it's not. Love one another, despite disagreement. Please.

[peter_speckhard]

Bishop Benke's point about the decline of spiritual formation of our youth in the home
and church is a key factor in the low enrollment at our seminaries.  My Quinta year at
Concordia High School in Milwaukee, i had 5 room mates in my dorm. Four of them
were the sons of pastors.  PK's (Pastor's Kids) were  numerous on the campus.  It was
almost like they were continuing to build the family   business. 

Today, how many pastors encourage their sons and daughters to prepare for church work
in one of our Concordia universities?    How many parents in our parishes encourage their
children to become church workers?  The Lutheran families in our local Lutheran parishes
are still the best pipeline to our Concordia universities.  The local Lutheran pastor is still
a key component in the recruitment of our youth for full-time church work.

This is just one anecdote among millions, but the observation reflected above hit me very personally, like a gut punch.  My father is a retired LCMS pastor who is the eldest son of a now-sainted LCMS pastor. I am a PK. I attest that I did get some pressure as the eldest son of a pastor who himself was the eldest son of a pastor to join the "family" business, but not from my parents.

And I remember the exact moment in time when I said "no" to myself going down that path. I can't share the specifics because they still hurt too much, but I can summarize that decision by saying that children are watching how pastors speak about and treat one another, especially those who are in disagreement with each other. As a family, we struggled financially, so economic security wasn't the driver. We knew that the life of a pastor and his family is a life of self-sacrifice for the sake of the Gospel. My younger brother got that lesson every time he put on a pair of hand-me-down blue jeans which, in those days, were Sears Roebuck Toughskins with the extra patches in the knees. We rode around in used cars that my dad could repair and keep running. He even knows woodworking meaning we had the economic benefit of some hand-made furnishings. So the "no" wasn't about making more money than my dad. We could see how "God provides."

My decision of "no" was observing how (some) pastors were taking sides and going to warfare with one another, sometimes in very un-Christ-like ways, and going through a meat grinder along the way. In that moment of "no" I still clearly hear my brain saying to me "If that's the way pastors in the LCMS, who are forgiven and loved by Jesus, treat one another, I want no part of it." At the ripe age of 12, the truth that "some" pastors treated each other badly was generalized into an assumption that ALL pastors treat each other poorly, and thus I would be treated poorly.

Forgive me for sharing again something I've shared before: I now have an 11-year old son. He has expressed, from very early on, an interest in the pastoral office. I even used a photo of him "playing pastor" in a marketing/fundraising appeal focused on the recruitment and formation of future pastors (because I didn't have to get a signed parental consent form back). Those like him are out there, and the world is trying its hardest to beat that out of them. His flame of interest at age 5 is now down to a smoldering wick. We shouldn't be doing things that help The Enemy succeed. For me it's too late; for him, it's not. Love one another, despite disagreement. Please.

I've never experienced the kind of animosity you're talking about. But I think it comes with the identity crisis. There is no bitterness like the bitterness of family members. I would think it was precisely because they were brother pastors that they fought so bitterly.

I recently watched the movie Avalon (1990), about the experience of an extended Jewish family coming to Baltimore one by one starting in 1914. (Spoiler alert-- some of the plot revealed below). Their extended family operates formally like a club. They elect a chairman and have scheduled "family circle" meetings with minutes and everything, mostly to do with how they're going to pool resources to help each other make it in America and pay to bring more family members from the old country (Russia). The main character was brought over by his older brothers but due to the business success of his sons became wealthier than his brothers. The movie moves through the years with recurring Thanksgiving dinner scenes, with the main character hosting the whole clan. When asked by some youngster what Thanksgiving is even supposed to be about, whom they're thanking for what, or why they have to eat turkey (sort of like a Seder question for these mostly irreligious Jews) it become clear that to them it is part of being Americans. "The pilgrims started it, so now we must all give thanks." But one year the chronically late chronically late older brother (now a fairly old man) has not arrived for Thanksgiving. All the food is hot. The kids are all hungry. They wait a bit, but finally the younger brother/host agrees to cut the turkey without the whole family present. Soon the older brother shows up and becomes enraged that his brother presumed to start without him. He leaves in huff and they never have Thanksgiving together as an extended family again.

The point is that it is precisely because they were so closely and self-sacrificially united in what they assumed was a common understanding of their mission together, they could not handle a fissure in that understanding. I think that's what happened in the LCMS.   

[Dan Fienen]

Here's an interesting editorial in today's NY Daily News (of all places) on the topic of being a Christian in a strange land - speaks into this conversation:  https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-new-yorker-evangelical-20210216-mvcxy4ej75banfzfoufvzys5dm-story.html.

Dave Benke

If I am a White, conservative Christian, do I need to apologize for being White? For years, decades we have been excoriated for stereotyping Blacks and Hispanics, and rightfully so. But now apparently the only proper way to deal with Whites is through stereotypes. All Whites are privileged racists and any conservative White is automatically a dangerous White Supremacist. It may not have been obvious from the videos, but 74 million Americans were storming the Capitol on January 6, everyone who voted for Trump was there rioting.


I greatly appreciated the quotation in Passarella's opinion piece from the Nashville pastor, Scot Sauls, "Christian Democrats should be the loudest voices in our culture about the protection of the unborn in the same way that I think Christian Republicans should be the loudest voices ab out Black pain." I agree with here both that would be desirable and hard.

[RevG]

Bishop Benke's point about the decline of spiritual formation of our youth in the home
and church is a key factor in the low enrollment at our seminaries.  My Quinta year at
Concordia High School in Milwaukee, i had 5 room mates in my dorm. Four of them
were the sons of pastors.  PK's (Pastor's Kids) were  numerous on the campus.  It was
almost like they were continuing to build the family   business. 

Today, how many pastors encourage their sons and daughters to prepare for church work
in one of our Concordia universities?    How many parents in our parishes encourage their
children to become church workers?  The Lutheran families in our local Lutheran parishes
are still the best pipeline to our Concordia universities.  The local Lutheran pastor is still
a key component in the recruitment of our youth for full-time church work.

This is just one anecdote among millions, but the observation reflected above hit me very personally, like a gut punch.  My father is a retired LCMS pastor who is the eldest son of a now-sainted LCMS pastor. I am a PK. I attest that I did get some pressure as the eldest son of a pastor who himself was the eldest son of a pastor to join the "family" business, but not from my parents.

And I remember the exact moment in time when I said "no" to myself going down that path. I can't share the specifics because they still hurt too much, but I can summarize that decision by saying that children are watching how pastors speak about and treat one another, especially those who are in disagreement with each other. As a family, we struggled financially, so economic security wasn't the driver. We knew that the life of a pastor and his family is a life of self-sacrifice for the sake of the Gospel. My younger brother got that lesson every time he put on a pair of hand-me-down blue jeans which, in those days, were Sears Roebuck Toughskins with the extra patches in the knees. We rode around in used cars that my dad could repair and keep running. He even knows woodworking meaning we had the economic benefit of some hand-made furnishings. We dug rocks out of soil and weeded a very large garden to have vegetables to eat. So the "no" wasn't about making more money than my dad. We could see how "God provides" everything we truly need.

My decision of "no" was observing how (some) pastors were taking sides and going to warfare with one another, sometimes in very un-Christ-like ways, and going through a meat grinder along the way. In that moment of "no" I still clearly hear my brain saying to me "If that's the way pastors in the LCMS, who are forgiven and loved by Jesus, treat one another, I want no part of it." At the ripe age of 12, the truth that "some" pastors treated each other badly was generalized into an assumption that ALL pastors treat each other poorly, and thus I would be treated poorly.

Forgive me for sharing again something I've shared before: I now have an 11-year old son. He has expressed, from very early on, an interest in the pastoral office. I even used a photo of him "playing pastor" in a marketing/fundraising appeal focused on the recruitment and formation of future pastors (because I didn't have to get a signed parental consent form back). Those like him are out there, and the world is trying its hardest to beat that out of them. His flame of interest at age 5 is now down to a smoldering wick. We shouldn't be doing things that help The Enemy succeed. For me at age 56 it's too late; for him, it's not. Love one another, despite disagreement. Please.

Hey Mark,

Thanks for this.  Rather heartbreaking.  I got to know your Dad a little bit serving my first call on the Western Slope.  He was certainly kind and gentle to me.  Just curious, did you grow up in Delta/the Western Slope?

Peace,
Scott+

[Dave Likeness]

@Mark Hofman........I was not raised in a parsonage because my dad was not a pastor.
He was a strong, committed Christian father who was active in our local Lutheran church.
My father and mother enrolled me a Lutheran elementary school and it was a blessing to
me. Due to the Principal of that LCMS school and the encouragement of my parents I
became a student at Concordia High School, Milwaukee.  All of this was a positive experience.

I never experienced the warfare between pastors until I was a Circuit Counselor for 11 years.
The intramural battles between circuit pastors were bitter and I became a referee.  One faction
involved about 4 ultra conservative pastors versus 7 middle of the road pastors.  The 12 parishes
in our circuit were all in an urban/suburban metro  area.  The only thing I could do was
share the love of Christ with both sides and remind them we are all brothers in Christ.

[John_Hannah]

Bishop Benke's point about the decline of spiritual formation of our youth in the home
and church is a key factor in the low enrollment at our seminaries.  My Quinta year at
Concordia High School in Milwaukee, i had 5 room mates in my dorm. Four of them
were the sons of pastors.  PK's (Pastor's Kids) were  numerous on the campus.  It was
almost like they were continuing to build the family   business. 

Today, how many pastors encourage their sons and daughters to prepare for church work
in one of our Concordia universities?    How many parents in our parishes encourage their
children to become church workers?  The Lutheran families in our local Lutheran parishes
are still the best pipeline to our Concordia universities.  The local Lutheran pastor is still
a key component in the recruitment of our youth for full-time church work.

I'm not a PK but many, many classmates are (or were). I learned from their stories and experience. I imagine that they might have entered the parish more confidently than the rest of us. I do believe that history will reveal that the revolution of "1969 ff" was also against that class of pastors who were regarded as elite and arrogant, which they were not. In any event one rarely sees it in today's LCMS. It's almost that we are lucky when a seminarian has been a life long Lutheran.   

Peace, JOHN