Attention: Men wanted for hazardous journey and hard work. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours.
Attention: Men wanted for hazardous journey and hard work. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of loneliness and frustration. Safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in heaven in the event of success, and, maybe, a stronghold of faith in the Midwest for future generations.
There are a number of pastoral vacancies in conservative LCMS congregations with schools in rural areas or small towns of the Midwest with positive demographics that are well within a half day’s drive to major airports, giant hospital systems, universities, etc, but these congregations are struggling to find pastors. I am told that pastors under 40 aren’t interested (Note #1). I have heard that often the school is a problem because they want to homeschool their children or they want a classical school. Other times the pastors don’t want to be more than 8 hours from their in-laws or they want higher liturgical practices and other amenities.
Not everyone is equal to every task, but the Ministry always requires sacrifice. If a pastor under 40 can bear it these congregations have great potential. The opportunity here is like an offer to homestead. It is going to be hard. The land has to be cleared. Your children will not enjoy the most ideal education. Your wife will sometimes be lonely. At times, it will be tedious and frustrating to catechize the elders and teachers, to go to winkle, and to lead. It will take years of work.
The land is “free,” but it is not prime real estate at the moment. Nor are there any guarantees of earthly success. Some homesteaders get killed by Indians or succumb to scarlet fever or get recalled back to the East coast for family needs (Note #2). The Holy Spirit works when and where He pleases. But if a man will go to these congregations and stay for 20+ years working steadily, God could use him to turn the tide in that place. God could use him to create something like St. Paul’s in Hamel, Illinois, Immanuel in Tuscola, Illinois, or Redeemer in Fort Wayne, something like a fortress for faith for future generations. We know this much: God won’t do it apart from means or apart from the Ministry that He has instituted. Who will go?
Our forefathers, along with their families, were willing to suffer great hardships in the foreign lands to bring the Gospel to nations that had never heard it. I know, however, of nowhere left where the Gospel hasn’t been preached. We have sister churches everywhere. Our foreign mission work is almost exclusively theological education and support for the indigenous pastors and church. That is great and we need to do it, but there is also real evangelism and building work to be done here. We need to do it. It is not optional. It is critical – but it also holds great promise.
I am not speaking abstractly. I know of real life, conservation congregations in the Midwest with schools that need some pastor and his family willing to work and suffer for them, to build and plant and pray. These congregations and schools want to be taught and led. They are hymnal using, dyed-in-the-wool Missouri synod churches. They are eager and ready for rebirth and renewal. It won’t be easy, but it is possible. Will you sacrifice for them? Are you willing to do the work? Would you find joy in moving a school to daily worship and deeper catechesis and introducing subjects such as rhetoric and Latin even if it wasn’t a full-blown “classical” school or didn’t all happen in the first year? Would you love to introduce a congregation to the depths of Lutheran Chorales and higher ceremonies even if they never stopped loving “Amazing Grace” and “How Great Thou Art”? If you are ready for real work, real sacrifice, in service of the Gospel and hear the call, shoot me an e-mail (prdhpetersen@gmail.com). I will put you in touch with the district presidents that are working on these lists and even if nothing comes of it you will earn my respect and gratitude.
Footnote: The advertisement is a plan on the mythical advertisement by Ernest Shakelton for his Antarctic mission on the Endurance: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ernest-shackletons-famous-job-ad-men-wanted-for-hazardous-journey-is-probably-a-myth-5552379/
The notes below were added after the original post. Sorry for the oonfusion.
Note 1: I know personally of congregations in this situations in the Midwest. No doubt, they exist other places as well. This is not an English District thing as far as I know and I would be surprised if it was. I happen to know, however, that it is a reality in Indiana, Illinois, Iowa thing. I think it is also in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Ohio. I was told that many younger pastors of our bent, that is Gottesdienst-types, are not interested in this calls. So this post was directed at them. No doubt, older pastors could do this work also.
Note 2: This East Coast remark was meant to be part of the extended metaphor of homesteading. I was thinking of a homesteader from Boston who heads to Kansas for whom it doesn’t work out. I didn’t mean to say that the LCMS should lead the East Coast for the MidWest. I do think, however, that we need to pour real mission resources into the US - East, West, North, and South!