How is Your DP?
Photo courtesy of lcms.org
Many people look forward to summer saying that it is a chance to “slow down.” What is actually meant by that is that it’s a chance to avoid strict schedules! While that is true concerning taking children to school, the summertime is often filled with many other things to occupy our time which can make things much busier than usual. For pastors these come in the form of conferences.
Take your pick of any of these. Gottesdienst. Bugenhagen. Henkel. Issues, Etc. Any of the long list of continuing education opportunities offered by our seminaries. In addition, several of you were chosen as delegates for synodical convention and even asked to serve on floor committees! All of these things take time and money to attend. One could never do them all and can scarcely make it to more than one! But if you do have the opportunity to go to any of them, you should. The men who lead them cherish the liturgy of the Church. You will learn much. You will be fed the Word and Sacrament through reverent, historic liturgy. You will meet people you will keep in touch with for the rest of your lives.
In meeting those people, you’re bound to be caught up in conversations that include these questions: “Where is your church? Who is your DP? How is your DP?” When someone asks “How,” he isn’t asking about his health. He wants to know about his leadership and his practice. “Is he a proponent of the liturgy?” “Does he treat his pastors well?” “Does he even know who you are and where your congregation is?”
With all of those things loaded into one simple question: “How is your DP?” below is how the short conversation typically plays out.
“How is your DP?
“He’s alright.”
“Oh, is he a Confessional guy?”
“No, not really. But he leaves me alone!”
Maybe in your area and with the history of leadership in your district, that’s your best-case scenario. I know there are horror stories out there of pastors who innocently thought they had the support of their bishop only for him to turn on them in public and to drive them completely out of the ministry. In some cases, the stories are almost unbelievable if you weren’t looking the man in the face who it happened to and hearing plenty of others corroborate his account.
Why does this happen? Sure, there are times when the pastor is at fault and needs discipline. But how many times do you hear that the pastor is disciplined (read: harassed or condemned) because of his holding to AC 24 or that he practices closed communion or that he doesn’t tolerate cohabitation and won’t marry the couple engaged in it?
“How’s your DP?”
“He’s great! He leaves me alone!”
On the one hand, I get it. I’ve even said it! And I know some of the time that it’s said in truthful jest. However, should you not have a greater expectation of the men who have been elected to serve than the fact that they “leave you alone?”
Yes. You should. I’ll freely and openly admit that when our new bishop was elected, that’s all I was praying for, but with him having been in office for 4+ years now, I’m thankful that he doesn’t. While we don’t see eye to eye on every single aspect of the ministry, that doesn’t affect our relationship. He still calls to check in. He takes a genuine interest in what’s going on with our church and school. He desires to be faithful and that same faithfulness from his pastors.
Admittedly, this has not always been the practice in many of the districts of our synod (and might not be in yours currently). What’s the difference here? Our bishop didn’t take the word of anyone else regarding what was going on in the district or the opinions of anyone else on certain pastors. Instead, he visited. He called. He got to know his men on the front lines by actually joining them there in certain situations. While he may have been told, “Oh, we don’t have an open communion problem! We have no issues with women preaching or with church fellowship! Everyone is a ‘confessional Lutheran’ here,” he didn’t sit in his office and rely on that word. He went to see for himself, and when he did, he found what was reported wasn’t completely factual. He stands by his pastors when they stand on the truth.
As this began, I did not intend for it to become a glorification of my bishop. It’s not a “My dad can beat up your dad” post. I understand that no man is infallible. No pastor is perfect. No district or synodical official makes the right decision every time, and not every pastor’s experience with our bishop has been mine. However, there ought be a greater expectation of our officials than being able to call them “good” because they “leave you alone.”
All of this begins with a call or a visit. You should expect that at the very least. Then, in practice, you should have an expectation that they get their faces out of the bylaws and into the Scriptures and the Confessions. The bylaws are necessary for the function and order of our districts and synod to be sure, but when our leaders know those articles and paragraph numbers by heart but can hardly recall the chapters and verses of the Scriptures or the article numbers and paragraphs of our Confessions, you can bet that you’ll have problems.
In the end, pray for your leaders. Pray that they’ll engage in your ministry and encourage you and hold up your hands (Exodus 17:8ff) rather than nail them to the cross that you bear. Above all, though, expect more out of them than that they’ll “leave you alone” and instead support and encourage you in your ministry.