Res. 6-05 — To Reaffirm the Synod’s Process for Training and Certification for Pastors

Rationale Article III of the Synod’s Constitution lists the following among the objectives of the Synod:

1. Conserve and promote the unity of the true faith …

3. Recruit and train pastors … To accomplish these objectives, the Synod has established seminaries, various routes to ministry, and a robust procedure for training and certifying pastors (ministers of religion—ordained). This procedure requires that each man who is to be placed in the Office of the Ministry gain the approval of (at minimum) his home congregation, home district, resident field work supervisor, vicarage supervisor, seminary faculty, and the Council of Presidents (COP). The Synod Bylaws assign specific roles in this process to the seminary faculties. This duty informs every aspect of the calling, activity, and oversight of seminary faculty members (Bylaw sections 2.7–8). In recent years some members of the Synod have expressed a desire to change this procedure in significant ways, including removing certification from the seminary faculties or opening up the colloquy process to LCMS laymen and commissioned ministers who have attained an M.Div. degree (or its equivalent) at a non- Synod seminary. Among those making these suggestions have been former seminary faculty members and former and current leadership from some districts (Report R13.3, CW, 68–70). The 2023 Synod convention responded to these developments by passing 2023 Resolution 6- 02A, “To Encourage Proper Pastoral Formation through Our Synod’s Seminaries.” This resolution expressed the Synod’s corporate decision to continue to train and certify pastors exclusively through the Synod’s own seminaries and routes to ministry. In early 2025, a group of former Concordia Seminary faculty announced that they would be operating an accredited online-27 only M.Div. program through the “Institute of Lutheran Theology (ILT) … known as the Center for Missional and Pastoral Leadership (CMPL)” (Report R13.3, CW , 68). In subsequent podcast appearances, the dean of CMPL has indicated that around two dozen LCMS laymen are enrolled in CMPL in a ministry degree program (M.Div. or M.Min.). While the leadership of CMPL freely admit that their program cannot currently lead to pastoral service within the Synod or any other denomination, in public letters and in podcasts, the dean of this program has suggested the Synod change its procedure for training and certification of pastors in such a way that LCMS laymen or commissioned ministers who graduate from this program (or potentially other institutions) could be certified for the Synod’s roster of ministers of religion—ordained. Thus, CMPL leadership insists that they are not setting up an institution that is a competitor to the Synod’s seminaries since they tell all of their students that their degrees cannot currently lead to certification within the Synod. Yet they meanwhile advocate for changing the Synod’s procedures to allow for it. Since the M.Div. is virtually coterminous with pastoral formation in the Synod, this will lead to confusion and an inevitable crisis in the near future when the first of these LCMS laymen or commissioned ministers will have graduated with their ministry degrees (M.Div. or M.Min.) from CMPL (or other institutions). The COP discussed these matters in April 2025 and tried to ward off this crisis by committing themselves unanimously: “Our Synod needs pastors for all our congregations and mission outreach. We implore the Lord of the Church to send them. We commit ourselves to direct potential students for the pastoral office only to the routes to ordination approved by and accountable to Synod. The Council will not place graduates from other programs. The Council members agree not to ordain graduates from other programs. We commit ourselves to engage the Church, our Synod’s seminaries, and Pastoral Formation Committee to strengthen the routes to ordination and address the challenges and opportunities for providing the Church well -formed candidates for the pastoral ministry” (Roy Askins, “LCMS Addresses Unauthorized, Non -LCMS Pastoral Formation Programs,” Reporter Online, May 8, 2025, reporter.lcms.org/2025/lcms-addresses-unauthorized-non-1 lcms-pastoral-formation-programs/). This is consistent with the Synod’s longstanding position since facing a similar challenge in the 1970’s: “The question rather is: ‘How has the Synod decided that it wishes to have pastors trained, qualified, called, ordained, and installed in its congregations?’ In answer to that question the Synod has spoken again and again. Perhaps no other subject receives as much attention in the bylaws. The Synod has stated in great detail that it will train its own pastors, set its own requirements, do its own certifying, etc.” (CCM Op. 26- 3076, “Participation in Nonapproved Pastoral Formation Routes,” quoting Ag. 682, “Constitutional Comments on the Present Controversy Within the Synod,” Minutes of Oct. 11, 1974). In light of all this, it is appropriate for the Synod in convention to clearly reaffirm our current procedures for the traini ng, certification, and placing of pastors. If nothing else, those LCMS laymen studying for ministry degrees at CMPL (or Luther House of Studies or any other institution) and their home congregations deserve to have clarity: ministry degrees earned outside of the Synod’s own seminaries and routes to ministry cannot now, and will not in the future, be a path to service as a pastor (minister of religion —ordained) in the Synod. These topics have been discussed throughout the Synod for several years now. The arguments for changing our procedures are well understood by all. They have been discussed and debated at conferences, the Pastoral Formation Committee, on podcasts, and at the COP. And now two consecutive conventions of the Synod have weighed these arguments, decided against them, and reaffirmed the exclusive use of Synod owned-and-operated seminaries and routes to ministry. This assures that from generation to generation a unified Synod is served by faithful, well-formed pastors trained in a manner fully accountable to the congregations and pastors of Synod. Therefore be it

Resolved, That the Synod in convention reaffirm 2023 Res. 6-02A; and be it further

Resolved, That the Synod in convention reaffirm the routes to the Office of the Ministry created by the Synod as the only routes to certification, ordination, and service as ordained ministers of the Synod; and be it further

Resolved, That the Synod in convention specifically reaffirm these procedures: vesting certification with the seminary faculties, vesting placement with the C OP, and barring “LCMS laymen and commissioned ministers who complete a program of study leading to ordination or its equivalent at a non- LCMS seminary” from being “eligible for colloquy on that basis” (Bylaw 3.10.2.4); and be it further

Resolved, That the Synod in convention reaffirm that “the LCMS has continually developed and refined its residential and nonresidential routes to ordination in order to address the needs of the church as they have arisen and dynamically changed through time” (2023 Res. 6-02A) within the overall framework noted in the previous Resolved; and be it finally

Resolved, That the Synod in convention reaffirm its call to all members of Synod to “honor, use, and promote Synod-30 approved programs and not create independent programs of pastoral preparation or direct men to pastoral preparation programs outside of our Synod’s seminaries as such efforts are not in accord with the Constitution and Bylaws of the Synod (Const. Art. III 3; Bylaw 3.10.4)” (2023 Res. 6-02A).