Seelsorge and Celebration vs. Vision Casting and Bean Counting
“I think you’re an overeducated 27-year-old virgin who likes to hold the hands of superstitious old ladies and promise them everlasting life.”
“What are you going to do on Monday morning, the first thing you get in the office in order to advance the mission? Because Sunday is behind us now, and we’ve got another six days before we gotta get up and prance around the chancel and preach messages and offer the Sacrament. That important work will come, but until we get there, how are we going to advance the mission?
Not how are we gonna care for the sick, how are we gonna counsel the weak and the needy, how are we going to encourage fellowship and the spirit of comradery, or you know, navigate the Ladies’ Aid devotion we gotta do on Wednesday night at seven o’clock after tea and crumpets, how are we getting after logistically, tactically, the mission.”
Walt Kowalski is the fictional main character in Clint Eastwood’s magnificent 2008 film Gran Torino. I highly recommend the movie. Without spoiling it, it is a film that espouses Christian themes, and is a rare Hollywood offering in the twenty-first century in which the pastor is not the villain. The movie has a lot of raw language, so if that distresses you, just consider yourself warned.
The quote below was made by an LCMS pastor recently on a podcast. I appreciate his candor. His view is a particular approach to the ministry that focuses on “vision casting,” strategy, and tactics, and his view of pastoral care and worship are made clear. His intonation and facial expressions as he opines about what we do in the ministry are also illustrative. Watch here, beginning at 12:11…
I guess I’m part of the old guard that is holding our synod back, a rube that still clings to believing in Seelsorge (soul-care), that holding the hands of little old ladies on their deathbeds - as well as proclaiming the resurrection at funerals, absolving sinners, teaching the Bible, preaching sermons (I still call them that), literally placing the body and blood of Christ upon the lips of the people who gather twice a week for Divine Service, making disciples by baptizing, catechizing children and adults, leading daily Matins, serving as a chaplain, being in the community as a readily identifiable servant of the Word, sticking with the same little parish in a demographically difficult context for twenty years, making hospital calls, visiting shut-ins, writing a daily devotion, and teaching at a Lutheran high school - is the mission. And for that antiquated way of thinking, I’m apparently part of the problem.
Moreover, the expression “chancel-prancer” is a euphemism for a celebrant with affected effeminacy. Frankly, in the LCMS world, the manliest pastors that I know make use of the traditional liturgy. The “prancing” I see is done by guys who have stages instead of chancels. If this pastor is looking to increase the overall T-levels of the LCMS ministerium, I’m afraid that he is barking up the wrong tree.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against leadership. I hold a credential from PMI (not PLI) - for project management. Knowing how to manage resources and lead people is important. But being a pastor is sui generis. It isn’t the same thing as managing a software development team or leading a construction project. There is a supernatural component to the holy ministry. We chaplains also get a lot of leadership training (and hands-on experience) in our military and first-responder contexts. Such things are indeed important, and can be helpful - but they are not the essence of the ministry or of the church.
And there is an old leadership saying: “Keep the main thing the main thing.” So what is the “main thing” for the holy office and the una sancta?
I do believe that the farther a man gets away from “boots on the ground,” as he moves up in the church bureaucracy and/or becomes part of a large, multi-pastor congregation with more individual members than he can get to know personally, with increasing administrative duties - it is a real danger for him to increasingly lose touch with the gritty world of bringing the Word of God to individual people, and even come to speak dismissively of it, as if such things were beneath him. Does anyone really think that Joel Osteen makes shut-in calls, does committals at the cemetery, and knows the members of his flock by name? Of course, there is nothing wrong with having a large congregation (and some areas are simply more fertile in terms of demographics from a worldly perspective), just as there is also nothing wrong with having a small congregation. Each has its particular strengths and weaknesses. In a small-parish context, people know one another, and the pastor is not bureaucratically separated from the laity by means of a necessary chain of leadership command. There are other struggles that large churches have, but I’m sure there are also great blessings. It is also true that the assumption ought not be that a small church is indicative of failure, of poor leadership, or a lack of “accountability.”
In fact, this pastor later on explains what he means by “accountability.”
"You can’t put the Holy Spirit on a clock. You can’t quantify God. You can’t measure spirituality. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.” Yes, you can. We have an entire book in the Old Testament, as the old saw goes, it was called “Numbers.” We have accounting in the Book of Acts for the achievement of conversion on the Day of Pentecost: numbers. And the expectation is that that numbering orientation is going to carry over and carry farther into the church’s history. It has come to a dead stop here in the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod.
Of course, there is a counter-example in 1 Chron 21:1-17 that should give us pause before we simply take it upon ourselves to become driven by numbers, and begin setting baselines by reducing everything and everyone to statistics to be measured, massaged, and modified by results-oriented ecclesiastical policy-wonking:
Then Satan stood against Israel and incited David to number Israel. So David said to Joab and the commanders of the army, “Go, number Israel, from Beersheba to Dan, and bring me a report, that I may know their number.” But Joab said, “May the Lord add to his people a hundred times as many as they are! Are they not, my lord the king, all of them my lord's servants? Why then should my lord require this? Why should it be a cause of guilt for Israel?” But the king's word prevailed against Joab. So Joab departed and went throughout all Israel and came back to Jerusalem. And Joab gave the sum of the numbering of the people to David. In all Israel there were 1,100,000 men who drew the sword, and in Judah 470,000 who drew the sword. But he did not include Levi and Benjamin in the numbering, for the king's command was abhorrent to Joab.
But God was displeased with this thing, and he struck Israel. And David said to God, “I have sinned greatly in that I have done this thing. But now, please take away the iniquity of your servant, for I have acted very foolishly.” And the Lord spoke to Gad, David's seer, saying, “Go and say to David, ‘Thus says the Lord, Three things I offer you; choose one of them, that I may do it to you.’” So Gad came to David and said to him, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Choose what you will: either three years of famine, or three months of devastation by your foes while the sword of your enemies overtakes you, or else three days of the sword of the Lord, pestilence on the land, with the angel of the Lord destroying throughout all the territory of Israel.’ Now decide what answer I shall return to him who sent me.” Then David said to Gad, “I am in great distress. Let me fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is very great, but do not let me fall into the hand of man.”
So the Lord sent a pestilence on Israel, and 70,000 men of Israel fell. And God sent the angel to Jerusalem to destroy it, but as he was about to destroy it, the Lord saw, and he relented from the calamity. And he said to the angel who was working destruction, “It is enough; now stay your hand.” And the angel of the Lord was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. And David lifted his eyes and saw the angel of the Lord standing between earth and heaven, and in his hand a drawn sword stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces. And David said to God, “Was it not I who gave command to number the people? It is I who have sinned and done great evil. But these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand, O Lord my God, be against me and against my father's house. But do not let the plague be on your people.”
In my opinion, it is extremely helpful to look at our churches from the fresh perspective of what visitors see, in order to identify where we can improve things from the human perspective. And indeed, parish pastors should see themselves as missionaries and evangelists. And again, I’m all for leadership training. But we must beware, lest we fall into the trap of seeing number-crunching and bean-counting as central the mission itself rather than as peripheral things that might (or might not!) serve the mission. Let us not allow Satan to entice us number our people apart from the Lord’s command, and to turn the holy ministry into the equivalent of managing a widget factory. For Christians are not made on a conveyor belt by the din of efficient machinery. Ministry is a form of craftsmanship based on love and service and the means of grace. Christians are not mass produced by streamlined production models and marketing schemes in methodologies for measurable success that can be franchised and replicated in different markets. That’s not what we do.
May pastors never tire of their mission, and not be discouraged, whether they serve a church of ten or ten thousand. If your whole life boils down to baptizing one person, and bringing about eternal life even for a single soul - your life and ministry are not in vain. Ultimately, our glory is not in the kinds of “success” that the world sees and praises, but in the scandal of the cross, which the success-and-numbers-driven world sees as a stumbling block and as folly. Our saving faith is a narrow gate, and few find it. But according to God’s grace, they find it by the Holy Spirit according to His inscrutable plan. Historically speaking, there are times of growth for the church, and times of contraction. There are times and places where the church experiences worldly prosperity, and there are times and places of persecution and diminution. We Christians are called to be faithful and steadfast and unflagging at all times, in all places, and in every circumstance:
Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
We pastors are called to:
Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound[a] teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
So dear brethren, don’t be discouraged by those who would judge the value of your work in the kingdom, whether you are laity or clergy, through the lens of numerology and quantifiability.
I see the essence of the ministry to be about the Word of God and bringing it to bear in the lives of people. This is typically done in both one-on-one visits (Seelsorge, or soul-care), and in the context of the church gathering together around Word and Sacrament. In other words, in the coming of Jesus in His Word and flesh and blood according to His promise, operating through His chosen means. I disagree that soul-care and teaching the Word of God are to be dismissed with eye-rolling as “tea and crumpets,” nor do I agree with the high and holy privilege that we pastors have in celebrating the Mass unto the salvation of souls to be disparaged as “prancing around the chancel.” I see both Seelsorge and celebration as constitutive of the mission. Everything else is secondary, and is merely to serve the sacred mission of our ministry of soul-care and Word and Sacrament.
My understanding of the essence of the mission is found in Bishop Bo Giertz’s Hammer of God, which at one time bore the subtitle: “a novel about the cure of souls.” For most of the work of the pastor is unimpressive in the eyes of the world: visiting foul-smelling sick rooms, counselling wayward farmers against drunkenness and fighting and swindling one another, settling petty disputes among parishioners, catechizing small numbers of youth and adults, administering the Law to the proud and the Gospel to the penitent, knowing what Psalm to read to which parishioner at a home visit based on your relationship to him or her, living and working in conditions of frugality and isolation that can seem utterly forsaken by the world, if not by God Himself, struggling with one’s own doubts and fears and Anfectung, but also finding great joy, not in casting visions, but in casting out demons, bringing sinners back to the Lord, even if only one here and another there, preaching the Gospel, teaching Holy Scripture, and officiating week in and week out at the Divine Service.
Far from dismissing our privilege to lead the Lord’s people in the liturgy as “prancing around the chancel,” Bishop Giertz beautifully describes the reality of the Lord’s Presence that we perceive by faith, as his character Pastor Torvik reflects on God’s grace in his life:
He saw a wide, white church with bare walls. The sun shone in from the northwest. It was an evening of late summer. The chancel was bright in the rays of the sun. The chalice mirrored the warm light in unnatural splendor. At the wide altar rail young lads knelt shoulder to shoulder. Kneeling with them was himself, a tall overgrown high school student who had been overwhelmed by God. He stammered awkward prayers, his heart overflowed. Now he knew why. From above, from a bridge of light, came a flowing down from the Infinite One and poured itself upon him, suffusing his being like a corpusant, touched him so that he trembled in blessed ecstasy. In the chalice the blood glowed a dark ruby red. A drop of the Infinite fell from the rim of the lifted chalice upon his heart and marked it with a living fire-red seal. And a voice was heard, saying, “Called of God.”
Bishop Giertz had earlier reflected on the centrality of liturgy to the mission in his pastoral letter upon becoming the Bishop of Gothenburg in 1949, as recorded in his magnificent Liturgy and Spiritual Awakening:
It is important for us that both awakening and liturgy be given their proper and pristine Christian place in the life of the congregation. Awakening is always needed, not only because the church must always be a missionary church and reach out after those that are on the outside, but also because there is always the need for awakening even among the most faithful members of the church. The church has exactly as many sinners as she has members. The old Adam in each one of us is prone to fall asleep, to make the Christian life a dead routine, to use liturgical form to cloak his self-complacency and impenitence. It is not difficult to fashion a form of religion that suits the ego and allows the old Adam within to become sovereign again. One may go regularly to church and Holy Communion. One may cherish beautiful church music and lovely sanctuaries. One may be honestly convinced that one possesses the correct doctrine and loves the pure preaching of the Word. And at the same time one may be thoroughly obsessed by self-love, complacent with one's self, satisfied with one's own pious accomplishments and totally indifferent to the troubles and burdens of one's fellow men, which are so apparent before one's very eyes. The Holy Spirit always needs to awaken slumbering souls, stir up the dust, push the old Adam against the wall, and blow a new breath of life into the dead bones. Awakening is never superfluous, as long as we are in the flesh.
Liturgy is just as needful. There can be no normal church life without liturgy. Sacraments need form, the order of worship must have some definite pattern. It is possible to live for a short time on improvisations and on forms that are constantly changing and being made over. One may use only free prayers and yet create a new ritual for every worship situation. But the possibilities are soon exhausted. One will have to repeat, and with that the making of rituals is in full swing. In circles where people seek to live without any forms new forms are nevertheless constantly taking shape. Favorite songs are used again and again with monotonous regularity, certain prayer expressions are constantly repeated, traditions take form and traditional yearly ceremonies are served. But it would not be wrong to say that the new forms that grow up in this way are usually less attractive and more profane than the ancient liturgy. They contain less of God's Word, they pray and speak without Scriptural direction, they are not so much concerned about expressing the whole content of Scripture, but are satisfied with one thing or another that seems to be especially attractive or popular. The new liturgy that grows in this manner is poorer, less Biblical, and less nourishing to the soul than the discarded ancient order.
At the risk of giving those who have not seen Gran Torino a bit of a spoiler, Clint Eastwood’s Walt Kowalski character actually comes to avail himself of soul-care from the persistent parish priest that he formerly held in contempt. He came to see the mission of the church as central in his own life: the mission of forgiveness, redemption, and sacrificial love for the neighbor.
May our pastors and our congregations not lose sight of what the mission really is.