To Celebrate and Encourage Lay Service

Official Workbook overture source text

6-87 
To Celebrate and Encourage Lay Service 
Preamble 
God has established the Office of the Holy Ministry so as to ensure 
the public proclamation of the Gospel and proper administration of 
the Sacraments, and the establishment of that office does not 
invalidate the gifts and service of the priesthood of all b elievers, 
including those who have not been called into the Office of the Holy 
Ministry. This overture seeks to celebrate, affirm, and encourage 
the service of those who, while they may fulfill a function of the 
office as the needs of the congregation dictate, are nevertheless not 
in the Office of the Holy Ministry. 
W
HEREAS, “It is to this true church of believers and saints that 
Christ gave the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and it is the proper 
and only possessor and bearer of the spiritual, divine, and heavenly 
gifts, rights, powers, offices, and the like that Christ has pr ocured 
and are found in His church” (C.F.W. Walther, 
Church and 
Ministry, Thesis IV, J.T. Mueller, tr. [CPH, 1987], 49); and 
WHEREAS, “All Christians, that is, all who have come to faith in 
Christ, are spiritual priests and thus have the call to preach the 
Gospel” (Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics , Vol. III [CPH, 
1953], 440); and 
WHEREAS, “But after we have become Christians through this 
Priest [i.e., Christ] and His priestly office, incorporated in Him by 
Baptism through faith, then each one, according to his calling and 
position, obtains the right and the power of teaching and confessing 
before others this Word which we have obtained from Him. Even 
though not everybody has the public office and calling, every 
Christian has the right and the duty to teach, instruct, admonish, 
comfort, and rebuke his neighbor with the Word of God at every 
opportunity and whenever necessary.” ( Luther’s Works, 13:333); 
and 
WHEREAS, The Augsburg Confession, the Apology of the 
Augsburg Confession, and the Treatise on the Power and Primacy 
of the Pope were written by, and first subscribed to, by laity; and 
2026 Convention Workbook
414 PAST ORAL MINISTRY AND SEMINARIES