Cell Phone Ministry... Airport Ministry

I have known several DPs of the Missouri Synod and in conversation with them and with some acquaintances in the IC (that would be International Center), I learned of the scope of the many meetings that fill the schedules of our DPs.  I know from my own experience that when I get a call from my DP it is generally on his cell phone as he is traveling somewhere or getting home from some meeting or another.  Now who I am to suggest that maybe some of this travel and some of these meetings might be unnecessary?  Since I am not intimately familiar with the agendas of these meetings, their purpose or urgency, I will not attempt to say anything that might suggest this meeting schedule might or should be curtailed.   Nooooo, that would wrong......

So what I will do is suggest that since these full-time people are being kept too busy to have an altar and a pulpit (except for one of them in the Atlantic District), perhaps we could figure out a way to give these men a cell phone or airport/airplane ministry.  Perhaps they could set a confessional or just a little booth (like Lucy in Peanuts) and use their time to provide sage advice and counsel or to hold Bible classes and such while waiting for the boarding call.  After all did not the Hare Krishna folks inhabit the airport terminals in their pursuit of their "ministry"?  Well, it is just a thought.

If that seems too far out, why not install a web cam in each of the DP's cars and they could conduct even more meetings while traveling on the road?  Imagine a Skype meeting while traveling down I-40 for those endless long trips from Memphis to Bristol (in my geography) or waiting in traffic where you live.  There are Skype apps for phones out there and I am sure the technology is available to put video with the audio.  Why there is no end to the number of meeting that a DP could crank out while on the road.... consider the possibilities....

There are parishes and Pastors who face the same kind of endless schedule of meetings.  Once we get this perfected for the 30 some DPs of the Missouri Synod, we could market it through CPH and its Concordia Technologies division.  Why they could make some real money and our Pastors could really take advantage of their time in cars doing nothing but traveling.  I really think I am on to something here...

OR... just may be can cut out some of the meetings.  It is a shame that those who are to serve as Pastors to the Pastors and the Overseers (some are afraid of the word Bishop) of doctrine and practice in their areas must forsake the important business of knowing their Pastors and knowing the parishes in their districts in order to attend meetings that take up a great deal of time but often do not accomplish much.  I am one of those who complain about the administrative detail and conflict resolution time that DPs must spend instead of doing their primary ministry of oversight of doctrine and practice. 

I would welcome a DP spending time in my parish, considering my preaching and teaching, offering me suggestion and counsel (even correction) but the thing keeping him from doing this is a schedule of important meetings that he is expected to attend.  I believe that our Church could benefit not from larger districts to facilitate larger staffs to bridge the great distances between the parishes but smaller districts with fewer staff who are nearer the people and parishes they serve.  I believe that the economy of scale that bigger always promises is largely a myth (who is getting better service from Thrivent since AAL and LB merged?).  So lets not turn the districts into larger and larger corporate divisions with endless meetings multiplied to steal the time away from the primary purpose of having a DP or episcopresident or bishop.  Lets do just the opposite.  Lets create a circumstance in which these men of good intention can actually fulfill the calling.  To do that we have to set them free from some of the administrative burden and the unwieldy meeting schedule which seems to drain their time and availability away from the most important of their duties.

By now you realize that my cell phone and airport ministry idea is sarcasm and a plea for us as a church body to wake up and smell the roses.  Do we want to be a church built on a corporate model or do we want to be a church.  Period.  It is not really a question but a thought for the day... especially as grow closer and closer to the days when delegates will vote on specific proposals that will have powerful ramifications for the way our church body looks and how it conducts the Lord's business...