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Hello and welcome to Lutheran answers. Season 4, Episode 1 We are back and we are joined today. Blessed to be joined by, and I hope I'm getting this right. His publicist wanted to make sure I would. The Rev. Dr. Donald Marigold. R.W. francis Stein, M. Div. DMin, EdD, DDR, PhD or as I call him, my friend. Don.

Don. How you doing, sir?

[00:01:07 ] Don: You know, with it, I guess I'm doing okay. I get an interview like that, with that kind of introduction, boy, I feel like a million bucks. Too bad. I'm gonna be the latest interview of the season. You know, you're not starting out with a bang.

[00:01:23 ] Remy: No. Well, you don't want to. You wanna, you know, you wanna set expectations low.

[00:01:29 ] Don: And that's what I'm here for. I'm gonna set that bar about as low as it can possibly go so that the season only goes out. Your listeners are gonna be blessed and then.

[00:01:38 ] Remy: Yeah, exactly.

People, people will say hockey stick in quality, which is the goal.

[00:01:48 ] Don: Very good.

[00:01:49 ] Remy: Last time, last time you were on, we were supposed to talk about vicarage and we. I don't think we ever actually even got around to it.

[00:01:55 ] Don: Wow.

[00:01:57 ] Remy: But that's okay. You're not a vicar anymore, are you?

[00:02:00 ] Don: No, it's been about two and a half years since.

Since I've been ordained. So we're talking like a full three something years ago that I was last on here. It can't be that long.

[00:02:15 ] Remy: It might be.

[00:02:17 ] Don: Wow.

[00:02:18 ] Remy: Might be.

[00:02:19 ] Don: Man, we got old. My hair fell out. I'm bald now.

[00:02:23 ] Remy: Yeah, you look great though. It's such a good look.

It's a good look. I gotta get in better shape because I gotta do that, you know, I'm starting to get kind of thin.

[00:02:37 ] Don: It is a whole lot easier to maintain. You know, it was a really fun time when I decided, I'm done, the bald spot's too big.

I saw a picture of what I looked like when I was presiding at the altar, I was like, who's that guy? You know, what's the cue ball from? And realized I needed to shave this down. I went to the bathroom, started shaving it, getting it all cleared off and wiped it all out. Looked good, came out, and the toddler was sitting right there. My three year old Penny, she's four now.

[00:03:10 ] Remy: Instant tears.

[00:03:13 ] Don: Daddy, your head.

And I said, it's good. It's all clean. Do you want to see it? Do you want to touch it? And she says no. And she went running the other room and I could hear her talking to Emily and she's saying, mommy, Daddy's head's all gone. And she's right. My head has gone ever since. Yeah.

[00:03:39 ] Remy: It reminds me of the videos you see of people who have like their toddlers and they shave their beard for the first time and then like their toddler immediately starts CR this stranger in my home.

[00:03:49 ] Don: See, this is why we Lutherans grow beards. Because without it there's, there's just nothing left. There'd be, there'd be no point.

[00:03:55 ] Remy: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

What T. Take me through. Take me through the process of coming to terms with shaving your head. Honestly. Cuz it's something that I want to avoid, but also I know is unavoidable.

[00:04:13 ] Don: Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, you're familiar with the stages of grief, right?

Yeah, it's very similar. Right. You've got your denial first. You know, I'm not going bald. It's just a little spot. This will come back. Or it just looks that way. You know, the blonde hair. That's why. Clearly.

And then eventually you get a little angry and you wish that you could maybe just shave it down a little and you shave a little bit, then you shave a little more and you know, and then you're uneven on either side and you got to do something. I'm rambling now. This isn't even making coherent sense.

And yeah, eventually comes acceptance and you shave it one day and you never look back and it's good.

[00:05:00 ] Remy: Yeah, yeah. Feel the, the breeze, dude.

[00:05:05 ] Don: I feel like I have superpowers. I can feel like a 2 degree change in the temperature.

[00:05:13 ] Remy: That's great.

That's so good. That's like, I'm usually a pants guy. I'm usually wearing blue jeans at work and you know, pants.

When I, like, wear shorts. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. When I have, when I have to wear shorts, like if I'm. If I'm gonna be outside for a day, I'll wear shorts, you know, in the Summer, whatever. And it's always shocking, you know, like when I feel like all day long I'm like, is there something on my leg? But it's the opposite. There's nothing on my leg, you know?

[00:05:47 ] Don: Yeah.

[00:05:48 ] Remy: I imagine it's like that.

[00:05:50 ] Don: I'm a short shorts guy myself.

God's gifted me, of course, glorious pearly whites called my thighs. And, you know, that's what I get to walk around.

[00:06:01 ] Remy: Yeah.

[00:06:02 ] Don: Yeah.

[00:06:03 ] Remy: It would be a shame to hide them.

[00:06:06 ] Don: Absolutely.

[00:06:09 ] Remy: Don, how you said two and a half years since you've been ordained.

[00:06:13 ] Don: Yeah, it's been that long. That's wild.

That's just.

[00:06:17 ] Remy: How's two and a half years of ministry treated you?

[00:06:21 ] Don: It is more glorious than anything you could imagine. I love it.

The people here are something else.

They have a real heart for our community. They want to actually do things.

They don't want to just come to church on Sunday and say goodbye for six days. They want to be together, be a family. And I credit them with building that over the years. It's not something that you can just make happen overnight, and it's certainly not something that you can program into reality. It's a culture, and it's been built for many years, and I've got my predecessors to thank for that.

We sometimes don't realize that ministry is more than just a person. And ministry is a whole lot more than just one time period with a person. It's God's people in a place over a long period of time. And like, when you read, like, Bo Geertz is the hammer of God, and you see how all these different pastors over the years build this congregation into what it is, you start to gain an appreciation for it. And then when you see it in real life, that's when you really realize just what a small part a single pastor plays in the overall ministry of a church, let alone Christ's whole church. And it's a humbling experience and a freeing one, too, because I'm not perfect.

And that's a good thing, because God's people get a chance to step up, make things happen as they should.

Praise him for that. That he uses even imperfect idiots like me with bald heads and red glasses to. To be useful to his people.

Yeah, ministry is great. Plus, I get to, like, baptize babies.

[00:08:21 ] Remy: That's just all the time.

It's.

It's definitely.

See, it's so great.

I. It's one of my. It's one of my favorite things, partly because it's, like, the cutest thing to see. In the world. But it's so great to watch like the church grow in that way. Especially because, like, the kind of church I grew up in, watching the church grow was something completely different. It was invite your friends to the pizza party weekend or, you know, it was, it was stuff. It was. We need to put video games programming in. Like, let's build a cool loft area with a cafe and video games, you know?

[00:09:15 ] Don: Yeah. We don't have a need for that word, the sacrament.

Those things build and the people come together on their own.

[00:09:28 ] Remy: I almost think those things are more damaging than they are helpful. Right. Because you're, when you're not foundi