Where can I listen to this podcast?

This podcast is available on 4 platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. You can also use the RSS feed directly.

Does this podcast accept guests?

Yes, this podcast regularly features guests.

Synod Stories

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by Brian Yamabe

5.0(5 reviews)

15 episodes

Updated Daily

Accepts GuestsHas SponsorsLocation 🇺🇸

Podcast Overview

Synod Stories is a show about the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod: where it’s been, where it is, and where it’s going. Our goal is to look at the entire Synod—celebrating its wins, facing its challenges, and exploring the unique perspectives that shape its future. We’ll talk with Circuit Visitors and others who can share insights you won’t hear from a single congregation or a synodical official. We’re starting with coverage from the convention, but this is just the beginning. Join us as we tell the stories of the LCMS from voices across the church body.

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Publishing Since

8/12/2025

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Recent Episodes

May 26, 2026

Synod Stories 15: Marine-Turned-Pastor on Worship, Confession & AI

Rev. Isaac Wirtz didn't grow up wanting to be a pastor. He was heading toward CIA interrogation work when a misfiled seminary application, a Marine's willingness to be the dumbest guy in the room, and a nagging sense that the harvest was ready redirected his life to Fort Wayne and eventually to Mount Olive Lutheran Church in Tucson, Arizona—where he now serves as pastor and hosts the Christian Combatives YouTube channel. In this conversation, Brian Yamabe and Pastor Wirtz cover the full range of congregational life: liturgical worship in the desert Southwest, the chalice and close communion, why Wirtz does all his own readings, and how tens of hours of daily Bible study underlie a 15-minute Sunday sermon. They also wade into harder territory—women's roles and the orders of creation, the worship wars (Wirtz doesn't think they're over), open communion discipline, the Concordia University system, and the pastoral shortage reframed as an overabundance of unsustainable congregations rather than a lack of men. The episode closes with an urgent and encouraging word: the LCMS needs to show up online, and the way to compete with Catholic money and Reformed personality culture is for Lutherans to build each other up.

May 26, 2026

Synod Stories 14: AI Reads Committee 7 — All 29 Convention Overtures

What happens when you feed every overture in LCMS Convention Committee 7 into an AI and just start asking questions? In this solo episode, Brian Yamabe walks through all 29 overtures headed into the University Education committee at the 2026 LCMS National Convention — using an actual AI conversation as the analytical engine. The questions are Brian's, drawn from real experience: he served as a Board of Regent at Concordia Portland through its closure, was named in a $325 million lawsuit, and watched firsthand as synodical accountability collided with Oregon nonprofit law. The AI's responses are condensed from the originals. And yes — it got some things wrong. That's part of the conversation. This episode covers the sharpest structural conflict in Committee 7: converting the Concordia University System from corporation to commission, the prior approval process and the legal exposure nobody's proposing to fix, regent fiduciary duty under multiple state laws, and why 11 near-identical overtures arrived from districts across the country. It closes with Brian's honest reflection on what AI can and can't do — and why the church needs a serious answer to that question before it's too late.

April 20, 2026

Synod Stories 13: Confessions, Cryptids & the Baptist Belt

Pastor Willie Grills of Zion Lutheran Church in Alexander, Arkansas came to confessional Lutheranism the hard way — through Reformed circles, the Confessions, and a seminary formation that took him from Peru to Iowa before landing in Baptist country. In this conversation, Brian and Willie work through the real debates surrounding pastoral formation in the LCMS: the history from apostolic discipleship through the modern seminary, the SMP program's original purpose versus how it's being used today, and what uniform confessional training actually buys the church. They also talk about what it means to be Lutheran in a place where Lutherans get mistaken for Mormons, why the Mid-South District has one of the lowest vacancy rates in the Synod, and the worship identity question that underlies much of the confessional debate: what happens when a Lutheran service is indistinguishable from the evangelical megachurch next door? And yes — we get to cryptids. Willie explains how the collapse of New Atheism has created a cultural hunger for the supernatural, why now is the moment for the church to speak into it, and how he became the LCMS's only resident Bigfoot expert, courtesy of Art Bell and a gap in the market.

15 total episodes available

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Frequently asked questions

Have a different question and can't find the answer you're looking for? Reach out to our support team by sending us an email and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.

What is Synod Stories?: Synod Stories is a show about the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod: where it’s been, where it is, and where it’s going.

Our goal is to look at the entire Synod—celebrating its wins, facing its challenges, and exploring the unique perspectives that shape its future. We’ll talk with Circuit Visitors and others who can share insights you won’t hear from a single congregation or a synodical official.

We’re starting with coverage from the convention, but this is just the beginning. Join us as we tell the stories of the LCMS from voices across the church body.
How often does this podcast release new episodes?: This podcast updates daily.
Where can I listen to this podcast?: This podcast is available on 4 platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. You can also use the RSS feed directly.
Does this podcast accept guests?: Yes, this podcast regularly features guests.

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