The Tim Ahlman Podcast
The Tim Ahlman Podcast is your go-to resource for inspiring conversations that equip leaders to thrive in every vocation, inside and outside the church. With three primary focuses, this podcast dives deep into:
Leadership: Learn from experts across diverse fields as we explore how their insights can shape and sustain a healthy culture in the local church and beyond. Over 60% of listeners expressed a desire for practical discussions on cultivating thriving environments—and that's exactly what these conversations will deliver.
Learn: Engage in deep theological discussions with scholars who illuminate how Christ is revealed on every page of Scripture. Together, we’ll bridge theology to the realities of a post-Christian America, ensuring practical application for today’s world. This segment aligns closely with the themes of the American Reformation Podcast and resonates with the 60% of you who crave more exploration in this area.
Live: Discover healthy habits that empower leaders in all vocations to become holistically healthy. As followers of Jesus, we’re called to lead not only with faith but also with physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.
Join Tim Ahlman as we navigate leadership, learning, and living with purpose, so you can lead with strength, wisdom, and a Christ-centered vision.
The Tim Ahlman Podcast
Real Reason Churches Don’t Grow?
What if one of the most "outdated" evangelism methods actually works better than we think? In this fascinating conversation, Pastor Timothy Koch dismantles the misconception that door-to-door evangelism belongs in the past and demonstrates how this approach is bringing people to Jesus in communities across America.
• 33% of people in rural towns are unchurched, contrary to the misconception that everyone in small towns already belongs to a church
• Koch's organization Jesus Door to Door (JD2D.org) provides free resources and training for congregations
• The evangelism approach uses a simple survey method that allows 95% of respondents to hear the Gospel
• Cook teaches a clear way to articulate faith: "I'm a sinner separated from God, but Jesus suffered and died for my sins"
• Two-thirds of people answer their doors, and 5% are open to follow-up visits
• Door-to-door evangelism strengthens the faith of those who participate by helping them clearly articulate their beliefs
• The approach has led to new believers and church members, including families who have become faithful attendees
• Rural communities need strong pastoral leadership despite declining populations
Through meaningful interviews and heartfelt conversations, Friar Time, hosted by Fr....
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Welcome to the Tim Allman Podcast. It's a beautiful day to be alive. I pray. The joy of Jesus is your strength as we get to learn today with a friend that I've known for some time and I get to reconnect. This is Pastor Tim Cook. He grew up in Minnesota, parents are Lutheran grade school teachers. He's married to Emily, has five kids Ezra, evelyn, levi, annie and JL. Am I saying that right? That's a cool name, jl. And from 13 down to two years old, he is a Concordia Nebraska graduate. We overlapped a little bit. You knew my brother, probably, and my sister, ruth, tim, right, I think your sister.
Speaker 2:Ruth was in my class.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's right. She's a couple years younger. He's a 2010 Concordia Seminary in St Louis grad and then he got his STM with Jeff Cloa as his thesis advisor in 2013. His first call dual parish in Crespard and Wakota, South Dakota, both located in Falk County with a population of 2,100 people probably more cattle there than people would imagine. A second call was in Emanuel Lutheran Church in Milbank, South Dakota, and his current call he's in Lynn, Kansas, directly south, about 80 miles, he said, from Seward, Nebraska, northern part of Kansas, population of 380 people. Today, that's his context. He's been in rural context and yet today the conversation is gonna focus on evangelism, door-to-door evangelism. So let's talk about Jesus and door-to-door evangelism to kick us off there, Tim, many missiologists, especially here in America, think this is an outdated approach. You say otherwise. Take it away, buddy. Thanks for hanging with me today on the podcast.
Speaker 2:This is great, Sure, I say otherwise, because our confession is that I cannot, by my own reason or strength, believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him, and so our default position as Lutherans is we can't control the effectiveness. And so my mantra for evangelism has always been 2 Corinthians 9, I think it's verse 6. I should know the verse. That's embarrassing. Whoever sows sparingly, reaps sparingly. Whoever sows bountifully, reaps bountifully. And so this is one, just one possible way of sowing bountifully the word of God, and I think that's probably why I, even if it were outdated, it's just it's more. It's always. You just add more. We're not. I'm not going to do the dichotomy. It's either this type or this type. You just it's this plus this, plus add. I'll just add more, it's more.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, I mean our God. Yeah, our God is a God of abundance, right, and he wants all to be saved. So it just makes sense of the church. And it's very evident with the early church that in their going this is Matthew 28, great Commission right In their going they were going to make disciples. How does that happen? Through the word. They were going to be very open out, in their homes, obviously, in their marketplaces, and with their neighbors, people that they know and trust. So you do door to door. If you want to look it up, what's your website? You've done a lot of training. Let's throw that out right at the beginning there, tim.
Speaker 2:It's the letter J, the letter D, the number two and then the letter Dorg. So JD2Dorg stands for Jesus Door to Door, and that's the name for what I'm doing. It's not a formal nonprofit, I'm not registered anywhere, it's not an RSO. But people have asked what are you doing, what kind of stuff do you have, what resources? And I put them on that website just to help. There were documents. So if you don't like my canvassing survey, you can just cut out the questions you don't like, add new ones. It should be pretty adjustable, have you?
Speaker 1:I mean right up front. Have you seen results here, tim? Have people come?
Speaker 2:to know and follow Jesus. 5% of the people we talk to are open to a follow-up visit, so that's pretty good. Now I typically go to a congregation, canvass on their behalf and then go home to my place Again population 382. I can hit my town in a day, and so the follow-up that's the one piece that I don't see very often. But in my own context, august 2022, I went to the town of Washington, kansas, about 10 miles north of me, canvassed about a third of the town, a couple of teams and in November I had a family well, a couple drop by. So three months later they weren't even home. They just had the track that we stuck in the door and they brought it with them and they put it on my desk and they said this is a sign from God. We want to join your church and they have, and they're amazing and they don't miss. They're there every Sunday. That's just one. I mean, what's one example? There's another one.
Speaker 2:We were up in Utica, nebraska, which, if you grew up or went to Seward Utica, has what population? Probably 900. The church is huge. You would think that the entire town is churched, but we were canvassing the town and one of our teams met a guy. He's like yeah, you know, I grew up Lutheran kind of fell away from the faith. I'm married. I've got two kids one on the way. I'd like to get them baptized. We got them plugged in with their pastor over there. He texted me about a month ago. He said I've got them in pre-baptism classes. They've been worshiping faithfully since December and thank you for the work you did and, bearing the fruit Town of 900, got a family of five just like that.
Speaker 1:Well, hey, tim, I think the fields are ripe under the harvest. They've always been, but I think right now, for churches that want to lean into an invite culture, we've been talking about invitability for the last quarter or so, like with great, great intention and this is boasting in the Lord, not in, but with some intention and for us, our canvassing is mostly online. Right, we're? We're doing a lot of different ads trying to drive people to our website, first time users on our website and we're seeing we're seeing first time users 92 first time users that go to our website. And we're seeing first-time users 92 first-time users that go to our website. We know that equals one person coming to one of our campuses and just in the month of March we've had over 70 first-time folks say they're with us at our campuses. That's three Sundays, we're in early mid-March, so that's one other data point to say.
Speaker 1:I think people are open to an invite. Do they know your church is there? Do you let them know that you're not weird and that they could meet and follow Jesus here? So let's get into the details about what you teach. In your training you said you raise up teams and then they go canvassing door to door they enter into conversations. Take us through some of the training that you give to folks.
Speaker 2:Sure. So when I get together at a congregation, we usually go from nine to four do a Bible study. I usually let the local pastor lead a Bible study, and that gives me time to organize teams and put together the data not the data but the, because we record data so the clipboards and the paperwork and their surveys, and the pencils and the tracks, all that stuff. And then we meet and I teach them the canvassing survey, which I can rattle through in a second, and then, primarily though, I want them to be able to articulate the gospel. Lutherans have great vocabulary. We got the vocabulary of the gospel. Our problem, I think, is an articulation problem, which is, when pressed, we don't often give a very clear confession of Jesus Christ. And so I help them do that and I focus primarily on. I learned it from a group called the Ongoing Ambassadors for Christ, and it's just, you know, they call it the 3S method.
Speaker 2:I'm a sinner. The consequence of sin is I'm separated from God. So that's the sin, separation. And then that's why I'm glad to know he sent Jesus to suffer, die and rise in victory to pay for all my sins. I know I'm going to heaven because of what Jesus did for me. And then we add on, and I want you to know that that promise is true for you too. So that's typically how we present the gospel. There are a couple of other ways that I do it, but that's a predominant one. That's probably over 90%. So I teach the kids how to do that because it allows for you to.
Speaker 2:In our canvassing survey we ask them where do you believe you'll go when you die? And then if they say heaven and that's 78% of people say heaven then we ask them why do you believe that? Can you give me a brief account for why you believe that? And you can kind of divide their answer into four categories. It's either because they're trusting in Jesus, which is great, they're trusting in their own good works they don't know that's another category or they won't answer the question. So those are kind of the four categories.
Speaker 2:So if they say a thing we hear often is because I read the Bible, then you can validate that you've heard them by saying well, I read the Bible too, but I still sin. And since God requires perfection now you're just kind of off to the races. So I like this witnessing method because of its flexibility. I can take almost anything you say, and transition smoothly into I'm a sinner. That separates me from God. God sent Jesus. I know I'm going to heaven because of what Jesus did for me. I want you to know that promise is true for you too.
Speaker 1:So I love that, tim. Well, there's been. There's some Kennedy evangelism elements in your training and sometimes I think Kennedy has gotten a bad name because there was a season and I think it gets lumped in with maybe some church growth methods that some people would be kind of uncomfortable with, especially in Lutheran circles and things. What are the main attacks you hear on asking that question? Where are you going if you die? Heaven, heaven or hell? And how have you some maybe a little bit more of a complex, nuanced question? How is this distinct from Kennedy? What you're, what you're doing, and obviously you're a Lutheran, you're a faithful Lutheran pastor. How does it look different? Because we're confessing Lutherans, yeah, so Kennedy.
Speaker 2:His question is are you absolutely certain that if you were to die right now, you would go to heaven? That's his question, which presumes, in my opinion humble opinion, and I think it worked great in this context in the 70s or whenever this thing was born but it presumes too much. You're presuming you're talking to somebody who even believes there's a heaven, and so I'm not asking you to buy into the framework under which I'm operating. I'm simply asking you to give an account for what you think happens when you die. And then I ask for permission. So where do you believe it will go when you die? Why do you believe that? If they say heaven or purgatory or hell, and then my follow-up question is can I share with you where I know I will go when I die?
Speaker 2:95% of the people who hear that question say yes. 95% of the people who take our survey will stick around to hear the gospel, and then it's just me telling. So I listen to what you had to say, and now you respectfully listen to what I have to say, and then I conclude that by I want you to know that promise is true for you too, and so it's less kind of. I mean it's aggressive in the sense that I'm going door to door. That comes across as aggressive, but it's far less aggressive in the actual verbiage than the evangelism, than the Kennedy evangelism explosions.
Speaker 1:I'm curious in your research how many doors get opened Like because people aren.
Speaker 2:I'd have to crunch the numbers of the people who answer the door. Sixty seven percent. Take the survey it's very consistently two thirds.
Speaker 1:And the survey are those questions you were just asked and they give that back to you. Is it or is it? It's a? It's a conversation. Is the survey? Is that? Is that what I'm getting? So here's the survey.
Speaker 2:Hi, we're from Zion Lutheran Church in Linn, kansas. We're taking a short religious survey. Can I ask you a few quick questions? If they say no, thank you for your time and we leave, and if we have time I'll come back to why that's important. But if they say yes, and 67% say yes two thirds these are the questions.
Speaker 2:Are you familiar with Zion Lutheran Church? Did you go to church when you were growing up? If so, what denomination? Denomination Do you go to church now? If so, what denomination? Are you baptized? Do you have a Bible in your home? Do you have a favorite Bible story? And then, if so, what is it? Can I ask for your first name? Where do you believe you'll go when you die? Is Jesus made up or a real? Do you believe Jesus is made up or a real person? Then I ask can I ask for your name? Where do you believe you'll go when you die? Can I share with you where I know I will go when I die? And if we sense that there's some kind of more genuine interest or opportunity for follow-up, we'll add up the question. Can somebody from our congregation come back and talk to you further about our mission and our Lord Jesus?
Speaker 1:That's cool Under two minutes. Yeah, not long. What percentage of people say Jesus existed?
Speaker 2:Oh, I crunched those numbers just now it is 94%.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, I mean that is the question. You believe Jesus existed. Well, what do you believe he did? Right, everybody. That's high, that's great Because historically, you can't deny it.
Speaker 2:I started asking that question the first time. I added it to the survey on September 16th 2023. So a little almost two years now I've been asking that question. That's the last question I've added to the survey. Since then, 898 people have. We've asked that question to 898 people and 55 of them, or 6.12%, said no, he's not real.
Speaker 1:That's so good. Any other distinct features? You have like eight distinct features here, tim, about what makes JD2D distinct, and one of them is short on theory, long on action. You can walk through any of those or just share more of the process.
Speaker 2:So the short on theory, long on action. One is we're really good at talking about evangelism this is another Bible passage. And all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty Proverbs 14, 23. And we talk about evangelism a lot and if I tell people, hey, we're going to get together and talk about evangelism, I'll get like 50 people to show up, especially if I promote it, if I do that same promotion and say, hey, we're going to get together and we're actually going to do evangelism. I want to get like eight, because if you've not done it before, it's scary, even if you have done it before. Sometimes it's just intimidating and it's scary. But it's just, you learn by doing. I mean that's true for anything, that's true for tithing, for crying out loud. You learn by doing, you do it, you do it, you do it. And so you just kind of got to throw yourself out there and so that's, yeah, we're really short. I mean I train you in under two hours and then we just we go out. But I'm able to do that because I'm talking with people who have been saying the creed In the church. I mean, they've been in church, they know who Jesus is and if they can give an account of their faith. Sometimes they get swallowed up by the survey, right In the sense of like they're following the script.
Speaker 2:When I was with a kid he was a junior in high school we were in Mount Calvary Lutheran Church in Brookings, south Dakota. We're knocking on the door. It's the first time he led the call. Usually he was writing down the information he was my scribe, but he said he was willing. I'm willing to talk at the door this time. Nice lady answers the door. She's a Methodist and he reads. He's just reading the card like this, you know, and he's getting through the questions. You know where do you believe to go when you die? She tells him why do you believe that? She tells him can I share with you where I know I will go when I die? She says yes, and then he locks up.
Speaker 2:He's too nervous, the nerves just swallow him up and he like spins around and he looks back at me. I'm like two steps down on the porch and his name was Peyton and I said Peyton, tell the woman why you believe you're going to heaven. And he like looks back at her and he pauses a couple of seconds and he says because, says Jesus. And then he gave her the literature and laughed and I was like I've been doing this a long time, I've heard much worse, I've heard much worse. So he got, he continued to come with me. God bless him.
Speaker 2:I don't know if his mom made him forced him to join me when I went out on these because he was a member of my church, so we'd go out and he'd frequently join. He got much more polished and smooth and that stuff. But that's where he started. That was his first experience of having to articulate his faith and if I were there the next time then I've had other kids do similar things and I say, okay, jesus, what did he do? Well, he died. See, we know the things. So he got stuck on the script. I I don't remember that 3S script. Okay, that's just helping you, but you actually know the information.
Speaker 1:So just tell them why you know you're going to heaven. Well, that's as concise of an answer as you can possibly give. That's right, One word answer. It's a Sunday School answer and that is enough. It's faith in Jesus.
Speaker 2:Well, if you're going to give an account for your faith, for your salvation, if you, any human being, is going to give an account for your salvation and the name Jesus does not leave your lips, it's a problem. You've dropped the ball on the articulation part. I'm not saying you don't have faith, I can't see faith, that's God's prerogative. But on the articulation front you've got to talk about Jesus if you're talking about your salvation. And that's what I found so interesting. Because I'll go to congregations or Lutheran congregations. Many of them have Lutheran schools and I asked the kids these questions point blank in the training.
Speaker 2:I start by asking survey and the number of I don't know, because I go to church I get so much of that and it's like even you don't believe that and that's what you said. And it's like even you don't believe that and that's what you said, like you know. So you just have to kind of guide them through. And then you point out kind of well, going to church is good, but why do we find that kind of an unsatisfactory answer? And then it kind of clicks for the kids and then once they do it, okay, what they've experienced going door to door or role playing in the training, excuse me, that just carries with them into school, work, life, friends, family. It's sticky. The training is sticky. It goes with them wherever they go. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Why wouldn't we want that? We desperately need it, brother. Well, most of your ministry has been in rural America. I think one of the misnomers is that the church in rural America because population is declining, which is a true thing, our urban, suburban centers are getting larger, rural, you know, and there's a lot of reasons for that, but that there isn't a mission. I love that your context is where you're at and that this training is going into small towns and obviously can go into urban and suburban areas as, or smaller cities as as well. It just translates. So what are people's misperceptions about rural ministry today? I'd love for you to dismiss some of those misperceptions, because that's been the entirety of your ministry, praise God.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the misperception is that everybody in a rural town is churched. It's simply not true. That's probably the biggest one. So I'll call a church again, because if I try to do this once a month, especially during the academic year, then I take a week-long trip at the end of May. This year I'm going to Denver and we're so the but, yeah, the idea that everybody in a small town has church.
Speaker 2:So I called a church here. I was trying to get in, I needed a place to go here in March, called the church in a town of about 800 people. Hey, can we come out and do this? And they're like no, you know him and Hod? I don't think so. Everybody here is Catholic. I said well, come on. I said, if that's true, why is there a Lutheran church there? Well, it's mostly Catholic. I said it's not all Catholic. I said I've been doing this for five years. 33% of the people you're talking to are unchurched. Do you want them to come to you? Do you want to invite them? Do you want? Do they even know you exist? Well, everyone. That's the other misconception. Everyone knows we exist. I have never, ever, I've been had a canvassing where, when I ask people, are you familiar with whatever church we're representing 100% say yes, that's never happened, ever, and we're usually almost always within walking distance of the congregation for which we're canvassing.
Speaker 1:So small churches can grow in rural areas. Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:When I was in Crestbard population 90, county population 2,100, 400 of them were Hutterites, so they're not even really evangelism material because they live on colonies. 1,700 people in the county. Like. My goal was let's add one person to the membership books each year. Let's make that our goal and some years we got it. Sometimes we exceeded it and sometimes we didn't, but it's just intentional.
Speaker 2:If I took a picture, I did this. I gave a presentation at a rural conference and I borrowed. Like my sister lives near Washington DC, so I borrowed their little Facebook, you know pictorial directory. And then I took a pictorial directory from my congregation, a pictorial directory from Brian Lee's congregation in Kalispell and a bunch of these, and I cut out the pictures and then I scanned them and that was my opening slide and I just asked the crew that was gathered. I said how many of these people deserve to have a good pastor who loves Jesus, is zealous for the work and joyous of the gospel? And of course all the hands go up and I said okay, I forgot to tell you.
Speaker 2:You know, some of them live in rural communities. You want to change your opinion? Of course the answer is no, they don't want to change their opinion on that. But you know, rural communities suffer because they can't keep talent, they can't. They can't keep doctors, they can't keep lawyers, they can't keep school administrators, they can't keep pastors. Keep lawyers, they can't keep school administrators, they can't keep pastors, they just they churn through. If you can make it work in rural America, you can make it work anywhere else at far greater price points. And so the rewards have to be something other than monetary. And so we do a lot of. You know, we have to raise up people from our own community who love our community, because it's extraordinarily difficult to entice people to come in.
Speaker 1:Yes, have you had a lot of. Now we're getting into LCMS, leadership development stuff. Have you had a lot of pastors in your network go through SMP?
Speaker 2:A bunch of them when I was in South Dakota. But I'm fairly new to Kansas three years, not as many around here. Also, that's just, I'm in a very highly dense lutheran area. It's very weird. Um, it's unique, it's not normal. It's not at all normal. It's a blessing, so I lean into the blessing, but it's not normal. Yes, up in south dakota there were, there were quite a number of them, there were two in my circuit and then in fact, that congregation I was serving my first call is currently being served by an smp guy and they're going to have another SMP guy start August of 2026. So that's just the future for them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great. I've been having a lot of conversations. I think SMP could improve and we could get rid of some of the stigma around it. In my experience there are a number of laymen in our congregations that would be open, that are open to a longer formation journey. It doesn't mean that we can't ordain after two years. I like that feature of SMP, but to even get to a Master of Divinity in an online space, and I'm hoping that our seminaries and Synod are open to that in the Lord's time, because the kind of different tiers of pastors those of them residential MDiv and then the SMP guys that kind of divide is unfortunate. You have any thoughts there, tim?
Speaker 2:Yeah, probably lots of them. I like it's tough. I think the short answer is I agree, I agree, I agree with you. It's kind of that.
Speaker 1:Okay, thanks, yeah, let's just stop there.
Speaker 2:You know, when they can't find someone to come in. But the heart is there and so to lead. Like I said, I was skeptical of the SMP program and then I landed in South Dakota and my closest pastor LCMS pastor was SMP. He made the SMP program look awesome. I immediately repented of my preconceived notions and then I was blessed to teach a couple of SMP classes in 2016. And so I got to see how those cohorts work and kind of how the whole program operates, and that was a great blessing too. So I've really been supportive of the SMP program.
Speaker 2:I've also said I think the SMP program has a better vetting process than our seminaries, because we can conceive, because the S&P program asks the question are you willing for this man to be your pastor? That's a much different question than do you think it's conceivable that there is a place somewhere in the United States where this man could be a pastor and you know you don't want to get in the way of the Holy Spirit, but humility, I appreciate that with people, but kind of it's like yeah, hopefully, but but if you were to ask the same question like, do you want this guy to be your pastor? Oh no, no, you know. So I kind of like I like the vetting process of the, of the SMP program in that way, which is it just has that kind of that personal connection where it's not hypothetical, it's not hypothetical, it's very real. And I think you just kind of start with better moldable. You know, the clay you work with, so to speak, is more important than maybe the formation process it goes through. That's my operating theory right now I can open for critique and but right now that's currently it's a tough job. It's just really tough.
Speaker 2:I love seminary. It was just amazing and you know. But I remember, like last week at school some guy asked to made a comment like was unaware that Paul had died before the great Jerusalem famine of you know. And I was like or the destruction of Jerusalem. He mentioned this in class. He's like well, you know, paul's writing this because Jerusalem was destroyed by Titus and what other. And the professor's like come again what you know. It's like, come again what you know. It's like how does that happen? Like, how did you go through this institution and not know that, like that chronology? Well, yeah, it's easy for me to be arrogant. I'm sure I've made a lot of really, really dumb, embarrassing mistakes which lord have mercy. If anybody recorded them and shared them I'd be dying of shame. So I think we all have that. It's just a. It's a tough. It's a tough, tough thing to form, but we're doing the best we can and I think we can. There are other ways.
Speaker 1:Hey, that's just so true. I love. Going back to your vetting statement, it's very evident that the early church had to do it that way. Cause, there you, because you think of little Timmy, we're both Tim, right. So you go to Timothy in Paul's form, and so there had to be a group of people. We think he was in Ephesus, I think right, I mean, he's one of the leaders, he travels around, but Paul gives him 2 Timothy 2.2. You find others who can teach. You can find others to teach.
Speaker 1:And if the church, say in Ephesus or Corinth or whatever, didn't like this guy, like he didn't connect, there was something about him that was either immoral or he just was passive, and there's no way Aunt Sally is going to see this guy standing up and talking to her about Jesus, then the church is going to say, well, no, he's not able to teach, not able to teach Something about this man's life or his competency, his aptitude, his ability to articulate the faith is not allowing us to see this as a reality. So, no, what about Tom over here? We're okay, tim, You're all right, you got a role in the church, for sure, everybody's gifted, but maybe it's not into the pastoral ministry. So, yeah, I think there's ways to get local pastors and church leaders more tightly connected to the next generation of leaders, and I think that's sort of an approach, especially if you're looking at men in their middle ages, that's an elder that's being raised up in the declining church and they're looking to kind of boost it up. I think a way whether it's SMP or SMP plus whatever we could potentially do in the future we move very slow in this conversation and that's okay. That's because it's a very, very sensitive conversation. People need to be well-formed because eternity is on the line here. Good theology moves people closer to Jesus right, and so we should. This is a longer conversation in the Jesus direction, but getting to land it, getting congregational leaders closer to the choosing and training in context in partnership with our seminaries, that's going to produce some wonderful not perfect but I think, wonderful fruit into the future. So thanks for even exploring that with me.
Speaker 1:We often talk about we're confessional Lutherans. Right, and some may even disagree, tim, are you a confessional Lutheran? 100%? I confess Christ, I confess the Lutheran confessions, etc. Do we try some kind of creative things to get the gospel, just like you're doing in your ministry, to get the gospel into the ears of people that don't know Jesus? Yes for sure, but I still am a confessional Lutheran, but my confession leads me out into mission. Any thoughts on I think sometimes the caricature can be rural congregations or multi-point parishes. There's a lot of our confessional guys that are there in that context and you suburban urban mission planter kind of guys. You guys have maybe left the confessions for the sake of mission and I think that's just a crazy dichotomy, but it's definitely out there. We're associating with certain groups and this is one of the focuses of our podcast. We're trying to cross respective groups, but that's a hard thing to do because we built up so much labels around one another. So any thoughts on the confessional missional conversation there? Tim, I'm aware that it's there.
Speaker 2:I'm not even sure. I joke. I'm like I'm not sure if either side will claim me as it is, but it's in my particular task of asking congregations hey, can I come in and can I do? They will often say no, and I am often interested to know why that is. Why won't you let me do this on your behalf? Because I can't run my head around.
Speaker 2:You're sitting in your study, I don't know. You're driving out to see a shut-in member. Your phone rings, it's me and it's a guy who says hey, I got a group of youth and some adult leaders. We need a place to go share the gospel on behalf of a local congregation. Can we come up to your place and do that? And the answer is no, I don't charge. You know. The only thing I ask is like you know, unlock the doors, turn on the lights, give us food We'd appreciate some food. You know, give us, buy some pizza or something and then give, give us literature representing your congregation that we can leave at the door.
Speaker 2:And so people say no, and I'm trying to figure out why, and I think some of it is. They maybe know that people from their church won't come and support us, but that's not a deal breaker for me. If nobody from your congregation shows up to do this with us, I still need a place to do it, this with us. I still need a place to do it, and I do only operate on behalf of a congregation, which is I want to be representing a congregation because it is a great commission issue. You baptize and you teach. Well, I don't do any baptizing and almost no teaching. There is a place in the community where that occurs. It's your congregation. I'm going to get out and I'm going to plug people into the place of baptizing and teaching, and so. But I've found no discrimination in the sense of I'm unable to predict who will allow me to come in and who will not, so that would be more on the missional side of things.
Speaker 2:No, the one time I got an answer is no, we focus on relational evangelism, so kind of what you said at the beginning. It's an outmoded form, it doesn't work, so to speak. That's the one time I, you know, they gave me an answer. I disagree with it. They did give me an answer, but you know, and the other guys on the other side, you know, one guy said, well, you guys have used to bring a songbook with me and we kind of open with some guitar music. I can play like two songs on the guitar, and so I said, well, I'll just leave that behind. I said, if you don't want to do that, I said, just, you know, we'll sing something out of the hymnal. And he still wouldn't let me come out, which was kind of how I knew it really wasn't about the guitar, there's something else happening. But so in that regard, I haven't seen that divide in receptivity to what I'm up to.
Speaker 1:What percentage of churches say yes or no? Do you know that spread?
Speaker 2:I don't know what that percentage is.
Speaker 1:Okay. Well, what I do know is Phoenix is open for business.
Speaker 2:All right, all right, yeah. So I just got to get down there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you got a church here and there's lots of our circuit congregations here in the East Valley which is rapidly growing. You know we're looking at multi-site, we're looking at church planting and all of that and we work with the Unstuck group right now. They're some of the preeminent kind of multi-site executive director in the non-denom world. They call it an executive pastor of one of the largest multi-sites here in Phoenix and he's I just was on a phone call with him yesterday and he's helping us nail our strategy to reach more people with the gospel. Why? Because we're not even touching the tip of the iceberg. You could be the most mega, mega, mega. And there are thousands and thousands of people not only that aren't in church. We're bringing in Maricopa County. There's a thousand people moving here every week, tim yeah that's, it's just.
Speaker 2:I can't even wrap my head around it.
Speaker 1:Exactly so all I'm praying for is there's multiple ways to reach multiple people and if even one person came because of a like, there's no love lost. I mean, you don't have to like us, whatever we're out. We're public and Christ Greenfield has a very, you know, public reputation for our school and things like that. So any way to like, get our materials in the homes of people that are far from Jesus. The misnomer here is everybody's a Mormon around there. You know At one time for sure. Even this is how rapidly communities change.
Speaker 1:12 years ago, when I moved here, it was well over 50% of Gilbert that was Mormon. Well, Gilbert's grown from 150,000 people to 250,000 people in those 12 years, and the vast majority of that growth is from outside. Here the percentage of Mormon families is now probably around 40% and declining, even though they're having more kids, and it appears as if, because they got a church at every square mile, they have the corner market on it. But nothing could be further from the truth. So, all that to say, we'd love to have you down here in Phoenix helping us expand the gospel. Hey, let's close with pastoral care. Last 10 minutes here, or so You're the general editor of the Sealsorger, a journal for the contemporary cure of souls. It's a publishing arm of doxology. So what's your primary emphasis as you talk? Soul care, Tim.
Speaker 2:Pastors focus in on like the word and sacrament ministry part of the job, like talking about Jesus, not getting entirely swallowed up by kind of the day-to-day, the day-to-day stuff. There's a church 40 miles west of me in Concordia, kansas. There's a city in Kansas called Concordia that doesn't have a Missouri Synod Lutheran church in it. So we're planting a church over there and over there there's this giant black hole and they're struggling to get a pastor to just even help them kind of get off the ground. So I'm almost the closest church to them so I'm currently serving them functionally, kind of being a dual point parish right now. But because I'm serving Zion and Lynn, we have a Lutheran school, we got some Spanish ministry stuff going on. That's a significant investment of my time. All I can really do is get over there kind of preach, do the shut-in visit. You know really just focus in on those core tasks that I am uniquely equipped to do. They need to do the rest. They got to rise up and they got to lead on the other aspects and so, in soul care, it's really refreshing when a congregation just kind of frees you up to do this stuff, like I'm going to tell people about Jesus. I'm going to focus in on prepping a Bible study and preaching a faithful and engaging sermon and I'm going to get out, and so that's a lot of what the soul care task is looking like. We're currently working on volume 10 of our journal. I published an essay in volume 8 and 9. In volume 8, it was our only thematic journal and we were dealing with pastoral care and cohabitation. That's like tough right, because you don't agree with what they're doing, but they are people who need to know about Jesus, and so how do you guide them through that? How do you guide, shepherd them with a firm but gentle hand, right, not compromising the truth but also letting them know there's a better way here. And so we wrestled with a lot of different issues on that one In my previous parish I moved in ostensibly Midwest congregation.
Speaker 2:There were 30 different couples on the books when I got there that were cohabiting. Many of them were my Sunday school teachers. So we had to address that, and so I wrote an essay. I called it Inherited Sin was the title of the essay shepherding the cohabiting couples you inherit. So that was one.
Speaker 2:And then the last issue I wrote an essay on when should a pastor invoke his divine call. So when does the pastor say I'm the called man of god here? And why should a pastor, should a pastor ever do it? And if so, under what? What circumstance? Because that can be abused. That was my premise. Like this gets abused.
Speaker 2:I pitched this as an idea to the journal and, uh, there were a couple of dps that were around when I said it. One of them literally got out of his chair and said can you write that essay? Yesterday? This is an issue, is right, so it's that kind of stuff. Like you got to recognize where. Like this is not about you, it's not about your personality. Not everything that goes sideways is an attack on you or even the office. We're just not. We're fighting against principalities and powers, not flesh and blood. And so let's let's focus in on that.
Speaker 2:And my premise was you invoke your divine call when you are trying to emphasize gospel and you get out of the way when you're doing the loss. That was essentially Because even in the divine service, that's when we do it. The only time you'd say that you're called is when you're going to tell them that they're forgiven. Hey, you know. So I remember this gal Dora. She was dying in the hospital and she, you know, confessed cancer, young gal, and she just said I feel like God has forgotten me. Well, there's an opportunity to invoke the divine call. It's like, hey, like God called me here to make sure that you know, in this room, in this town, on this day, that he has not forgotten you. Communicate in hand, let's forgive your sins and make sure you have a clean conscience. Then you know that if anything goes wrong, you know exactly where you stand with your Lord.
Speaker 2:So that kind of stuff with pastoral care, and it doesn't lend itself to very easy prescription. So there's a lot of room for disagreement among brothers of the brotherhood, like, oh, I would handle that situation in this way, I would handle that situation that way. What kind of? What are the filters? What are you thinking about? Are you keeping the main thing, the main thing, jesus Christ and his righteousness? And so that's kind of what we're going for with the Soul Care Journal and even with what we were talking about pastoral formation.
Speaker 2:Tyler Arnold is writing an essay right now about the passage in 1 Timothy 3 about pastors should manage their own households well, and so what do we do when pastors' children fall from the faith or conduct themselves in a scandalous lifestyle. Is this disqualifying them from ministry? Is it not disqualifying them from ministry? How is Satan using this to try to undermine your ministry? I mean, he's asked it's going to be good and there's kind of a gap. There's not a lot written on this particular issue. But you hear guys and are there guys who want to get out of the ministry and they're just looking around for an excuse and they find their kid do something stupid and they're like, ah, that was a gateway I needed to get out of here. Meanwhile we have the catechism urged them to stay and do their duty. So Tyler Arnold is doing a really good job of wrestling through that issue right now. It's going to be a blessing to the church.
Speaker 1:Hey, that's so good. One question I have to ask, going back to what you were saying around when we invoke our divine call, the office you said gospel, but not law we shouldn't invoke it when we're talking in the realm of the law. Would you say more about what you mean there, tim?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So my presumption is that when things blow up in a congregation around this issue, it's because the pastor says he invokes his divine call to kind of leverage his importance. So if they're going to make a decision, well I'm the called man here and so therefore you need to do this. And so God didn't call you to invoke the call so that you can coerce behavior. He called you to do Word and Sacrament ministry, and so I do put in the essay. If people read it like there are occasions where it's probably appropriate. I can think of one time in my ministry that I did it and I would do it again. But generally speaking, that's kind of my premise. Like if you find yourself constantly invoking the divine call to get your way, you're out of line. You're just out of line.
Speaker 1:Sorry. Well, yeah, I mean you're leveraging the office toward power, right, Rather than invitation, and it may work in the short term, it doesn't work in the long term. The spirit of invitation, negotiation, care for people with different perspectives, that is the office of holy ministry Walking with people who have different opinions than you do If everybody. You know one of my favorite statements ministry would be great if it just weren't for the people. Well, you know, you probably should get out of ministry if you don't really like people with diverse perspectives.
Speaker 1:I think people are fascinating, how they arrived at different. You know, god made me super curious If I could pray for one trade among pastors. It's just more curiosity and love for all different types of people, finding people very, very fascinating and seeing a church that's very eclectic. I think we got all different sorts of people. There's no other organization like the local church that has the arms wide open socioeconomic, racial, you know, diverse, everybody is here, no Jew, no Gentile, slave, free, young, old, rich, poor, male, female. We're all one in Christ, Galatians 3.28.
Speaker 1:So, like that's going to be messy, just saying there's one time, tim, I got to tell the story One, one time that I probably in a staff meeting and I have enough distance now where I can tell this without getting people too angry at me but we had been raising money by the Holy Spirit's power to build a gym in Phoenix, gilbert, arizona, here you know. I mean it's so stinking hot, so hot, and we'd spent so much time and attention, people giving very sacrificially, $4.2 million project raised about $3.5 million toward that end. So a lot of energy had gone into this. And one of our campus directors I'll leave her name not on this podcast, she's a sweetheart though, but she came in and they were talking floors, tim, all right, and now they had. They had these kind of multi-use, function, plasticky, kind of rubbery floor concepts.
Speaker 1:I about lost my mind Because I'm a basketball guy, right, and I was like it will be wood. There was a Luther moment. I'm banging on the table, it was. It was that as a call to name servant of the word, make it a wood floor. And anyway, I'm kind of being silly, but they're like man, you're passionate. You're passionate about that. That is the only time. Every every other time it's been negotiation.
Speaker 2:So being funny, I think one thing I'm really people generally don't need to know where I stand on an issue, you know. But I'll just be honest with them. Like wow, I've got a strong opinion about that, I think it should be this, but I don't then like leverage that. And then if they, if they, take an action that's contrary to my opinion, which has happened and then that does not result in me being petty or treating them any differently. Now I've only increased my trust and they've increased their trust and we just we work, we work better. So you know, those piffs and saps and stuff there was. There was one of the questions was where are you on confirmation before First Communion, before confirmation? And I said I am pro First Communion before confirmation, but I've never successfully moved a congregation that direction. But they've all known, they've all know I've been very, very honest about like no, this is you know, but you know I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna strong arm it through. They just they know.
Speaker 1:No, that I mean it, just it doesn't it't work. To be quite honest with my story, the reason they took my opinion is because I played basketball Right Like my whole, my whole life, and I understood the experience is way better on a wood floor. It had nothing to do with my, my ministry. They're like, wow, ok, maybe, and we love our, we love our gym to this day. But, yeah, the church wins. You know the people of God, the elders, the board, whatever. The church wins. You know the people of God, the elders, the board, whatever. There's so many stories of pastors trying to play the power card and it going sideways, because it's counter to the spirit, it's counter to the Holy Spirit, it's counter to the spirit of Jesus, who didn't coerce. He invited his disciples come and follow me and some didn't follow. You know, I mean I think of the rich young man go and sell everything you have and come and follow me. Well, I don't do that.
Speaker 2:You know we get hurt. Like you can be honest about that. Like for sure I'm miserable because I was really passionate about this thing and I thought I was doing it the right way and I thought I'd made a really compelling case and it didn't. It didn't go. That hurts. I don't know of anybody who doesn't think that that hurts. But the solution is not more domineering spirit, like that's not. Yeah, amen, amen.
Speaker 2:I hate Tim You're not standing before the judgment seat of Christ. And Jesus says you know you really could have leveraged your divine call and push this through. I don't think so.
Speaker 1:No, no, no. It's the humility of Christ, the kindness of Christ that draws us, and then we can be honest. Like you say, if it doesn't go, we're human and ministry is messy for sure If people want to connect with you and your website, and so let us know how you can sign up for Sealsorger, the journal, as well as your training there, tim.
Speaker 2:All right. So Sealsorger, you can go to doxologyus and it's under the resources tab and they're going to be. The next one's coming out soon. You can get them all. You can buy all of them on Lulu. And Zalesorger is a really weird German name. It's a word, it's a German word, so it doesn't, but it's S-E-E-L-O-R-G-E-R. It means soul care in German. So that's maybe a marketing mistake. One thing at a time. And then Jesus, door to Door is JD2D. You know I love going out.
Speaker 2:If you really want to fly me out and lead your congregation through it, give me six months notice and we'll talk. But the congregations have done this. There was a congregation in Maine. They did it four weeks in a row. I wasn't there. They just called and asked for the resources and picked my brains over the phone and they went out and did it on their own. Hope Lutheran Church in Idaho Falls Falls did the same thing. There's a church in Lawton, oklahoma, that's doing it. So Marmole, arkansas, they're doing it. There's a church in Fraser, michigan, that's doing it without my help. So you don't need me. It's pretty plug and play if you want to give it a go. And I mean, what's the worst case scenario? People don't show up, they're already not coming. You're not out anything.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:You learn how to articulate the faith. So that would probably be my last thing. On the door-to-door stuff, as much as I love the lost and my heart yearns for them and I want them to know the joy of Jesus, probably the number one benefit it sounds self-serving is what it does to the people who go out. Your faith will be strengthened, your articulation, it's just, it's healthy.
Speaker 1:If I never found another person for the kingdom this way, I'd still do it because it increases interest in the kingdom of God among the people who participate. That's the way it works when we serve, give, learn, try, fail, we grow and grow more up into Jesus. Who is the head? Yeah, so I'm grateful for you, tim. What a joy to spend some time with you. This is the Tim Allman podcast. Please like, subscribe, comment wherever it is you take in these podcasts and we pray that you've drawn closer to Jesus, maybe laughed a little bit with us and as we unite, smaller, larger churches unite together to make Jesus known. The days are too short to do anything. Otherwise it's a good day. Go make it a great day. Thanks so much, tim. Your blessing, thank you.