In this episode, Ken Sundet Jones discusses the Iowa Preachers Project, emphasizing the importance of community among pastors and the need for compelling preaching in today's context. We look at the challenges pastors face, the significance of grace in preaching, and the transformative power of the gospel.
Lutheran Toolkit by Ken Sundet Jones
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[0:10] Music.
[0:37] Hello, and welcome to Church in Maine, a podcast for people interested in the intersection of faith, politics, and culture. I'm Dennis Sanders, your host. So today we're doing a bit of counter-programming as we look at the importance of preaching. Last year at this time, I was getting ready to drive down to Des Moines for the inaugural meeting of the Iowa Preachers Project. I was one of 10 preachers from across the religious spectrum and from different parts of the country who came together to basically learn from each other on how to preach the gospel. The second cohort is gathering this coming week in Des Moines, and I felt that it was a good time to have a conversation with the director of the project, Ken Jones. Ken is a professor emeritus at Grandview University, where he most recently served as the Gerhard O'Furdy Professor in Church History and Theology. He holds a PhD in Church History and Luther Studies from Luther Seminary, my alma mater, where he focused on 16th century German evangelical funeral preaching.
[1:51] A pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Ken has served in parishes in South Dakota and Iowa. He is an official recipe tester for America's test kitchens, knows how to knit, bake bread, and waste time looking at a screen. He lives in Urbandale, Iowa with his wife, Mary.
[2:15] Join me in this very important conversation on the task of preaching with Ken Jones.
[2:23] Music.
[2:41] All right, Ken. It is good to have you here. And I wanted to start this out with your faith journey, kind of who you are, what led you to where you are. And before we kind of talk a little bit more about the Iowa Preachers Project.
[3:01] I grew up in a family in Western South Dakota of nominal church connection. Um we were easter and christmas regulars um um my mom is german and she grew up in um on the outskirts of outskirts of berlin um and came out of uh, a more pietist tradition not not in terms of its fervor but but in terms of of its attitude that we don't have to go to church to be Christians, you know. I believe that's enough. You know, it's the caricature. I just came across this recently in a comment on something that somebody had written as a response to a New York Times article where I had to do a response to their response to correct them, that no, the Lutheran tradition doesn't have an unmediated experience of God. No, that's the radical Reformers on the left. You know.
[4:25] Luther and his ilk, the other Reformers insisted that, no, that God comes to us by means. through the sacraments and through preaching. At any rate, my dad grew up in western South Dakota. My grandparents ranched, and their churches are far away. Probably the closest church was 15, 20 miles away.
[4:56] And he wasn't baptized until I was in about second grade.
[5:02] But we went to church on those two major holidays, and I enjoyed it. And then after fifth grade, I went to vacation Bible school at our Lutheran church and just had such a fun experience that I decided I wanted to keep, being a part of that. So I'd get myself up on Sunday mornings and get dressed and walk the mile, mile and a half to church for Sunday school. And there I had Sunday school teachers who took care of me and watched out for me and started going to confirmation when I was in junior high confirmation classes on Wednesday after school. And I'd go sit in the pew on Sunday mornings by myself because I loved the liturgy. That stuff just was, and all the pomp and drama And then after seventh grade, I went to Bible camp and just got grabbed there by an experience, a community, relationships. But I wound up going to camp one, two, three, four summers during junior high and high school.
[6:30] I won the summer after college I worked at Bible camp and worked in the camping system in the Lutheran Church in South Dakota eight summers after high school between college years and seminary years in all kinds of positions and from the time I started working there at 17 right after high school graduation, until now, I've only ever had one job that wasn't somehow connected to the church.
[7:01] I feel like my faith journey was something that had very little to do with my will, but instead has been about God shaping my will to His. And there was never a plan. I didn't plan to go to seminary. I like pastors, but I want to know more about the faith, and that was the best way to do it. I worked at a camp in the off-season for a year and was a youth director in west-central Minnesota out by the South Dakota state line.
[7:48] And just the move to seminary was just kind of a natural progression of wanting to learn more and understand more about this thing that had grabbed me um, And even when I went to seminary, at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, where you went to seminary, I remember people asking me, when did you know you were going to be a pastor? And I'd say, I don't know yet. I don't have a letter of call in my hand. When I have a letter of call in my hand, I'll know that God is, through the church, is calling me to serve the Word in this way. And I served two calls. The first was a two-point parish in South Dakota, in central South Dakota Pier, the state capital, was the town church. It was a two-point parish and the country church was 35 miles out in open country at Hayes where we'd get maybe 15 people. It was small like your church, Dennis. Yes.
[9:00] And then I served in Northeast Iowa near Decorah, another two-point parish there. Before, I had to know more about what this thing was that I had gotten so wrapped up in as a preacher. So, I went back and did my doctorate in Reformation studies, Luther studies at Luther Seminary. So, I have a PhD in that, and I know an awful lot about 16th century German evangelical funeral preaching.
[9:43] More than you want to know, you know, when you write a dissertation, for a very brief time, you are the expert on that thing. And then I got called to serve at Granville University as a professor in the theology and philosophy department and did that for 20 years.
[10:06] Where I discovered that I was a professor, I don't know if I was a better preacher or a better evangelist in the classroom than I ever was as a parish pastor. I don't know if I was more free or if it was that I had people come across a threshold who would never show up at the church. You know, I got to connect with people whose faith journeys were much different than mine and who had never heard the gospel. Many students had never heard the gospel, not just that they hadn't heard it, but that they hadn't heard it in the way that Paul talks about it in Galatians. You know, there's the gospel of Jesus Christ, and then he talks about the Galatians having heard a different gospel. And then he says, not that there is one, right, but that so many people, including college students who were in my classroom, had heard some other thing preached that was not something for which Jesus had to die. He, he, he.
[11:22] You know, it's interesting you talked about the fact about going into seminary that there wasn't that people knowing when you were—people asking you when were you kind of called in. And that was kind of the same way for me. When I went into seminary, it was because there was something I had an interest in, but usually I didn't really expect to go into parish ministry. There was no expectation for that.
[11:52] Obviously, God had other plans, but it's just kind of interesting that sometimes that call is not as—that you kind of stumble into the call, I think, or that you're kind of led into it. For me, working at camp throughout college and then as a youth director, I really saw pastors as helping, engaged in the helping profession. And that I thought I was going to seminary just to be able to learn more about helping people in more effective ways.
[12:39] And then my first quarter at Luther Seminary, Luther Northwestern at that time.
[12:48] I had a worship course that was team-taught, and the professor who did the theological end of it was Gerhard Ferdy, whose book, Where God Meets Man, I would recommend to everybody who's watching this because it changed my life. That I got something from Ferdy, specifically about worship, that worship is not something that we go to to give something to God. That's generally how we think about worship, but that worship is the place that we go to get God, to get what God wants us to have, to receive Christ's benefits of mercy and a God who is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
[13:46] The abundant promise of life, not just eternal life, but life in the here and now, that somehow the pastor's calling is to be the means through which those benefits come. And from that, I can mark that as an actual point in my life where there's clearly a before and an after that I thought that I was going to seminary for one thing, and wound up being so shaped by that that I became a different person.
[14:38] And have always been... I'm impatient, I think, at any other understanding of the pastoral calling. You know, I mean, there's so many, I think it's one of the reasons that pastors are so weary, these days is because the demands are so great to be a chief executive officer of a nonprofit, to be a community organizer that changes the world, to be an effective psychotherapist, and often to do plumbing and office work, not to mention programming, to be an activity director. And really when it comes down to it, there's only one thing that a pastor is called to do, and that is to deliver the goods.
[15:52] And then along with that, the other stuff is penultimate, but it's all there in order to serve the primary task so that there is a lighthouse that people can spot and whether to avoid reefs or to come to a safe harbor. But yeah, that...
[16:18] I didn't know what I was getting into when I started. And, you know, I celebrated my 30th. You were there when we were together in our Preachers Project gathering of our cohort in June. And you guys celebrated my 35th ordination anniversary so well. And I look back at those 35 years, that arc, and think.
[16:52] It's just all I ever did was the next thing. What was in front of me? Just keep moving forward, trusting that somehow God would make something of it. And I feel like it's a dangerous thing to have a plan. As a pastor, you know, the old adage, we plan and God laughs, that I thought I was heading somewhere and instead, you know, I got waylaid at the Jabbok with Jacob and was given a very long 35-year-old nighttime to wrestle with God. And I don't think I was as fervent in grabbing hold of my grappling partner, but I don't think I've let go of it yet. I haven't let go yet, And, you know, I'm still figuring it out.
[18:15] You know, that kind of leads into the whole thing about the Iowa Preachers Project and talking about what it is, because I think with my time in it and with the other people in the inaugural cohort is, I think your assertion of preaching in some ways as wrestling with God, as Jacob did, is apt.
[18:42] Because I think one of the things in our time period we like to think, people like to think, and sometimes pastors think this, and that's dangerous, is that, because they're in a position of authority, they know everything or have some type of idea that they know everything. And I will be quite honest, I don't. Half the time, I don't know what I'm doing. And half the time when we see, you know, there have been people who, as of late at our small church that show up that are becoming part of it, and I'm seeing her going, okay, we really love this and it's great and everything. And I'm like, okay, I don't know what I did and I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm going to assume God is working through all of this. But it's a sense of how.
[19:38] This is also a sense of a vulnerability that we don't know everything. I mean, it's really how God works through us is what matters. I think that's as it should be because the best preachers are those who regard themselves, as Paul did, as nothing. You know, they may have a lot to boast about in terms of skills. A lot of pastors have really good people skills. Most of them have better accounting skills than I ever did as a parish pastor.
[20:22] I was pretty good with a toilet plunger, you know, and I had some sense of how people operate. Right. But my first call was in Pure South Dakota, where our building was across the street from the state capitol with its immaculate grounds. And, you know, the lieutenant governor worshipped at our church. We had circuit court judges, cabinet secretaries who were members of the congregation. Some of the best and brightest people in the state of South Dakota had moved to Pierre to take up work in state government and had grown up Lutheran, so naturally landed at our congregation. And so there were people there who had so many more skills than I did with all kinds of things, you know.
[21:27] Whether it's a building and grounds or strategic planning or whatever. Whatever. And yet, the crazy thing is like the church doors were magic. They came into the church building and forgot everything that they knew out there. And then they left after worship through those same doors and forgot everything they learned inside the church.
[21:56] But I just have never thought that I was an expert at anything except knowing I was a sinner and that Christ was the source of my life. And even there, most days I flit about unaware of my sin, and kind of vaguely confident in my abilities. You know, I know how to drive the seven miles home to my house in the suburbs, and my car can probably do it on autopilot without me steering. It's done that trip back and forth across Des Moines so many times. You know, there's stuff that is easy to make happen, but awareness of my own sin and my own need, awareness of how curved in on myself I am, that is a constant process of which I'm.
[23:15] Continually made aware by God's use of the law in the world, the demands that I'm up against that I don't meet, whether it's speed limits or the fact that I have to figure out what's for supper every freaking night, you know, just adulting. The litter box, our cat uses the litter box and we have to clean it, you know, and I have to take care of that. The lawn has to be taken care of, you know, or the fact that I'm 65 years old and I have an autoimmune disease that causes fatigue, and my body is just aging, and I wear hearing aids, and I've had cataract surgery, and I'm not morbidly obese, but my doctor tells me I need to lose weight. You know, all those things continually tell me that as much as I'd like to think that I'm progressing and getting better, that I'm never really repairing myself, and I don't have it in me, and that my power is extremely limited.
[24:44] And because of that, then, I need a word.
[24:50] And now I've been a pew sitter now for 20-some years, and I get a chance to preach, you know, quarterly or so.
[25:07] And, of course, always think that I have to give them my full load every time. And, you know, unlike you who are preaching Sunday after Sunday, you can go, oh, I'll get some of it next week. At any rate, one of the reasons to preach is that that process of going from God's Word on the page to this proclaimed thing, this verbal event where a word goes from my mouth into the ears of those who have come to worship. So in that space, between those two things, that's where the real struggle with God happens, right? Because you have to be like the Syrophoenician woman who comes to Jesus for healing for her daughter, right? And he says no, right? Right?
[26:14] And it's like she grabs him by the lapels and says, no, you're going to give this to me somehow. Or the wedding feast at Cana at Galilee, you know, where Jesus says to his mother, It's not my time yet. And she just, she knows that he has what's needed and won't relent. She pushes him, you know, and tells the steward, tells the servants, do what he says.
[27:00] And much like that, what happens for a preacher is that the wrestling is, how do I traverse this territory? How do I get from this thing that is the letter on the page to the spoken promise that is the Spirit?
[27:31] Luther wrote an entire treatise called On the Letter and the Spirit, and Augustine dealt with that whole question too. And in some way, that's what drives Paul in the New Testament, particularly in Romans and Galatians. But it's also there in the rest of his epistles that he's trying to figure out what this word that he's been given is and how he's been called to deliver it. You know, the very first verse of Galatians, I just on the way here today in the car I was listening to an old Steve Paulson sermon on Galatians 1.1, and he said, a reading from Galatians chapter 1, Paul, apostle, here ends the reading.
[28:34] It was so great. And he did a whole sermon on Paul, an apostle. But, you know, I mean, Paul is saying, I've been sent to do this, to go to Colossae and Thessalonica and Philippi and Ephesus and Corinth. And I'm coming to Rome, and my job is to figure out how to take the letter of what I've been handed, about Jesus and speak it to you in a way that it becomes God's Word for you. I don't wrestle much with God's existence or questions of theodicy anymore. I think I've I've had, Jesus Christ and Him crucified so embedded in me, along with Martin Luther's small catechism, that I know the language of faith inside and out.
[29:41] And the real work for me is figuring out how to give it.
[29:53] So that actually does then lead to what made you want to create the Iowa Preachers Project? What was so important about, what was the need that was missing among pastors that you felt you needed to have this?
[30:13] You know, here in Iowa, at the University of Iowa, they have the Iowa Writers Workshop, which has produced some of the greatest writers in this country. They've been through that graduate program in writing. And when I moved to Iowa in 2003, I learned more about the Iowa Writers Workshop. I knew a little bit about it beforehand. And I'd read Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres, and she'd come out of that program, and I admired her writing. Oh, what's her name? Marilyn wrote Gilead and Home, and Marilyn Robinson. Robinson. It was connected to the Iowa Writers Workshop. And I thought that's a really cool thing, that writers have a place to go and just work. They can work with one another. Or maybe even you could say play with one another at the task of writing. And in that community, be able to do, to hone, to have their skills honed.
[31:32] You know, you and I have had conversations about Luther Seminary deciding to sell its property and not have a physical site in St. Paul anymore, And that we grieved that because for me, I know, I loved my seminary years because I was there with all these other people who shared this passion, who had been equally grasped by this word, and it was iron sharpening iron. You know, and so I thought, wouldn't it be cool if we could create something like the Iowa Writers Workshop that brought people together, that gave them space to think hard about what it is they do and be given the freedom to explore this stuff.
[32:34] And so, the next thing that happened, well, I never knew how to come up with enough money to make it happen. Because along with other things that this pastor is not good at, fundraising is another thing. And so, but here at Granby University in Des Moines, we'd gotten a couple of grants from the Lilly Endowment. That's the Lilly family that started Lilly Pharmaceuticals. And we had a grant to do a youth theology institute and another big grant of over a million dollars to create a program supporting rural pastors.
[33:28] And that worked really well. And so Lily did a request for proposals a few years
[33:35] ago because the Lily family is connected to the church. And so much of the foundation's philanthropic efforts are aimed at either Indiana, where they're located, or church stuff. And so they looked at the state of the church and saw that, as many of us are aware, that numbers are tanking, particularly in mainline churches, but really across the board in evangelical churches as well. And they did some thinking about what might be the cause of that, and they decided to spend some money on preaching because they thought, well, maybe the problem is that the preaching isn't very good out there.
[34:41] And so they developed what they termed the Compelling Preaching Initiative. And so we applied and we created this thing and they gave us one and a quarter million dollars along with 140 some other grantees. And think about that. That's, you know, $150 million.
[35:14] That's where your weight loss drugs, the money for your weight loss drugs is going these days, and insulin. At any rate, at meetings of the grantees that we've been to in Indianapolis, we discovered that we interpreted the word compelling in a different way than most of the other folks. That they interpreted compelling as being exciting, you know, and rousing, that kind of thing. And we were much more interested in what drives the preacher, what compels you to deliver this word, And how do we support you in a way that other things can be removed so that that urgent desire to proclaim the gospel is supported somehow?
[36:19] And so we've got a five-year grant to play with somebody else's money. And we created this thing where each year we work in partnership with Mockingbird Ministries.
[36:41] If your viewers aren't aware of it, I'm sure they are because you've probably mentioned it. You've had Dave Zoll on here for crying out loud. Yes. Um, um, mbird.com, um, is, is the website for Mockingbird. They, they do amazing work. Um, they're, they're so gospel, grace centered and, um, culturally aware, um, savvy, witty, um, self-abnegating people, um, that, that, and they've got a great constituency. And so we partnered with them. And so each year of the grant, we pulled together a cohort of what we call preaching fellows to talk about preaching and support one another in preaching. This last year, you were part of the inaugural cohort of 10.
[37:39] This year, we're doubling our size to 20, and that was the aim all along is to have 20. We'll see how 20 works. I really liked having 10 because we really got to know one another well. And so what we do is three times during the program year, which starts in September and goes until June. Three times we meet in person and for a couple days together to talk about preaching, to do preaching exercises, to get to know one another, and to have food.
[38:22] Physical food and spiritual food, I guess. And in between months, there's a pattern to our work. The first week of the month, we have an all-cohort Zoom meeting with a guest, where we engage in a conversation about some aspect of preaching, whether it's a theological topic like the bondage of the will or the uses of the law Or something like, you know, preaching Easter. Easter's hard to preach, you know. It's just so nice. Or how do you use illustrations in preaching? Yeah.
[39:10] And then the next week, the cohort is split into small groups with five people in each group, along with a staff member, a guide, we call them. You were in Ryan Stevenson Cosgrove's group, and you can attest to the quality of the guides that there are people who know preaching. They know law and gospel. They have real people skills, and they're committed to this endeavor. And that second week Zoom meeting, the small groups and their guides talk about what they heard the previous week. They check in with one another, tell them what's up, talk about what's coming up in preaching, yada, yada, yada. On a third week of the month, the guide does individual contacts with each of the preaching fellows. And then the last week of the month is sermon feedback week. And we're still kind of figuring out how to reshape that after the first year. We weren't quite satisfied with what happened. And we got great feedback from you preaching fellows in June.
[40:26] And at the end of the program year, we give you a certificate that says you did this. But I think it's what happens, at least what we saw happening this year with U10 and our guides and our preacher in residence, Jason Michele, is that this... Cohesion happened, you know, and a trust that a community was shaped.
[41:01] The other thing I haven't even mentioned is that the Iowa Preachers Project, first, it's not for Iowans. It's just, you know, our office is in Iowa, and it's kind of a takeoff on the graduate program at the university. But that it's for anybody, and it works across denominations. So last year we had you, who's from Christian Church Disciples of Christ, Episcopal Church, Presbyterian Church USA, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, PCO, a different Presbyterian Church? ECO, Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians. Okay.
[41:48] Let's see, what else? There was Wisconsin Synod. Oh, Wisconsin Synod Lutherans. This year, we've got, let's see, Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, United Methodist Church, PCUSA, Episcopal Church, non-denominational, independent Baptist. I know you have another disciple. Oh, and we've got another Disciples of Christ pastor, Lauren. Hi, Lauren, if you're watching.
[42:26] And it's so interesting to me to watch the interplay among these people who are committed to their tradition.
[42:42] You're not going to not be a Disciples of Christ person, Dennis, and I'm not going to be—I'm going to be Lutheran. But there was such respect for one another's traditions, and it felt like we had a vision of a post-denominational church.
[43:09] Do you agree with that? I think so, yeah. That I always think that I've come to believe that what happens in the Iowa Preachers Project is the parable of the mustard seed at work. That this little thing that is this word, this promise in Christ, from God in Christ that has come to us, that's been planted in us, that has grown up in us. And the end of that parable says that the mustard seed grows, and the very last line is, and the birds make nests in its branches. And the 20th century ecumenical movement really wanted no branches. It sought to eliminate the many permutations of the church and all come under one umbrella. And.
[44:18] But to do that is to chop off all the branches and have just a trunk. And how many birds can make nests on a stump? One. Yeah. You know, and we've come to see God at work in the branches and have been able to revel in that to celebrate that God is using these various facets of the body of Christ as landing pads, for all kinds of sinful birds to find home.
[45:02] So, I don't know, what else do you want to know about the Iowa Preachers Project? What am I missing? You've been a part of it. Well, I think one of the things that was amazing about that cohort was the fact that it was from so many widely different aspects of the church. And one that we didn't talk about is that, you know, myself and one other member of the cohort were gay. And we also had members of the group that came from denominations that, you know, were not gay friendly. And yet, we all came together. There was not a, we're not talking to you in the world, we aren't. Yeah, which is not to say that that particular preaching fellow was not friendly to the gay participants in the project.
[45:54] But, you know, our stance all along has been we are not the gatekeepers for who gets to be called to preach. The Holy Spirit has given that vocation to other parts of the body of Christ. Our job is to take, who's there. And what we found is that the people who apply are so uniformly good, that we could pretty much draw names out of a hat and have a great cohort.
[46:44] Because they, to a person, feel a sense of urgency about the gospel. They have a sense that this is for me, that it actually matters in my life, in their own lives, let's say, and that it will matter for their hearers as well, and that they want to get better at it, and they're excited to connect with other folks. I think we have an advantage in our pool of possible applicants because of our connection to Mockingbird, because if people know us through Mockingbird, they're already predisposed to the kind of talking about God that we do.
[47:37] Yeah, and I think what was great about that, again, because I think that there are so few places in our society where people from so many different walks of life can come together. There's a lot of that fear of coming together. And that there are people who are slinging anathemas at one another 150 years ago. Exactly. Exactly. You know, just amongst Lutherans, there was a huge, huge battle over predestination in the late 19th century that a lot of the Lutheran groups—.
[48:17] Came into existence on account of, and that we find ways to—we have freedom in Christ. This is Galatians 5, right? For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. You're free to proclaim this. You're free to do this. But Paul says later in the chapter, only do not use your freedom to bash people over the heads, right, or to coerce them into something. Instead, come to them in love. And what we experienced with the cohort this
[49:07] last year is just this great love and care and delight that everybody had for one another. Well, you know, it's really kind of a playground, and these are people who play well together.
[49:27] And I did interviews with everybody who's in the cohort for the coming year, and I can tell you the same thing is true of them. And I'm hoping that somehow each year's cohort gets connected with the previous year's folks and that what we do here comes to be known as a place that maybe you can find a preacher that understands church differently or with more joy and freedom.
[50:14] Yeah, I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens with our new cohort. They can't possibly be as good as you and the rest of this last year, Dennis. Well, that brings up something, because you talked about knowing the role of the pastor, and that's something that I've been thinking about a lot, especially in our time that we're living in now, is I feel like a lot of pastors don't know that role. One of the main things that we want to focus on is the importance of preaching God's love, preaching grace. But it feels like at times the temptation that we're living in, and I guess I kind of write this from a mainline Protestant viewpoint, is in some ways to preach law because we feel like we're looking at the news and feel like the times demand it. And maybe that—yeah, go ahead. The thing is, so often amongst Lutherans, particularly my brand of Lutherans, is what gets preached is love. But to preach love is to preach the law.
[51:44] Love one another. They'll know we are Christians by our love. The old song goes that I learned in Bible school when I was in fifth grade.
[51:56] That what happens is that preachers turn the sermon into a job description for a certain kind of living. And as soon as they make that move, the job description, the tasks for Christian living fall under that pastor's own predilections, usually political points of view. And so it may be a point of view about gay people or about abortion or about a particular, I mean, the IRS just announced that now preachers are allowed to endorse candidates from the pulpit.
[52:42] That it becomes this thing that your hearers are told to do, right? And it's what Luther called active righteousness. Rather than passive righteousness, which is something that comes, as Paul says in Romans, by hearing, by having a promise laid on you, that faith comes because the gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified has been given to you in a way that you come to understand that He is indeed Lord of all, and that has the entire history of the cosmos and its future in hand, and by the evidence of the cross and resurrection.
[53:36] Is literally hell-bent on delivering, including you, Dennis, and me, and whoever's watching this, that there's this distinction in kinds of preaching that we can—there are lots of denominations that—one of our preaching fellows for this coming year talked about the tradition that he grew up in, and he talked about it being so Mr. Rogers nice that Jesus became like Mr. Rogers and, and, um, absolutely wound up without any power at all. Um, and, and it turned him away from the church because, um, he wanted, he wanted a God who had some oomph to him. Um, and, um.
[54:36] I think that's really true. What sounds like nice words in the end can easily become something that is a yoke that gets laid on people, that becomes a thing that is ephemeral or doesn't last and tries to turn it into something. And we know from the scriptures and from the creeds and our own experience that the one thing that lasts is Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. And the other things are things that, like the people from Jerusalem who showed up in Galatia, have shown up with something to add to Christ. So that we have a lot of preachers who can say nice things about Jesus.
[55:41] But then want to add something to it. They don't trust that the Holy Spirit is actually going to work in that promise and have to do more.
[56:00] Okay, here's Jesus. God loves you. Jesus loves you. The Bible tells me so. And now go do this, which often comes up in what we jokingly refer to as lettuce prayers. Yep. Right. Or let us sermons. Let us now do this. Let us do this. Let us do this. That the preacher determines in advance how the Holy Spirit is supposed to work through people.
[56:32] In the Lutheran Confessions, Article 5 of the Lutheran Confessions, of the Augsburg Confession, that Philip Melanchthon, Luther's colleague, wrote and presented to the Holy Roman Emperor in 1530, it says, in order to obtain such saving faith in Jesus Christ, God institutes the office of preaching, that is, the gospel and the sacraments, so that the Holy Spirit, as means through which the Holy Spirit brings faith when and where it pleases. The preacher doesn't get to decide how the promise works on people.
[57:21] I think one of the consequences of that, too, is that that's part of the burnout for preachers. Is that they keep at this endeavor, and yet they see that people are still, pardon the language, kind of shitty and don't improve themselves. And, you know, they're not volunteering for enough stuff. They're not changing their lives. They're not working toward the old language of the amendment of life. And so they start thinking, what am I doing this for? Or they think, well, maybe I just have to do it harder. Or to use the language of the grant, they have to be more compelling, more exciting in what they do. Really what they need to do is step out of the pulpit and not wear vestments and wear expensive sneakers and have their shirt tail untucked and speak without notes. And then, you know, they have to go out to all that work of, like our friend in last year's cohort who gets up at four on Sunday mornings and says.
[58:35] He memorizes his sermon and goes through it about 80 times before he delivers the sermon. You have to work at that. He does that very well, by the way. He did. And it's a real gift that I don't have. At any rate, you just start. It's this hamster wheel. The preacher feels like they have to work harder and harder and harder all the time. But if all you're called to do is actually deliver the goods in as pure a way as possible, in a way that makes sense to people, in a way that grabs hold of them somehow.
[59:19] Now, then it's about just the metric now is not do you have more butts in the pews or increased giving or more Bible reading or more people at your weekly Bible study or a bigger youth group or whatever. That's not the metric anymore. The metric is, were you faithful in moving from the word on the page to the spoken word somehow? And are you faithful at finding ways to help the body of Christ in your congregation structure itself, so that that word is freed up and so that people who have ears to hear can grab hold of it. That seems to me to be a lot more freeing.
[1:00:28] And maybe a remedy for proclamatory burnout.
[1:00:35] Yeah, it's interesting what you said earlier, because that reminds me of something, I guess, I read somewhere and it was attributed to Stanley Hauerwas about how basically how love can become like the law. And it's something that seems really cool and really awesome that say, you know, God is love can all of a sudden become this kind of crushing burden and kind of pharisaical instead of freeing. And it's something to remember because I think it's— You know, notice, I mean, we've mentioned Galatians a few times here. Notice what happens in Galatians is that chapter 5 is about the faith. Yeah, earlier in Galatians, Paul looks back toward Abraham and that Abraham believed and thus was justified, right? And that Abraham's faith came on account of a promise from God, all these promises that the Lord laid on him. And then as his argument develops in Galatians, Paul says, What faith gives is freedom, right?
[1:02:03] But love is simply one among a long list of fruits of the Spirit that if he's intentional about using the word fruit, it's something that is not placed on the branches, but that grows from it. From it, yeah. Right? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Somewhere along the line, I fulfilled the law by memorizing that verse.
[1:02:42] That's an outgrowth of hearing the gospel, but it is not the gospel. It's a penultimate thing. And what Paul's opponents in Galatia did was they substituted those things, or in the specific case of the Galatians, circumcision as the gospel. Because anytime you add something to Christ, it's the thing that's added that becomes the thing. Right? Right. And I always love it when a preacher knows when to quit, you know. Okay, right, you gave it to me. Oh, now you've got five more minutes.
[1:03:41] What are you going to give me now? And usually it's additives. Yep. You know, it's the homiletical version of red dye number three. Yeah, and we could always do with less red dye number three or any other additives for that matter. Yeah, yeah. Polysorbate or whatever.
[1:04:05] Monosodium glutamate. Well, if people want to know more about the Preacher's Project or even follow kind of your writings, where should they go? I've written a lot of stuff for both Mockingbird and 1517, a similar organization that operates out of Southern California. I have a book called A Lutheran Toolkit, which is not for Lutherans, but it's about a toolkit that came out of the Lutheran tradition, a way of thinking about the gospel, God, Jesus, sacraments, the will, all that kind of stuff. So it's called A Lutheran Toolkit. You can get that on Amazon.
[1:04:58] And then I'm working on editing an unpublished manuscript, a book manuscript by Gerhard Ferdi. I'm also working on another little book project about Lucas Cranach, the Reformation artist who painted the altarpiece at the city church in Wittenberg, Germany.
[1:05:24] But you can just Google Ken's son at John's and you'll find stuff that I've done. But for the Preachers Project, go to IAPreachers.org, all one word, IAPreachers. And you'll see a description of what the project is, frequently asked questions. You'll see our Theological Foundation statement, which I think is pretty succinct and I think is also helpful for preachers. We also, there are, we post, we're starting to use that website as kind of a clearinghouse for some articles. And you can see how to apply for the 2026-2027 cohort, which next spring will open applications for that. We're looking for more centers that want to get better at it. Amazing. Okay.
[1:06:35] And let me ask this of your viewers. Please pray for the Ira Preachers Project. We know that this is something that God has hold of, that this is not something that, is ours, that it's God's, and pray that God would do something with this. It's like Luther later in his career looking back on everything that happened after the 95 Theses exploded across Europe. He said, God did everything. It wasn't us. Philip Melanchthon and I just sat and drank Wittenberg beer, and the Holy Spirit made it happen. And, you know, I feel like we put this thing together, and it works pretty dang well, and we have a lot of delight in what happens.
[1:07:46] And we just pray and we hope that the viewers will pray too that God will make something of it, that the word that we proclaim in Iowa Preachers Project won't return empty, that God will do something with it, and I'm confident he will. So, I mean, He gave us you, and you're up there in St. Paul, and you're doing your stuff week in, week out. You're faithful as anything. You're working with the other preaching fellows in your cohort to stay connected, to find a way to support one another in ways that maybe you don't find in your own denominational groups. and.
[1:08:40] Something's going to happen with it and you know, It's going to be good. Christ has promised to be there wherever two or three are gathered. That is, where there's a mouth to speak the gospel and ears to hear. And we're about that space in between the mouth and the ears. Yeah, and I think the whole thing about, you said earlier about the mustard seed, is the fascinating thing is what grows. And that takes a while, but it does happen. And I think that's always a fascinating thing. Is this in Corinthians where Paul says, I planted a Paul's water, you know, that we have our little thing to do. We're not going to save Christendom from itself.
[1:09:39] We're not going to be Luther or Calvin. Or Menno or Hutter or, you know, the people who set out in your own tradition, Dennis, to seek some kind of revival. We just want to do this 10 talents that we've been handed and not bury them. Yeah. Yeah, there's just one, in my tradition, one Alexander Campbell, and that's fine. Yeah, you don't have to be that. Yep. Although, you know, God might use you. There may be a splendid explosion of faith in the east half of the Twin Cities because of what people hear on a Sunday morning from you. Yeah, and I think that's the... One thing that we haven't talked about, but I think this is true, and maybe that trusting about how God will work is the notion of surprise and to see how God will work.
[1:11:02] The Gerhard Ferdi manuscript I'm working on has—I don't know where it is, somewhere in my office, his tentative title uses the word surprise, isn't it? Okay. That the gospel comes to people who are curved in on themselves and are surprised to be freed in spite of themselves. That's my story. You know, I mean, that's my faith story, is continually being surprised by this thing.
[1:11:41] And now after over three decades preaching, it's about being surprised at the depths there are to plumb in it and how people actually grab hold of it. When they hear it and they start getting ornery when they don't get the good stuff, you know? Well, Ken, this has been a great talk. I'm glad that we were able to connect. Well, I'm just so happy to see my friend Dennis on my monitor. Likewise, likewise here. Well, I hope we can do this kind of interview again and talk again soon.
[1:12:36] Yeah, I'll tell a different life story next time. Oh, I'm looking forward to that. Seriously.
[1:12:45] Music.
[1:13:14] Well, I hope you enjoyed that episode. If you have thoughts about the episode, please, again, send an email to churchandmain, all one word, at substack.com. And I will include links to the Iowa Preachers Project if you want to learn more about it, or if you want to consider being part of the next cohort for 2026-2027. them. And also, there are some links to Ken's book, which he wrote, A Lutheran Toolkit, and you don't have to be Lutheran to read that book.
[1:13:56] If you want to learn more about the podcast, listen to past episodes, or donate, visit churchinmain.org. And you can also go to churchinmain.substack.com to read related articles. I hope that you will consider subscribing to the podcast, your favorite podcast app, and please consider leaving a review. That helps others find the podcast. And also, if you want to, please consider signing up to get the podcast in your email inbox. There's a link in the show notes. Also, you can make a donation. That link is also in the show notes. That is it for this episode of Church in Maine. I'm Dennis Sanders, your host. Thank you so much for listening. Take care, everyone. Godspeed. And I will see you very soon.
[1:14:47] Music.