Trinity Lutheran Church
Trinity Lutheran Church
First transition meeting
Meeting with Pastor Keurelein to discuss the process and challenges/opportunities arising from Pastor Foote's pending retirement in April 2026.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_03:I
SPEAKER_06:don't know.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you
SPEAKER_04:very
SPEAKER_06:much. Yes, there's a lot of
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SPEAKER_06:yeah so um
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SPEAKER_04:It's hard to
SPEAKER_06:think. Just so
SPEAKER_02:you know, there's extra
SPEAKER_00:food.
SPEAKER_03:If you'd like it, you can have it. So you can take home chicken quarters. Sides are free. Suggested$5 donation for the chicken. The ladies will help box it up and then you can put it in their fridge. Put it in their fridge while we're doing the meeting. So anyway, there's plenty of food. Don't want it to go away, so please send. No, no, no, no,
SPEAKER_00:no.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, we're going to get started now
SPEAKER_00:from there.
SPEAKER_03:So I put up on the screen just so you know what we're going to look at tonight. We're not necessarily going to do a lot of business tonight, but we are going to share information, where we're at, where we'd like to go, sort of open-ended. This is the beginning of a process. This is the first meeting of, I don't know, we'll have many meetings probably like this over the coming months. But we're going to open with Pastor Caroline with an opening devotion. And then after that, I'll give a few updates and we'll go from there. So, Pastor, if you are ready.
SPEAKER_05:Thank you.
SPEAKER_03:Let's see if this is working, not yet. Is it working? I can turn up the volume on my voice. They say I've got a big mouth.
SPEAKER_06:At
SPEAKER_03:least my wife tells me that. Does that work? Good, good. Just briefly, not gonna take a lot of time in this. I like these kind of meetings to last no more than an hour. We'll see how we do that. If not, then we'll go four. I'm Barry Carolinan. I've known the Foots since their Pittsburgh days. I've been here with you on a few occasions, not at least by any means, which would have been near Jennifer's funeral. And I was here to celebrate and believe in that. I asked Pastor Foote to come. It was a little unorthodox to ask him in the first place, but I asked him to do what I did. On my final service at St. Luke after 39 years, I asked the pastor to put the brief to the last sermon. And so we go way back in that mess. Mary, Andy, my wife, my elders, I would always talk about Andy in the sermon, saying Andy and I were in bed the other night and we were talking and my elders would say, could you once in a while just slip in a few of them? But Andy is the one who had that complex fracture of the wrist. And it was a tough time, and I'm sorry I had to bump out the first time, but it was just too fragile. As it is, a good friend of ours, the 40-year-old is staying where we can do it next year. But all is good. Two daughters, Elizabeth lives in Northern Virginia with her husband, Seth, and OES, our three grandchildren. I've got 200 pictures of them if you want to see them after the meeting. My Lucy is stepping onto University of Colorado Boulder for the first time this weekend as a freshman. My youngest daughter works with the Olympic program. It was sports and the like. Now she's working with FIFA and World Cup. And she's down in Miami for that. And the next year is playing for the World Cup here in the States. My ex, not my ex, my brother-in-law, who is now in heaven, God bless his soul, Richard Bernheim, went to Cornell to be taught at Cornell, mechanical engineering. But that was about 50 years ago. Anybody remember him? Yeah. And he then taught at NC State in North Carolina. But that's who I am. I grew up in the New England area, spent most of the time, all of my time in Pittsburgh. Enough of me. Let me share a devotion with you. You're here because what you're about to enter into this journey through what I call the land in between is one fraught with many emotions and many unexpected things. The thought of going into being a church without the same spiritual leadership you've had, either part-time or then completely stepping away, it can be a very unsettling, frightening thing. I served the St. Luke for 39 years. My principal served for 40 years. He left two years later I left. 79 years of experience. We intentionally... practice some steps of transition so that the congregation could embrace that. We're gonna talk a lot more about it. I'm gonna tell you this one piece real quick. There are three stages you need to go through in this journey. There will be how to end things that need to be ended. Then you enter the scary middle land, this land in between. The biblical narrative is all about people who are journeying in the middle land. The Israelites spent how many years in the wilderness between Egypt and the Promised Land? How many? Forty. Forty years. And it was scarier than all that. But God gave them a reminder. A pillar of cloud. And what at night? Five. To remind them, I'm with you. You need to remind one another in the next, this journey ahead, that God is with us. Don't ever tire of saying it. God thought enough to give them a sign in the daytime and a sign in the evening, all 40 minutes. If the question comes up about spiritual care, and it does, and that's a valid question, the spiritual care is going to best be handled by each of you to one another, to encourage one another, to reassure one another. The first step is ending something properly. I'll tell you more about how we ended it at St. Luke. Then there is this land in between of Many different things, and then finally there's new beginning. New beginning. You must understand something, and then I'll get into a biblical devotion. There is a different, if you remember, nothing else from today. We're looking for one substantive thing. And by the way, there's not going to be a lot of substance today. And I mean that, I'm not kidding. This is not the night for substance. This is the night to build trucks. This is the night to say we're going to have open windows, not closed doors. on the leadership level. There has to be transparency. Whatever role I'm going to serve with you in the future and I'm willing to serve just because of my love for this church and for the foot, whatever role I serve, I will promise you this. I'll never lie to you. I'll always speak truthfully to you. I may just not always say all the truth. If I feel that truth would be harmful or too much to bear at the moment. Is that enough to begin with? I won't lie. I'll speak truthfully. I may not just always speak all the truth at once if I feel it is not helpful to us at that moment, okay? It's a journey that can be difficult, but oh my, it's a journey that can bring such growth, such growth. For us, you know, it's not just difficult for us. It can be difficult for Rod and for Sheila. For Stephanie, for Matthew, for Tate, and on and on and on. Because it's different. Anything different is not easy. Joshua 1.9. Two verses of God's word now. So they just said, Joshua 1.9. Moses is dead. They're about to be into the promised land. Joshua is in charge. And he is feeling exactly what many of you are feeling. And we get to this point. After the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses is eight. Moses, my servant, is dead. Don't you think Joshua knows that? But God understands it has to be a clear ending. That's acceptance. Moses, my servant, is dead. Let's just say it, he says to Joshua. That's acceptance. He goes on from there, but then it gets to this. God says, Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant gave you. Do not turn to the right. Don't turn to the left. Keep this book of the law always on your lips. Meditate on it. Here it comes. Have I not commanded you to be strong? Be courageous. Don't be afraid. Don't be discouraged. For I will be with you wherever you go. That's his promise to you. You're going to ask questions that I don't know the answer to. And I'll tell you, you're going to ask questions that I haven't even thought of yet. But I've been working already with the leaders in a council meeting and working with some of the key leaders in a private meeting. We're trying to stay ahead of the event. When we're not ahead of the event, we'll tell you. Let us step up to you. The other passage I would share with you is this. Understand all that is a part of this, and then we'll pray. John 10. Jesus says, I'm the good shepherd. I know my sheep. My sheep know me just as the Father knows me. I know the Father. And then later he says, my sheep listen to my voice. I know them. They follow me. I give them eternal life and never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. My sheep know my voice. They follow me. They listen to me. I've been gone from St. Luke for five years. Every time I go back, I hear almost the same thing. It's not, I miss you, Pastor Barrett. What I hear over and over again is, I miss your voice. I miss your voice. And there's something biblical in that, that for 39 years, they heard the gospel being proclaimed by one voice. And you get used to that. It's like sitting in the same pew. How many of you sit in the same pew? Yeah. But that voice is what God has used these many years to speak to your soul. Acknowledge that, that that voice may change, but the gospel will not, the hope will not, the love will not change, but the voice. And we'll talk more about how we get to that ending, move through that transition and begin. to a new beginning. I know you have questions about who's going to be the vacancy pastor, when does the call process begin? We'll try to answer as many of those as we can this early instead. Father, I know that you are present. We know your voice. We listen to your voice. Your voice is your word. May your word be the bedrock, the foundation for the journey we go through. Don't let Satan's ugly hand be in any of this. Don't let him whisper things that would cause division and doubt. But let your spirit anoint us with peace, with love, with truthfulness. And we pray. We pray that you would raise all of us up to care for one another, to nourish one another, to pray with one another. Let the spiritual care begin there. We commit all of this to thy keeping. We begin in your holy name, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Amen.
SPEAKER_05:Amen. Thank
SPEAKER_03:you, Pastor. So we're beginning... There are no parts that I asked you to fill out. We've been getting several of those. Some of the information we don't have answers to yet. I'm going to provide some updates. Some of this has been communicated. Some of this will be new. But I'll grab my clicker. So let's start off with pastor's weekly schedule. He's mentioned reducing work hours. So Beginning September 1st, that's the tentative plan right now. Pastor will be taking off Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. You know right now his normal day off is Monday. That will change then to adding Tuesday and Thursday. That means working Sunday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday. Okay? Because Pastor isn't always here anyway, then we are moving into having a fuller-time secretary than we've had in the past with Hannah working part-time after school, part-time secretary. Now she'll be having expanded hours in the office approximately 8.30 to 2.30 p.m. on weekdays would be when we expect the secretary to be in the office. We're going to be working on finalizing the contract and spelling out those details. But that should mean, therefore, that you can call, you should be able to call the church office and have someone there if Pastor Foote is not here. Pastor Foote is still available for emergency calls. If you do not know his cell phone number, there it is. Write it down. By the way, there's pencils, there's these nice thriving little notebooks. Take them and write in them anything you want tonight if you don't have something to write with. Pastor Foote is also going to be continuing evening meetings, so For example, he has the adult catechesis class, usually some weekday night that will continue, potential help with LSF, council meetings, sorry. Continue that for a time. Yeah, I'm just going to make sure. Yeah, and a lot of this we're going to now start putting in the bulletin or should put in the bulletin going forward. maybe a mailing so that everybody is aware of this new schedule. In terms of Sundays, now Pastor mentioned this in the morning service. Next week, Pastor Dick Pate from Fairport, New York will be beginning his guest preaching with us. Typically, he will be preaching the second and third Sundays of the month. This month is different because he'll be preaching next week August 24th and the week after August 31st. Reminder, next week, we go back to our 1030 morning service. People like that. So Pastor Foote will be preaching the other Sundays, also likely midweek services. So Thanksgiving Eve, Advent Lent. Pastor Foote will be helping now more with the confirmation class. We have had in the past two adult Bible studies. We're going down to one, and that will be meeting here in the fellowship hall, and I'll be leading that. Okay. Let's see. So there'll be some expenses with having a regular guest preacher honorarium mileage. We do have some, Pastor Pape is going to drive down in the mornings when the weather's good. When the weather's bad, he will be lodging with some of the members of Trinity. the night before, just so you're aware of how that's going to look. And this guest preaching schedule is going to be now through April 2026, with the exception of Pastor Pape is not available in January 2026. So those are some of the times that we'll make adjustments to the schedule. Pastor will continue to do hospital calls, shutting calls, member marriages and funerals. Regular calls and visitor calls to a point. But with reduced hours, he cannot do as many calls necessarily as he has. This is a point in which Trinity as a family can help each other. We already have people visiting each other. Nobody knows. We take care of each other. But that's going to increase. Elders, other members of the church can, we would hope, step up to do more of these calls with members. So you'll hear more about that in the coming months or weeks, I should say. So if pastors change schedule, we'll have a financial package committee that will look at adjusting pastor's compensation. So that's in the process of being formed. We'll come back to you with what those numbers are. Tentative retirement, this is tentative for Pastor Foote, is next April, end of April, 2026. So as you know, when you're going to go into a vacancy, there's a self-study that is done. In the past, it was much more owners, much bigger document that has now been streamlined back. So it is likely that we could start that self-study this fall. And there will be a group that will need to be brought together to help get that going. The vacancy, we don't have all the details worked out. We don't know what that's going to look like. As you know, we don't have a lot of sort of extra pastors in the circuit, a lot of vacancies at other churches. We don't have a lot of retired pastors. We're going to see how this will be put together. Yes.
SPEAKER_00:Silly question, but I don't know. Self-study, does that mean like you examine the institution and like what's working, what's not? Or what exactly is the self-study?
SPEAKER_03:I haven't actually gone through it myself. But the question is, what is the self-study? What do you do in a self-study? Yeah, it's a great question. It used to be a document that was, oh my gosh, 20 pages or so long now. Who asked the question? It used to be 20. Now it's about five, six, seven pages. But it is questions to ask the leadership and you, all of you, to take an examination of this ministry, this church, where are its strengths, where are the areas that need attention or quote-unquote improvement. So you're really looking. And then what is the profile of the church right now? How is the fiscal stability right now? So it really is a wellness check as we all go through wellness checks with our doctors. It's a wellness check for Trinity Lutheran from that end. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Good question.
SPEAKER_05:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:What about time of prayer? Is that going to be conducted by someone else or in a different day? I do
SPEAKER_03:not know.
SPEAKER_02:Thursdays?
SPEAKER_03:that can maybe change? I think that will be warping, but we may pick a new day, Wednesday or Friday, and we may have days when I intentionally don't show up to see if the group will carry itself. I think the group is fine. We'll do it for about 15 years. But I'll, I mean, prayer won't stop in my life, and I'll be happy to pray with you as often. If I do think On occasion, I will miss intentionally. Yes. Let's see. Calling a new pastor. As you know, you don't set up a call committee until your current pastor is retired. So a call committee is put together that could happen sometime next summer. But it's likely that a call would not be extended to a new pastor maybe until January 2027. So we'd be looking at a number of months of vacancy. Yes, please. Let me speak to that and maybe it'll answer some questions on this. There are certain ideal times to call a pastor. You don't want to call November, December around Christmas. It's just not a good time.
SPEAKER_05:if
SPEAKER_03:you put your call committee together in June, it will take them a good three to four months to look through self-study, to look through some really key questions that pastors, potential pastors will be asking the call committee. And then you interview those people, you review their sermons online, you do a lot of things. That is time, it consumes time. It takes a lot of time. So if you start in June, you probably don't complete that until, I mean, even with the most diligent talking, until September or so, October. That's why that date is there. But also please understand something. Please understand this is the, there is a difference between change and transition. Change is an external thing, okay? You're going to go through a change, an external thing of who's going to be up front administering the sacrament and preaching. Transition is a personal thing. It's an emotional. You're all going to have different emotions, different reactions to the change. And so as we look through this, I think it will be important not to start the call committee while the body is still here. Let's let the guy be carried out. But I'm serious. I'm an intermittent pastor at a church right now that has gone through a great conflict. And I walked into it a year and a half, two years, three years ago, but a year and a half after. I walked into it a year and a half, two years ago, and I said, we're not calling the pastor for the next nine months. We need to just know what it's like to be family today. You don't have the conflict that church had, but You need to know what it's going to be like for you to relate to one another without daddies. You understand what I'm saying? The spiritual father. Then you take the responsibility of caring because if the foots step away and you immediately start looking, there is no chance to just read that ass. And it's an emotional case. And some of you are sitting here thinking, wait, that's... This is where I'm gonna ask you to trust in more than anything. We will, I promise, the leaders and I will keep the windows open. We will not shut doors on our conversation. We want you to hear and see what we're talking about. But that's why that day is there because I think it's a realistic day. I know you wanna hear us earlier. We could say that right now and then say, oh, it didn't work out. I told you, I'm not gonna lie to you. I think that's the realistic thing. I do like my Telling the Truth cell phones. That's all the updates I have for now. I think the next part, we'll turn it back over to you. Yeah, can we go back to the schedule for a minute? Yeah. And I want to ask you if you have questions on this any further. Some have already been asked, but let me share with you a thought. Which one did you want? The one on pass-through-put schedule. There you go. Number one, let me just say that I know Pastor Foote's work ethic. Pastor Foote's work ethic on a part-time basis is as good as most pastors' full-time work. Just understand that. Number two, there are things going on in the Foote's life where I think this is a healthier thing for them right now. This is where we don't need to get into all the details of that. It's just a better place for them to do it. But I think this part-time schedule is a healthier thing for you. I announced to St. Luke before I left one year and 10 months ahead of time that I would be leaving. Over that time, I gave over my office to what would be the next lead pastor. And I moved to a different section of the building. Over that time, I started giving up the committees. I started preaching less. except for the final eight weeks, and then I ran into it. But I wanted the congregation to begin to feel that absence. It was a loving thing to do. Painful, I'll get it, for them and for me. But this schedule is a healthy thing. Any questions on the schedule that we haven't talked about? Pastor Ford, anything you want to say? No, nothing. I think it's going to be flexible. It's going to be hard. It's hard already not to be here when I try to be away. It just takes time. Everybody will be graceful. I think the church is a graceful congregation. I sense that. Question. You talked about your requirements essentially as a transition with another person. That's right. Not the model here of six months. Great. He says, I'm really talking about a transition where I have a person on staff in place. This is not. That's a very wise observation. In some ways, it will be harder. In some ways, it will be easy. Because for that guy that was in place, The Sunday after I left, he had to step right in and say, I'm dead. And everybody looked and said, yeah, right. But he did well. And he and I handled it well. Because people kept turning to me. And we had a system of how we handled it. I'll tell you about that another day. How we handled all those things that I would not undermine him.
SPEAKER_02:Can you define... What constitutes an emergency? Like, when should we call you? If it's, say, 3.30 and something comes up, how do we know? Do we call an elder first? Do we call you first? What is the emergency on your days off? Is there a defined thing for that?
SPEAKER_03:What? what will constitute a day off and what would constitute something I have to do? Emergency. Emergency. How
SPEAKER_02:can we know if something's an emergency versus we should call an elder because it's not a past emergency, but we need to give you the break? How do we know
SPEAKER_03:when? I think if you think of an emergency, call me. If we find out that there's too many things that I wouldn't consider emergency, I may revisit that with the elders and say, You know, there's some times I'm going to call you or I'll let the congregate know that, you know, let's look at this. Maybe I'll see you tomorrow, not today. So we're just going to, it'll be testing the waters. But I think the thing to do first is if you think it's an emergency, call. And then we'll just assess it together. And that's not unusual. I've done that my whole life. I think that's a great answer in that. right now in these uncertain times, if it's an emergency to you, call a pastor. That's what I'm gonna say. If it's an emergency, call a pastor. If he feels it didn't warrant necessarily that, he can talk to the elders, get their way in, and then they can define it to you as a congregation. Say, you know, we're seeing where the emergency is, where the emergency is, and this is when we ask you to call him. But for the time being, because we need some guarantee, some foundation, give him a call. Everybody. Not all
SPEAKER_05:seminary.
SPEAKER_03:Other questions? You good on that? Can you bring up to the first slide that we're at? And let me take a look. Spiritual care is a big question. It's come up in the note cards. I can't go over all the note cards tonight, but I promise when I look at these note cards, it talks about seed and ministry and prayer, small camp for adult children, Bethel, cross-based studies, stepping stones, admissions beyond the community, and free after school, and transition to OLA, all of these, these are valid. And part of the thing you need, what I want to say in concept, I'm going to give you a handout that I made in a minute. Part of what you do in transition, remember three stages, ending transition, beginning, in transition, you have short-term wins. We're not just going to wait for the next path here. We need short-term win, okay? It's sometimes a short-term win to be some of the things that are here, that we're doing certain ministries for certain people, but we can't do it all. We're going to have to identify them from that end. So we're not going to look at those kinds of cards, but yet some of your cards ask questions like this. Who will care for us spiritually? I thought about this, I prayed about this. The first answer is you. You've got to understand that at times of transition, it's a time to be creative. It's a time to look at new opportunities. Have you as a church gotten into a certain lethargy because you have such a faithful pastor and you rely on him? Yes? I would think so. It happens in most churches. This is a time to say, we are the priesthood of believers. Let's carefully listen. Maybe you establish a call in ministry for those who are homebound. Who here can make a phone call? Who here, you know, there are certain people here I would not want to have in the family. I don't know you that well. There are certain people in my church I would never want to make a phone call to somebody that's agent. No, not you. But there are other people that if you have a calling ministry to the agents, that's a speaker. If you could do something for those who've gone through a debt, this is stuff that you can do. It just has to be organized. Tate and I have talked about this. this is not something the elders have typically done here there was a question what's the love temperature of the elders uh love temperature that was your thing that's what i think i read but you know i think that's a cool question why because the elders have focused primarily on fundamental service oriented things they worship But maybe that shifts something in a way toward those who care for the flock, or are they the ones that organize care systems? I'm going to tell you, you're going to be a lot more attractive to a church. Here's the second thing I'd ask you. You're going to be a lot more attractive to a church when you're calling a pastor if you show him how you care for the flock without a pastor. If I'm looking at you as a church and I'm saying, wow, if it's the shut-ins, they offer... kits and gifts for those in need. They have a prayer ministry that goes on with a pastor presence. That's impressive stuff. Let me ask you the question I always ask to St. Luke. And this is the thing that turned St. Luke around, wasn't me. I asked one question. What is the stirring in your heart? What is the stirring in your heart that God has put there for some ministry to be established here or in this community? Have you ever had that, why can't we do this? And I would say to people, if you've got that servant in your heart, pray about finding somebody else, one other person who has the same servant, and then come to the leadership of the church, and we'll find a way for them to do it. But I said, hey, you have to have a partner. We'll never do it for just one person. Because I believe God operates in teams. I had individual people come to me and say, I'll listen to you when you have somebody else who will. And then they took it. But don't you understand that transition is a time to be creative? We're not looking to the past. You can't. But it's a time for you to rise up. Yes.
SPEAKER_00:I'm trying to reason that someone would want to join your church because they sense the togetherness. Oh, my. You're not just there going through the motions, listening. You actually care about one another. That's the whole point, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03:It is. Show of hands on this. How many of you have ever walked into a restaurant, and before you order the food, before you even order the menu, you thought to yourself, I'd like to come back here? Hands? How many have ever walked into a restaurant, you haven't ordered the food, and you thought, I don't want to ever come back here? It is said that when people come into a church within 10 minutes, they know whether they're coming back or not. And they haven't heard the preacher speak yet. That's not saying they're gonna become members. It's just first impression, and you're right. So be creative. What will the call process be like? Let me just speak to that. I think it's a critical question. I told Lindsey, I'm gonna talk to you like a circuit visitor, which I did for many years. And Rob, without a circuit visitor in your church, I'm gonna talk to President Pingel to see if he wants to use me in that capacity. I've said to Lindsey that a search committee starts with he appointing the chairman of the search committee to select us. Then he will have to decide whether the chairman selects the search committee or does he, Lindsay, appoint the search committee or do they together do from that end? It has to be made up of men and women. I advise strongly that no elected officer, I haven't said this to you yet, that no elected officers be on the search committee. It should be people who are not elected. The chairman can be elected, okay? You must understand that the call committee, the search committee, is accountable to the church council. They can do nothing without council approval. That is just a classic model. Then the search committee, once they're in place, and I think it should be a cross-section of the church, then they begin to identify with council's help. What kind of pastor are we looking? I have a belief there are three types of pastors. There's the pastor-pastor, who you want at the hospital, the funeral home, and when your life is falling apart. He's a great pastor. You know anybody like that? Then there is the preacher-teacher pastor. He's just a dynamic preacher and teacher. And then there is the administrator-leader pastor. I've always found that a pastor can do two of those three really well and the third one he kind of stays. Which two do you want? Which one of those three, which one of those three is the most important? You need to understand that when you're interviewing pastors, prayer for the interview. So you put the search committee together, you begin to define what kind of pastor we're looking for. That leadership pastor is the one that is going to be more mission oriented, the one setting a vision. Once the search committee is in place, then you talk to the district office, you get names. You ask the congregation, do you have names? And names get submitted. You have to then submit those to the district office for approval. That makes sense. District office gives your name with a brief description and then suddenly you get flooded with page upon page upon page of them answering questions. What's your view of women? What's your view of men? What's your view of worship? Do you do children's service? How do you go and work online? Then the search committee starts going online. It used to be, Dave, when you listened to old cassette recordings, Now you go online and you can hear the sermons. You can read the website and everything else. It's time consuming beyond belief. Then the search committee comes together and they look at these 12 names and say, no way on this one. But then you whittle it down to seven names, five, three, whatever. And you pray and you pray and you pray over them. Come back to that in a minute. Now you make the phone calls. Can we talk to you on the phone and interview you as a possible candidate to be a pastor? Do not be surprised. Some pastors will not even know their name was on the list. They say, I know it was on the list. No, I don't want to go. That will happen. Others will say, let me think about it, and then they'll never get back to you. I told you I'll speak truth to you. But you'll have those three or four or five men with whom you can talk. And there'll be a Zoom call or a recording call or whatever. And there'll be some initial questions you ask them. Now the search committee begins to review the whole thing. Now let's say two or three names serve. Now you have to decide, do we do a second interview? Do we bring them in to talk to them? Those are questions that have to be answered. That's the process. Now, we'll pass it along. I'll stop after this and take questions. Please understand, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, next book? The proper name of the book? The Acts of the Apostles. What are the Acts of the Apostles? Healing, teaching, raising the dead, right? Global movements spreading to the world, right? But do you know what Act of the Apostles is mentioned the most often in the book of Acts? 29 times it's mentioned? They pray. Before every move, every decision, they pray. I don't mean to insult you, but most churches I run into are growing increasingly prayer-less. Prayer is a second thought. It can't be now. It must not be now. It must not be now. Prayer must be first. Questions? We're closing it. We're closing it. But questions you have. While you're thinking, I'm taking some questions seriously, just like I'm talking about tonight. What hinders our growth? Is youth like being here? Why have some left? Are we a health? I love this question. Are we a healthy church? There's an answer for that. And it's not for tonight. This is the beginning of a journey. We will listen to you. If you've got other questions, fill out the note cards. Leave me in worship. We will listen to you. Questions? I'm with you in this journey as long as you want or can stand. For
SPEAKER_00:the self-study... will there
SPEAKER_02:be something that is produced on page four?
SPEAKER_00:For the self-study devotion that was mentioned earlier, is there going to be something that is produced and
SPEAKER_02:the person announcing or not that will be available
SPEAKER_00:for review as part of those processes? Or is that just an internal?
SPEAKER_03:It's not necessarily, it's a great question. It's not necessarily just internal. The call committee, the leaders are going to be in there with a lot of work. I can't think about it. I don't want, because my thinking is this. If we opened it up to say 80 voices and there are 29 questions, we will have created a volume of work that is going to be done to read all the congregations responding. You know what I'm saying? Just talk a lot about it.
SPEAKER_05:okay
SPEAKER_06:the only
SPEAKER_00:reason that i asked is i am also part of another church i feel
SPEAKER_01:like this church too but these about three years ago went through a transition and one of the things that was very helpful in helping each member feel like they had a voice from
SPEAKER_00:a historical perspective as well as a future hopeful voice is hearing from each person and then that information was disseminated and you can chat GPP and all the different resources we have now can be put together so that
SPEAKER_02:things are in graphs and we still have
SPEAKER_03:to read them. This is the process. This is where conversation creates the good ideas. I don't like the idea of taking the study document and opening up to everybody else because there's questions in there. I just don't want to get bogged down. But there are critical questions that we should be asking the laity, everybody, to answer so we know where they are on certain key issues. Bad eyeball. And I think that's a good note to take. Other questions?
SPEAKER_06:Can any pastor be called at any time?
SPEAKER_03:In the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, you have to get approval by the district president or bishop because sometimes a pastor may be in a situation where he's not eligible for a call.
SPEAKER_02:What would make a pastor be not eligible for a call?
SPEAKER_03:Well, it could be he doesn't discipline. because of false doctrines or lifestyle or whatever. It could be because of physical health. It could be that the pastor just accepted a call and then district president feels it would be unhealthy for that church to give out the name. So there's a variety of reasons.
SPEAKER_05:Thank you.
SPEAKER_03:Great questions. Anybody else? We're going to have more meetings like this. Okay. This is not the last one. This is the beginning of a journey. Anybody else? Pastor Fred, I'm going to turn to you in a minute for closing thoughts and Lindsay as well. Let me just take a look, please. There's a question here. Who will do the work necessary to have a vibrant church with all that it entails in light of a half pastor's time? That falls on you. I mean, obviously there's a vacancy pastor that can do some. But as a guy who's done the vacancy pastor thing for five years, let me just tell you from experience, he's got to follow me.
SPEAKER_01:Sounds like in especially short term. Sounds
SPEAKER_02:to
SPEAKER_01:me because of the short term necessity with Pastor Bowling part-time that as a congregation, maybe we should still that hold with the duties that may be necessary, such as visiting shut-ins or hospital calls, things like that, that maybe we could take off of his plate on the days that he's supposedly off for remittances, and maybe get some committees together that could be available to do that.
SPEAKER_03:I think that's a great idea. Pray about that. You first. Sherry, pray on this first. Pray that God will raise up some other people who share that path. And if you pray about this and you have that same passion, come to Sherry and say, let's talk about it. Then go to the elders, go to Lindsay, whatever, and just say, we're willing to pursue. I think it's an organic thing that works out. That makes for it. Whoever asked the healthy church question, it's the organic nature of the church and that's what helps. Closing
SPEAKER_06:questions, yes.
SPEAKER_00:Does this schedule or transitioning time allow for another person who would be like training, if you will, with Pastor Foote? Or is that not typically done?
SPEAKER_03:It's not that it can't be done. But to find that person who can be trained as certified, ordained, such a rare thing. It's not easy. That's very good. The concept is good. That's actually good, but I think it contributes to the passage. It gives him extra workload that he doesn't need when he's traveling. Because he has a superintendent. That's true. Very good. Pastor, did you want to hand those in? Yes, please. Let's hand those out. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:About football. Do pastors put their names out there hoping for falls? Is there such a list?
SPEAKER_03:Do pastors? Somebody take this to the microphone. Do pastors put their names out there? Some do. Some do. Sometimes the district president will say, Barry Caroline, he hasn't been on a college for a while. Am I going to evaluate? I'm going to put his name on a list. But many times, many times, where a pastor's name comes from is that somebody who worshiped here a year ago is now worshiping in Arizona. Arizona's looking for a pastor, and they say, my pastor back in Ithaca would be great. And that's oftentimes what it is.
SPEAKER_05:Thank you.
SPEAKER_03:I don't think the seminaries are often. I'm going to tell you that right now. When I graduated from seminary, I had 150 in my class. The other seminary had 140, 290. Last year, the total amount of seminaries between the two schools, the two seminaries,
SPEAKER_05:52.
SPEAKER_03:Barely enough to have one per district. So do not be thinking about that. And also, the way this congregation is, what you've done and what you've encompassed, I would not advise going to a seminary. I think you ought to go
SPEAKER_06:from the field.
SPEAKER_03:You should go from the field. Somebody with experience. That's my first inclination. God may have other places. I'm just saying, don't go for the, go into the seminary, forgive me for saying it, but some people think that's low-hanging fruit. But it may not be right. Does that make
SPEAKER_05:sense?
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_05:Three more questions after
SPEAKER_03:this and we're going to wrap it up.
SPEAKER_00:So then with the pastors that you're calling coming from churches that have multiple pastors at a time?
SPEAKER_03:No, it could be a pastor by himself. When St. Luke called me, I was in Monroeville. I'd been there for four years, and I was by myself.
SPEAKER_00:So then who fills in their spot? There
SPEAKER_03:you go. You're just answering your own
SPEAKER_06:question.
SPEAKER_03:Two more questions. I'm not trying to shut this down, but I want you to come back the next time. It's not thinking until that's out. There are several vacancies in the 50-mile radius of here. Should we be looking for a pastor that would be serving multiple churches rather than just our church? You hit one of the many questions that the council, the leaders have asked. Where I'm serving right now in interim, I'm traveling 120 miles to go one way to it. But don't think that I'm doing some noble thing. They're a good church. They're worth investing. But they're looking at that very question right now. Shouldn't we look at doing Paris? The closest church for them, Missouri Synod, is an hour away. So that's a thing they're wrestling with. It's not an easy answer. I'm not going to say yes, and I'm going to say no. Does it make you more attractive to be multiple than singles? to certain men, but other men, but I think, boy, with you, if I were back in the field and you called me to do a parrot, I would not be terribly excited by it, but I wouldn't turn God down. I like to focus on one. One remaining question. Yes, this is it.
SPEAKER_04:How wide of a net are we, I mean, when you're doing a circle, how wide of a net can you pass? Are we talking nationwide? Are we talking to any part of Canada, other countries?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. That is the Missouri Synod. So you could go in other countries if they are in fellowship with the Missouri Synod. Same thing with Canada. It could be the same. Larry Sturkovich up in Hope is a Canadian. And probably one of our five science staffers in this room. So yes, you can go to Canada. You can go to other countries, but they have to have fellowship with the Missouri Senate from that end. As to how you get names, you don't have to rely only on your district president giving you names. If you know people in other districts to say, do you know any class that would be of interest, you can make that call to that friend of yours. You're not going to make the phone call to the district president. You're not going to circumvent hours But I can help you there a little, because I have sometimes gone to President Fingal. He knows I have relationships with district presidents. And I'll say, do you mind if I call so-and-so to see if there's somebody that fits this unique description? So we can do that. But it would be better if I did that. You don't have an official visit
UNKNOWN:.
SPEAKER_03:Do you feel like you can trust this process? I didn't say if you can like this process. Do you feel like you can trust this process in the later? Yes. That's a critical piece, right? To trust right now. We have to have that step. In this journey, nothing is more important than trust. Let me close with this thought, but let me take a drink of water. I don't want to stumble this.
SPEAKER_06:I
SPEAKER_03:say this in all love. You need to have boundaries. You need to have a code of ethics among you. For example, when we went through transitions, we made a policy We will take any anonymous letter, any anonymous note, and throw it in the trash. We won't read it. We won't talk about it because it lacks love. I will speak the truth to you, but I will speak the truth to you in love. And I expect you to do the same with me and the same with Lindsay and the same with Tate and all the others. If you don't have the love that you can put your name to it, then don't write it. The same is said for talking. When you hear somebody doing that,
SPEAKER_05:you
SPEAKER_03:need to lovingly say, do you remember what
SPEAKER_05:Pastor Barry
SPEAKER_03:said?
SPEAKER_05:But do you
SPEAKER_03:understand what I'm saying? You need to have a code of ethics. And it begins with speaking the truth in love. No anonymous notes. No sniffing and sniping at each other. You've got to stay united because you are family. You are going to redefine how you are as a family without a father bigger than one. That is no small thing. If we've established trust tonight, if we have opened the window so you can look inside, then I think we've accomplished a
SPEAKER_05:lot. That's it.
SPEAKER_03:One second, I'm sorry. Rob, is there anything you want to say in closing? No, I appreciate your time. I called you kind of out of the blue because I trusted you. And I think the congregation will learn if you continue to be close to the process. I don't know we haven't defined that. So everybody should know that. That has not been defined. How much time or length or whatever we're going to ask your path to go.
SPEAKER_01:And
SPEAKER_03:you can weigh in, by the way, with Tate on that very item. We haven't talked about that. So I would raise that issue. How often do we want to see how much, what critical juncture do we want to see? And there was a question or a statement in one of the note cards saying, don't hire a consulting firm because it's a waste of money. And I want to put that out there. There is no fee for me per se. Obviously, I want some expenses covered, you know, of what I would incur on my own. I don't do this as a profession. I do this out of a passion. And I try to restrict it to certain churches. Right now, I'm working with three churches, my former church, helping them behind the scenes. The church in Pittsburgh, where I'm not preaching or anything, but I'm coaching the leaders. And then a church not too far away from here. I've been doing that for 18 months, but I told them I'm going to begin stepping back. We've reached a certain point. So my presence here, I offer that I will be willing to continue in some capacity to figure out, but it's not a profession. And we can figure out what that reimbursement looks like, but I'm not a consultant. Anything else, Rob? No, just thank you. Thank you. It's been a very long day and a very long two weeks for you with your wife's injury and preached at this other church for three hours. And he's not a very good guest. We're going to throw him out tonight. And you'll find out the other church again. This is where I want to be honest with you. Yeah, the church is not far away from it. It's three hours away. It's Bradford, Pennsylvania. So those of you who know Bradford, I am a gold card member of Holiday Inn for the last 18 months. And I walk in and they say, Mary's home. So we do want to continue to keep questions. Don't worry about the fact that the first set of note cards were anonymous. But yeah, I think going forward it would help to add your name on it. There are note cards. on the table if you have any questions. I realize that's rather old school. Some people like old school, some people like new school. We're going to have to think about if there's an email or some single text source that people want to use that route. But we haven't come up with that yet. But I think that'll be something we can add to this whole process of getting feedback from the congregation. And I'll just reiterate what Pastor Carolina and Pastor Foote have said, we are a family. And we're going to go through a little rough patch here. And so there's going to be some strains to the family. But the family holds together. And so as we may be asked for help, I want you to be prayerfully considering how you can help. I find it's It doesn't always work as well sometimes when you ask somebody to do something particular as opposed to you ask them to do something they want to do. And so I think I'd like you to be also volunteering what you'd like to do, because that's going to help us, I think, do these things that we're going to have to do that we relied on faster to do things. Yes. There's a question that came up that I think is really worthy of speaking to, came up when I was sitting at one of these tables, and that is, well, Pastor Foote and Sheila, you're welcome to worship here. Do they want to worship here? I think the answer to that would be yes, that you want to worship here. Is that right, Rob, Sheila? As long as any new pastor can handle it and it's
SPEAKER_00:appropriate. I don't want to
SPEAKER_03:worship in here. Listen to Rob's answer. As long as the next pastor is comfortable with that. I personally said to my pastors that I left, I will not come back for one year. I'm not saying Rob should follow that, but because of the very question I was raised earlier that they were there already, I had to give them more space than normal, you know, without my shadow, without my shadow over them. And they welcomed me back openly, but as long as the pastor, I mean, the answer is, If the pastor is comfortable, the next pastor, I believe the foots would like to worship you. But that's where you've got to be careful. How do you handle it? I just had a lady in my church five years after I left call me and say, will you baptize my baby when the baby's born? And I said, no. I said, because they've got a new pastor right now in a transition. I said, we can't do that. The very first baptism he's going to have, I'm going to step in and do it. I said, that's not fair. That's not fair. And I love this thing. They love me. And they said, we respect you. There's a way to handle this in a loving way. There is. But to answer the question, can the foots come back, if they're comfortable with it, if the pastor's comfortable with
SPEAKER_00:it, yeah. Are there rules like government? Or does that view all the sides?
SPEAKER_03:Every district's different. It is suggested sometimes after long pastors that they remove themselves for a period of time.
SPEAKER_00:to respect everyone if everyone feels.
SPEAKER_03:So I guess I could say there's maybe any other questions, but we are coming to an hour. Otherwise, I would have Nancy Caroline end us in a prayer for our meeting. Okay, you're on. I say at St. Luke quite often in worship and now at Bradford, sometimes in the community of faith, we talk to him. He is a place for silence, silent prayer, silence to listen. So I'm gonna have a brief one sentence prayer and some silence to listen. You just ponder. And then we'll close with a moment of praise. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Time after time, Father, in that early church when there was so much confusion, they paused. They prayed. Before they made a decision, before they took a step, they listened. and yielded himself to you. May it be no different here at this beautiful place. May it be no different within each of us that we too would pause, we would pray, we would listen, we would surrender. Stand with me, if you will, and let's give praise. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we praise you now in a song that has transcended generations and centuries. Praise God from the moon all that he is.
SPEAKER_05:May I ask
SPEAKER_03:you to remember one thing from tonight? the sound of your voices and units. That's who you are. You are the family of Christ. You are the temple of the Spirit. To join your voices together as one. Let nothing come to you. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God our Father, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you now and always. Amen.
SPEAKER_00:Don't forget to sign
SPEAKER_04:up for the children that she did, but you're floating around here. Thank
SPEAKER_02:you.
SPEAKER_00:thank
SPEAKER_06:you
SPEAKER_02:Well, that's
SPEAKER_06:a
SPEAKER_04:question. Right.
SPEAKER_03:what
SPEAKER_04:what what what
SPEAKER_06:what what what what Thank you. Thank you.
SPEAKER_03:No,
SPEAKER_06:I
SPEAKER_03:don't
SPEAKER_06:think so. No, I don't think so.