To Declare Center for Missional and Pastoral Leadership to be Heterodox Tract and Mission Society

Official Workbook overture source text

5-38 
To Declare Center for Missional  
and Pastoral Leadership to be  
Heterodox Tract and Mission Society 
WHEREAS, It is a condition of membership in the Synod that 
members renounce unionism and syncretism of every description, 
including “participating in heterodox tract and missionary 
activities” (Const. Art. VI 2); and 
WHEREAS, The Center for Missional and Pastoral Leadership 
partners with the Institute for Lutheran Theology (ILT) and its 
Christ School of Theology (CST, cst.ilt.edu/cmpl), an accredited 
online seminary whose faculty and students are both members and 
non-members of the Synod, which seminary is also in partnership 
with The Center for Wesleyan Studies (cst.ilt.edu/cws); and 
W
HEREAS, The ILT states that it forms pastors for “LCMC, 
NALC, CALC and the Augsburg Lutheran Churches as suitably 
prepared for ministry” ( ilt.edu/faqs/#1645113466576-060f9d5f-
d6a1, accessed Feb. 12, 2026); and 
WHEREAS, The ILT also states that it is “the seminary for 
Canadian Association of Lutheran Churches (CALC), Augustana 
District of the LCMC, Augsburg Lutheran Churches and endorsed 
by the Lutheran Church of South Sudan” (ibid.), none of which is 
in fellowship with the LCMS; and 
W
HEREAS, The ILT and its CST states that they answer to no 
church denomination (ilt.edu/about-ilt/who-we-are); and 
WHEREAS, A Brief Statement of the Doctrinal Position of the 
Missouri Synod (adopted 1932), Article 28, “On Church-
Fellowship,” states:  
Since God ordained that His Word only, without the admixture 
of human doctrine, be taught and believed in the Christian 
Church, 1 Pet. 4:11; John 8:31, 32; 1 Tim. 6:3, 4, all Christians 
are required by God to discriminate between orthodox and 
heterodox church-bodies, Matt. 7:15, to have church-fellowship 
only with orthodox church-bodies, and, in case they have strayed 
into heterodox church-
bodies, to leave them, Rom. 16:17. We 
repudiate unionism, that is, church-fellowship with the adherents 
of false doctrine, as disobedience to God’s command, as causing 
divisions in the Church, Rom. 16:17; 2 John 9, 10, and involving 
the constant danger of losing the Word of God entirely, 2 Tim. 
2:17–21. 
and 
WHEREAS, It is clear that an entity that purports to form pastors 
of mixed confessions with a faculty and students of mixed 
confessions is a heterodox tract and mission society within the 
meaning of Const. Art. VI 2; therefore be it 
Resolved, That the Synod declare the Center for Missional and 
Pastoral Leadership, which operates in partnership with ILT and its 
CST, to be a heterodox tract and mission society. 
Circuit 24 (Sedalia) 
Missouri District 
Ov.