July 14, 2023 Show with Jamison Hardy on “Pastoral Leadership: Shepherding & Caring for God’s People”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father

James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister

George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron.

This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this 14th day of July 2023.

And before I announce my guest today and the theme that we will address, I just have a breaking news report, which is especially important to me since I am a native

Long Islander, lived in Long Island all my life, or should I say on Long Island all my life, until 2014 when

I relocated to Carlisle, Pennsylvania. But an arrest has finally been made of a suspect for the infamous

Gilgo Beach serial killings on Long Island, a cold case from over a decade ago, and the murders are believed to go back possibly two or three decades.

And the suspect, a New York City architect, lives only about 10 minutes from my former home on Long Island.

So I will be letting you know about updates on this case.

I may even have a former homicide detective who is a

Christian from Suffolk County, Long Island, on the program in the near future. That has not yet been confirmed, but I will give you updates as I hear them myself, and you will likely also see them on your own televisions.

I think this is making national news. But I am so thrilled to have a first -time guest today.

In fact, you might even want to take the opportunity to call, text, or email, or however else you communicate with those that you love these days, and let them know, especially if they're

Lutherans. You might want to let them know that Jameson Hardy is my guest today, who is the 21st president and bishop of the

English District for the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, and he is associate pastor of Our Savior Evangelical Lutheran Church of Heartland, Michigan.

And today we're going to be addressing his book, Pastoral Leadership, Shepherding and Caring for God's People.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the first time ever to Iron, Sharp, and Zion Radio, Bishop Jameson Hardy.

Thank you, brother. Well, it's great to have you on the program. Why don't you tell our listeners about Our Savior Evangelical Lutheran Church of Heartland, Michigan.

Yeah, thank you. Our Savior Lutheran Church and School is a member church of the

English District of the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, a confessional and liturgical congregation off of 59 there in Heartland.

Great group of folks concerned about proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ, the love of the

Father through His Son, and also being engaged in life in witness to Christ as well as in the public square and in all that we do in our vocations where we serve.

And so just a blessing to be a pastor there at Our Savior with Pastor Chris Thomas, senior pastor, and serving

God's people there. Yeah, and in fact, I have the honor and privilege of interviewing

Christopher Thoma, your pastor, next week on Thursday, the 20th of July, God willing.

And I'm looking forward to that as we discuss his book, Ten Ways to Kill Your Pastor.

And folks, that is not an actual blueprint or plan on how to actually murder your pastor.

It's warnings about how you are possibly doing things that will ultimately kill your pastor so that you will cease doing those things.

But I hope that you mark your calendars for that and tune into that program.

Before we even go into your personal testimony of salvation, which is something that we always do with first -time guests, perhaps you can give a disclaimer or a further clarification of the

Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod. There are many people in evangelicalism from all stripes of theological backgrounds and denominations who are very ignorant of the

Lutheran Church in general. And when you mention Lutheranism to them or any particular

Lutheran minister or church, they wrongly associate you with the

Evangelical Lutheran Church, I should say, in America, which is also called

ELCA and is also notorious for being a very left -wing and, dare

I say, apostate group. And many of us around the country, if not around the globe, were appalled recently when it made the news when an

ELCA female minister performed or, should I say, recited a blasphemous, grotesque, and vile creed that she called the

Sparkle Creed. Perhaps you were familiar with it. Oh, I am, yeah. If you could please distinguish yourself and the

Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, from that horrific group.

Yeah, I appreciate you asking about that, Chris. Even to this very day, about 1 o 'clock this afternoon, my eldest son sent me a text with a link to that Sparkle Creed.

He had just heard it, and I would love to just share with you what he said.

He goes, Dad, this is why I spend so much time defending our church, because people do not understand we are not them.

Yeah, so the distinction is very simply this. There are three mainline, many more overall

Lutheran Church bodies, but three mainline, ELCA, ELCA being the largest, Missouri Synod Lutheran Church being the second largest, and the

Wisconsin Synod Lutheran Church. And sadly, I will say, the root of Lutheranism, faith in the pure gospel of Jesus Christ, by faith alone, in the pure gospel alone, by God's grace alone we are saved, is the foundation for, quote, unquote,

Lutheranism. Many, many years ago, the ELCA started floating towards a much, much more liberal understanding, and I'll be just as bold as you to say an apostate heretical position on many, many topics, not the least of which is doing the very thing that the

Bible says not to do, and that is change the Word of God. I think the

ELCA also is more concerned about popularity rather than they are to biblical fidelity and confessional integrity, and that's what the

Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod prides ourselves on. We believe that the Bible is God's Word to His people, unchanged.

We hold to the inerrancy and the infallibility of the original Greek and Hebrew, and we hold to the clear gospel witness that Jesus Christ, the very

Son of God, both God and man, born of a virgin, came into this world, died on the cross, rose from the dead, descended into hell, and conquered sin, death, and the power that Satan has, and that is, you know, really traditionally the

Lutheran understanding. Being children of the Catholic Church and the Reformation of Martin Luther, the gospel is the central focus, you know, the grace of God through the merits and works of Christ alone.

And yeah, you know, Chris, it really is problematic in my life, because I'll be on planes traveling all over the 21 states that the

English District covers, as well as Canada, the Ontario province of Canada, where I have a number of churches, and people will often, when they find out what

I do, they'll ask me questions like, are you those Lutherans? And my answer is, by the grace of God, never will we be.

Praise God for that. And I can recall decades ago, I was at the

Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology, which is a Calvinist conference.

I happen to be a thoroughgoing Calvinist and Reformed Baptist. But I remember seeing in attendance,

I think it was on the registration line, a gentleman with a clerical outfit on and clerical collar.

And I just greeted him and said, where do you pastor? And he leaned forward and whispered, evangelical

Lutheran Church in America. I said, really? And he said, there are some of us who are still believers, a tiny remnant, but we do exist.

So I guess there are like many denominations. I even recently interviewed a pastor, believe it or not, in the

United Church of Christ, who is a thoroughgoing Bible -believing Christian, but he is in the process of leading his congregation out from among them.

So that is also good news. But you'd be shocked sometimes, folks, when you do find a

Bible believer, even a pastor in a very left -wing and even apostate denomination.

And I hope that most of those men eventually make every effort to leave those groups.

But if anybody who either lives in Heartland, Michigan, or is passing through there, visiting there, or if you have family, friends, and loved ones there,

I would recommend that you look up their website so that you can visit this congregation.

And that website is OurSaviorHeartland .org. OurSaviorHeartland .org.

And by the way, am I pronouncing Heartland correctly, or is it Heartland? Yeah. It's Heartland.

I mean, it's just Heartland. You know, it's ironic, because when I was a young boy, I grew up at St.

Matthew's in Westland, Michigan, and I was attending up in Flint, which is north of Heartland.

And as a young eighth grader, Our Savior in Heartland used to have a building close to where we are now.

It had a carpeted gym. As a young boy, I competed in basketball in the old church gym, and now

I'm a pastor of that church. So it's a small world we live in, and Lutheranism really is a small place when it comes to connections.

Yes. Well, as I said earlier, we have a tradition here on Iron Trip and Zion Radio, whenever we have a first -time guest, we have that guest provide for us a summary of their salvation testimony, which would include the religious atmosphere, if any, in which they were raised, and what kind of providential circumstances our

Sovereign Lord raised up in their lives that drew them to Himself and saved them. And I'd love to hear your story.

Yeah, well, thank you. You know, being Lutheran, I was born into a

Lutheran family in Bay City, Michigan. And as such, we believe that in infant baptism, my mother and father brought me to the

Waters of Holy Baptism as a young child and was given the gift of the Holy Spirit there in the sacrament of Holy Baptism.

And I grew up in a family, in fact, an extended family. My great -grandmother had six children, and those six children averaged three children, and then my father's generation averaged three children, and now my generation.

And at my confirmation in eighth grade, at my confirmation, public confirmation, my grandmother, who was a

German speaker still, was sitting in the front row. And my pastor,

Ralph Fisher at the time, could speak German, and he spoke to her, and they had a conversation how at that time, my great -grandmother was responsible for 176 direct descendants, either children, grandchildren, or great -grandchildren in the church.

And so for my family, faith is kind of a legacy in terms of, you know, parents bringing their children to hear the

Word of God. And we believe very firmly in the sanctity of life as well. And, you know, from the very moment of conception, we encourage our mothers, especially carrying children, to be in the house of God.

Testimony to that is Mary, the mother of Jesus, visiting John the Baptist, and the biblical text there, as you know, says, when she entered the room, the baby within leaped for joy at the presence of the

Savior. And so, you know, the idea that faith in my family has always been legacy -driven from the perspective of it's an expectation that we participate in our life of faith.

And I'll say again, too, when it comes to my life in faith, it is a life in faith, not a

Sunday morning activity. Faith is not something that rises up when the bells toll at church.

It is something that we live with on a day -to -day basis. We live under the grace of God. And for me, you know,

I've just been a faithful child of God by the grace and power of the Holy Spirit since very, very early on in my life.

And so, you know, that's the glory of being in the church. Now, when did you realize that God had placed a call upon your life to become a pastor, and not only a pastor, but eventually a bishop?

That's a great question. My pastor told me in third grade that I was going to be a pastor, and I told him, never.

I'm going to play football for the Detroit Lions. And thank God that didn't work. And that could only be because you live in Michigan, and for no other reason.

I mean, I wish—I mean, that would be a great story if I could tell you I played for the Lions. But I'll get to my

Lions connection in a second, because it's pretty cool. But he told me in third grade.

And so I went to Concordia University in Wisconsin, where I was a two -time national finalist wrestler, captain of the team.

And last—October 21, by the way, I was inducted to the Hall of Fame for wrestling. And so it's one of our church colleges.

And currently, Concordia, Wisconsin, is owner and has a second campus here in Ann Arbor, Michigan, at Concordia University in Ann Arbor.

And I went for teacher education. So I have an undergraduate degree in broad field social science.

I was going to be a Lutheran high school teacher. And I've had people ask me that question, Chris, you know, when did God give you the call?

And I said, every time he called, I hung up. And I just—it was never—there's no dramatic, emotionalistic kind of revelatory moment except this.

I was doing youth ministry at Concordia, Wisconsin, my sophomore year in the summer. And I was the designated driver from this perspective.

I got an hour nap, because we did these overnight lock -ins, right? So I got an hour nap so I could drive us back to the university.

And I got up from my hour nap, and we were driving back to university early in the morning.

My colleagues were all sleeping. And I realized I did not want to do this the rest of my life, meaning youth ministry, you know, lock -ins.

And it just wasn't the gift God gave me. And I thought to myself, what can I do to still serve?

And I kind of realized that God gave me the mouth, and he gave me the heart and the mind, and that he wanted me to use my gift in proclamation of the gospel.

And so from my junior year at college forward, I wasn't pre -seminary.

I was teacher education, but I knew I was going to the seminary. And so I enrolled at Concordia University—excuse me,

Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana. And my senior year, I became a part of the pre -seminary group.

So I was not in that school at the university, but I was brought in when all the recruiters were there.

So, yeah, my revelatory moment was very minor in that it was just that I realized what

I was doing in terms of youth ministry was not what God wanted me to do in becoming a pastor was.

And it goes back to my third grade year when Pastor Fisher said, you're going to be a pastor. He planted the seed, and the

Holy Spirit watered it. And by the way, I'm joyful to say I was his 38th disciple that went to the seminary, and he passed.

I have six that I've gotten so far at age 50 to the seminary, and I'm well behind my pastor.

But by God, I continue, whenever I visit my churches, to see young men and to say to them, the

Spirit rests on you. When are you going to go to the seminary? And he did it to me, and I try to do it for others, because the revelation for me was later on in life when

I realized, yes, I am doing what God is asking me, and he gave me these skills to be able to do this.

Now, how did you become a bishop? In fact, I didn't even know until fairly recently that Lutherans had bishops.

I had an interview, I can't remember how long ago, it wasn't that long ago, with Matt Heisey of the

Lutheran Heritage Foundation on his book, The Gates of Hell. And during that discussion, he had mentioned

Lutheran bishops, and I didn't even know that you guys had them. So, why don't you tell me about how you became a bishop, and what would your function and roles be?

Well, yes, and you correctly, at the beginning, I am president and bishop, and there's 35 districts in the

Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod, most of which are geographical. My district is non -geographical.

And how me, the English district, and the SELC district of the Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod are non -geographics, and here's how it happened.

In 1911, the English -speaking Synod was a mission of the

Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod for about 15 years before. And like good Germans, of which I am, heritage -wise,

Germanic, they wanted the gospel to be spoken to English people, but they didn't want

English people in their churches. So they created this English Synod where they spoke the church gospel in English.

Well, in 1911, after much debate and many synodical conventions where they said no, they accepted the

English Synod in as a district, or in the Catholic terminology, a diocese, an adjudicatory of the body.

And so since 1911, we've been a district of the Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod.

And every three years, we have elections for officers, and they elect the president and bishop of the district, along with vice presidents, treasurer, secretary, and all that stuff.

I was actually elected at 40 and a half years old to the position of bishop and president of the

English district, which is the youngest ever in the district's history, and at that time, the second youngest ever in the

Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod. And it's done in a very electoral way in nominations, and then the

General Assembly elects. But there are two districts in the Missouri Synod that officially call their district president, bishop, and president, it's mine, and then from your home area, the

Atlantic District, which is the greater city of New York in the lower southern part of New York City.

And so there's a big movement in the Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod to return to the biblical verbiage of bishop as an overseer, not in a ecclesiastical authority way of saying,

Chris, you're a pastor, you're going to move over here. I don't have that authority. I have the spiritual responsibility for 157 congregations and all called workers in the

English district, and that is the ecclesiastical power that I have to be able to put people on suspension if they're having issues and become no longer above reproach, according to the

New Testament. But truly, I'm not like a Catholic bishop in that way. I don't have authority over the properties of the congregations.

I can't tell my pastors where to go. They get individual calls from congregations.

But it's a joy because my people understand me as the shepherd to the shepherds who shepherd the sheep.

And so I'm one of few district president and bishops in the Missouri Synod who also has a call to be a pastor.

So as you articulated, I'm an associate pastor at Our Savior in Heartland, and I teach in the school every week.

I'll be preaching this Sunday at Our Savior, but I'm on the road about 80 percent of the time.

So eight out of 10 Sundays, I'm on the road. And so it's just an ecclesiastical term, and I think people are starting to understand that it's better that we use the direct words that the

Bible uses rather than man -made words. And so I'm the president of the Corporation English District, and I'm the bishop of the adjudicatory, which is the body called the

English District in the Missouri Synod. Now, it might be also wise, just as I had you do earlier, contrasting yourself with the

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which you and I agree is very leftist.

In fact, it is neither evangelical nor Lutheran, nor would

I really categorize it as a church either. But another thing that people will commonly say to me when

I have any kind of a discussion where Lutheranism is brought up, another thing that will be said in ignorance by many evangelicals is, oh, they're just like the

Catholic Church except their priests get married. That's not the case either.

I know that especially two of the Solos of the

Reformation, of course, Lutherans believe in all of the Solos of the Reformation, but the two that Lutherans are known for championing, especially those who are in conservative

Bible -believing Lutheran denominations, are Sola Fide and Sola Scriptura.

And those are both despised by the Church of Rome.

The Roman Catholic Church sometimes will give lip service to the other

Solos as if they are in agreement with them, but they could never be logically consistent if you were to pursue a cross -examination with them on that.

But the ones that they clearly object to are Sola Fide and Sola Scriptura.

Why don't you pick up the ball there and contrast Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, with the

Church of Rome? Yeah, well, let me first say about ELCA, you brought that up. The truth of the matter is that you are right.

The despising of faith alone through Scripture alone cannot be compatible, like you were saying earlier, with something like the

Sparkle Creed. And it cannot be compatible with openly homosexual lifestyle when

God made them male and female. Now, I will say, not in disagreement in any way to what you said, but in maybe a little bit of a contrast to say this.

The Roman Catholic Church actually does have a confession in inerrancy of the

Scriptures. Of course, of course. But Sola Scriptura, though, is something that they openly reject.

Right, because they add the pontifical or the papal decrees as co -equal.

And so, yeah, we don't do that. I mean, we stick solely to Scripture alone as it is written. As I say, we hold to inerrancy of the original

Greek and Hebrew. And, you know, in terms of bishop power, the Roman Catholic bishops, and may

I say, too, the ELCA has bishops. And their bishops actually have authority over the property and over everything in the

Church. And we believe in the Missouri Synod in what's called individual congregational autonomy, which means every congregation of my 157 churches has individual ownership of their property, has the ability to make deals, can add to, sell property.

All that can be done on their own, whereas in the Roman Catholic Church and the ELCA, that has to be approved by the bishop.

And so that's a sharp contrast. And when you start talking about faith alone, you know, this is a very important thing, because in the social fights of our country today, the

Lutheran Church's Missouri Synod's greatest ally, by the way, is actually the Roman Church.

They are one of the few churches left that with us, side by side, defend the sanctity of life, marriage being between one man and one woman.

They still defend these very biblical and scriptural things.

And to be very frank with you, I told my people just a couple weeks ago, I can't even believe in this world today that we are having conversations societally about the truth, excuse me, about the theory that there's more than two genders, let's say.

The male and female. And so when you're in an inerrancy Bible church like we are, it's catastrophic even in the mind to consider that there's a conversation that can be had where that is even on the table.

And so you move to abortion now, right? And you move to this whole idea of the commandments of Christ, thou shalt not commit, excuse me, shalt not murder the fifth commandment in Lutheran tradition.

And, you know, there's no way around that. Right? And then you start getting into all these exceptions because people like exceptions, because exceptions become the rule.

And that is what's happened in the ELCA. Look back in the 70s when the Missouri Synod had our great battle in 1973 over the inerrancy of Scripture.

If you were watching the ELCA convention about six or seven years ago, all the men at the microphone arguing for these most liberal positions were all the guys that were annexed from the

Missouri Synod in the early 70s because they don't believe in the inerrancy of Scripture. And when you don't believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, you get to a place where all of these things are not only on the table, they're encouraged.

It's encouraged to fulfill every selfish human desire, because why would God allow you to have that desire if he didn't want you to fulfill it?

That is to say, eat yourself to death. You know, have sexual unions with people that you're not supposed to.

Have sexual unions outside of your marriage between husband and wife. Killing babies, stealing,

I mean, any number of things are on the table because when you throw out inerrancy, you no longer have the law of God to guide you.

And that's where I think even Rome goes wrong. Yes, and while I agree with you that Roman Catholic individuals are often our allies in the battles of social mores and biblical ethics and so on, and we often vote for the same people and so on, their pope certainly is not a reliable individual that we would ever count on for being a voice for even the social and moral issues of society, as he constantly declares a very weak position on homosexuality.

He gave the Roman Catholic mass to Nancy Pelosi, who was denied the mass by her own bishop because of her views in favor of murdering unborn children.

And we could go on and on and on about how Pope Francis is not only not a

Christian in his viewpoints and beliefs and practices, but he's not even historically a

Roman Catholic. In fact, I heard a comedian say not long ago when he said, the phrase, is the pope

Catholic, used to be a rhetorical question. Yeah, yeah.

Well, look, Benedict, the previous pope, he was much more confessional and conservative in these views that you're talking about.

I agree with you that the current pope is really weak. But it also leads back to Luther's point about the office of the papacy is the

Antichrist, meaning that if you place your trust in the authority of one man, in the case of the

Roman Catholic Church, to be on par with the word of God itself, you've already lost from the beginning.

Right. And that was one of the things that Luther walked away from when he walked away from the Roman Church. He didn't just give up on everything that Rome had, including the liturgy and including some of these very righteous things.

But he certainly said our allegiance is to God alone, to the word alone, by faith alone, in grace alone.

And I appreciate you bringing up the Solos because they're the great Reformation banners. It's the great context in which our church, the

Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, was founded on. We have to go to our first commercial break.

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own. For my guest, Bishop Jameson J.

Hardy. Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com. chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

As always, give us your first name, at least your city and state of residence in your country of residence. If you live outside the

USA. And since we are speaking about pastoral leadership and shepherding and caring for God's people,

I readily would understand that there might be people sending in personal and private questions because of their need of pastoral care and perhaps their disappointment with the way that they have been ignored in their church or not cared for.

Obviously, you would want to remain anonymous bringing up questions like that. But if it's a general question, please just give us your first name, at least your city and state and your country of residence.

Don't go away. We'll be right back with Bishop Jameson J. Hardy, right after these messages from our sponsors.

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That's royaldiadem .com. Mention Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We're now back with Bishop Jameson J.

Hardy, and we are discussing his book, Pastoral Leadership, Shepherding and Caring for God's People.

Before I get into some of the contents of the book, what was it that compelled you to say,

I need to write a book on pastoral leadership? Was it that perhaps colleagues in ministry were approaching you because they were left feeling inadequate to care for their flock as they should, or was it congregants who were approaching you saying that they were not having their needs met as a member of the flock?

What was it that was the main catalyst? Yeah, well, I appreciate the question.

I mean, first off, the answer starts from kind of a whole career desire to write a book on this.

In 2012, I finished four years of study to get a second master's in public administration, leadership and finance, and then

I have a doctorate in business administration, leadership, finance. And to be very direct with you,

Chris, all of the research that I did for my doctorate, I got from the Reformed Church when it comes to leadership.

Hallelujah. I know that would be pleasing to you, but it's the truth.

And, you know, some of the greatest stuff that I've gotten comes from the seminary out in California.

And right this moment, I just drew a blank on the brother's name, who's the president. But in any case, the leadership stuff we have in the

Lutheran Church of Missouri Senate is far and few between. And in some really confessional circles, even the term leadership as a pastor is taboo.

And so when you ask how did this come about, when I became bishop in 2015, and now eight years later,

I've just seen a lot of missteps, and I've seen a lot of good things. And I've reflected on the laypeople that I've had in my life.

And this book is a culmination of my experience, the experiences that I've seen with the pastors

I've served with, the laypeople that I've learned from. And some of the greatest lessons, I think, that I've learned in leadership have come from people that really don't even know they're teaching, just by the way in which they're going about doing things.

And so the premise of this book is very clearly this. Pastoral leadership is pastoral care.

And that pastoral care element is not simply Sunday mornings.

That pastoral care element is, much like in my understanding of faith, is an ongoing and a totality of the life of the pastor.

And so in order to be a good shepherd, one must be a good pastor.

If you're not giving good pastoral care, you can really, in my opinion, never be a good pastoral leader.

And so it was just a culmination of a lot of things and a kind of life goal to write a book.

And how the book came about, by the way, is I was sitting with Jonathan Schultz, the president of CPH, Concordia Publishing House, at one of our events, who

I've known for a number of years. And I just casually asked him, I said, when are we going to ever publish some good quality

Lutheran leadership books? And he smiled at me, and he told me soon.

And about a week later, I got a phone call from his folks, and we got a contract and got the details worked out, and I wrote the book.

And the book came out in June, but it was kind of set up this way to come out right before the church body convention, which is in two weeks.

And so two weeks ago, about a week and a half ago, I was in Milwaukee for the National Lutheran Women Missionary League Conference in our church body, and I signed the books there, and we sold out of the book there at LWML.

And many people ask me, you know, the title is Pastoral Leadership. Is this just for pastors? And the answer is absolutely not.

Anybody who reads this book who's a layperson will get a glimpse into what the leadership struggles are like for pastors.

The first chapter is about all the inadequacies that pastors feel. And it's really,

I think, it's designed to be kind of a Bible study thing with reflection questions at the end of each chapter.

And the way that I decided to write it was not an academic way in the sense of, you know, using terminology and whatnot that you'd have to go look up in a dictionary, but really just talk more like I preach, a conversational style of stories, examples, and points.

And again, driven by my desire for pastors to get better at pastoral leadership, which means they have to get better at pastoral care.

And what would you say in your experience, your friendships with colleagues in ministry perhaps, or your conversations with congregants in Lutheran churches, what would you say are some of the areas of pastoral leadership and caring for the flock that are most frequently overlooked by church leaders, by pastors?

Yeah, well, first thing, in the book I talk about presence, right? Physical presence. And I think for a lot of pastors, they believe that if they're just in the building, or if they're at the dinner, or if they're at the

Bible study where they're not leading, that's all that matters, right? And it's not. I mean,

I'll give you a quick story, brief story, but I went to a congregational visit, and the pastor of the church knew

I was going to be there, so he came five minutes after the celebration started, and then he left about five minutes later.

So he was there for about ten minutes. And one of his laymen came up to me, and he just said, Bishop, can I speak to you?

And I said, yeah. And he goes, you know, I love my pastor. He said, but it's very clear that he doesn't really care about us.

And I said, well, what do you mean? And he said he never helps us do anything outside of Sunday morning.

Whenever he's here, it's the quickest thing he can do to leave. And so I kind of got this sense, and then

I started paying attention, and the guys in my church body that I have that are the best pastors are the ones that develop a one -on -one relationship whereby the presence of the people they are with is shown to be important, not just spoken to be important, but shown.

And I think that's really a very, very important thing. This last Sunday I was tasked with preaching at a congregation, happened to be my former congregation in Pittsburgh, Peace Lutheran Church, and the text for Sunday was the good shepherd leaves the 99 to go get the one.

And this text is a special one to me because I had a moment in my ministry over 20 years at Peace in McMurray, Pennsylvania, where I had to leave my entire congregation on a

Sunday morning to go after a member who had strayed away. And I know firsthand what that presence is like when you seek the lost and you seek those who need a physician,

Christ. So, yeah, it's a culmination of a lot of things, but really at the heart, I think lay people need to know their pastor cares, and you can't just tell them you care.

You've got to be there to show them you care. Yeah, I have witnessed, being in Christian media for decades,

I have witnessed all too often that it is very apparent that there are men who are in pastoral ministry, and it's palpably obvious that their goal for becoming a pastor and their passion and excitement over being a pastor is really so that they can be a renowned and enamored and looked up to and respected speaker.

It's as if when they are behind the pulpit and addressing the congregation, especially if they have a radio or TV program or what have you, that's where the pastoral role ends for them.

And perhaps they're involved in meetings with the other leaders when there's going to be important decisions made behind the scenes, but the actual shepherding aspect is very absent very often with especially the largest, it seems, of ministries.

And I'm not broad -brushing all large ministries, but it just seems to be that is a most typically witnessed tragedy.

Yeah, one of the things you bring up about large congregations, one of the things in terms of pastoral care is there's a critical mass number.

I like to say about 500 is you're getting towards the top end of how many people one man can actually give real good pastoral care to.

And the bigger churches that get above 500 on a Sunday and like, how do you give real pastoral care, which then gives pastoral leadership, if you don't get to know your people?

Look, I made a living on being in the homes of my people in my ministry. In fact, could we pick up right where you left off when we return from our midway break because we have to go to our midway break.

But please do not forget where we left off about the large church issue. This is the longer the normal break, folks, so please be patient with us.

Send in your questions for Bishop Jamison J. Hardy to chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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So we're going to be back after this break. Don't go away. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the

G3 National Conference. That's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd on a theme that I've been preaching, teaching, writing about, and defending in live public debates for most of my life, the sovereignty of God.

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Chris Arnson, I look forward to seeing you all Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd at the

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I'm Dr. Joseph Piper, President Emeritus and Professor of Systematic and Applied Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

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For details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit heritagepresbyterianchurch .com,

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Always mention that you heard about them from Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Before I return to Lutheran Bishop Jameson Hardy as we discuss pastoral leadership, shepherding and caring for God's people

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Earth I have extensive lists spanning the globe of biblically faithful churches and I may be able to help you find one as I have done many times with listeners all over the world in our audience.

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and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in your questions to Jameson Hardy on pastoral leadership chrisarmsen at gmail .com

Give us a first name at least, city and state, country of residence, only remain anonymous if your question is personal and private.

We were talking about the fact that I had mentioned that in being in Christian media for decades one of the things

I have seen all too often occur is that you have men who are making it obvious that their ambitions their desires, their drive to become pastors is so that they can become enamored and world -renowned speakers and their shepherding doesn't really exist according to many people that have had association with their congregations they are almost figureheads who teach and edify and maybe perform a very valuable role but they're not really shepherding and if you could pick up where we left off after I was mentioning that, you were specifically talking about the 500 member mark

Yeah, let me clarify that so I don't confuse the listeners When I say 500, I'm talking about the congregational membership

I think you get to a point about 350 on a Sunday in worship 300 to 350 consistently every

Sunday in worship and I think that's the extent that any one man has the capacity to shepherd and care for God's people

I mean from a physical standpoint there's just not enough of you to be able to give to the people when you get above that membership number of like 500.

In fact, in some of our larger congregations I encourage congregations to birth and start new ministries, new congregations with core family members and smaller groups when they get that big.

The problem is most congregations when they get that big they got this kind of entitlement to being large and what that brings with it.

I mean I was a pastor in Pittsburgh for 20 years had about 120 on a Sunday on average when we're at our largest and you know a very comfortable size to know your people to get to be a part of their lives and I think you cannot be a good shepherd a pastoral leader or give pastoral care if you don't know your people and knowing your people is far more than saying hello to them on a

Sunday morning Well, one of the things, before I take any listener questions, one of the things

I wanted to ask you about is that although the Bible is inerrant and does not have errors in it the leadership figures, the biblical figures in the

Bible who are leaders since they are individuals they have unique approaches to different areas of ministry and if you could bring up some of the principle figures from the

Bible that you gleaned from and their different styles and approaches in your book

Pastoral Leadership Yeah, I mean the whole first chapter are the leadership styles from biblical figures and in every case there's some kind of a failure that I'm talking about but to your question

I would start with in my opinion the greatest leader of the

Old Testament would be Moses and Moses' father Jethro gave

Moses the first business structure, the first leadership structure that we had in the church when it comes to the judging if you remember the biblical account where Jethro says to Moses, you can't judge everything and so Moses developed this tier system whereby only the most grandiose and large issues came to Moses the lower decisions and arbitrations were between tribal issues and the like, family issues.

Another one would be David. David is a perfect example of how God can still use the broken people, the vessels that he asked to be leaders.

Here you have David who takes Bathsheba's husband puts him on the front lines of battle with the intention that he die so that he could now have

Bathsheba unto himself and here again, powerful leader in David, courageous leader in David, fulfilled a sinful desire and yet God still used him and so again, the first chapter of my book talks about all these leaders that God uses and that each one of them had some kind of a failure or a handicap.

I mean Isaiah had an unworthiness Peter had a over confidence issue that led him to denying even knowing

Christ. Elijah he had discouragement in life. Jonah was stubborn, ran away from God and so on and so forth.

Every biblical leadership example we have has a flip side to it of the sinfulness of human behavior and desires and yet God still can use the gifts he provides for his purpose.

Let me go to some listener questions before I ask my own.

Let's see. We have an anonymous listener who says, in my experience in mainline churches, even when they are of the conservative type and bible believing one thing that is typically lacking in all of them since they are typically so desperate for congregation members to remain there because of their conservative and biblical stances they far too often avoid church discipline.

They sometimes will take biblical passages about allowing the wheat to grow together with the tares until the harvest as an excuse.

But I think that is a misuse of scripture and I think that lives can become shipwrecked when they are not disciplined in the church.

What is your approach to this? I think it's a great question. I obviously cannot get into any specific disciplinary actions that I've had to take pastorally or as a bishop, but I assure you

I've removed men from the office of the Holy Ministry for behavior unbecoming and for no longer being, as the

New Testament in 1 Timothy says, above reproach. I have put, along with my senior pastor and previously when

I was by myself, individual members on the lesser ban, refusal of the Lord's Supper as well as excommunication altogether.

And again, let's keep the focus here. What is the purpose of discipline? It is in hopes that the sinner repents.

And so, I mean, the idea that a church would look past the behaviors because of the desperation they might have for membership or attendance,

I can assure you that this pastor, along with Chris Tome and my senior pastor, our congregation is not one of those churches.

I mean, we're 250 on average on a Sunday and any given week we have people issues.

And the good pastoral leader who's giving good pastoral care understands that the law is used to refine, much like the title of your show,

Iron Sharpens Iron. I mean, the purpose is to help the unrepentant to repent and to bring them back to a relationship with God that is harmonious.

So I think it's important. Discipline is, look, the Bible says God disciplines the one He loves. The Father disciplines the one

He loves. Amen. In fact, I don't know if you're aware of this. I didn't tell you this personally.

You may have heard it if you listened to some of my other programs. I was under church discipline over a decade ago and it saved my life.

I really believe that if I was not placed under church discipline by loving elders of Grace Reform Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick, New York, where I was a member before moving to Pennsylvania, I would likely not be sitting here breathing air and feeling a beating heart within my chest.

After 18 years of sobriety when I first became a Christian because I was out of control drunk as a teenager through my mid -twenties, but after 18 years of sobriety, going through trials in my life, namely the illness and death of my late wife,

I returned to alcohol with a vengeance. Now, I am a believer, as most

Lutherans are and most theologically Reformed Christians are. I'm a believer in alcohol being a

Christian liberty as long as it's not abused and as long as people do not become drunkards and become enslaved to alcohol.

If they responsibly enjoy it socially and moderately, I am all in favor of other

Christians doing that. I cannot do that. I know that my own personality and addictive behavior and I wouldn't even test myself by drinking alcohol even moderately because I don't believe it would end there.

But being placed under discipline I really believe saved my life. I just thought I'd throw that out there and if anybody listening is coping and battling with an addiction problem,

I seriously recommend to you to investigate hebroncolony .org

which is where I regained my sobriety. It's a wonderful Christian organization in Boone, North Carolina and it's also absolutely free.

It's hebroncolony .org and I hope that you investigate this organization if you or someone you love is battling an addiction.

They also have a facility for women in Santee, South Carolina and you can find that information at hebroncolony .org

as well. But by the way, Anonymous, if you send me by email, we're not going to divulge your identity over the air, but if you send me by email, your name and full mailing address, you have won a free copy of Pastoral Leadership, Shepherding and Caring for God's People, thanks to the generosity of Concordia Publishing House and also thanks to our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service who will actually be shipping the book out to you at no cost to you or to us.

Let's see here. We have CJ in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York who wants to know, can you spell out at least a summary of the most important roles, tasks and duties of a biblically faithful pastor?

Yeah, it's a really great question. Number one, that in the life of a pastor, he must remain faithful to the

Word of God and utilize the Bible as the only source and rule of faith and practice.

That's the number one. The number two is understanding that caring for people means you will get hurt and people will be angry at you.

My pastor, Ralph Fisher, used to tell me when I was a young boy, they're going to talk about you all the time.

Sometimes it'll be good, sometimes it'll be bad, but you, to me, as I was growing up in the ministry, you've got to be confident enough in the gifts that God gave you to understand that they will talk about you.

Any good pastor that I've known is a man who understands that people are going to talk about him and doesn't get overly bothered by it.

Number three, the order of importance in any pastor's life is God, family, church.

That is, God comes first, family second, and then church third. I can give you a story after story where moments in my pastoral life, my family became third and not second.

I had a phone call one time. I was rocking my oldest. This was many years ago because he's 23 now.

I was rocking my oldest to bed. We said prayers. We were in the rocking chair. My phone rang. So -and -so's dying,

Pastor. We need you. I remember handing him to my wife like Superman in a phone booth.

I got my outfit on and I was out the door. At that moment, my family did not become more prioritized than the church and my ministry.

Any good pastor knows that there are moments, not lifelong times, but moments when the work of being a pastoral leader becomes more important for that given time.

The fourth thing I would say is perseverance. The devil seeks out as a prowling lying to seek and destroy, to kill, to lead us away from the mercy and grace of God.

The fortitude of a good pastoral leader is one who knows he's going to fail. In his failure, he takes responsibility for it.

In the book, I talk about the fact that one of the greatest things you can do as a pastor when you make a mistake is own up to it publicly in front of your people.

Number one, they cannot use it against you any longer because once you've been forgiven and absolved, the Father says,

I know your sin no more. The second reason for why he should publicly confess and acknowledge his failures is to let the people of God know he is just as human as they are.

I am not a special breed. I'm not a clone. I'm flesh and blood and I make mistakes on a daily basis.

The thing about me and I think any good pastoral leader is you work really hard not to make those mistakes over.

You make them, you apologize for them, you endure the embarrassment and the frustration, but you vow to not do it again.

Those are three or four things that I would just say are really high priorities for pastors. CJ, please send us your full mailing address so that we can ship to you or should

I say have CVVBS .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, ship to you a free copy of Pastoral Leadership, thanks to our generous friends at Concordia Publishing House.

Just because of the fact you mentioned the phenomenon of people talking about pastors behind their back,

I just wanted to tell you a very quick joke that was told to me by Old Testament scholar

Bruce Walkie many years ago back in the 1980s. He was a guest speaker at the church where I was a member and he said, let me tell you a joke about a guest speaker at a church.

He said that after the guest speaker gave his message, he was standing by the back door as people were filing out and he was greeting them as they were leaving and one man said to him, you know something, you are the worst speaker

I've ever heard in my life. And he leaves. And then the second day of the conference, the man, the speaker standing by the door sees that same man in line and he's getting nervous uh oh, here we go again.

And then the man approached him when it was his turn in line and he said, you know something, I thought

I was going to give you another shot today but you are really horrible I don't even know why I'm here.

And he walks out. On the third day of the conference, he sees the same man in line and he's like,

I can't believe this guy's back. The man walks up to the guest speaker and he said that's it

I went against my better judgment I thought I'd still give you another shot and hear what you had to say but you are absolutely the most horrible speaker

I have ever heard in my life. You are never going to see me in an audience again. And the pastor of the church went up to the guest speaker to comfort him and said don't listen to a word that guy says.

All he does is repeat what everybody else says. But we have, let's see here, a question from an anonymous listener.

Being in pastoral ministry, I was wondering how you separate the time that you spend with your family from the activities of the church without violating your responsibilities to both.

Well, you actually were just bringing that up before but maybe you could explain in more detail to this person.

Yeah, so it's really a great question. I'll answer it with a really brief story as an example.

When I became bishop, we had a plan in place at my congregation, Peace Lutheran Church in McMurray, PA, to call another pastor, associate pastor

I would remain part -time senior. During the interviews, this man said I work 38 hours a week and when

I hit 38 hours a week, I'm done because my family is the most important. And I didn't say anything during any of the interviews until this man said this.

And I said, what are you going to do? Stop working on Wednesday of Holy Week? I mean, the point is you must make your family priority.

But any good pastoral leader knows there are seasons in a pastor's life.

Easter, Holy Week is one of those. I mean, we have service every day. Monday -Thursday is a high festival. Good Friday is a high festival.

Easter Vigil on Saturday. Sunday morning. That week or that 10 days from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday is full -scale all day, every day.

The other side of the coin, by the way, is when I was a vicar, I had a fantastic vicarage supervisor,

Rick Towns, Brookings, South Dakota. Our Savior in Brookings, South Dakota. It was a great year of my life. But I learned something from Rick that he was teaching me and didn't know he was teaching me.

And that was, you don't have to be in the church every moment of your life.

Saturday afternoon, my wife and I went to a movie one time and I saw him in his office, assuming he was preparing for his sermon.

But that's not the time to be doing that. He has two kids and a wife. You've got to be wise about this and know.

And I'm blessed. I have a wife and three kids who love the church. And so a lot of my life in the church, they're with me.

A lot of the events that I go to, they are there and they're a part of the life of the church. But my wife knows when

I go and I have to go confidentially because of confession or family problems or whatever, she knows that I won't be gone longer than I need to be.

But I've proven that to her over 23 years of being a pastor. So, I think men must take an account of loving their family, loving

God, and loving their church. And they must build in time for family to be the priority. But the family must know there comes time when the pastor's got to go do his job.

And sometimes that happens in the middle of the night. Sometimes that happens for an extended period of time. And sometimes that happens at a very awkward time.

But nonetheless, I think it's a priority in all pastors' lives. Be vigilant. That's what

I would say. Be vigilant. Now, you mentioned the term vicar. I know that that is a common nickname,

I believe, for Anglican ministers, especially in the UK. But where does that office or title come into play in Lutheranism?

Yeah, a vicar is no different than an intern in the hospital. He is a student pastor preparing for ministry.

We have a four -year program, two academic years, one full year of vicarage where you're in the church, serving under a pastor, learning, and then you go back to the seminary for one more full year for a four -year seminary program graduating with a master's.

And I tell everybody, vicarage year is in many churches becomes kind of cheap labor. We get a vicar, he helps the pastor do a lot of things that the pastor is doing.

But I got to tell you something, vicarage is designed to teach good pastors, to teach young men and second -career guys how to be good pastors.

And like I said at the beginning, a lot of what I've learned over my life was taught to me by me watching people, not by them lecturing me or directing me, but me watching good behavior and wanting to emulate that.

One of the examples I would say to you, a layman, Mr. Keith Ferndak, who is CEO of Concordia Lutheran Ministries in Cabot, Pennsylvania, $170 million company, senior living company.

You know, I've spent 23 years at his feet watching him. In fact, in the book, in the back, I read a thank you to him for all of the many, many hours of leadership training that he's given me where he never was training me.

I just watched what he did. And we talked, and I learned from behavior. And I think good pastors understand that they're always in the eye of the people.

They're always in the eye of the people. And that means that everything they do is being analyzed, watched.

It's being, you know, emulated. I find my young people when I teach religion in the school,

I find my young people saying my phrases, making comments that I make to them.

Every class I start out, I start out with the kids. I pick a kid in the class and I ask them, what's your story today?

Well, they've picked up on what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about some kind of a testimonial. It's really more comedic to say, how are you doing today?

But I got my kids now stopping me in the hall saying, hey Bishop, what's your story now? Well, we are going to go to our final break right now.

And if you want to get in line and have your question asked after those who are still waiting in line have their questions asked and answered, please send in your question, but I would urge you to do it immediately because we are rapidly running out of time.

ChrisArnson at gmail .com ChrisArnson at gmail .com As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence, if you live outside the

USA. We'll be right back with Lutheran Bishop Jameson J. Hardy and our discussion of pastoral leadership right after these messages from our sponsors.

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Dr. Joe Morecraft. I'm Joe Reilly, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener here in Atai in County Kildare, Ireland, going back to 2005.

One of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is Dr. Joe Morecraft. If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron radio,

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Hello Hello, my name is Anthony Uvinio, and I'm one of the pastors at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Quorum, New York, and also the host of the

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Again, I'm Pastor Anthony Avino, and thanks for listening. Music When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

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Thanks for helping to keep Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air. As host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

A church I've been strongly recommending as far back as the 1980s is Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey pastored by Alan Dunn.

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is gcbc -nj .org. The website you heard in that commercial is no longer functioning.

So go to gcbc -nj .org. We are now back with the final segment of our interview with Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod Bishop Jameson J.

Hardy on his book, Pastoral Leadership. We have another anonymous listener who says do you ever consult other

Pastors when you have reached a standstill amongst the leaders in your own church when trying to either

Counsel an individual or discipline them and I know that the danger can be as I have personally experienced when the other church goes against your

Discipline and welcomes that person perhaps even unrepentant into membership of their congregation

Yeah, actually I lived that out in Brookings, South Dakota at our Savior Lutheran Church, we we put a man on Excommunication where we excommunicated him from the church for adultery and an unwillingness to Repent and the cease the behavior

We sent a letter out to all the churches now granted Brookings, South Dakota when the students are there at South Dakota State University is about 20 ,000 strong in the community but every congregation of every denomination in that small town in Brookings, South Dakota Upheld our excommunication that doesn't always happen

And and when it comes to consulting others Yeah, look any good leader of any kind pastoral or business or or anything is gonna have people that they can fight in to You know to toss things off of to listen

It's it's one of the reasons why I'm thrilled to be in a team ministry at our Savior Lutheran in Heartland, Michigan Because we have the opportunity to to talk to each other and to be the mutual consolation of the brethren together

To deal with things when I was by myself for 20 plus years at in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania it was

Just what it sounds like I was by myself and so consulting with other people sometimes became hard because They were in a situation where they had a different context.

Let's say that I was in and so Getting consolation from them and and and advice was difficult

But I do think any good leader seeks advice seeks information and seeks the ability to Have opinions from other people and anonymous.

You've also won a copy of pastoral leadership Make sure we have your full name and mailing address. So CV bbs .com

and ship that out to you I think we have time for a final question and the questioner is

Ronald in Eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, New York I hope this isn't too far afield of your topic but I was wondering if you enjoyed

Luther the 2003 movie starring Joseph Fiennes and if you believe it was historically accurate

I happen to love the movie very much. In fact, I love the movie very much myself

But how accurate to your knowledge is it if you've ever seen it? You know, I've actually

I have seen it and and there's a lot of great stuff in it it was a it was a fantastic movie It depicted a couple things that I think are very relevant to pastoral leadership

Luther on as he climbed the church stairs at Wittenberg on his knees praying to Hail Mary When he got to the top of the stair and he turned around that was the defining

Holy Spirit moment where he realized I do not need to do things physically to merit

God Mercy, it is the work of Christ alone. And so I do think it's very accurate

Luther didn't want to be a priest He wanted to be a lawyer He got caught in the storm and prayed to Saint Anne that she would you know

Save him so that he would dedicate his life to the service. He he constantly was You know controlling his flesh because he was not worthy.

So I do I think the movie is very accurate It's very good. It defines the Reformation principles clearly and I would recommend it to anyone

Well, you've also won a copy of the book make sure we have your full mailing address Ronald and I want to make sure

That our listeners have all the contact information that they need To find out more about my guest

Bishop Jamison Hardy first of all the website for our Savior evangelical

Lutheran Church and school in Heartland, Missouri on Michigan I'm sorry

Heartland, Michigan Is our Savior Heartland org our

Savior Heartland org if you want to find out more about the book that we have been giving? away you can go to the website of Concordia publishing house, which is

CPH org CPH org and I want to thank you so much

Bishop Hardy for doing such a wonderful job today I know already that I would love to have you back on the program if you share my enthusiasm over this interview and I want to thank everybody who listened especially those who took the time to write in questions

I hope you all have a very safe joyful and Christ honoring weekend and Lord's Day and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives