Synod Stories 18: ASL Liturgy, Closed Communion, and No-Script Sermons
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Brian Yamabe
00:01 - 00:19
Welcome to Synod Stories, a show about the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, its past, present and future. Besides learning about the LCMS National Convention, I started this podcast to learn more about life across the Synod. To that end, I have Pastor Brian Wolfmuller, who is the pastor of St. Paul and Jesus Deaf Lutheran Churches in Austin, Texas.
Brian Yamabe
00:19 - 00:29
He's written a number of books, has a bunch of shows under the Brian Wolfmuller YouTube channel, and has a tremendous number of resources at Wolfmuller.co. Pastor Wolfmuller, welcome and thank you for being here.
Bryan Wolfmueller
00:29 - 00:40
Thank you, Brian. Great first name, by the way. You're like the only guy after me in line for lunch, you know? There's not many after W, but you got it.
Brian Yamabe
00:41 - 01:05
So my first question is, there are two camps in the LCMS, right? So first we have the BRYAAN camp that is occupied by you and Pastor Stecker. And then there's the BRIAAAN camp that is Pastors Katchemeyer and Flammey. So my question is, how many table talk radio points would I get if I change my name from BRIAN to BRYAN?
Bryan Wolfmueller
01:05 - 01:13
You get all of them. Every single point, even the points that are given away are grabbed back and given to you.
Brian Yamabe
01:14 - 01:18
All right. Thank you. I'll take those. That's awesome.
Bryan Wolfmueller
01:19 - 01:23
Ah, tabletop radio, the good old days.
Brian Yamabe
01:23 - 01:32
So you're fairly well-known inside and outside the Synod, but I still have a couple background questions to kind of set things up. So what seminary did you attend and how long have you been ordained?
Bryan Wolfmueller
01:33 - 01:54
Yeah, I went to Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana from 2001 to 2005. was ordained June 2005, so it's been 21 years now they've been serving as a pastor. Those first 14 years were at Hope Lutheran Church in Aurora, Colorado, and then the last seven years plus here at St. Paul and Jesus Def in Austin.
Brian Yamabe
01:55 - 02:09
All right, thank you. All right, so one of the things I've been interested in is in the various congregational structures that exist across the synod. And so you serve two congregations. So is it considered a dual point parish, or is it two separate congregations?
Brian Yamabe
02:09 - 02:11
How are the two set up?
Bryan Wolfmueller
02:11 - 02:27
Yeah, it's a dual parish. So each parish governs itself, but they have a dual parish agreement. That means that they're kind of walking together, that they share a pastor, currently share two pastors, so me and Pastor Dylan Smith are both called to serve both congregations. But St.
Bryan Wolfmueller
02:27 - 03:03
Paul has the call to Pastor Davis and just extended another call and waiting for a pastor to deliberate on that, so we have some pastors that are just called to one church and a couple that are called to both congregations. It also means that our representation at the synod and district conventions is split, so we go back and forth who gets to represent every year, a layperson from one or from the other. But that's probably as far as it goes for cooperation, because each one, again, has its own structure and governance and takes care of all its own stuff.
Brian Yamabe
03:04 - 03:09
Okay, so they're not, how close are they and do they share any facilities or anything along those lines?
Bryan Wolfmueller
03:10 - 03:29
So St. Paul is on the north side. If you know Austin at all, we got Lady Bird Lake and then just north of that's downtown, just north of that's all the capital stuff, just north of that's University of Texas and we're just on the northern edge of the University of Texas. Below the lake is South Congress area, kind of a hip, upbeat kind of place and also the School for the Deaf and that's where JDLC is located.
Bryan Wolfmueller
03:30 - 03:39
So it's about a 20, it's very close, but it's like a 20 minute drive. Cause you gotta go through, either go through all the construction on I-35 or go through, through downtown to get there. All right.
Brian Yamabe
03:39 - 03:52
So what do the Sundays, Sunday mornings look like and how many services are typically, do they, do you typically have, and like, how do you split your time when, you know, for the pastors that have calls to both, how are they splitting their times?
Bryan Wolfmueller
03:53 - 04:10
Well, so it's maybe a unique situation here because St. Paul is pretty big and JDLC is pretty small. So we have both extremes represented and they're not, well, you know, one's English and the other is sign language. So that's also quite a bit different.
Bryan Wolfmueller
04:11 - 04:33
So on Sunday, we have service here at St. Paul at 8 o'clock, Bible class at 9.30. a second service at 11 o'clock, and then I'll normally go to Torchy's Tacos and get lunch. And then JDLC starts its Bible class at two in the afternoon at their facilities there, the church there, and then services at three o'clock.
Bryan Wolfmueller
04:33 - 04:51
And so we have our, well, three o'clock, And that service is all in sign. We have someone who will sit in the back interpreting by voicing. So I'm preaching and doing the liturgy just in sign language and someone's translating it into English for the people that need that.
Brian Yamabe
04:52 - 05:15
So that brings up an interesting point to me. And one thing we often talk about is that the shape of the historic liturgy kind of transcends locality. And that's so like, aside from language and instrumentation, it may be different in Europe, Asia, Africa, but you know, people talk about how they can still follow along even with those differences. And so how does that, does that kind of that comment, that sense still come across in the deaf service?
Brian Yamabe
05:16 - 05:17
Like, how does that feel?
Bryan Wolfmueller
05:17 - 05:40
Yeah, there's a lot of adjustments that are made for ASL. For example, the congregation remains seated the whole time, and that's because if you're standing, you're really blocking someone's view, and you have to be able to hear. We have a freestanding altar, which is wonderful. So for the prayers and the words of institution, I'm standing behind the altar so the congregation can see me as I'm signing those things.
Bryan Wolfmueller
05:41 - 06:00
We have the liturgy, we actually have screens. two TVs up front. It's interesting, it's not because it's a contemporary service, it's because we want to have a leader. So the old deaf tradition is that you'd have pastor on one side and a lay leader on the other, and the pastor would sign, and then the lay leader would lead the response.
Bryan Wolfmueller
06:00 - 06:32
So what we've done is because that response would sometimes be different depending on who the lay leader was, we've standardized that liturgy with a a beautiful liturgy project, ASL liturgy project. So those videos are there, so the congregation will follow the videos. So I'll say, the Lord be with you, and the congregation will follow the video on the screen that says, and also with your spirit. And so it's kind of standardizing that.
Bryan Wolfmueller
06:32 - 06:48
So the interesting thing that Like if you look at ASL poetry, there's no real rhyme. I mean, rhyme does not exist in sign language. There's sort of a shape rhyme, but it's a little bit different. There's no melody in the music.
Bryan Wolfmueller
06:49 - 07:14
So there's meter and there's flow, but ASL poetry looks very different. That means that it's difficult to... Like we grab ahold of the liturgy because it's to song, and we can kind of lock it in there, but when it's in sign, it's quite a bit different. So we want it to be very kind of week after week, the same, the same, the same, so it can kind of impress the liturgy into the hands and the hearts of the people.
Bryan Wolfmueller
07:15 - 07:16
Wow, nice, nice.
Brian Yamabe
07:17 - 07:33
So it still is very much didactic in its form. That's what I've loved about it for my children and things, is they get it burned into them, and it's part of them. And even more so with the science, it's part of their physical being, really.
Bryan Wolfmueller
07:35 - 08:01
And there's some things that expose themselves in the ASL liturgy that don't in the English liturgy. So we use Divine Service 3. So a couple of beautiful examples is for the Sanctus, holy, holy, holy. When, if you're praying in ASL, this is the Lutheran convention, if you're praying to the Father, you look up and to the left, and if you're praying to the Son, you look up and to the right, and if you're praying to the Holy Spirit, you look up straight
Bryan Wolfmueller
08:01 - 08:20
ahead. So for holy, holy, holy, it's not just holy, holy, holy, it's holy to the Father, to the left, holy to the Son, holy to the Spirit in the middle. So you can see that it's very Trinitarian. When we say at the end of the prayers, one God, world without end, we'll say one God.
Bryan Wolfmueller
08:20 - 08:38
So we'll use the three wrapping under and coming up one, which is the sign for Trinity. So one God, now and forever. So we indicate it that way. And maybe most beautifully, when we're singing the Agnus Dei, O Christ, Thou Lamb of God, that takest away the sin of the world, have mercy on us.
Bryan Wolfmueller
08:38 - 08:58
We're not actually looking up and to the right where you would expect the prayer to be addressed to Jesus. We actually are looking at the consecrated elements on the altar, because there's the body, the true body and the true blood of Christ who's here. So it's not, O Christ, Thou Lamb of God, that takes away the sin of the world. It's, O Christ, Thou Lamb of God.
Bryan Wolfmueller
08:58 - 09:07
It's directed at the altar itself. The liturgy moved into ASL has some really beautiful parts to it.
Brian Yamabe
09:07 - 09:12
Really? Yeah, that sounds amazing. Really, really. So do you ever have joint services?
Brian Yamabe
09:12 - 09:15
Like, has it ever done something like that?
Bryan Wolfmueller
09:15 - 09:22
We will have interpreted services at St. Paul. So that's probably as close as we get. So when we need to have everyone together, we'll make sure we have an interpreter there at St.
Bryan Wolfmueller
09:22 - 09:42
Paul and we can have everybody come together. We couldn't do a joint service the other way. There's just not enough space down at JDLC. But yeah, so we do, and especially during Lent, like the midweek services during Lent and Advent, we always have an interpreter, and we have that soup supper together, and we'll have everybody get together then, which is really wonderful.
Brian Yamabe
09:43 - 09:53
And so what hymnals and worship resources do you use in each, and then how did you arrive at the ones, especially the ones at Jesus' death? How did you get to those?
Bryan Wolfmueller
09:54 - 10:09
Yeah, so at St. Paul, we use LSB and everything straight out of the hymnal. We use Divine Service 3 as our base service, and then we'll vary off of it for different reasons. So the last couple of years, we'll vary off of Divine 3 to Divine 1 for feast days.
Bryan Wolfmueller
10:10 - 10:51
Divine 5 for Reformation and the Sundays leading up to it and All Saints, and for a month or so during the summer we'll use Divine Setting 4, just kind of lazy summer liturgy I guess, I don't know why. That's great. At JDLC we use Divine Service 3 and the liturgy itself is produced by this group, Signs of Concord, who's produced the liturgy videos, so that's where that's coming from and it's pretty new. We do use some hymns, although not many, and a lot of those are Mission and Ministry Coordinator Jennifer, who's studying to be a deaconess, she will interpret those hymns, and then we'll have those videos, and then the congregation will follow that way.
Bryan Wolfmueller
10:52 - 11:19
So we probably have a hymn every few weeks, aside from the hymns that are in the liturgy, so we don't have a hymn every Sunday. Music is a divisive point in the deaf community, so some of the deaf love music, some of the deaf, that's where they realize that they're deaf, you know, and it's a thing to... And so we have a divide about that, how helpful the hymns are, and it's an ongoing debate, which is wonderful.
Brian Yamabe
11:20 - 11:36
All right, so how often do the congregations celebrate the Lord's Supper, and who do you admit to the table? I ask this question not because I expect a weird answer from you, but this is like my general question to like, because I want to hear across the Synod what it's like, but I'm kind of expecting a certain answer.
Bryan Wolfmueller
11:36 - 11:51
Sure, sure. No, we have divine service every Sunday, every service at both congregations. So, you know, twice at the eight o'clock and the, 11 o'clock at St. Paul, at the three o'clock at JDLC, and then I mentioned we have a Wednesday evening service throughout the year.
Bryan Wolfmueller
11:52 - 12:13
We add communion to it in Advent and Lent. So they become divine services during the penitential seasons, and then other times they're evening prayer or something like Vespers, another evening liturgy. We also add in the feast days too for divine services. Those are throughout the year and different times.
Bryan Wolfmueller
12:13 - 12:42
We have a close communion as we've all promised to do, so here's my announcement before service in both churches. We're privileged today to celebrate the Lord's Supper where Jesus is our host and meal, and he comes to feed us his true body and his true blood. It's his desire and it's our desire that all people would commune at his altar. But we believe that before we have unity in the Lord's Supper, we have unity in doctrine and teaching.
Bryan Wolfmueller
12:42 - 13:13
So if you're not a member of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, one of our sister congregations, or a sister church throughout the world, please speak to me or one of our other pastors before you come to the Lord's Table. If you're visiting with us and you're comfortable with it, we'd love to have you come forward for a blessing, and you can indicate that by folding your hands over your heart. And we have a lot of people coming for a blessing, which is wonderful. In fact, sometimes we'll have a whole row, a whole table of 15 people or whatever come forward for a blessing, and that's great.
Bryan Wolfmueller
13:13 - 13:49
We want to give that blessing and try to bring people into the table. Similar announcement, although we have many fewer guests at JDLC, so those are handled kind of one-on-one, and we found that As offended as hearing people are at closed communion, the deaf community is really, boy, it's really a sensitive topic for the deaf community because probably their whole life is one of exclusion. And so we handle that in the same way, but very carefully.
Bryan Wolfmueller
13:49 - 14:09
And we say, look, when it's time, everybody comes forward. And we stand there, and we'll have one table or two tables. Everybody comes forward, and we have communion for members, and we have blessings for people who aren't members. And so we're all there together, and so no one's sitting by themselves.
Bryan Wolfmueller
14:09 - 14:27
And so that's been a good sort of way of trying to manage that to make sure that we're not saying, hey, we don't want you here, we think you're not a Christian or whatever, to welcome people, but then to have that guarded table like the Lord would have us.
Brian Yamabe
14:29 - 14:36
All right, so who assists in your service and how? Do you have lay readers, choirs, cantors? What type of people do you use?
Bryan Wolfmueller
14:36 - 15:11
So we've got a handful of pastors always hanging around, so we normally have a celebrant and an assistant pastor. The assistant pastor will just basically do the reading and those little few assistant parts of the liturgy and help with the distribution. We have three pastors, so we'll normally have an acolyte, which is a confirmed man will be serving as an acolyte, and so they'll light the candles and put the candles out, and they'll help with the distribution also. and we have a full-time congregational musician.
Bryan Wolfmueller
15:13 - 15:35
He leads the choir and all the music. He'll normally have every Sunday a cantor, which will be normally a member of the choir, another person singing, male and female for cantors and full mixed choir, full kind of musical thing that's there. And for the distribution, we have elders and deacons and ushers. They're kind of three layers.
Bryan Wolfmueller
15:35 - 15:54
So for the preparation of the Lord's Supper, it'll be an elder and a deacon, which is kind of nice. So they'll put everything together, make sure everything gets where it needs to be on the altar. They'll handle all the cleanup afterwards as well. The altar guild is working in the background with all the linens and all the other stuff, but the elders are handling all the elements.
Bryan Wolfmueller
15:54 - 16:12
That's nice. We make sure that everything that's consecrated is consumed at every service. We have a piscina, which is nice, one of these sinks that drains right into the ground for cleaning up so that everything can be done in good order and reverently in service to the confession that it's the true body and the true blood of Jesus that comes to us on the altar.
Bryan Wolfmueller
16:13 - 16:40
Probably 50% of the time, so the way we do distribution is we'll have the celebrant, we'll have the Lord's body, and we'll go first, and that's an admission to the table. And then we have a pastor and either another pastor or an elder helping with the distribution of the Lord's blood. So we have individual cups that are available and the chalice that's available, and then the acolyte will come behind to collect the individual cups. So those don't leave the altar area.
Bryan Wolfmueller
16:40 - 17:03
So that's what the distribution looks like at St. Paul. At JDLC, it's simpler because it's either the pastor, or if both pastors are there, we'll both help with the distribution, and it's a small enough group that it's all handled. The pastor can do the distribution and doesn't need any help.
Bryan Wolfmueller
17:04 - 17:18
Yeah, I self-commune at St. Paul, and normally, the other pastor, Smith, will commune me at JDLC. So that's not a standardized practice that we have.
Brian Yamabe
17:21 - 17:33
You always hit my follow-up questions, because the self-communion was going to be the next question. But you brought up something interesting. So deacons, that can be a sore subject in our circles. What are your deacons like?
Brian Yamabe
17:33 - 17:38
Do they have specific training that they go through that's different than the elder training, or what are your deacons like?
Bryan Wolfmueller
17:38 - 18:04
Good question. So deacons are basically like elder assistants, and they're men that have been identified in the congregation who can help with the Sunday morning logistics, especially around the Lord's Supper. So like, for example, we'll have an elder or a deacon in the sacristy if any adjustments are needed during the service. And this will happen quite a bit, like sometimes we're trying to just consecrate what we need.
Bryan Wolfmueller
18:05 - 18:16
We'll have some extras that are off to the side, but if we need to adjust those numbers, then there's someone in the sacristy that can handle that. If there's something that's needed, they can hand it through the window. pass through. So we'll have an elder or deacon.
Bryan Wolfmueller
18:16 - 18:53
The deacons basically have the elder training for Sunday morning. So they know all the security stuff, they know all the ushering stuff, they know all the stuff to help with the sacrament, the distribution of the sacrament. They don't have the other elder stuff, the member care and the theological oversight and some of the other duties that the elders have, but they're there to work together with the elders, and it's nice in some ways as an elder training program. So guys who might be working their way onto elders, they'll start with the deacons, and sometimes elders will retire, but they'll go serve on the deacons, so that's nice.
Brian Yamabe
18:54 - 18:57
So do you guys have a vicar?
Bryan Wolfmueller
18:58 - 19:12
We have two Vickers, one last year, one the year before, because we're expanding staff a little bit. We opted out of it this year. I hope and pray that we'll be back at it next year. It was so great.
Bryan Wolfmueller
19:13 - 19:31
Now there's a Vicker and I look around, I'm like, it's quiet and boring around here without a Vicker. So we definitely need to get one because I have a lot of picking on people energy that doesn't have anywhere to go. So we'll have to get a vicar soon.
Brian Yamabe
19:32 - 19:40
And you mentioned you have a member or a lady who's gonna go into deacons training. Do you have a full-time deaconess?
Bryan Wolfmueller
19:41 - 20:10
So Jennifer, who's our mission and ministry coordinator at the Deaf Church, is studying at a distance to become a deaconess. through the Fort Wayne Seminary, so that'll be really great. She's already a good theologian, and this will be really helpful for her. In some ways she serves in that role, and it's a particularly needed role in the deaf church and for that outreach to the deaf community, and so that's just started.
Bryan Wolfmueller
20:10 - 20:25
In fact, I've got to print out the deaconess intern pastoral supervisor workbook sometime today to see all the things that I'm supposed to be doing as well. So she's doing distance learning and continuing to serve in the church here.
Brian Yamabe
20:26 - 20:33
Right. So what does your confirmation programs look like? And how many years do you have it? What kind of materials do you use?
Brian Yamabe
20:34 - 20:35
That kind of thing.
Bryan Wolfmueller
20:35 - 20:45
Good question. So for the youth, we have... This is in flux. So you can ask me this.
Bryan Wolfmueller
20:45 - 20:52
So this is current 2026 year. It changed from last year. It'll change next year. I've never been content.
Bryan Wolfmueller
20:53 - 21:25
We've never been content at the program. It's so hard, but what we currently do is we have a First Communion program, and really when the kids get to fifth grade and they've done their... Let me back up. we have a catechism memory program that starts at age zero, and it's like level one is the Lord's Prayer, level two is the Words of the Ten Commandments and the Creed, level three is the Texts of Baptism and the Words of Institution, then level four adds in the
Bryan Wolfmueller
21:25 - 22:08
confirmations, the catechism stuff, so I think level four is the explanation of the creed, and level five is the explanation of the Ten Commandments. And that starts in the Sunday school at the very beginning. So there's three triggers that can trigger First Communion, and that is that you've gotten to memory level five, you've gotten to fifth grade, and your family, together with the pastor, think you're ready. And if you've met those three criteria, then we have an eight-week Sunday school program that Pastor Davis will teach to prepare those kids for First Communion.
Brian Yamabe
22:09 - 22:10
And that's in the fall.
Bryan Wolfmueller
22:11 - 22:38
We then have confirmation in the spring. So I think there's a couple more memory levels. Actually, maybe it's memory level one to three that you have to do for Early Communion. Then once you get to five, you're eligible for confirmation class and that confirmation is in the spring and I think it's a 12-week program that meets during Sunday school in tents with the pastor and the parents to hone in on what does this mean and can we confess
Bryan Wolfmueller
22:38 - 22:53
these things and then they're eligible for confirmation. So that's the program. So some home memory work and then some classroom work with the pastors. So ask me again next year and it'll be something totally different.
Bryan Wolfmueller
22:53 - 23:14
Three years ago, it was a four-year program all through fifth grade to eighth grade with a Sunday school. But the problem we realized is that that kids would come and they'd move to town or they'd join our church and they're in seventh grade, and then... Anyway. Our adult class is, it goes back and forth, we'll meet for a session on...
Bryan Wolfmueller
23:16 - 23:53
It's a 12-13 week program. We'll meet on Sunday morning and then we'll meet on Wednesday nights and they'll either be back to back or sometimes there'll be a little gap between or a few times last year they were actually overlapping. We had enough people that we had one class and before that one finished we had another one start in the evenings and so forth. and that class has a curriculum where we're going through the six chief parts of the catechism, Ten Commandments, Creed, Lord's Prayer, Baptism, Confession, Absolution, Lord's Supper, and then the Table of Duties, Doctrine of Vocation, Christian Questions and Answers, Morning and Evening Prayer, and we're looking at the rite
Bryan Wolfmueller
23:53 - 24:15
of confirmation and we're studying these things from the scripture and considering what other churches believe. So I have a catechism book that I have an adult Christian basics book that we were using for about 10 years. I never liked that again, because I never like anything. And so I just finished a new book.
Bryan Wolfmueller
24:17 - 24:42
this summer called Adult Catechism Class Workbook. And the difference for this, Brian, it's really interesting, is that we have, it has the Sunday lesson in there, but then it has daily, 10 daily readings each week. And so it takes, like week one, it's a bunch of law gospel texts. Has a little devotional introduction, and then the text to read, and then questions to answer.
Bryan Wolfmueller
24:43 - 24:58
So if you do two a day, you're doing fine and you're keeping up. And so there's some self-study that's involved in the workbook as well. So there was too much to teach, like how do you do it? So we added it to the workbook.
Bryan Wolfmueller
24:58 - 25:39
And one of the things we've been doing for our adult catechism classes is a pretty thorough intake form that gets people's theological history and also the questions that they have and they're hoping to answer from the class. And that lets whoever's teaching the class to kind of dig in and say, okay, we need to make sure we hit on this or this, or I need to meet with this person and talk about this. So that's been a good way to sort of customize it because everyone's from a different spot. Sometimes people are in there asking questions about the two natures of Christ and the rule of Chalcedon, and then sometimes they're saying, wait, who's Moses?
Bryan Wolfmueller
25:40 - 25:42
So we're trying to hit every level.
Brian Yamabe
25:44 - 26:11
Nice, nice. I really like the idea of having prescribed levels for early communion and those things, because whenever I've talked to pastors, it's hard for them typically to like, if this one child is doing it, why is my child not doing it kind of thing. But with actual prescribed goals or actual levels, it makes it possible, I guess.
Bryan Wolfmueller
26:12 - 26:43
Yeah, it's good, and we try to do, we do an award for each memory level, so when a kid passes a level, then after church, we'll once a month have them come up for memory awards and give them a gift card or a Bible, or by the time you go through all 10, you've got like a library, it's amazing. And that's also good to provoke the other dads, like, hey, that kid passed level four, we gotta get home and get busy. So that's good, healthy spiritual competition, I suppose.
Brian Yamabe
26:44 - 26:50
So what kind of organized programs do you have, like men's groups, women's groups, youth groups, those kind of things?
Bryan Wolfmueller
26:51 - 27:01
Yes. Boy, we sort of are a free-for-all here. Like if someone has an idea, it's like, just go for it. So let me just think through a week and we'll see.
Bryan Wolfmueller
27:01 - 27:18
So we've got our Sunday programs. Let me do deaf church first. So, you know, Sunday afternoon, Bible class and then church. Twice a month, we host a youth night, so at elementary and then middle school and then high school for the deaf school, for Texas School for the Deaf.
Bryan Wolfmueller
27:19 - 27:37
And the kids will come over and we do a little chapel and a little Bible story and have some snacks with them. We also have a Hearing Parents of Deaf Children ministry that meets once a month, and that's teaching the hearing parents how to tell the Bible stories to their deaf kids in ASL. So it's like a theological ASL Bible story class. It's really great.
Bryan Wolfmueller
27:37 - 27:54
Actually, we'll teach the Bible story, here's how to teach it, and then practice it, and then the kids will come over and sit and watch their parents tell them the Bible story, and it's great. That's really a lot of fun. And then they've got Senior Citizen Board Games and some other stuff, so that's at the Deaf Church. At St.
Bryan Wolfmueller
27:54 - 28:10
Paul, we have church Sunday morning. Once a month on Sunday night, we have our fire pit. On Monday morning, we have a ladies Bible study. On Tuesday night, we have a recovery program that one of our members built, cross-shaped recovery.
Bryan Wolfmueller
28:10 - 28:33
It's like a law gospel recovery program that's really quite beautiful. On Wednesday morning, I host the worldwide Bible class online. We have a Bible class here at four o'clock, studying Philippians currently. We have 5.15 to six, confession and absolution, and then six o'clock is our evening prayer on Thursdays.
Bryan Wolfmueller
28:33 - 29:00
We also have a, let's see, Thursday, sorry, on Wednesday nights, there's a ESL that's hosted, and they come on Mondays and Wednesdays. We have a youth, a young adult volleyball meets on Friday afternoons. We have a men's Bible study that meets monthly on Saturday. We have a seniors group that meets monthly on Thursdays.
Bryan Wolfmueller
29:01 - 29:16
And there's just a fine arts academy, so it has lessons happening all the time. I think brass and bells is Monday night, choir is Wednesday night, and confirmation for all the different ages on Sunday morning. So it seems like there's always something happening.
Brian Yamabe
29:18 - 29:34
I can't keep track of it all, really. Historically, LCMS has been cautious about the church becoming like a social club, right? But people are looking for community and belonging in this day and age. So how do you navigate that tension?
Bryan Wolfmueller
29:34 - 29:45
I should have mentioned that. So we have a young adult group, too. They meet in people's homes every other Monday. They get together for brunch after church on Sundays once a month.
Bryan Wolfmueller
29:46 - 30:05
And then they're always doing this group chat and they're going dancing all the time, two-stepping and line dancing and going to comedy shows and everything all the time. It's crazy, those kids. And it's great. I used to say that, I used to make fun of the evangelicals who would have youth night and it was just pizza and games and there was no Bible study.
Bryan Wolfmueller
30:05 - 30:24
And here we do Bible study, but I've really changed my mind about that. I mean, we should do Bible study, but pizza and games is great because we need Christian friends and we have to cultivate those Christian friendships. And it's one of these questions, like when I'm thinking about my checklist in life, like do I have a church? Do I have a pastor?
Bryan Wolfmueller
30:24 - 30:39
Do I have Christian friends? And that's a big one. If you got a church and you got a pastor, then your next question is, do I have Christian friends? And to cultivate those Christian friendships and to have space for that is really, really important.
Bryan Wolfmueller
30:40 - 30:50
So that we can say that person is my Christian friend and that there's people at church who notice if I'm not there because they love me and they're looking for me. Great.
Brian Yamabe
30:52 - 30:59
Makes sense. So do your youth participate in Higher Things or National Youth Gathering or either one of those?
Bryan Wolfmueller
30:59 - 31:13
Yeah, we haven't done National Youth Gathering, I don't know if ever. Maybe at some point, but not of any recent memory. We've been kind of halftime on Higher Things. We did Hire Things when it was down here in town.
Bryan Wolfmueller
31:14 - 31:28
I think we had a couple families go last year. It's kind of hit or miss on Hire Things. I do help host a catechism retreat every summer up in Colorado, and we go up there. So we pack the van.
Bryan Wolfmueller
31:28 - 31:34
Well, we had three vans full of kids. We drive all the way up to the mountains in Colorado. It's so great. And we spend the week at camp.
Bryan Wolfmueller
31:35 - 31:53
We normally have about 100 from all the different churches and about you know, 15 different pastors bring the kids over there, and so we do that. We go up into the mountains for catechism retreat. That would be for middle school and high school kids all together. So we do do that annually, and that's a great, that's a great epic trip.
Brian Yamabe
31:55 - 32:16
So kind of like I'm going, moving toward like retention questions. So of the, like the confirmed kids, do you, do you have a way of tracking whether they're still in congregate, you know, in a congregation, you know, after high school, you know, through college and those kinds of things. And what have you seen as like, is there any pattern to the ones more likely to stay in, you know, stay, keep, keep active?
Bryan Wolfmueller
32:16 - 32:36
No, I have not. I have not been good at that data, so it's just all kind of word of mouth. It seems like in some ways we're doing okay, in some ways like any losses are unacceptable losses. Here's my thinking about that, Brian.
Bryan Wolfmueller
32:38 - 33:09
There's a chief assumed relationship that defines a culture. And one of the problems, and there's kind of two general shapes to that chief assumed relationship, family and friend. And we feel it, you and I feel it every day, when you go to work, your relationships are with friends and coworkers. When you go home, it's with your family, your wife and your kids.
Bryan Wolfmueller
33:09 - 33:26
So we're navigating both of those. They're in the background though, like what is that that defines me? And at different times in our lives, our chief assumed relationships are different and defining. So when we're babies, it's with our parents.
Bryan Wolfmueller
33:26 - 33:42
In fact, it's with our mom. And then dad comes into play, and then siblings come into play. And then as we get older, our friends start to factor in. And once we get to high school, one of the marks of adolescence is that Our chief assumed relationships shift from our parents to our friends.
Bryan Wolfmueller
33:43 - 34:19
And then if we move off to college, they're almost dropped altogether. until one of those friends, one of those chief assumed relationships becomes so close that, hey, let's get married, and then it flips back to family, especially when you start to have your own children, and then you find yourself alienated from your old friends because they don't know why you have to go home so early and why you don't want to hang out all the time, right? So we have these different phases in life where we have very different chief assumed relationships, and one of the things the Lutheran church has done It's just assumed that the chief assumed relationship is one of family and not one of friendship.
Bryan Wolfmueller
34:20 - 34:53
And the result is that when a person's chief assumed relationship switches over to friend, like in high school and college, it's less easy to go to church until it flips back to family and then it's like, I need to get back to church. It's one of the things that the evangelicals do is that their chief assumed relationships is friends and colleagues. your life is your friends and your work, and that's why it seems like they're more naturally appealing for young adults who are in those circumstances in life. And then once you get married, it's kind of awkward.
Bryan Wolfmueller
34:54 - 35:31
So one of the things that I'm working on here, and I think as a Missouri Synod project is going to be helpful, is to not change our chief assumed relationship as family, but we need to add in that attention to friendships, to church friendships, to individual friendships, to what does it mean to be a good co-worker where the Lord has put us to work and vocation, as we can focus on that. And then when people say, well, the preaching wasn't relevant, I think this is actually one of the things that's operating in the background. Well, it wasn't answering questions about my chief assumed relationship.
Bryan Wolfmueller
35:31 - 35:51
It's not talking about my life, it's talking about someone else's life. So as we add that in there, it's not a change of doctrine or teaching, but it makes it feel like, oh boy, I'm picking up what he's putting down because it's kind of hitting home. So I think that's something that we need to give attention to. Now that doesn't answer the question.
Bryan Wolfmueller
35:51 - 36:07
We're still losing people. There's still attrition. People are still coming and going. And one of the things that we're working on, so we've had so many people joining the Missouri Synod, joining the Lutheran Church by confirmation or baptism, but they're on a theological quest.
Bryan Wolfmueller
36:08 - 36:30
And we want this to be the end of their quest, not just kind of a stopping point along the way. But we've experienced that also. It was a stopping point along the way and people, they move on and they explore different things. So to say, how can we, how can we grab a hold of a person's entire future?
Bryan Wolfmueller
36:31 - 36:57
Like when someone becomes Lutheran, at St. Paul Lutheran Church, I wanna be able to say, you've changed your family history. Like your grandkids are gonna be talking about how Grandma and Grandpa joined the Lutheran Church in 2026, and our family's been Lutheran since then for the last 87 years or whatever. So we're putting a stake in history, and we're changing family trees.
Bryan Wolfmueller
36:58 - 37:10
We're not just worried about if individuals are gonna stay in the church, but we're actually worried about whole family trees staying in the church. And I think if we broaden our perspective, that'll also serve us really well.
Brian Yamabe
37:11 - 37:31
Yeah, it's one of the things Dr. Kuntz talks about, I've talked to him a lot about it, is like putting down the roots kind of thing, and not just in a church life, but also it'll help if you could do it in a locale as well. When you start sending people off, it becomes much more difficult to have that kind of tie, that family tree.
Bryan Wolfmueller
37:32 - 37:50
Yeah. We praise the Lord that it's the Church Catholic, though, that's one of the great advantages, and it should be. Look, it's the same dirt here and there, so we actually don't have to get uprooted. Our family, I mean, it's different than being in a place, but it's part of the great gift of the Catholicity of the Church.
Bryan Wolfmueller
37:51 - 37:54
We have this right hand of fellowship that extends all the way around the world.
Brian Yamabe
37:57 - 38:09
So, so when you, when people do happen to leave your congregation, do you, do they typically transfer membership or do they often just stop coming or, and you lose them or how does it, how does that typically go?
Bryan Wolfmueller
38:09 - 38:32
I have a picture in my mind of like an orbit, you know, and you can kind of tell if people are like coming in for a nearer orbit, it's getting closer and closer, or if people are kind of staying stable or if people are kind of spinning out and, um, And so there's people that are moving out of orbit, too. There's nothing like magic or something about how people can't leave St. Paul.
Bryan Wolfmueller
38:33 - 39:00
You know, sometimes it's sin. Like, hey, I want to do the sin, and I know the church doesn't want me to, so I'm going to just, you know, I choose my sin. sometimes it's circumstances, sometimes it's laziness, sometimes it's spiritual apathy, sometimes it's change of confession. We just got a note from someone said, hey, you know, I praise the Lord for your ministry and everything there, but the deeper I study it, the more Presbyterian I become.
Bryan Wolfmueller
39:01 - 39:16
Well, okay, praise the Lord, you know, here you go. So, We're trying to teach people to have theological integrity so that it's not like we just disappear, but we want to stay in touch. So we're working on that.
Brian Yamabe
39:18 - 39:35
And so what do you consider regular attendance? I know in some people's minds it's shifted and it used to be like three out of four Sundays, but some people like once a month has become regular attendance in some circles. What is your regular attendance criteria and has it shifted since COVID and those kind of things?
Bryan Wolfmueller
39:35 - 39:41
No, it's shifting, but it hasn't shifted for me. It's every Sunday. You're in church every Sunday. This is not an option.
Bryan Wolfmueller
39:41 - 40:02
I mean, that's what the Lord says, and it's gotta be that in our mind. Like, this has to be the standard, and if something weird happens where I miss a service on a Sunday once a year or something, you know, okay, but that's weird, and it messed up my whole week. We gotta be in church every Sunday. So we always encourage people to, if you're traveling, look for a church there.
Bryan Wolfmueller
40:02 - 40:20
That's exciting. You know, go say hi and see what's going on over there. I'll host a trip every year somewhere in the world, and we're really careful to make sure that we're in a place in the world where we can go to church on Sunday. So we were in Strasbourg last year, and we're going to be in Vienna this next year, or outside of Vienna, actually.
Bryan Wolfmueller
40:20 - 40:39
We had to adjust the trip two days to make sure that the Sunday matched up with where the church is. This is really important. Now not everybody has that and it's interesting to note like some people once a month is their regular, some people every other week is their regular, some people every Sunday is regular. It's one of the things that I'm excited that the machines can do now.
Bryan Wolfmueller
40:40 - 41:10
that, because it was impossible before to sort of, you could get a report of who wasn't there, but like to figure out who's deviated from their normal pattern is tricky. Because some people, I want to know if they miss one Sunday, because that's totally out of pattern for them. Other people, I want to know if they've missed three Sundays, three months in a row, because that would be off pattern for them. And it used to be impossible, but I think the robots are going to be able to figure that out to help us keep track of folks.
Bryan Wolfmueller
41:12 - 41:18
Nice. That's a good one. Are you using all this? Because you're a super tech genius at all this stuff.
Brian Yamabe
41:19 - 41:39
Well, I am, and I do have a little follow-up on that later on. But yeah, I use it daily in work, and there's all kinds of issues. My pastor has kind of asked me to look at what it might look like, what does it mean for the church, and kind of help him through, because he calls himself a Luddite. He's really not into this stuff at all.
Brian Yamabe
41:40 - 42:21
Yeah, me and a couple guys are trying to help him think through what it means for the church. I thought he just wanted it about church practices, if there were policies within the church, but he wanted us to start thinking about just for Christian life, how it should affect Christian life. My daughter's at CUI, and she's seen a bunch of you know, it going wayward, wayward uses of AI at, in college, you know, at, at a, you know, one of our CUs. So, yeah, it's, it's kind of, the thing is, like, one, one friend she had, like, he's like, oh, it's, you know, this class isn't part of my major, so I'll just use it for answers because it's not, you know, it does, it doesn't matter.
Brian Yamabe
42:21 - 42:42
But then it just leads down a path of, Then he started using it as a, you know, like a therapy coach and things like that. And he just started using it and he got so accustomed to it. He started using it in areas that he definitely should not have been using it. And so, yeah, it can just, just getting familiar with it can start leading you down the road, down a bad path, unless you're really conscious of what's going on.
Bryan Wolfmueller
42:44 - 42:48
Yeah, that's great. I'll look forward to see what the work that you're doing on that. That'll be great.
Brian Yamabe
42:49 - 43:07
I'd like to also work with some of the, like Dr. Stigmeyer at CUI, he does transhumanist stuff, and a lot of the AI stuff is related to that. So I'd like to talk to him. Pastor Ketschmeyer and I are on the CUI board now. So I'd like to talk to him to see what we can do with the schools and work with them.
Brian Yamabe
43:09 - 43:19
So when you, do you have any process when people kind of become more irregular or inactive member, you know, in attendance, do you have processes in place to like seek them out?
Bryan Wolfmueller
43:19 - 43:38
No, we just, you know, we're trying to, we're trying to be as good as pastors as we possibly can be. One of the hardest things as a pastor, and this is a, it's just a difficult thing, is to notice who's not there. You can see who's there. And to notice who's not there is a big problem.
Bryan Wolfmueller
43:39 - 44:10
So we're getting more crowded and so just with the numbers that we have, it's difficult to try to track that down. So we're trying to figure that out, trying to think about it. I'm working with a guy who is building a pastoral care app. And one of the things that it can do is it actually has a randomized flashcard feature, where you can just go and it'll show you members and you're learning their names.
Bryan Wolfmueller
44:10 - 44:31
This is especially great for for being new in a place and for me, for new members, for visitors, locking it in. But then it has a little thing where you can just click to send them a text or to call them or to send them an email. And so you're like, oh, I haven't seen them in a while. Send an email, hey, checking in, hope you're well, let me know what you need, hope to see you soon.
Bryan Wolfmueller
44:31 - 44:55
This kind of thing is really great. So you're praying for people, you're thinking about them, and you're checking in on them, kind of pastoral care for the 21st century, I suppose. But it's just this kind of trying to be careful and doing the best we can and trying to keep an ear to listening and trying to encourage people, hey, if you haven't seen someone, your pew neighbor in a while, let us know about that so we can follow up.
Brian Yamabe
44:57 - 45:00
Makes sense, makes sense. So how are people finding your congregation right now?
Bryan Wolfmueller
45:01 - 45:18
You know, I have a survey that I put together called Roads to St. Paul, and all the new members will take it to, how'd you find us? And it's amazing, it's like you'd figure there'd be like one or two ways, and there's not. I mean, it's like every different way.
Bryan Wolfmueller
45:18 - 45:58
So sometimes people have seen some YouTube stuff, or they're Lutheran from the radio, and they move to Austin, they're like, oh, I'll go to Wolf Mueller's church, Other people just were walking by, and they're like, that building looks like a real church, and I want a real church. Other people have friends and family that have brought them in there. Other people have just been searching for churches on Google, and we showed up, and there we are. Other people are digging into the theological questions, and they're like, well, I'm not not evangelical, I'm not Roman Catholic, I'm either Anglican or Lutheran, and they show up and they're like, well now I guess I'm Lutheran.
Bryan Wolfmueller
45:59 - 46:32
So from every different angle, from friends, from family, from invitation, from people who have left the church but now it's time to come back, we've had a lot of baptisms. Not this year, last year had a lot of adult baptisms. It was a big year for that, especially after the Charlie Kirk assassination. It was a pretty significant bump that we saw, and that was great to administer to the folks who were really mourning and trying to get a handle on what's going on in the world after that.
Brian Yamabe
46:32 - 46:40
So there's not one way. Do you guys have a formal evangelism program? No.
Bryan Wolfmueller
46:41 - 47:08
We have a mission. and evangelism committee, it mostly will designate funds and support for people, for organizations and individuals that are outside the congregation. We did, they sponsored a evangelism study that we did in Sunday school. We used the CPH's, I should probably know what it's called, a couple summers ago, their evangelism program.
Bryan Wolfmueller
47:08 - 47:18
We went through that. And that was nice. They did a nice job putting that program together. Lassie is what it was called.
Bryan Wolfmueller
47:19 - 47:31
It was kind of a spiritual conversations project. So that was good. So we did that. But we don't have anything formal.
Bryan Wolfmueller
47:32 - 47:49
I've got to be honest, Brian. it's enough to handle what we've got now. So every Sunday, Pastor Davis and I will sit here in my study and just sort of like rub our heads, scratch our heads about
Brian Yamabe
47:51 - 47:53
How are we going to follow up with all the visitors?
Bryan Wolfmueller
47:53 - 48:10
So it's great. I mean, Austin has a huge advantage of being a real sort of growing, happening place. So we, I guess, have 80 or 100 visitors every Sunday. And it's like, I'm not sure we, like, that's plenty.
Bryan Wolfmueller
48:11 - 48:13
Like, you know, that's given us enough to do.
Brian Yamabe
48:17 - 48:46
Actually, that sparked something in my head, that 80 to 100 visitors. I was watching a YouTube short from another pastor that said they get 80 to 100 visitors and they just can't do close communion because there's 80 to 100 visitors. And I talked to my pastor and he's like, that's not good. But you mentioned that you get the same amount and you still are able to you know, still practice closed communion in a faithful but open or welcoming way, I guess.
Bryan Wolfmueller
48:47 - 48:53
I hope so. I mean, I hope so. And so, you know, I told you the announcement. We make that announcement before the service.
Bryan Wolfmueller
48:54 - 49:14
Our ushers and elders will be helpful to people to explain what's going on. We have that same announcement that's in the bulletin. And the advantage of having 80 to 100 visitors is that They see other people coming for a blessing so they know what to do and they don't feel like they're by themselves. I think it's easier to practice closed communion when you have so many visitors.
Bryan Wolfmueller
49:15 - 49:38
It's hard when you only have one. Like when everybody takes communion but one person, then you feel really out of place. But when like, you know, in any given time we have 10 or 15 or 20 people that are in confirmation class plus youth and all this. So there are so many people that are coming forward for a blessing that you don't feel like that's like you're being singled out or something like that.
Bryan Wolfmueller
49:39 - 50:22
Oh, so here's another thing that I guess I'll admit to is that I will profile people when they come to the Lord's table. In this way, if someone comes forward and I don't know who they are, so we'll invite everyone who's a member of a sister congregation to come for communion, and hopefully I've met most of the people who are coming for communion, but it never can happen that I can meet them all or that we can meet them all. If someone comes forward and they look like they know what they're doing, like we've done this a million times before, then I'll trust that they're a member of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and I'll commune them and then I'll try to track them down and make sure afterward
Bryan Wolfmueller
50:22 - 50:32
and so forth. It's so great when people will go out of their way to announce an email. That's the best practice. And if you're visiting anywhere, it's so helpful for the pastor.
Bryan Wolfmueller
50:32 - 50:35
Send them an email. Hey, we're coming. We're members here. Hopefully we can commune.
Brian Yamabe
50:35 - 50:39
Let us know if you want to talk to us. Whatever you need to be great.
Bryan Wolfmueller
50:39 - 51:20
If someone comes up to the table and they're looking around and they're trying to figure out what's going on, then I'll come over to them and I'll say, have you been confirmed in the Lutheran Church? And I'll have a little conversation with them to just kind of see where they are. So that's how I try to handle it if I don't recognize someone who's there. And I think the change that we probably need to make, we were just talking about this this week, is just to move the communion announcement to the announcement before the prayers rather than before the service, because if there's people who are coming in late, they're missing it.
Bryan Wolfmueller
51:22 - 51:55
But almost, it's so rare that we have this problem, because so many people are so happy to come forward for a blessing. And the way that it's handled, everyone's ushered forward, they stand in front of the altar, they're brought forward to kneel, there's a sense that this is something different that's happening here. And we're taking our time, we're going as efficiently as we can, but we're not rushing through the thing. It's not a problem for us.
Bryan Wolfmueller
51:55 - 52:10
So many people would be so happy to get a blessing. And so I think we're doing it well here. And it's not a problem. It's not an issue for us.
Bryan Wolfmueller
52:12 - 52:17
We want you here. Confirmation comes first. Come for a blessing. Praise the Lord.
Bryan Wolfmueller
52:18 - 52:28
And it's not diminishing our our attendance or our growth or anything like this, I don't know. It's, so.
Brian Yamabe
52:30 - 52:41
That makes sense to me. So the pastoral shortage, there's lots of talk about pastoral shortage, is that in any way affecting your work or work in your circuit?
Bryan Wolfmueller
52:41 - 53:15
I, so I'm not, I don't see all the numbers. I don't think that, I don't think that the problem is a pastoral shortage. I think the problem, I think our real, well, our real problem is probably, it probably is a financial thing, and it's that we have congregations that really can't afford a pastor. And that could be because they're too small, or because pastor salaries are too big, or both.
Bryan Wolfmueller
53:16 - 53:42
But that's the problem. because I think that most churches that want a pastor and can afford a pastor have a pastor. I think we gotta look at other places for the issue. Some of the things that, like as we look at the ratio of like pastor to members, and it keeps getting, so pastors to congregations is kinda staying the same, but pastors to members is getting smaller and smaller.
Bryan Wolfmueller
53:43 - 54:07
And that means if you have a small, and this is almost a definition of a small parish, is that the people struggle to take care of their pastor. The problem of a medium-sized parish is that the pastor struggles to take care of the people. I don't know, the struggles of a large parish are, I suppose, different altogether than either one of those things. It becomes a different dynamic.
Bryan Wolfmueller
54:07 - 54:33
But we have so many small parishes where the parishes struggle to take care of the pastor. If you have 50 people on a Sunday, even if they're regular, faithful 50 people, it's hard to put together enough money to do a full salary. So I think the problem is more systemic. I haven't seen it.
Brian Yamabe
54:34 - 54:39
I haven't seen that problem here show up of the pastoral shortage.
Bryan Wolfmueller
54:40 - 54:45
I don't know, Brian, what do you see from your angle, and what are guys talking about?
Brian Yamabe
54:46 - 54:59
So we actually, our congregation, we have a vicar. The last three years, we have a vicar. We share the vicar with the congregation that's downtown. The CNH has this problem in spades, right?
Brian Yamabe
55:01 - 55:29
Our circuit is, I think it's like seven congregations now, and three or four are vacant. And it is the problem that they're very small and they don't have the funds to afford a pastor. So the way that we did it, we partnered with a congregation, and so we have called a vicar, and then our pastor and the vicar switch between congregations. So the vicar is like running, he's full-time, basically.
Brian Yamabe
55:30 - 56:10
Once a month they have to be in the same congregation so that he can, his vicar, his supervisor, he can be in the same congregation. But it works really well because they, It's a downtown right near San Jose State, so the vicar gets a lot of opportunity to work with evangelism on campus, and then they also have a Spanish-speaking congregation and service, and so he learns, he works with Spanish, and then so then it's worked out really well, but it's a It's not a standard, just single pastor, single parish kind of call. And so I think that's what my pastor's seeing.
Brian Yamabe
56:10 - 56:23
He was the circuit visitor previously, and he's seen that in the CNH particularly, we're going to have to find a bunch of more creative couplings or dual parish or some shared ministry kind of things.
Bryan Wolfmueller
56:25 - 56:38
Yep, I think that's right. I think, well, one of the things that we're gonna have to be, like, to take away the shame of two churches joining. Like, that's not a failure. That's gonna be success.
Bryan Wolfmueller
56:39 - 56:56
And for the people, and we probably should also be able, look, there's no shame in being a small church. Praise the Lord, you're a small church. But you should know if you're a small church, it's gonna be really hard to afford a pastor. It's going to make it really difficult for the pastor to, for you to have a guy who's here.
Bryan Wolfmueller
56:57 - 57:07
And do you want that difficulty? It's better to put the difficulty on the pastor. So let's get 120 people. That's about medium, 120, 150 people.
Bryan Wolfmueller
57:08 - 57:14
It's no problem affording a pastor. You can't afford two. You probably should have two, but you can't afford it. So the guy's got to work his tail off.
Bryan Wolfmueller
57:14 - 57:29
It's good for him anyways. and let's make it easier for us and harder for… let's put the difficulty on the ministry. That's fine. And then you can also afford to pay down your debt and also fix the floors and stuff.
Bryan Wolfmueller
57:30 - 57:55
And, and it's nice to be in a full church. Like it's just, when the sanctuary is full and everybody's singing, it's great. And it's easier to invite your friends. It's easier, it's a church that you're not, I mean, sometimes when churches are really small and it's really old, there's this like, I don't know, you don't want to invite your friends there because, I don't know, you feel funny about it.
Bryan Wolfmueller
57:56 - 58:13
Well, you should invite your friends. They're not going to come unless you invite them, but when the church is full and everybody's singing, then it's like come, you know, when there's that energy, it's great. So can we do things, are there opportunities? Not everywhere, but a lot of places, there's opportunities.
Bryan Wolfmueller
58:13 - 58:45
I mean, I think if we had half as many parishes and twice as many people in each parish, that would be in some ways just a net benefit for everybody. And then you got too many pastors, which is great. So make the pastors wander around and find things to do, that's really good, instead of making the parishes wander around and look for pastors. So, I mean, you can't do that in every place, and you have to have some sort of sensibilities to the certain circumstances.
Bryan Wolfmueller
58:46 - 59:16
But you know, there's this idea of like, well, look, my daughter was baptized at this font, so I can't go anywhere else. Your daughter was baptized into heaven. So the font where it happened, this is just, you know, if you go and visit the churches that the Lord Jesus established in Revelation, most of those cities are in ruins now. And most of our churches are going to be in ruins one day if the Lord doesn't come back.
Bryan Wolfmueller
59:17 - 59:45
And so it's good to think about that. We're just passing through. So let's loosen up a little bit on our fear to change. Let's let it be okay to think practically and to not be ashamed to shut stuff down and jump in together and rejoice in that, and let's think it's also like just because we're a Lutheran church doesn't mean that we have to be super poor all the time.
Bryan Wolfmueller
59:45 - 1:00:20
We sometimes get used to it, like not being able to pay the bills, being afraid that we're going deeper into debt, Sometimes it has to be like that, but it doesn't always have to be like that. And so let's make it okay for congregations to make some of these practical decisions and encourage them to do that. And then I think our problems shift a little bit, but it's not so much a pastoral shortage anymore. I saw the average attendance in a Missouri Synod, it's like 50 people, right, on a Sunday.
Bryan Wolfmueller
1:00:22 - 1:00:58
And that means the average congregation is about 60% capacity for being able to pay their pastor. Which means that the stress on the individuals who give is high. The stress on the pastor to make it on kind of poverty pay is high. And the stress on the facilities, which are 50 years old and haven't been painted in 25 years, is high.
Bryan Wolfmueller
1:00:59 - 1:01:15
And we're holding on to these high pressure, high, and any mistake is deadly, right? You don't have any margin. This is just, these are really difficult, really, really difficult circumstances.
Brian Yamabe
1:01:19 - 1:01:36
So I want to be mindful of your time, but I do have one last question. So I was listening to you on one of your podcasts and I heard you say you don't write sermons anymore, which was like, it shocked me a little bit. So I'm guessing it's not that you don't prepare. So what does your sermon prep look like when you don't write sermons?
Bryan Wolfmueller
1:01:37 - 1:02:08
Yeah, I suppose it's, I don't, I'm sorry that I admitted that out loud. Now I'm really in trouble. Well, so in some ways, I think a pastor's whole life is sermon prep, and that a pastor ought to be, my best picture is a pastor ought to be a little bit like the Pillsbury Doughboy, where when you poke him in the belly, a sermon just comes out, so that there's always something that's stewing.
Bryan Wolfmueller
1:02:08 - 1:02:40
You're always thinking about the words and things of God. And then when it's time to stand up and preach, that stuff is on there, you're thinking about the people, and you're thinking about the scripture, and then it's just gonna be there. So we have coming up, just an example, we have a text coming up, Christ at the funeral at Nain. And here comes the poor widow with her son's body, her son's funeral, and they're coming out the gate.
Bryan Wolfmueller
1:02:41 - 1:02:53
And Jesus stands there with his disciples, a great crowd, and he stops them. And he says, young man, I say to you, arise. And he gives her back to his mom. So beautiful.
Bryan Wolfmueller
1:02:54 - 1:03:25
So say that's the text. So I'm thinking about that text, and I'm just reflecting on that text and what it means, and I'm thinking about the doctrines that are there, how Christ is the resurrection, how Christ is stopping a funeral, how this widow must have thought, what they would have talked about when they went back home. I'm thinking about Nain, I'm thinking about Capernaum, I'm thinking about how Jesus isn't asked to do it, I'm reflecting on the word that's used there, compassion, and what that means, and why it motivates him.
Bryan Wolfmueller
1:03:26 - 1:04:15
And I'm thinking about the people, and their fears, and their sorrows, and their weeks, and then I'll just stand up and talk about it. It helps that I guess I've preached these texts for 20 years, so I guess I probably have 15 sermons on each of the texts or something like that. But even if not, so it's there, it's all there, and then I guess I know enough about the rhythm of a sermon and how it goes in the pulpit that I can kind of get up there and my imagination sort of takes a sermon shape and I can just sort of fill it.
Bryan Wolfmueller
1:04:16 - 1:04:58
So I think you can just toss out a text and I can just reflect on it and that reflection on the text ends up looking like a sermon. So sometimes I'll think I need a little bit more so I'll write an outline or I'll write some notes down or I might have two or three points that I don't want to forget and so I'll jot that down and have those there. Or I might have a quotation that I want to read or a poem or a hymn or something and I'll bring that up into the pulpit too or some sort of insight and I'll carry that with me. But for the most part it's like here's the Lord Jesus who has given us this text today to bless us and and he's gonna bless us.
Bryan Wolfmueller
1:04:58 - 1:05:20
So when it's time to start on preaching on Nain, it's just sort of, it's there. It's like from the Garden of Eden until now, the history of the world is one long funeral procession, and when you see a funeral procession, you know what to do. You get out of the way, but Jesus doesn't. He stands right in the middle of this history of death, of this saga of suffering, of this trail of tears, which is the life of humanity.
Bryan Wolfmueller
1:05:20 - 1:05:32
He stands right in the middle, he holds out his hand, he says, stop. And that stopping of that boy's funeral is what he does in his death and resurrection. To you and to everybody, stop. And one day, you're gonna hear the same words.
Bryan Wolfmueller
1:05:32 - 1:05:45
Young man, I say to you, arise. And you're gonna be up in the resurrection, where the destruction of death is over. And then you say, why hasn't it happened now? And the answer is because for Jesus to bless you in the resurrection, he has to forgive you in his crucifixion.
Bryan Wolfmueller
1:05:45 - 1:05:58
And so he's gonna do that first. And then here comes this, or whatever. So the sermon's sort of, It's all kind of there, and then you're just sort of serving it up. It's like a, I think of it like, more like a episode of Chopped.
Bryan Wolfmueller
1:05:59 - 1:06:07
You know, here's the secret ingredients, and now you gotta, you're cooking it up. Baby, here it is. Wow, that was amazing.
Brian Yamabe
1:06:08 - 1:06:17
Thank you very much, and so, do you have anything in closing that people across the Synod should know about what God is doing at St. Paul's and Jesus Deaf Lutheran churches?
Bryan Wolfmueller
1:06:18 - 1:06:43
So, there is something. There is something happening, and it's hard to see, because we just see what's there. But your show, Brian, this is really great. I was teaching Philippians yesterday, and Paul talks about Epaphroditus and Timothy, and he says, you heard that he was sick, and he heard that you heard that he was sick, and he was worried that you were worried.
Bryan Wolfmueller
1:06:45 - 1:06:51
And they were paying attention to each other. Like the churches were paying attention to each other. That's good. We just pay attention to our own sort of thing.
Bryan Wolfmueller
1:06:52 - 1:07:23
Those words in Philippians were rebuking me, that we should be paying attention to what's going on around because they're good things. The Lord is forgiving and blessing and making his mercy and his love and his life known all throughout the world. and more and more people are becoming Lutheran. They're recognizing the gem of the comfort and assurance that belongs uniquely to our Lutheran doctrine, and if we could see how it's happening, we would probably fall down and wonder.
Bryan Wolfmueller
1:07:23 - 1:07:51
We just get little glimpses of it here and there, so it's wonderful to know that this is happening. So I really appreciate what you're doing to make these things known, and I hope that we should be encouraged because I hope that we are encouraged because Jesus is sitting on the throne and he is ruling and reigning all things for the sake of his body, the church, that's Ephesians 1. And that same power that put him on the throne is at work in us.
Bryan Wolfmueller
1:07:51 - 1:08:22
That's also Ephesians 1, 15, 16, that Paul's praying that the Lord would give us the spirit so our eyes would be open so we'd be able to see that that power that raised Jesus is also at work in us. I pray that our eyes would be open to be able to see that in us and in other people. There's one other thing, maybe very practical, and that is that we're working on restarting the Walther League. They're trying to do a nationwide network of young adult chapters, and hopefully that'll be rolling out soon.
Bryan Wolfmueller
1:08:23 - 1:08:41
And the best way to keep in touch with that is I have a newsletter, Wednesday Whatnot, which is a free newsletter people can subscribe to. And you can find that on the website, wolfmuller.co. And there's a Wednesday Whatnot button, and so that'll for sure, for sure have announcements about the Walther League. If people are interested in that, that'll be really exciting.
Brian Yamabe
1:08:43 - 1:08:45
All right, awesome. Thank you so much, Pastor Wolfmuller.
Bryan Wolfmueller
1:08:46 - 1:08:50
I appreciate you, Brian, and your cat. Thank you.
