From Position to Posture: Reclaiming Collaborative Ministry in the LCMS

Positional leadership is intoxicating. Striving and climbing and conquering rests upon the heart of every man. It seeps into the church and does great damage. Positional leadership stalls and can stop the unbridled movement of the Holy Spirit through all of the baptized. 

Pastor does it. In the church, it can take a lot of forms. 

Pastor casts a vision. 

Pastor preaches another amazing sermon.

Pastor raises the money. 

Pastor counsels the grieving. 

Pastor puts together the worship service. 

Pastor creates the church communication plan. 

Pastor marries, buries, baptizes, and preaches. 

Pastor sits on every committee. 

Pastor, please promote my ministry!

Gee, pastor, we don’t know what to do. What do you think?

I am pastor in a very empowering congregation with many servant leaders executing a lot of ministry for the sake of the found to reach the lost…and yet I even feel this pull to do (or at least be connected) to pretty much everything that happens in the congregation. I can only imagine how many of my brother pastors feel in less empowering congregations. 

I could have made the list above exponentially longer. I stopped so as not to overly stress out my brother pastors. You’re welcome. 🙂 

You’ll notice that some of the work above is Word and Sacrament work. Word and Sacrament is the primary call for every ordained pastor. Anything beyond that is the work of the wider body of Christ, with all of her unique gifts and talents. Pastors are one part of the body—no greater or lesser than any other part of the body. 

We need each part to play its part. Desperately. 

Full transparency, as our ULC podcasts have grown in popularity, creating both “raving fans” and “vocal objectors,” I’ve noticed a place in my heart that wants to be more than a parish pastor. There is a place in my heart, and likely in your heart too, that wants to be more than we are. If left unattended, this place in our hearts could be the death of us and the ministry Jesus has entrusted to us. 

I want to be who I am. 

I am a child of God—a son of King Jesus. 

I am a son, husband, and father. 

I am a parish pastor. No more, no less. 

I enjoy the privilege of bringing Word and Sacrament to as many people as the Holy Spirit brings. This is my pastoral calling. 

For my congregation to be healthy, all of the gifts of the body must be employed and enjoyed, and it must continually welcome others to help the body grow. 

St. Paul’s conversion story is spectacular. “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” 

Paul profoundly realized that every baptized believer is connected to Christ Himself. How we treat one another is actually how we’re treating Christ. To disrespect a member in Christ’s body is to disrespect Christ Himself. To honor a member in Christ’s body is to honor Christ Himself. 

As I head into my summer sabbatical, I’m excited to get to know the story of C.F.W. Walther, one of the founding pastors of the LCMS. I am currently reading a 1938 book by William Dallman and W.H.T. Dau titled Walther and the Church. It was written to help the LCMS remember her origin story as she approached one century as a synod. (The LCMS formally began in 1847.)

The forward was written by Friedrich Pfotenhauer who served as LCMS president from 1911 to 1935. President Pfotenhauer led through a season of tremendous growth in the LCMS. He was then awarded the title of “Honorary President of the Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States.” Pfotenhauer wrote this forward in 1939, one year before he went to sleep in the Lord. 

Pfotenhauer summarized the ecclesial differences between Grabau and Walther in the 1841 Altenberg Debate. Grabau stressed that “hearers owe obedience to the pastors” even in the area of domestic issues. Grabau also stressed that “congregations have no right to call any man as pastor except one who has been divinely ordained by the laying on of the hands of accredited clergymen. The official acts of one not so ordained are invalid.” (p. VI). Grabau had a strong desire for pastors to have a strong leadership role not only in the realm of doctrine, but also domestically. 

Pfotenhauer then gives Walther’s perspective. “Walther, on the other hand, shows that the Church in the proper sense of the word is the communion of saints, the sum total of all true believers. To these Christ has given the keys of heaven. In this body of true believers has He vested the spiritual, divine, and heavenly goods, privileges, powers, and offices which He has won for His Church. And it is the local Christian congregation which has the right and the power to call pastors and shepherds, who in the name of the congregation are to administer publicly the means of grace.” (p. VII)

In short, the power of the Word of God belongs to the local Church, to which the local Church then entrusts Word and Sacrament ministry to faithful pastors. 

Pfotenhauer lamented that “the majority of American church-bodies are established on hierarchical principles.” He, along with Walther, did not want this to be the case for the LCMS. Those who were “pro hierarchical leadership” feared that giving “the dignities and rights of all true believers must necessarily lead to anarchy and mob-rule within the Church.” 

Pfotenhauer then tells the story of Walther and Wyneken visiting Germany in 1851 to tell the story of the “beautiful relations between pastor and people prevailing in their American congregations as a result of the clear understanding and proper application of the Scriptural doctrine of the Church and Ministry.” (p. VIII)

Walther and Wyneken wrote:

Among us the pastor does not lord it over the flock nor the flock over the pastor, but God’s Word is sovereign over both… And so, thanks to God, we find in our more advanced congregations the lovely spectacle of the people’s showing the same zeal in guarding the freedom and the right of the ministry as shown by the pastors in guarding the rights of the congregation. And the less our pastors aim to inspire awe and fear as task-masters and lords, the more they are loved and revered as fathers, teachers, and shepherds. (p. VII)

The Holy Spirit longs for this to be the reality for every pastor and every congregation in the LCMS. Pastoral burnout and “pastor as hero” would decrease. Collaborative ministry between pastor and the priesthood of all believers would increase. God’s Kingdom would advance. More would be saved and come to a knowledge of Jesus as Lord!

The majority of days, this is what I experience in my local congregation. I want more pastors to experience this. This balance between pastor and people is how the LCMS grew. Walther knew it. So did Pfotenhauer. I believe we’ve become imbalanced in preference toward the pastor as the doer of ministry. I pray we invite the Holy Spirit to return us to collaborative balance. 

Imagine if this took place in the LCMS. 

Oh, the lives the Spirit would change. 

Oh, the places the Spirit would lead us. 

I see it. I pray you do, too. 

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