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.