Make sure to follow @PastorDeberny!

Nifty Links:

👉 Greatest Theology Newsletter on the Planet

Transcript

[00:00:00] Remy: Reverend Deberny. Thank you so much for being willing to come on my show and talk to me.

[00:00:09] Rev. Deberny: Oh, it's a pleasure. Thank you for having me on. I love to, love to talk to fellow Lutherans about our faith, about the church and anything I can do to help.

[00:00:20] Remy: So to get this started, just sort of generally around what we're going to be talking about. If you could introduce yourself.

How long have you been doing ministry? Where are you at currently? Where'd you graduate from? Tell us a little bit about yourself.

[00:00:35] Rev. Deberny: Oh, I love talking about myself.

[00:00:38] Remy: Don't we all.

[00:00:39] Rev. Deberny: So my story, I like to say in the LCMS I would be what you call a system guy in that I just kind of went through the system. I, I grew up in an LCMS congregation out in Buffalo and Niagara Falls and I knew when I was seven years old I was going to be a pastor.

It's the divine call. God just calls you and I think that kind of is an example of that. I saw my pastor, he came to visit us. We, it was a school associated with the church and the pastor would visit every day and I saw him like that. That's, that's what I want to do. And I've had a lot of support, I had a lot of support from family, from friends. This is a vocation that you should pursue. So I went through the system. After high school I went to a Concordia, Concordia Nebraska where I studied conc. Computer science but also the pre seminary program, getting my Greek and Hebrew, all that done, graduated in three years with the Bachelor's of arts. And then you had to make the choice which seminary you're going to go to. And fortunately the computer science degree actually turned into a career at Concordia Publishing House. I developed software for a church management called Shepherd Staff. And so the choice of where I would go to seminary became easy because I had a side gig at in St. Louis. So I went to Concordia St. Louis for a Master of Divinity education and for after two years I got my vicarage assignment. And that vicarage assignment was kind of crazy because that was the 2020 year, which if you remember that was during the COVID pandemic. So I actually found out where I was going on vicarage at home, no call Service, over the TV. It was crazy. I was called to Garden City, New York which about, I would say a 30 minute drive east of New York City, Manhattan. And I spent a year there learning about, you know, what it means to be a pastor with the field experience.

It definitely was a fit for me. I didn't know if I was going to be coming back to New York. But I remember our district president. He was not district president yet, but he came to visit me during vicarage and he gave me the old like, so where do you think you would fit in as a pastor if you were to come back to our district? That kind of talk. Right.

And so after my fourth year we received our call assignments and sure enough I returned to the same district. And now I am a pastor at Grace Lutheran Church in Mastic Beach, New York which is about 60 miles east of the city, so further east on the island. And I am now in my third year. So two years ministry have not scared me off. God be praised for that. He has been with me in my ministry and I thank him every day. I thank him for the support I've received. I got called to a wonderful congregation. Grace is a filled with faith filled people and people eager to hear the truth. And they have been receptive of me and taking good care of me and that's a blessing. I know many pastors that have had a rough time their first call, but that was not my case at all. God has been with me during my journey. A little bit more about me now that I'm in my third year. The district said, oh, we can make that guy do stuff. So in April, in April I was nominated as the junior pastoral counselor of the Atlantic District lwml. So I work with the L. LWML in, in devotion giving and counseling. And I go to a ton, tons of events to help with that. Go ahead.

[00:04:09] Remy: I. I'm in the aalc.

[00:04:10] Rev. Deberny: Yes.

[00:04:11] Remy: And we don't have the lwml. Yes. I always imagine that it stands for Lutheran Women. Mim Lutheran. What does it actually stand for?

[00:04:21] Rev. Deberny: It is the Lutheran Women in Mission. That or you, or you could say the Lutheran Women Missionary League. They've kind of moved to the first name, but the acronym actually stands for lut. Lutheran Women Missionary League. The institution is kind of how I would describe it. It's a way to create grant money and distribute it to certain ministries throughout the country or within the districts. So. So for example, you know, there may be some fundraising a church needs for a ministry project in the community and they can't raise that money themselves. And so the LWML all gets together and say, okay, we're going to do as a district, we're have these little mite boxes, these little tiny boxes that we put in our churches and you put a dollar in and it all the LWL headquarters and it funds these grants and every year we may have like 20, 25 different missionary grants. And we vote at the meeting which ones get priority. And then we go down the list. It's kind of a grant funding institution. And of course there's many other things there. It's the lwml. Basically the way you should think of it is if you were a lady and the lcms, you are part of the lwml. If you are a woman, you're part of that. And so we have lots of gatherings together as Christians should gather together, not just in their church, but the church at large. We have, we're gonna have a upcoming event in October which all the women from up the Hudson Valley and on Long island, that's the Atlantic district, Hudson Valley down to the city and then out to Long Island. All the churches get together and they meet together and I get to help lead some, some little sermons during that time, some devotions. It'll be a good time.

So that is what my role was as the LWMO pastoral counselor. Also in year I have also been nominated. Well, I guess appointed would be the better, better word. A circuit visitor. Now, the way the LCMS is structured, we have districts throughout the country. We have a 35. Think about 35 districts in our country or. And then we have. Each district is divided into certain circuits because the idea is we don't want pastors to be lone wolves by themselves. You know, we want them to have fellowship with other pastors. Pastors need pastors, after all. And so the way to solve this is we divide districts into circuits because a district could be an entire state, right? The eastern district is half of Pens or all, almost all of Pennsylvania and half of New York state. And there might be a hundred plus churches in that area. And it's hard for pastors to, to get together all in one place. And so they're divided into circuits maybe of eight churches, 10 churches, even five churches, for the point of them getting together, not only for voting and, and creating resolutions that would go to district, but also for fellowsh.

Circuit is out on Long Island. It's eight churches that I get the opportunity to, to care for, to love on. And we meet once a month and discuss church big business, but also discuss things happening in our world. And there's some pretty crazy things happening in our world right now. You know, asking questions like how do, how do we preach about politics?

You know, it's kind of, it's kind of cool not having to decide that all on your own, but being able to bounce ideas off of Other pastors. Yeah, that's pretty cool.

[00:07:41] Remy: Gain the input of other guys. Yes. Like how they're doing it, what's working for them.

[00:07:45] Rev. Deberny: Yes. I think that one of the biggest dangers for pastors is again, this lone wolf mentality of I don't need anyone's help. I'm just, I'm just going to do my own thing. And when you do your own thing, you kind of lose sight of what the church is supposed to be.

The apostles did not do their own thing. Rather they gather together, they figured out, this is what we believe, this is what we're going to teach, and we're going to be consistent on that. And then Paul comes along and says, okay, going to correct some things to make sure that we are all united.

That's what the church is supposed to be. That's what Lutherans take pride in so much. It is a doctrinal, at least conservative Lutherans anyway, doctrinal unity. And the way the LCMS is structured is supposed to foster that, that confessional identity. That's the word I'm looking for. It's con. We are confessional. We share the same confession. And our circuits help with that for sure.

[00:08:37] Remy: Gotcha. So what are some responsibilities that you would have as a circuit visitor?

[00:08:45] Rev. Deberny: So there are a few things and fortunately I'm only my first year, so some of the big stuff has not come up yet. But for example, first of all, my role is to be sort of a pastor of pastors. So if a pastor needs some sort of counseling or needs to confess of sin to someone, certainly he could go to our district president or he could go higher up. But the point of circuit visitors to kind of be lower on the rung to help with that, to know he'll. He'll know me pe...

The Youngest LCMS Circuit Visitor!