Version History
Current published version
Today's Business, Issue 3. pp. 329-331. Revised published proposal.
Official Resolution Source Text
Resolution: 6-05A
Canonical number: 6-05
Committee: Pastoral Ministry and Seminaries
Source: Today's Business, Issue 3
Printed pages: pp. 329-331
PDF pages: 21-23
Version: revised, current-published-proposal
Source reference: Issue 3, pp. 329-331
Line numbers follow Today's Business, Issue 3, with numbering reset on each printed page, so delegates can compare this page with the official PDF.
Page 329
- To Reaffirm the Synod’s Process for Training and Certification for Pastors
- RESOLUTION 6-05A
- Report R13.3 (CW, 68–70); Overtures 6-14–24 (CW, 370–79)
- 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). As a rule, this procedure requires that each man
- who is to be placed in the Office of the Ministry gains 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 a Masters of Divinity (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-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.).
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- 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-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 training,
- 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 be a path to service as a pastor (minister of
- religion—ordained) in the Synod (Bylaw 3.10.2.4). The Synod has no plans to change this procedure. 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 COP, 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-approved programs and not create independent programs of pastoral preparation or direct men to pastoral
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- 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).
