With Rev. Jeremy Latzke

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:06] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I think all of his were interesting. I knew some stuff about that faith, but, like, the stuff that you guys got into, and all three of them are things that I just. I haven't ever dug in that deeply and I don't get. [00:00:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:00:18] Speaker B: Visited by as many of them, I guess, as you guys have. So it's like, oh, wow, there's a lot of stuff like, that's all new to me. [00:00:24] Speaker A: Yeah. So Pastor Mark, he's. He's really impressive. It's so funny because I'll post clips of those episodes and I'll always have LDS people in the comments that say, oh, this guy doesn't know anything about the LDS faith. And it's like, actually, he literally has devoted his life to your faith. He probably knows more about it than you do. But it's tough. The Mormons are tough. They're a moving target because the. Their church has complete. So it's kind of like the Catholics, you know, if the Pope were to say something ex cathedra tomorrow, every Catholic on Earth. Well, you know, a lot of Catholics on Earth would say, oh, well, we've always. The church has always believed and taught this, and the Pope just now put it into dogma or whatever. [00:01:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:01:21] Speaker A: And so that's what the. The Mormon Church does. But to a greater extent, there's. There's all kinds of teaching materials and stuff that they had online just last year that talked about how good, faithful Mormons get their own planets and get to be God of their own planet. And all of that is gone now. It's off the LDS website. It's gone. They've removed that teaching and now you have Mormon apologists saying, we never taught that. That's never been a doctrine of the Church. [00:01:47] Speaker B: That's always one of the only things I did know about them for years. [00:01:50] Speaker A: And if you go to archive.org you can still find all of those archived pages there. But it's, you know, the church's memory. Hold it. Now they're saying, oh, no, you don't get your own planet. You just get to. They. They've sort of aped the orthodox language of theosis where you just sort of get to participate in God or whatever. It's really interesting, though, because it's a shifting, moving target. [00:02:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:14] Speaker A: Anyway, Pastor, thanks for coming on. [00:02:17] Speaker B: Yeah, my pleasure. [00:02:21] Speaker A: You're a Lutheran pastor? [00:02:22] Speaker B: I am. [00:02:24] Speaker A: Lcms, yes, sir. Wow. Tell me more. What seminary did you go to? [00:02:29] Speaker B: I went to St. Louis. [00:02:31] Speaker A: Oh, the good one there. [00:02:33] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, you know, I'm biased, but no, because that's what my dad went to as well. But my mom's dad, my. So my one grandpa, he had gone through back in the day when it was in Springfield still, I'm pretty sure. Yeah. Before it moved to Fort Wayne. So it's one of those. Have connections in some way to both. But. Yeah. Went to St. Louis, went there straight out of Concordia Chicago. So I'm one of those straight through Lutheran grade schools from pre K or Lutheran schools from pre K all the way through seminary. I never spent a day in public school. And. [00:03:16] Speaker A: Wow. So, yeah, real company man. [00:03:19] Speaker B: Yeah, Very much company man. Yeah. [00:03:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:03:23] Speaker B: Never had that. I'm gonna rebel and go join this or whatever. For a while I was like, nope, this makes sense is what I'm. Yeah, I believe, you know, severed. [00:03:31] Speaker A: Never wanted to go Wells, huh? [00:03:33] Speaker B: No. Did have family in Wisconsin, but never felt the pull that way or. Or otherwise. [00:03:39] Speaker A: Yeah. That's awesome. When did you know you wanted to go into pastoral ministry? [00:03:44] Speaker B: Oh, man, that was something I. I fought against, actually, for a while. Not as long as some people, but that was. So I grew up in a family where I mentioned Mom's dad was a pastor, but he'd retired when I was real young, and he. He passed away when I was in fourth grade. But. But anyway, he was a pastor. My dad and mom were both Lutheran grade school teachers. My grandpa was the head of the library at Concordia river forest for 40 years. Grandma was a grade school teacher and principal. So I was like. And mom, dad, grandma, grandpa all went to Concordia River Forest. So I was growing up, I was like, I'm not going into church work. I'm not going to be a teacher. I'm not doing anything. I'm going to be like a sports broadcaster. I wanted to be on, you know, Sports center or announcing baseball games or whatever. But then as it came time to apply for. For colleges and stuff in high school, I was like, yeah, I don't want to go to any of these schools. And the school that I always said I would never go to, Concordia in Chicago, River Forest, when I went there, it's like that one just feels right, you know, it's about as emotional and as charismatic as I ever get right there. It's like, this just feels right. And so I went there. It's like, but I'm going to be a. I'm going to go. I'm going to teach high school, and I'm going to. You know, I want to be like. [00:05:04] Speaker A: Not in a Lutheran school. [00:05:06] Speaker B: No, I was public high school. No, I was like, I'm going to go teach high school and I'm going to be a, you know, help coach baseball, football, whatever. But then I was going through that first year of. Of school and all year, all my friends, like, you're going to go prem. No, I'm not. You're going to go prem. No, absolutely not. You're going to go. I will not be a pastor. By the end of that first freshman year, I was like, you know what? Teaching sounds terrible. I don't want to do that. I don't want to spend every day with high school kids. What am I thinking? And just a lot of conversations about worship, faith stuff. All that year I kind of went, all right, all right, God, I'll stop fighting you. You're working through my friends here. So bye. Bye. End of freshman year, I was. I was pre Sam and just kind of went, all right, here we go. [00:05:52] Speaker A: So there we go. It's funny that it's like, oh, man, I don't. I don't want to do. I don't want to do teaching. And then it's. I'm going to go into the one profession where teaching happens all the time. [00:06:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:08] Speaker A: I do see the difference with, like, high school versus, like a mixed bag. [00:06:12] Speaker B: Yeah. And not having to. I don't have to grade papers all the time. I'm not assigning homework. Right. It's the. I'm the one doing the homework. [00:06:19] Speaker A: Assign homework. [00:06:20] Speaker B: Maybe. Maybe this is. [00:06:24] Speaker A: How do you get them to do it, you know? [00:06:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:27] Speaker A: How do you get people. Here's a question for you. Let me know if you figured this one out yet. How do you get, like, people to read the Bible? [00:06:37] Speaker B: Oh, man, I don't know. That's one of those. I try. That was something I did try to do this last year. I used sermon series that somebody had put out. I think it was the. I want to say it was from the chaplain or the campus pastor for the Concordia, the high school that we have in Missouri that's like the boarding school, high school. And it was going. It was called 66 Texts from 66 Books. Because they're. Over the course of a year, there's 60, 66 worship services, when you count all the Wednesdays and Bondi Thursday and Easter vigil and all that stuff. So every time, every. Every service was looking at pulling a passage out of a different book of the Bible throughout the whole year. So I was preaching on every book of the Bible throughout the year. And along with that, then I encouraged some people towards the. The. A copy of a 1:1 version of the chronological Bible. So I was encouraging people towards that every day and I was posting the, the assigned readings. I wasn't, you know, copying and pasting the text. I wasn't stealing that intellectual property. But it's like here, if you're going to follow along through the year, do this. And we had some people that did do that and, and a couple other times we had people, you know, when I remembered to say, hey, here's the book we're going to be doing next week, know for worship, and that's what we'll be looking at in Bible class. Some people were doing it. So it was one way to get people in and like, hey, let's look at some books that we don't usually look at. Right? Like, when's the last time you ever read Nahum? When's the last time you've ever read exactly some of that stuff. And then turns out Habakkuk's got one of those verses that gets quoted by Paul a couple of times in the epistles. It's like, oh, hey look, that was Habakkuk. [00:08:25] Speaker A: I have read it. [00:08:26] Speaker B: I should have known that, but I didn't until now. [00:08:28] Speaker A: So, yeah, what was the hardest book to preach on? [00:08:35] Speaker B: I, I'm not sure which one it was. I think Proverbs was a little tricky there just because, I mean, he had his suggested things or whatever. But just because like Proverbs, you don't really get those big chunks of things that are all talking about the same thing. It's a bit more scattershot. So trying to pull out, okay, how do I try to preach this book or not? Not really the whole book. But know what do you take out of here when it's really just like individual thoughts one after another, rapid fire. I don't even remember what I did now. That was a while ago, but, but that was a, it was a good year I think, for, for the people. That was a good year for, for me to get through that and, and, and do all that. It was a definitely different challenge with the readings not being the assigned ones. It kind of takes away all the, the crutches that pastors might use sometimes in terms of like, I couldn't really go look at how have other people preached this. How are other things, you know, other sermon helps. Those aren't there because these verses weren't. He was trying to do it where there was all lined up with the lectionary topically, but not necessarily the actual text. And so, but yeah, that was Good. [00:09:46] Speaker A: Yeah. Do you read through the Bible every year? Every six months, Every three months, Every two years? [00:09:54] Speaker B: I should say yes, but the truth is. No. Yeah, it's the. I'm bad about it. Do try to, you know, be. Be in the Word and. And study it. And I'm like a lot of people, you know, New Year's comes, New Year's resolution, I'm gonna be. I'm not gonna miss this year. And then stuff gets in the way. And yeah, I'm. I'm in the Word. I'm. I'm trying to, you know, besides prepping for Bible studies and sermons, trying to read stuff beyond that, but the actual, like, I have a plan falls off, and so I kind of pick things up here and there. And so, you know, it's like, eventually get around to it, but not with any. Not with the sort of discipline and regimen that some people have. That would probably be good, but I just have struggled to actually. [00:10:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:43] Speaker B: Implement. [00:10:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Two weeks ago, I. I settled on a Bible reading plan. I'm day six of not doing that. As of this recording. It's January 6th. I am six days behind. [00:10:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:10:56] Speaker A: Currently on my Bible reading plan. [00:10:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:10:58] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. I don't know, man. I. I think it's. I think maybe there's this idea that, like, you have to read the Bible cover to cover in a set amount of time. You have to read X amount of Bible a day. And like. I'm not sure. I'm not sure that's right. Yeah, I find it. I find it much better to, like, if I can chant a psalm in the morning and then meditate on that throughout the day, I'm happy, you know, with. And I mean, there. There's obviously, I'm in seminary. Like, there's time for. There's prescribed reading and prescribed study, and then, you know, with preaching and teaching, Bible classes, there's prescribed reading and prescribed study, but it's not the same, you know, as studying it on your own. But at the same time, I don't know that studying it on your own is also necessarily. I've got to read five chapters a day. [00:12:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:12:05] Speaker A: Are you, like. Are you meditating on it if that's. If you're hitting a quota. Are you. You know. [00:12:10] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's where. And that's where I think part of I get. I get stuck is what happens is when you read. It's some of the books, you know, when you're reading Genesis and when it's narrative, you can just read through and. Okay. I'M getting the story, but without getting into further stuff necessarily thinking about what's actually going on there. So, like reading the book of Job, right? You start reading Job, there's all this stuff. But I. At least for me, I can't just read that book. I need to be in the study notes and be like, okay, why are his friends wrong here? Why is this? You know, And. And so just like, okay, I can read four chapters, but am I actually getting anything out? Getting anything from them or they, you know, and that was where. So, yeah, I saw like, some of those things where. Or stuff I was doing in Advent. Reading through stuff in. In like Second Kings and the Chronicles. Right. It's one of those. You can read the story about Rehoboam. You just kind of read through and, oh, here's why he, you know, he was a bad king. But to actually spend that time to, you know, people talk about how sermon prep isn't the same as reading the Bible. I'm like, I don't know. I learn a lot when I'm doing sermon prep. And. [00:13:23] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:24] Speaker B: And getting into that and reading all these other things that I might not have been pulling off my shelf otherwise and go like, oh, wow, you know, more. More things that I feel like I should have maybe known. But yeah. And you only have time to get to so much stuff all the time. So being able to get into it, I think I get more out of than just kind of doing that surface. [00:13:43] Speaker A: Level, read through and how often. I mean, this is. I'm just a sim guy and I'm lucky to preach, you know, once every three or four weeks, if that, you know. But you doing it every week. This has happened to me as infrequently as I preach. It's happened to me. It definitely happens. I, unfortunately, I lead a Bible study every week, which is, you know, it's a. It's a blessing in its own terrible way. So it's, you know, and it's fine. But it happens to me during Bible study, for sure. I know it's happened to me during sermon prep. As infrequently as I preach. It has to happen to you where you do sermon prep, let's say, on a Matthew passage. And you get into it and you really learn a lot through the commentaries and through the different resources. You really learn a lot of historical and theological context that maybe you didn't know or you had forgotten or something. And then like six or seven months later, you're preaching on a completely different. And epistle text, Ephesians, something or other. And you're like, oh, my gosh, like, something from that Matthew study, like, clicks in and it's like, this is the same. It's the same topic. And like, it's like you're. It's feeding back on, you know, that study you did previously, it resurfaces and. [00:15:11] Speaker B: You know, yeah, yeah, stuff like that happens or, you know, things I don't even realize, or sometimes that happens even within the same week where I'll be doing the sermon on one thing. And then I remember it happened a whole bunch. The year that I was my first year here, we went through Mark was. It was Sunday Bible study, just going through the book of Mark and how often there was stuff and it wasn't by plan. And I didn't even always realize it as I was prepping Bible study until I'm there teaching it, talking about stuff, going, oh, wait a second. Hey, that thing I just preached about, we see happening here, and what we're looking at today, this wasn't on purpose. It's just. It felt fits, like, and it all goes together. And so, yeah, that kind of thing happens all the time. [00:15:52] Speaker A: How when you do a Bible study, you say you spend a year going through Mark, which is the shortest gospel. [00:15:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I talk a lot. [00:16:01] Speaker A: Well, so that's what I want to ask is like, how in the weeds do you get. [00:16:10] Speaker B: To say? Maybe not as much as some guys do, but still maybe sometimes more than I should with some stuff. Like there might be things that I'm like, oh, I think this is really interesting, but am I talking over your head? I have to go. Okay, did that make sense? Are you with me? Do you have questions? Because I want to make sure that you understand what I'm going for here. But that's part of what I like Mark is. Mark is very direct. And one thing after another, how often he's like. And then. Or. And immediately things happen and trying to be like. But do you see what. How it's all going. That's. That whole year kept going back to, you know, the. The real goal was to point out the. The beginning of Mark saying the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and be like, look, that's what Mark's communicating this whole gospel is. He's trying to point to how Jesus is the Son of God. So do we see how. What aspect of God's stuff Jesus is doing in this portion and. And stuff. But so to answer your question, in way more words than was necessary, a medium amount in the weeds. [00:17:15] Speaker A: A medium Medium. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I. We. We run our Sunday school at church for the. The adult Sunday school and the kids, we run over the school year. So when school starts, Sunday school starts. When school stops, Sunday school stops. And I. I did. I'm doing Ecclesiastes right now, and we're going through that, and my goal is to get it all done in a year. And we're about halfway through the year and about halfway through the book, so I feel like we're on a good. A good clip. But those first couple of weeks, we're like, we're spending an hour on two, three verses, you know, and it's like there's, you know, there's so much you can. You can really drag out if you. If you look, if you try, if you think about it. And I had to ask him. I was like, is this. Do you want to move faster? Do you want to move slower? Like, we can move slower. If you want. We can do a verse a week. I can do that. But, like, it's. We're never getting. We're never finishing, you know? [00:18:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:18:25] Speaker A: So they. They said they were comfortable being a little breezy with it, but on occasions, we'll. We'll take a deep dive into something. [00:18:34] Speaker B: Yeah. So, yeah, I think what I tend to do. I haven't done Ecclesiastes, but when it's a book like Mark, I think I would tend to take, you know, the one wouldn't go strictly verse by verse, but it's kind of like, okay, let's read this next, you know, little sub chapter. You know, the little. The way the chapters get broken up by narratives. You know, they're like, okay, let's read that part now. Let's get into this as a whole a bit and maybe get into a few verses, but trying to never be like, okay, now we're just leaving off in the middle of a parable when we'll pick it up next week, you know, so it's trying to just make sure I'm getting through, you know, a chunk, you know, any given week. [00:19:09] Speaker A: And. But you also have to, like. You have to fight against, like, the reformed tendency, God bless them, to like. Okay, now let's analyze every single Greek word in this. [00:19:21] Speaker B: Yeah, see, I don't know Greek enough to do that, so. [00:19:23] Speaker A: Yeah, who does? Nobody does. Nobody does. Yeah, it's. It's something, man. It's interesting because you can. You can talk to people about, like. Like the Bible study. I have people in my. In my adult class that would gladly go as Deep as we could possibly go. They want to get into that word by word. Greek study. Yeah. You know, they want to compare, like, well, what's the difference between the, The. The Hebrew and the Greek in the Old Testament in this passage and all that. It's, you know, but then I have other people who are just like, yeah, whatever. [00:20:04] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I've got. I've. I've got a couple of folks who are like 90 and, you know, have been, you know, very devoted, you know, faithful Lutherans and people who are in Bible studies and have led them and all this stuff, you know, for, for years and years. So as you got that person in Bible study and then you've got the person who, you know, hadn't really gone for years, but now they're getting back and he's kind of there because his sons are in Sunday school, you know, and. Yeah, and so it's like. So it's the. Yeah, you don't want to. It's like, okay, here's what you need to know. I want to make sure you're growing here, but I don't want to overwhelm you either. So, yeah, it's trying to find that balance, that balance between, you know, don't want to bore the people. Like, yeah, we know this pastor and don't want to have the people go, what are you talking about? [00:20:52] Speaker A: So, yeah, yeah, it's a happy medium. I, I always try and include the catechism every week in somehow, some way. Even if it's like a complete shoehorn, I try and cram it in there. And I had. I had one of my members come up to me and. And she was like, you know, she was a gear. You know, you're always putting the catechism in there and, you know, this isn't the, the catechism class. And I said, man, if I had my way, we would only have catechism. That would be the only class we had. Everybody old to young would attend the catechism class every Sunday. [00:21:33] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's so for. That's part of where, besides our thing, we've got a Pakistani group that had started meeting at our church before I got here, and I've been working with them and we had a number of them officially become members of our church back on Reformation Day, which was cool. And. But a lot of them are coming from two hours away or something. So like. So it's. It's hard for them to get here, like, regularly, but we have once a month. I know we've been doing is a A Bible study, really kind of for them. And it was just like, okay, what book am I going to do? Because we kind of, you know, had gone through a kind of a more rough overview of the catechism, but I'm like, but to get into more of this doctrinal stuff. But they want a Bible study, not just the catechism thing. I'm like, you know, First Corinthians covers pretty much all of it. You know, it's in there. I'm like, let's go with First Corinthians, because especially when it gets to the Lord's Supper, you know, and resurrection, which are two, you know, big things for me. How do we view death and what are we actually receiving there? You know, those are big things. And how we relate as the body of Christ, especially with them being from different thing now right there. We're only two chapters in so far, so we're gonna. It's gonna be a bit. But. But yet that same idea is like, yeah, how can I sneak the. The catechism in there without being explicitly. Here's a small catechism. Here's what we're doing. Because they want the Bible study with it. Yeah. [00:23:01] Speaker A: Tell me. Tell me more about this Pakistani group. So how long. How long have you been at your call? I rem. I remember when you left that call and you went to the call you're at now. Yeah, this call. [00:23:15] Speaker B: About two and a half years now. Okay. [00:23:17] Speaker A: And you knew about the Pakistani group going in? [00:23:20] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So they had been going for a couple years before I got here with the. The previous pastor. So what had happened there was. I don't remember exactly how it came to be here, and the lady that was the first member of our church being involved, but one of our former vice presidents of our district now is one of the assistants to the. To the president at his church. He had met by chance one day when he was going. And he met at a Boston. What is it? The Boston Chicken, whatever it is, place. This guy who was from Pakistan, he's like, oh, I'm a Luther. I'm a pastor from. From Pakistan. Ended up joining his church and was a member there for years. And there's just a big. There was a large group of Pakistani Christians kind of from a variety of faith backgrounds, I guess. And my understanding is that in Pakistan, you know, which is a place where Christians tend to be fairly heavily persecuted, they're not a. Not an in group in Pakistan by any stretch. So that's kind of like there's Catholics and Then everybody else goes in the same bucket. Tends to be a lot of charismatic types. But so anyway, there was a group, Christians, so some are coming from Catholic backgrounds, some were. Some are coming from more Pentecostal backgrounds, some more Baptist kind of leanings and all this stuff. But it was really a. They were looking for a place that they could get together once a month to. To share their stories, how God's working in their lives, you know, a worship thing, but without any sacrament stuff. And so it would kind of go as they would have their stuff and, and the whole service would be in Urdu except for the pastor from. From our church would share the message that would be in English and then they would, you know, translate it and into Urdu it says how it started. But after he had left, they had had other Pakistani people come in and preach. When I got here, they were. They said, oh, you know, we, we, you know, we know it's in English. It's not our first language, but we, we liked what the white pastors were saying. You know, we liked what the Lutheran pastors were preaching. Yeah, we liked that. So it's like, all right. So I started, you know, going and, and just kind of preaching each. Each month. And, and then after a while, some of them were like, you know, we'd really like to have the Lord's Supper. And we talked like, well, we'd love to do that, but right now you guys are kind of coming from all over the place. We need to go through and so you understand what we believe before we do that. And, and, you know, we told him all along, he's like, you know, if you want. If you want to come talk to me, we can talk about this stuff and go through it, and you could come to our service another time if you want. But so anyway, so we took the whole group through, through the six chief parts and, and all that stuff. And at the end was 22 of them said, yeah, no, we. This is what we believe. We don't know if we'll, you know, because the distance that we're coming every month, we don't know how regular we'll be able to be that. Still working on that. But, you know, we. This is what we believe. We, you know, everything that you've taught us and, and preached and, and said, yeah, that sounds good. We want to. We want to be Lutheran. I was like, yeah, let's go. You know, and, and so, yeah, it was Reformation Day. We, we welcomed them in. It kind of worked out for me. It was kind of like I, I wanted to do it. It seemed like a fitting day to do it anyway. And then it turned out that all the ones that joined were all the ones that were coming from the Catholic background. So I'm like, somehow that makes it even more perfect. Yeah. [00:27:00] Speaker A: So. And on information day. [00:27:03] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's been a real interesting thing, you know, learn about that culture, because it is very different. You know, in America, everybody's kind of like, I do my thing. You can't tell me what to do. You know, there's very much. If there's one person who's a leader and the leader says, here's what we're doing, they all go, okay. Then I guess that's what we're doing. Which is good in some ways. It's also like. But do. Is this what you actually. Are you actually on board? Are you just saying it because, you know, the couple people in charge are saying this is what they want to do. Yeah, but it's been. It's been great. Every time they meet, you know, I never had had Indian food, had never had Pakistani food, but now I get that, you know, every time they meet, you know, after every time. Oh, yeah. So many. Yeah. So they get together, they worship, and there's food and. And. And they love the Lord, and. Yeah, there's things we got to work on, tweaking and, you know, catching some of the stuff. A little bit of the. The name it and claim it stuff kind of coming through in some of the prayers when they pray. And it's like, okay, we'll. We'll get there, you know, working on it. And. But yeah, wasn't something I ever envisioned doing. But it's been a really cool thing, though, to. To be involved with. [00:28:19] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, I. It's. It's funny you're talking about this, and the thing I'm thinking about is Brian Wolfmiller and taking up his. His post at the. At the Deaf Lutheran Church there, where he's at. And I had him on this show years ago, and it was, I think, very shortly after he got that. And I asked him, did, you know sign language going into it? No. Nope. Yeah, just this was. It was a package deal with the call. And so, you know, you just go for it. And it's amazing how when you just do the thing God puts in front of you, it's amazing, you know, what you get out of it. [00:29:03] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:29:05] Speaker A: That's awesome. I wonder. I wonder about the persecution of Christianity in Pakistan because. So a buddy of mine, his wife is Chinese, my best friend, his Wife is Chinese. And in China there is Christian persecution. But it's not, it's not like you imagine. It's not like the Gestapo kicking down the door because you're Christians and you're meeting. How dare you. It's because in China there are two Christian churches that their government allows. There is the Roman Catholic church and there is the state unionist Protestant church, which is the big bucket. You're either a Roman Catholic or you're a unionist Protestant and you are in the state Protestant church. Well, if you're a Presbyterian pastor and you want to do a mission in China, you have to be ordained in their state Protestant church and you have to teach their state Protestant doctrine. And so where there is the persecution, it's the people that are defiant of that. And I'm not saying it's bad to be defiant of that. I think it's good to be defiant of that. As a Lutheran, I'm very defiant of unionist type churches, as historically we were. But there, that's where those are the people getting persecuted. There are plenty of open churches in China and plenty of people that are openly Christian in China and they're not being arrested and sent to labor camps. Usually what happens is you have like a Presbyterian minister who wants to start an only Presbyterian church and teach Presbyterian things. And that goes against the Chinese state church doctrine. And so that guy gets arrested and sent to a labor camp. Not necessarily everyone that attended his church, maybe leaders and what have you in his church that supported it, the person whose house they're meeting in that supported it, but just the general people, not really. So it's. And it's not be. It's not necessarily because they're Christian, but it's because they're defying the state church, if that makes sense. Right. [00:31:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:19] Speaker A: Because they're not being Christian in the lines. [00:31:21] Speaker B: Yeah, I think. And I'm not an expert on it. My understanding there is, it is a bit just more general. It's not looked highly upon. I was talking to, to one of the guys after their Christmas service because my wife used to work in, used to work for an immigration nonprofit. And so. Yeah. Questions if there was things that she's like, well, I, I don't know that stuff and I don't do that anymore. But he was talking about, I think it was an uncle of his was serving as a pastor over there. And because they can't have a church, they were just meeting like in his, in his house, in his apartment, like doing like 10 services a day because you can only have so many people at a time to like, come in and do that. But I mean, he's been arrested, jailed, and they kind of move him around at times in secret, not feeding him at times. So there is some of that stuff. And I know at least two summers ago, there were some issues with just, you know, people being. I don't think. I don't remember if anybody was killed, but I remember they're praying for people who were being beaten and they were, you know, churches being like vandalized, set on fire that were there. And I know the lady who's kind of the. For lack of a better word leader. She's kind of like the mom of the whole group. She's kind of the one that just organizes everything, gets everybody where they're supposed to be and when and stuff. I know she's got still his family back there. Whenever she's expressed not being sure about being able to go back or if, you know, some trepidation of if something might happen to her because her face is like on the stuff, like on their YouTube page, their Facebook page, and they, they live stream their services back to Pakistan. So it's kind of like, am I going to get in trouble if I go back? [00:33:04] Speaker A: Right. [00:33:05] Speaker B: Because, you know, because I'm spreading this stuff over there. Not so. [00:33:11] Speaker A: And I. Yeah. I feel the need to clarify that. I also am not an expert. This is just what my understanding. [00:33:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:18] Speaker A: And also I'm not saying that people in China aren't dying for the faith. They are. They are absolutely being persecuted to death for the faith. But, you know, it's more so. It's more so that you won't. In, in China, it's not that, like, if you're a Christian, the Secret Service is just showing up to your house and arresting you. [00:33:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:40] Speaker A: The secret police or whatever. In China, it's more like. It's. It's more about submitting Jesus to the Chinese state government. And if you're unwilling to do that, that's when the persecution starts. There are plenty of Christians that are willing to do that, and they get along just fine, you know, as long as they confess something similar to Jesus is God and Xi Jinping is his prophet. You know, they're doing fine. [00:34:03] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I know. I've seen some of the stuff with the, that with the Catholics over there and stuff in terms of like. Yeah, the, the States say, well, no, this guy gets to be bishop. And some of the stuff with their translations of stuff. So I've seen some of that stuff. Yeah. [00:34:19] Speaker A: Yeah. It's I remember, I remember years and years ago and this, I mean years ago when they first started getting big. Now they've reversed course on this. But over a decade ago when they first really started taking off, I remember the Chinese government put out a very public request to Google and said, hey, you need to censor your search results in our country. And Google just said, no, you know, like we make almost as much money as your whole country. So like, no, like you're not, you're not just talking to a corporation. You're talking to an equal. And that was really inspiring to see somebody stand up to China like that. They've since caved. Everybody caves because China spends a lot of money. Yep. Anyway, that's not really germane to the conversation, but other than, you know, the Pope also caves, I guess everybody cares. Do you believe the, the Muslim dreams and visions of Jesus based on your interactions with the Pakistani Christians? [00:35:31] Speaker B: I haven't heard that stuff from them. We had, there's a pastor in the area. I should remember the name of his ministry, but he's out of Lombard. But he was, he was a former elite Muslim himself and it was a point studying to be. To preach in it. And he had a very kind of dramatic conversion. He came and talked about, he's from Lebanon. Came and talked about his, his conversion and, and, and some of the stuff that he's seen and experienced and kind of, you know, stuff with Islam and trying to reach out to Muslims, you know, to try to evangelize to them and, and some of that stuff. And, and he told story somebody who, who had one of those visions, one of those things where you know, the guy who was, who had been an imam of, of multiple mosques who then like to wear. But he was doing something like giving some safe harbor to some Christians in Iraq and that wasn't popular and so they tried to kill him. You know, they're, they're the thing and, and story about how yeah he, how he prayed, how he prayed to Allah saying, you know, I've, I've served you for all these years. You know, I'm praying for you to help me. And he says is that Jesus showed up and you know, I told him I didn't ask for you. And he says that Jesus said, I know you didn't, but I'm who's here right. And now and converted. So it's one of those like yeah, that's obviously outside of my, my experiences and, and the kind of thing that I'd be like, oh, you should expect this to happen. But yeah, I mean, I don't want to say it's, but. But it. For a faith where, you know, they put a lot of emphasis on that, do I think God could be, you know, working through what they expect to make those changes? Sure. [00:37:28] Speaker A: So I heard one. The one I heard that has always stuck with me and is most striking is it was one of those countries, I couldn't tell you. I think maybe Iran. And it was going through some turmoil and this guy prayed to Allah to get to safety. Just a guy, just, I want to get to safety. And his whole family had immigrated to the US but he couldn't get out of. Of Iran and, or wherever. And he prayed. And Jesus appeared to him in a vision and said, go to this place at this time and you'll meet a guy. And he went and met a guy. And the guy brings him all the way to another guy and says, you know, go in there, talk to that guy, tell him these things, and he'll take you across the border. And he goes in, he talks to the guy, tells him the things, and gets smuggled out of the country. And all of this without any payment, without any prearrangement or anything, just going on the. And the way he tells it, the guy he met that ferried him across Iran or wherever was an angel. Jesus appeared to an. In a vision, sent him to an angel. The angel ferried him safely across the country and then put him in the hands of someone who could smuggle him across the border. And then once he got into the other country, he was then able to apply for like some kind of hardship visa and get to the US and be reunited with his family and became a Christian. And the thing that always gets me about stories like that is we are talking about, and this is my Pentecostal coming out. It is what it is, and I embrace it. I 100% buy in. Fully. Fully bought in. Because you're talking about an area of the world where Christians maybe can't readily get into to share the gospel. It's difficult to penetrate. And Jesus is not above sharing the gospel. Like, there's this view that Jesus isn't sharing the gospel. Like, he's not a man who also is sharing the gospel. Right. Like Jesus is fully human, he's fully God, and we see him in the scripture sharing the gospel. Right. With St. Paul. Jesus himself evangelizes St. Paul. Why do we think that it's like somehow above or beyond Jesus to share the gospel? Like. Like he's not doing anymore. [00:39:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's the kind of thing that I think when I was younger, just being, you know, the very Midwestern Lutheran upbringing where, you know, didn't really go for that stuff. Right. Too much or didn't see it. So I think when I was younger, I might have been more like. I don't know. That seems kind of whatever to me. You know, I'm like, was that really. I don't know. But, you know, getting older and going into things more and kind of, you know, just dealing with the truth. Like, no, like, demons are real, angels are real. God didn't stop having messengers and using them. So it's, you know, again, has it been my experience, have I, you know, had those moments in life? No. But am I going to say that God isn't doing that in places? Absolutely not. Right. I think we don't want to say, well, if, you know, I think the danger then, you know, is obviously the, the, you know, we don't want to see them everywhere, be expecting it all the time and kind of taking it too far. But to say, like, no, if somebody's got that story, I'm not going to say that didn't happen. [00:41:04] Speaker A: You know, it's what you, it's what you said earlier, right. That it's not like, just because God does things like that doesn't mean that you should expect him to be normative for the church. Right? [00:41:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:41:14] Speaker A: Like, it's not always happening that way, but that doesn't mean it's never happening. [00:41:19] Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah. God heals people miraculously. He doesn't always heal people miraculously. And if he doesn't, it doesn't mean you didn't believe enough. Right. It's. So it's the. [00:41:30] Speaker A: Yeah. And there's, there's. On the topic of healing specifically, I've seen so many people that have had beautiful, moving stories about their faith specifically because they weren't healed. Right. There's. I have known people who remained steadfast in the faith despite not being healed, who died and whose children then came to faith because, wow, even though God didn't do the thing for him, he stuck it out for God. You know what I mean? Like, there's. That happens that way too, you know. So, yeah, ultimately, I think God knows how to draw people to himself and he does that. [00:42:16] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:42:18] Speaker A: That's awesome. What's. How long have you been ordained now? [00:42:25] Speaker B: A little over 15 years. It was 2000, summer 2009. So. Cool. [00:42:30] Speaker A: Cool. [00:42:31] Speaker B: Yep. Served it. [00:42:32] Speaker A: So you had, you had graduated college. [00:42:34] Speaker B: In 2009, then no graduate college in 2005 and then finished seminary in 2009. [00:42:40] Speaker A: Got your master's degree in 2009. [00:42:42] Speaker B: Yep. [00:42:42] Speaker A: Yeah. After four years of seminary, I graduated high school in two years prior to that. [00:42:48] Speaker B: So, yeah, there's things realizing. Oh, I know. It struck me today I was taking our. Our oldest had his first day at driver's ed today, so I was taking him and then realizing I was like, wait a second, it's 2025. He was thinking about stuff. It's like. Like, I'm like, I graduated 24 years ago from high school. [00:43:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:08] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. I am so old. But it's the. Like, it's brutal. [00:43:13] Speaker A: It was. What was that tweet? What was that tweet I saw earlier today? And it was like. It was like, you guys are wasting your time on these young girls. You need to get. You get yourself an older, mature woman, someone born in 98. [00:43:27] Speaker B: Oh, I saw that. 98 to 2002 or whatever. I'm like, oh, no, that would be. I think. Yeah, I think I saw when you guys up to, like, 2001 or something. Like, no, even if I wasn't married, that would be inappropriate. Even then, I think, no. [00:43:40] Speaker A: 100. [00:43:43] Speaker B: No. [00:43:44] Speaker A: My wife. Never mind. I'm not. I'm not kidding. Not gonna get into it. Yeah. It's what has. In the last 15 years. This is what I actually wanted to ask you. What has been the hardest part of ministry? What's been, like, the one thing that was most difficult? Were you expecting it to be hard, etc. [00:44:09] Speaker B: Oh, man. Yeah. That's a good question. I think maybe this isn't what you're looking for. I'd been. I had been very fortunate. For the first several years of my ministry, things went pretty smooth. Obviously, there were difficulties, challenges. But then trying to navigate the spring and summer of 2020 and onward was. I mean, yeah, that one was. Was huge. Not just what do we do and what ought we do? But then the. Just the different opinions that were very firmly set and incredibly emotional between people and trying to figure out how do I navigate and how do I encourage people to, you know, we can disagree that we're still brothers and sisters in Christ. Let's love each other. And at times, just feeling like you were, you know, hitting your head against a wall, because that's just how life was then. That year was tough. That was a. A challenge to. To get through and kind of not. Not just throw in the towel and be like, you know what? I'm just gonna go get a job making. Donuts somewhere or something. Yeah, just trying to. Yeah, just. Yeah, so just trying to navigate, you know, the emotions that strong. I've. I've followed people at places where there had been, you know, difficult situations, but I was. The times like, okay, how do I try to hold this group together? How do we keep proclaiming the gospel and walking together in faith while we've got all these feelings that have nothing to do with the church but are nevertheless, you know, affecting and infecting the church? Yeah, that's one of those. You know, they. They at seminary, they. They try to talk about how you can handle conflict and some of that stuff. It's like. Was not ready for that. [00:46:08] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. So St. Louis didn't have a class on how to handle a global pandemic. [00:46:13] Speaker B: No, no. Yeah. And where there's. Where there's very. Where all of a sudden, institutional trust completely collapses. Not necessarily in the church, but in every other institution. Every. Every institution, when it's related to health and governance and everything, it's like, oh, boy. [00:46:31] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I'm sorry St. Louis didn't have a class on that. That's why Fort Wayne is the best seminary. [00:46:38] Speaker B: I'm sure those guys were all prepared and dealt with it better night. [00:46:40] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. And if they weren't, they told everyone they were. [00:46:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:46:44] Speaker A: God bless him. And. Yeah, no, I. I remember we had a congregational meeting about the whole Covid thing, and the general view that was being expressed by, like, the entire congregation is, we want to keep meeting. Consequence be damned. We want to keep meeting. We're not going to miss church anymore. And this was the general sentiment of the church, and everyone was sort of expressing this. And just before we went to take a vote on it, we had a motion. We had a second, and all this. And just before we're going to vote on it, a woman stood up and she said, if we are going to keep meeting during this thing, then I am not going to be a member. [00:47:25] Speaker B: Of this church anymore. [00:47:26] Speaker A: And she outlined all her reasons why it was irresponsible and hateful and evil, and we are not scared enough, and we all need to be more worried, and that's how we can love our neighbor and all this. And then very emphatically declared that she was going to resign her membership and never be seen again if we. If we continued meeting during. If we voted to continue meeting during the pandemic. And I will never forget there being, like, silence. Council president doesn't say anything. No one says anything. And then after a beat, Pastor Joe just so very Graciously and very gracefully was like, look, it's up to the congregation. We're gonna vote on it. I want you to keep coming to church and we'll do everything we can to make you comfortable. But if you feel you can't be here, if we vote this way and you feel you can't be here, you know, I mean, what, you know, what, what do you do when someone throws down the gauntlet? What do you do? You know? [00:48:28] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. For us, it was the, the initial thing. Everybody was kind of on board. The, the conflict and struggles really happened once, you know, whether we should have kept, whether we should have shut down. That's a whole separate thing. Yeah. There's things I probably would have done differently all along. But the issues really, you know, the divisions and stuff came when we started in person again. And you had, when it came to the masking versus non masking thing and. [00:48:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:49:00] Speaker B: And make it. And, and maybe it feel like it would have been one. One set of problems or the other either would have had that if we said, no, this is what we're doing, like it or not. But instead we're like, we'll have two services and we'll try to do make everybody happy. Made nobody happy. And it was, it was one of those, oh, boy, well, hopefully we never get in that situation again. But it's like I learned what not to do in some ways or just learn or at least learn that, oh, no, you really can't make everyone happy. And so you just kind of have to make a choice and go with it and. Yep. Deal with the consequences. But it's like, well, you just, I. [00:49:31] Speaker A: Mean, some people, you just got to give up to God. [00:49:34] Speaker B: Right. [00:49:34] Speaker A: And it's. [00:49:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:49:35] Speaker A: Look, you know, what do you. It's, it's this. It goes back to like the idea of the divine call, the external call, specifically. Right. That the Holy Spirit works through means to call you to the office. Right. So in the same way, you have to believe that the Holy Spirit works through means to continue to guide his church. And, you know, if the voters assembly all gets together and votes that this is the way we're going. You know, it's. Was it, you know, was it the right call? You know, I don't know, but it's, it's the, it's the. How do you. How do I know my wife is the one that God had for me? Well, I mean, I don't, but I'm married to her, so that's it. [00:50:24] Speaker B: Yep. [00:50:24] Speaker A: Right. What should the disciples. Should the Disciples have picked Matthias to replace Judas. I'm, I personally don't think so. I think they should have waited because I think Paul was the one picked to replace Judas. But you know what, they drew straws and they, they cast lots or whatever they did and you know, they picked Matthias and God honored that and went with it. You know, it's, I don't know, there's something about this cooperation and things like this where it's you, you do the best you can and God is going to pick up the slack. [00:50:57] Speaker B: Yep. [00:50:58] Speaker A: You know. Yeah. What, what was the outside of COVID What's the one part of pastoral ministry that you feel seminary absolutely did not prepare you for in any kind of way? [00:51:12] Speaker B: Oh. [00:51:18] Speaker A: You can say nothing if you feel thoroughly. [00:51:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I, yeah, I'm trying to, trying to think. I'm not sure if there's. Again, maybe it's a cop out answer. I think some of is they try to prepare you for but just can't because it's emotional. So it's just some of those, you're just dealing with the emotional disappointments of seeing kids that you confirmed go in directions that you're like, what are you doing? You know, or why are you doing that? Or, or seeing people who were faithful members do that. Like, know what? I don't like that you did this, I'm out of here kinds of stuff. It's like, yeah, they tell you that's going to happen, right. They, they prepare you intellectually, you know, those things will happen. But, but I don't think you can really be prepared to deal with that heartache that, that happens of, of, you know, those people walking away and, and we're turning away from the gift that they've been given as you're, you know, then praying that they come back to it, you know, and, and, and look forward to having that opportunity to receive them back. But you don't know if you will. So it's just those, those things where it's like, I don't think anybody can ever be prepared for that really until you actually have to deal with it because. Yeah. [00:52:36] Speaker A: Yeah. Was there anything that, that you came out, you came out and you got into pastoral ministry and it was the other way around. Or you're like, wow, this is exactly like they said it would be. [00:52:54] Speaker B: I think some with the, the. So two things I think both regarded related to preaching a bit. One was that, you know, I'd heard it from my dad too, and they tell you at the seminar, you know, there will be times you'll do all this work to preach. It'll be those weeks where you feel really good about your sermon and you think it's a really good one. Nobody says anything. And it'll be the weeks where you feel like you did a terrible job. The people, like, I thank you. That was a really good, you know, message. Pastors, that one is true. And then the one that really hit for me, that at first I was like, it just didn't feel right, but was so true, is that, you know, if you give me the choice between doing, writing a funeral sermon and a wedding sermon. Funeral, I will take the funeral every time, 11 times out of 10. And that is one thing, you know, I think, you know, it's a weird thing to be like, I think I do those well, but I think I do, you know, funerals and handle those. Those well. And, you know, I never, like. It's one of those. I never like having to do one. But at the same time, like, the opportunity that's there when you have one is just. I mean, yeah, those are sometimes some of the easiest sermons to write. To just be like, hey, look, this person was a great person. We look at their faith, but even more, you know, we look to the one they believed in, you know, the one who saved them and, and getting to offer that comfort to the family. So that was something. Yeah, they, they, you know, seminary profs would mention, it's like, oh, yeah, no, that's very true. You know, because at the funeral, people want to hear that at weddings, they do not care what I'm saying up there. Yeah, they just, they just want to get to the reception. They want to dance, they want to do whatever. [00:54:29] Speaker A: Well, and you're gonna ruin their perfect day, you know. [00:54:32] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. And you're. They're standing up there and they're hot. They just want to be done right. And you're like, well, give me a couple more minutes to talk, you know. [00:54:41] Speaker A: This day isn't all about you. [00:54:43] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:54:44] Speaker A: Stacy and Chad. Yeah, I. At my wife and I at our 10 year vow renewal, we. The. It was such a shame, and I call upon the LCMS to fix this. But we wanted to do a liturgical service for a 10 year vow renewal. We eloped. And I always promised her, At 10 years we'll have a wedding. And so 10 years came in 20, 23, and we had a wedding. I gave her a wedding. She got the dress and I got the tux, and we invited everybody and we did the thing, but we had to do a vow renewal because we were already Married. We've been married. And the only people that had. Again, I call upon you. Lcms. Fix this. The only people that had a liturgical setting for this was the elca, and they had a full liturgical right for vow renewal, including some really solid, like, prayers and, like, recognition of vows already taken and recommitment to vows taken and this and that. It was very good. Very well done. I did have to. I did have to anti. Elca, and I have to, like, un. Elka it a little bit in some places, but it was largely pretty good. And. And Joe was like, oh, yeah, do you want, like, a wedding sermon? And I was like, no, man, I want a sermon. Like, do it, man. Just go for it. You know, and he preached a good one. But I can see how that would be. That would be difficult compared to. I. I buried my brother. I did. I did his funeral. And I. I can see how that was. That was easier, comparatively, than maybe doing a. A wedding sermon for somebody. You know, a funeral sermon, that's. They're prime. They're not. They're teed up. You just knock them out, you know? [00:56:38] Speaker B: Yeah. Everybody. [00:56:41] Speaker A: Right. [00:56:41] Speaker B: It's been a while since I've. I've had one. I don't. I like doing the, you know, talking to the couple leading up to the wedding, having them come in and go talking about the faith all there and stuff. But then it gets to the service and, you know, trying to, you know, pick the hymns. Okay. Or not the hymns, but the. [00:56:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:56:56] Speaker B: The texts and. And stuff. And it's just like. Yeah. People are kind of. Not really. That's not what they're focused on. And it's. It is. It. It's real easy to preach the gospel to the grieving, but when it's like a wedding, like, obviously there's gospel there and there's things you can bring in, but, you know, trying to. To tailor it. It does become probably more difficult. [00:57:20] Speaker A: Weddings, huh? [00:57:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:57:21] Speaker A: It's like, listen. [00:57:22] Speaker B: But people don't want to hear that. You know, you don't want to hear. You better behave yourselves. Love each other and do all that. [00:57:27] Speaker A: Look, Stacy, Chad, remember, you both suck, right? [00:57:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:57:31] Speaker A: Let's go in knowing that. Right? Yeah. [00:57:36] Speaker B: Yeah. It's really. All you can do is like, hey, you know, you're both going to do stuff that's going to take the other one off. You're going to need to forgive each other in these things, you know, because Jesus forgives you, and. And so you forgive each other. But. Yeah. It just doesn't ever feel quite the same as, you know, when it's the. The. When. When the law is already kind of being preached just by its presence in a casket in front of. In front of you. [00:58:03] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I. I did take. With my. With my brother's funeral, I did take some time to expound on the law simply because he was cremated. So it was a little less visible. Right. It was a little less apparent. What we had was a fancy wooden box, you know, which isn't quite the same as seeing a body in a casket. So. [00:58:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:58:30] Speaker A: But, yeah, it was. It was. They're, like. At a funeral, people are definitely teed up to listen to you. They're, like, ready and receptive to listen to you, whereas at a wedding, they're absolutely ready to ignore you. [00:58:45] Speaker B: Right. [00:58:46] Speaker A: They're just. They're trying to get past you. [00:58:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:58:49] Speaker A: The. Yeah. To the fun part. [00:58:50] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. They just want to see the kiss. They want to see, you know, all those things. That's the. Everything else. [00:58:56] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. That's awesome. Jeremy, thank you so much for coming on, man. [00:59:05] Speaker B: It's good talking to you. So hopefully some of this is usable. [00:59:09] Speaker A: I'm gonna use all one hour of it. I'm gonna use. [00:59:12] Speaker B: Okay. [00:59:13] Speaker A: Every single thing. [00:59:14] Speaker B: It was all usable, so very good. [00:59:18] Speaker A: Thanks. [00:59:19] Speaker B: Yep.