Moaning and Complaining: Lutheran Clergy

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I have known, worked with or heard of several situations in which pastors have flat-out failed to be effective ministers. So I am taking advantage of this blog to let all my frustrations shouted out.

1. Some pastors just don’t listen. A member of a pastoral call committee spoke with me recently. The congregation wisely decided to hold “cottage meetings” at which the members were to provide their input to the congregation committee in answer to the question “What are you looking for in the next pastor we are calling to serve us?” Unfortunately an interim pastor decided to attend those cottage meetings. She took over. For the full 90 minutes she lectured, she gave instructions she shared her personal experience. Not once did she allow the members to give their in-put to the question for which the group had been assembled. She just didn’t listen.

This need to talk rather than to listen is also often demonstrated by pastors who teach adult classes. Way too often these are lectures only. Opportunity to gather the shared wisdom and insight of the group is simply not considered. The message seems to be “You folks listen up! I know, you don’t”

2. Failure to Conduct Pastoral Visits to the Sick and Shut-ins. Some pastors are fantastic at this and give it a very high priority, but it seems to me the current trend is in the opposite direction. I have a friend who is a member of a Lutheran congregation (not mine). She has kidney cancer. She carefully informed her pastor of the date she was to have it removed. There was no hospital or home visit made. After my friend returned home there were new complications. This time her husband sent an email to the pastor. No response. No home visit. No mention on congregation prayer lists. I became so disturbed by this that I wrote a very careful non-blameful email to the pastor. No response to me nor to the ill member! And certainly no home visit

In the old German Lutheran congregation of my youth I learned the term “siel sorger”(sp) which means, “concern for the soul”. The pastor kept a careful record of those who were ill, those who had not taken communion for some time, those who had not been to worship for over a month. This was his (and it was always a male) priority list for home visits. Any suggestion that a process similar to this be instituted into today’s church life would be met with derision and the strong declaration that I was our of contact with today’s realities. Yes, I know the lay people can do a lot of this and I also know where the pastors have made zero effort to train, engage and encourage their members in home visits via e.g. Steven Ministries

3. Interim Clergy. These are clergy assigned to parishes which have a vacancy in the pastoral office and are in the process of calling a replacement. Again, there are some interims who do a great job, but by far the majority of cases about which I hear tell of great frustration, especially by congregation leaders. Too many interim pastors make the situation worse.

So that’s my moaning for today. And I thank God for all those pastors who faithfully listen, really make those pastoral visits and really help hurting congregations eagerly awaiting a new pastor.

Reflections On A Long And Blessed Life No. 48: College Teaching

I was surprised that immediately upon receiving my Master’s Degree I was asked to teach a summer course at Concordia Teachers College, River Forest, IL ( now Concordia University: Chicago) I accepted the request and thoroughly enjoyed teaching the course entitled The Use of Tests and Measurements in Lutheran Elementary Schools. The students were  all principals. They brought good questions and a variety of good insights. One much unanticipated result of this class was that I met the remarkable and capable principal of St. Lorenz Lutheran School in Frankenmuth Michigan: Mr. Walter Bleke.  Twelve years after my teaching him in this class it was Mr. Bleke who played a  big role in me becoming Superintendent of Lutheran Schools for the Michigan District and then four years later (again with his influence ) the head of Parish Education for The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

My college teaching then continued at Hong Kong College in that British Crown Colony.and at Concordia Seminary and The Lutheran Theological Seminary there. I taught Christian Education, General Psychology and Pastoral Theology. While not of essence to the content of the courses my strongest  memories relate to the language used in teaching. At first I taught in English with sentence by sentence interpretation  into Cantonese by Mr. Isaac Ma and Dr. Andrew Chiu. Both of them were outstanding interpreters and of incredible help in my teaching. The saddest and most embarrassing feature of my teaching is the  General Psychology course  I taught at LutheranTheological  Seminary in the Cantonese language. I spent hours in preparation and made it only with the wonderful assistance of Pr. Daniel Lee Wing Ching. Yet-even with his assistance my Cantonese was terrible. I messed up many of the tones of that language and must have said many incomprehensible things. The only text books available were translations from Russian and were all pure behaviorism in point of  view. Yet those students did not mock me (at least not to my face). They stuck in there with me and I hope even learned one little insight which later on helped them in their ministry.

Strangely enough my memory of  teaching at Hong Kong College has  an unusual twist. I had one student who resisted everything I said, often in a rather belligerent manner. I was told that he was a strong Communist supporter who was there to  expose the failure of the Christian witness. He endured me and I hung  in there with him. Some time later I learned that he had not only become a Christian but had decided to become a Lutheran pastor.

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Upon reflection I am deeply aware of the critical role that college/university professors play in the lives of students and in society. I am now blessed to have had a brother-in-law and a daughter who have been college teachers and currently have a son-in-law and son who are full-time college profs. These are honorable and worthy professions indeed. They are influencers and shapers of minds and of our world. I am grateful that for short periods of my career I was briefly numbered among them.

Reflections ON A LongAnd Blessed LIfe No. 47: Graduate School

  

As mentioned in an earlier Blog it was always my intention to get a graduate degree and I started my master’s program at Northwestern University the week after I graduated from college. But then I hastened to Tracy, California and my first teaching assignment at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church and School in Tracy, California. The nearest university offering graduate work was the College of the Pacific (now University of Pacific) in Stockton. At that time, in my eyes, it was most famous for its wonderful 5’8” quarterback Eddie LaBaron who was a top football quarterback on offense, great safety on defense and punter on special teams. And the school offered a master’s program at an affordable price.

The entry process surprised me. I took standardized tests in General Knowledge and in Education. I scored in the ninetieth percentiles in both and that taught me a lesson. In a day when so much emphasis is placed on getting into just the right undergraduate school-I learned that sometimes it does not matter that much how highly the school is ranked. Concordia Teachers College certainly was never in a “top schools” list. I went there. Did my best. Got the most I could from the school and when it was time for grad school I had nothing to worry about. I think that is as true in 2017 as it was in 1951.

Since I was working full time I went to school in the summer and in the evening. My degree was in Psychology. The mid-fifties was a time when there was much emphasis on non-directive teaching and learning. One of my most disappointing classes was a class where the prof did no formal teaching. All learning was to be self-directed by the members of the class. My class did not do much “directing”. It spent most of the time arguing how the prof could assign a letter grade to students who only talked and gave each other feedback.

I had a good Philosophy course and an outstanding course in Statistics. And I was fortunate that the Statistics prof was on my thesis committee. I did my research across the LCMS elementary school system on what standardized tests were used, how they were used and what was done with the results. The most challenging aspect of that whole proves may simply have been in getting the findings into published form. It was all made possible by the incredible efforts of my wife Jane. When we were writing this she was the mother of a new baby. She did all the typing which was, of course, on an old manual typewriter. We needed two copies without any corrections on any page, all on paper of a particular nature and very strict unyielding rules on proper footnotes and citations. Because of everything else that was going on in our lives that entire thesis was written and typed by the two of us, typically beginning at 11:00 p,m., working until around 1:00 am and then going to bed so that we could be up and at work by 7:30 in the morning. Together we made it.

--> Interesting footnote: The week before my orals the US Supreme Court issued its famous Brown vs Board of Education ruling against school racial segregation. That became a significant area for the committee to address in asking me how that would influence Lutheran schools in he USA. Little did I know then that some years later I would be visiting all the black Lutheran schools of the USA south and later working for the Center for Urban Education Ministries which served many schools that were the first in the LCMS (Lutheran Church- Missouri Synod) to be truly racially integrated. 

Reflections )On A Long And Blessed Life No.46: Pastor-Principal Relationship

 Anyone who has been active in Lutheran elementary schools knows that the relationship between the principal of the school and the pastor of the sponsoring congregation is vital for the school’s success. And this was even more important in the 1950:s when the relationship between the school and the congregation was more mutually dependent than it is now.

My first pastor was someone I will simply designate as Pr. RB. He entered the pastoral ministry later in life, leaving a successful business as a mechanic. There was a crisis in his life and he promised God that if God got him out of the crisis he would become a pastor. I am glad the crisis was resolved and I wish he had remained a mechanic. He was better qualified for that than for serving as a parish pastor.

He was a good man. He had a special heart for the poor, especially also the homeless. He never turned down a beggar who showed up at his door. He often found some small task or assignment for the needy but then he helped.

He was very supportive of the school and was, in fact, the founding pastor of the school. His wife taught in the school. H e was kind to me. But there was a major issue. He was (I am firmly convinced) an alcoholic. He denied this. His wife was an enabler. He kept liquor right next to him in his office desk.

The situation became very public more than once, but especially at a Lenten worship service. As he began to lead the service it was obvious to all that he “was under the influence”. After the initial reading I hurried to the closed area behind the altar and met him there while the next hymn was being sung. I told him ,”Pastor, it looks like you are not well. I do not think you can continue with the sermon. Just let me go out and explain that you are not well. I will give a brief message.” He resisted me. When I insisted it almost became physical so I let him continue. By the next morning  the word was buzzing throughout the town of Tracy. “Last night the pastor of The Lutheran Church showed up to preach-and he was drunk.”

We attempted interventions with the District (Synod). Unfortunately they just transferred the problem. He served one parish after another with the same “issue” making him ineffective. Seven years later we had a dinner appointment with him. When we got to his home his wife said “I am sorry. R. cannot be with us. He is not well. He cannot speak to or be with you.”

--> As I reflect on this whole experience I recall that I may have been a threat to him. I was young and eager and creative. I had the full support of the school and congregation. People were coming to me with their “pastoral problems.” I wish I had been more supportive and more confrontive. May he rest in peace.

Reflections On A Long And Blessed Life: No. 45: The Walther League

 The Walther League played a significant role in my life. Begun in 1893 and named after C.F. W. Walther the first president of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod the League was the official youth organization of that denomination. One became eligible for membership after the ritual of confirmation, usually at the 7^th or 8^th grade level. It was an important rite of passage to be accepted as a member. I vividly remember that I was confirmed on Palm Sunday in 1940 and it was a big deal that the following Sunday I was allowed for the first time to participate in the League-sponsored Easter egg hunt.

My father was the counselor for the Zion Lutheran Walther League of which I was a member. We met almost every Sunday evening. Every meeting was required to have three components: Christian Growth, which meant we had an hour or so of Bible study, which we always called Topic Discussion. Then there was time to plan a Christian Service project such as cleaning church property, raising money for national projects et sim. And the third important function was Christian Fellowship which meant games, hay rides, scavenger hunts, wink-um et sim. It was at Walther League that many of my contemporaries courted, fell in love with and pursued their first spouse. I can still sing the Walther League song, ”Walther Leaguers, Walther Leaguers, One and all are we: Serving Jesus Christ, our Savior who has made us free; Walther Leaguers, Walther Leaguers, where-so-ere we roam; Working and praying for our church and home.”

Part of my first official work assignment was to be Youth Director. I worked hard at it with our little Walther League group in Tracy. We faithfully focused on the three aspects mentioned above. We stayed involved at the “zone level” which took us to neighboring churches in Stockton, Modesto, and Turlock. And we got involved with our District Summer Camps at beautiful Asilomar. A little remembrance of League Summer  Camp: Our pastor’s son joined us. He “enjoyed” his freedom from his parents so much that after the second year he was banned from attending.

The Walther League no longer exists. The denomination leaders got unhappy with some of the way too liberal activities of the League with the breaking point coming when the League invited Pete Seeger to attend and sing at one of their national conventions.

The League continued to impact me in a variety of ways through much of my career. When I was in Hong Kong it was the Walther League (and Wheat Ridge) that sponsored Haven of Hope T.B Sanitarium that was a place of healing and hope for many. Years later I was a counselor for a tour group that took me to clinics all over Southern India, the result of work begun by the Walther League and continued by Wheat Ridge Ministries. In my retirement I served as a part time field rep for that same organization. These on-going connections were helpful in getting start-up grants for two recent organizations, which are sill important to me: RESOUNDING JOY and Survivors of Torture, Inc.

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Yet, in a strange way what I seem to remember most is that Sunday after Sunday my assignment was “go to the Walther League meeting”.  Jane will tell you that now on more Sundays than not, as we drive home from Sunday morning worship, I announce, “Thank God I do not have Walther League tonight!