Dear Calling Congregations: | Priestly Rant:
Dear Calling Congregations:
Dear Calling Congregations:
According to the January 2013 issue of the Reporter, 258 of you are calling sole pastors; 49 of you are calling senior pastors; and 64 of you are calling associate pastors, for a total of 371 calling congregations (pg. 5). No doubt many of you have received “call lists” from your District Offices; generally speaking these lists represent men who at least on paper present no problems for District Presidents; men who are for the most part already in a congregation and want a chance to “move up” the parish ladder or change geographic locations. Often times men don’t even know their name is on such a call list.
I’d like to suggest to you a different process for calling a pastor; in fact I’d like to challenge you as congregations to do what our church body as a whole has been unable or unwilling to do and that is to actually be active in acts of mercy and compassion. I don’t mean by building homes for Habitat for Humanity; I don’t mean sending checks to the Lutheran Malaria Initiative; and I don’t mean the supporting the local food bank—these may in fact be worthy endeavors, but there remains in my estimation a more worthy endeavor, and that is the support of our own pastors who have found themselves ousted from congregations either by vote, or by District President, and placed in the purgatory of CRM.
Congregational Presidents, Calling Committees, Board of Elders, you won’t find the names of these men on any call list supplied to you. As a general rule, despite protestations to the contrary, men who have been placed on CRM status are often considered to be “damaged pastoral goods,” no matter what the circumstances were that caused their removal. It is a virtual impossibility for these men to receive another call simply because of the “baggage” associated with a man who has been in the limbo of CRM.
These are not the “happy faces” that you see pictured in the Lutheran Witness, the Reporter, or seminary publications. These are men who have been deeply hurt, spiritually and emotionally; men who feel that Synod has given up on them and District Presidents have ignored them; and men who have been forced to take employment in business and industry simply to support their families. Many of these men and their families suffer poverty, the loss of home, loss of insurance, to say nothing of their loss of dignity. These are men for whom Synod’s mantra of mercy is largely meaningless, and whose calls to District Offices go largely unanswered.
I’d like you to consider taking a dare, and scripture is full of dares isn’t it? Each time our Lord called a disciple it was in fact a dare: Come follow me…I dare you to trust. The crucifixion is a dare to faith isn’t it: Here is your Lord, hanging on a cross…I dare you to believe. The empty tomb is a dare isn’t it: I live and so shall you…I dare you to believe. The reason that it is a dare is that it requires a belief in the absoluteness of the promises of our Lord.
I’d like you to actually prayerfully consider looking at the names of men who are without a congregation, who are on CRM status. In fact I’d like to challenge you to call by prayer: take the names of a half a dozen men on CRM, pray over those names for a week and draw a name. It’s a dare, it requires faith, it requires trust, and it requires the willingness to go against the “call process.” Whatever name is drawn, that is the man to be called and the task then falls to you as a congregation and him as pastor to work together in advancing the kingdom of our Lord.
If you decide to do this, you must have the resolve not to put off by District Presidents and you must also realize that as a congregation within the LCMS you have the right to call any man you want, so long as he is on the roster. I would also encourage you not to be quick to call from the seminary’s graduating classes. In my opinion I believe that pastors who have been call-less in the land of CRM should be called first, if possible.
It is perhaps hard to believe and maybe it is something that we as a church body do not want to believe, but there is and remains a callous indifference to our men and their families who have been wounded in congregational skirmishes; or have found themselves the unwitting victims of District politics. “Brotherly love” often consists of a man being removed from a congregation, with little if any thought given to the circumstances or the man’s family. “Love” is turned into a Law as a man, not unlike Pavlov’s dogs, is told to jump through hoop after hoop so that he may eventually be placed back into a congregation. “Eventually” however turns out to be an eternity.
Pastors, like congregations, sin and make mistakes. Congregations, unlike pastors, can be forgiven; pastors cannot be.
I urge you then in this New Year to be daring; to move beyond the predictable and the political; and to at least consider these men who are on CRM. Our church body as a whole has ignored these men, and the task then falls to calling congregations to understand that these men exist, often as lepers within Synod, and to prayerfully consider calling them.
After all, didn’t our Lord heal lepers?
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