Who Moved My Cheese? For Lutheran Pastors

Who Moved My Cheese? is a great little book for understanding change in the job market.

I mentioned it in a class of graduating seniors, mostly business majors. Most of them had read the book. Some companies buy it for everyone.

The concept is simple. Four mice enjoy getting their cheese at one location and build their lives around it. The cheese diminishes and disappears. Hem and Haw get angry, wondering when the cheese will come back. The other two mice put on their running shoes and go looking.

Finally Haw decides to go looking for cheese and enjoys the chase. One moral of the story is - Someone will always move the cheese.

Lutheran pastors are peculiar in their dependency on Holy Mother Synod to provide the cheese. They fear offending the great Cheese-Provider. No, not God - the district pope, Who is infallible, vindictive, and easily annoyed.

Lutheran clergy mice constantly find their cheese moving. People age and die. The best members relocate for better jobs. The worst members never leave, except chest-high, and then not soon enough. Other Lutheran clergy mice steal their cheese without shame.

The answer, the clergy think, is to get rid of competing clergy mice, to dominate the great cheese supplies, and to worship the great Cheese-Provider. They do not admit to worshiping the District Pope. Instead, they say, "I love the synod." They have an excuse for every wrongful action and every false doctrine: "That is a g-r-e-y area of Scripture," and "That could be understood correctly." Frowning while saying those bromides is a good idea. Stretching the words out places an emphasis on the thoughtfulness of the reply. If someone asks about clergy mice felonies, they squeak sharply, "Who told you?"

The demographic research--which the Lutheran clergy mice trust so much--shows the cheese is going away.