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LCMS 2026 Convention Workbook: Reports and Overtures, PDF page 209

2026 Convention Workbook
174 
OFFICER, BOARD, AND COMMISSION REPORTS
He serves, in turn, under the ecclesiastical supervision of his district 
president (as does any pastor who is a member of the Synod), as 
well as under the additional supervision
1 of a non-SMP pastor. The 
authority, however, of his office as pastor loci is not diminished by 
Bylaw 2.13.1 (a); diminished only is his jurisdiction  outside the 
scope defined by his call (in this case, outside his parish).
Background: SMP Formation, Specific Ministry Context, and the 
Role of District Presidents
At the same time, the theological education of an SMP is formed 
for a specific ministry context: “[The SMP] is eligible to serve only 
in that specific ministry context for which he has been trained and 
may not be offered or accept a call for ministry for which he has 
not been certified as determined by his district president” (Bylaw 
2.13.1). The SMP program consists—by design, as an exceptional 
route—of training and formation that lacks the depth and breadth 
of preparation afforded by the M.Div. track: “Emerging needs and 
economic pressures often make it impossible to call a pastor who 
has received a broad and thorough theological education to every 
congregation or mission station where, nevertheless, people need 
to hear the Gospel” (2007 Res. 5-01B, “Background,” Proceed-
ings, 133). The SMP curriculum focuses on “basic competencies” 
for Word and Sacrament ministry, with seminars and local mentor-
ship touching on aspects of the particular context (perhaps includ -
ing “basic mission planter training, edge gathering, and advanced 
mission planter training”) (id., 134). Upon certification, call, and 
ordination, “the student is placed on the pastoral roster of the Synod 
as a ‘specific ministry pastor.’ He now may preach and administer 
the Sacraments under supervision in a specific locality.” He subse-
quently must complete the educational program to “continue devel-
opment of the foundational competencies necessary for serving as 
a specific ministry pastor” (id., 135).
Specific ministry pastors are “pastors certified for calls into specific 
ministry contexts, who serve under the supervision not only of the 
district president but also of a designated general ministry pastor. 
As such, they are eligible for calls into a similar specific minis-
try context, where they continue under the supervision of a general 
ministry pastor” (id., 135). 
While the specific kind of ministry or context may vary in some 
duties and responsibilities from situation to situation, what does not 
change is that the SMP remains under the supervision of a pastor 
who is not SMP. This supervision is essential to the ongoing service 
of SMPs in whatever context and continues as long as the SMP is in 
service or rostered, unless he continues his education and reaches 
“a level appropriate to general ministry pastor” and, as a result of 
an examination, has his status changed (ibid.). In view of the fact 
that “an SMP pastor has been certified and ordained to serve in a 
specific kind of ministry” (emphasis added), the implementing res-
olution looked for “opportunity” for such a pastor “subsequently 
to be prepared to serve the church more broadly,” noting that this 
further necessary preparation would require “a combination of fur-
ther academic preparation, accumulated pastoral experience, and 
examination (id., 134).”
In view of the limited training and formation of SMPs, 2013 Res. 
5-04B resolved “that district presidents not approve specific min-
istry sites which could reasonably be expected to support a general 
pastor or sites where a minister of religion–commissioned could 
fulfill the duties” (Proceedings, 140). This restriction, still in effect, 
underscores and circumscribes the authority and responsibility of 
district presidents to limit the calling or service of SMPs to ministry 
contexts for which their training adequately prepares them and for 
the extensive discussion begun in its December meeting, the com-
mission offers the following background and responds to the series 
of questions as follows:
Background: Interpretation of Bylaw 2.13.1 (a)
The questions asked arise out of Council of Presidents Policy Man-
ual 14.2.3’s assertion (dated April 2018) that the “supervision of 
commissioned ministers, other rostered workers, a school, etc.” 
by an SMP is precluded by Bylaw 2.13.1 (a)’s prohibition of the 
SMP “[being] placed or called into ecclesiastical roles that exercise 
pastoral oversight outside the context of his call.” The commission 
must first address the meaning of Bylaw 2.13.1 (a), namely, to de-
termine if the language “outside the context of his call” necessarily 
prohibits the specification of an SMP’s call as involving supervi-
sion of some other called worker, such as a commissioned minister.
The “Background” for 2007 Resolution 5-01B slightly elucidates 
“outside the location of his call,” the original language of the noted 
bylaw, adding (Proceedings, 135) the clarifying language “i.e., in 
the church-at-large,” along with the four subordinate examples that 
came to be included as the prohibitions of Bylaw 2.13.1 (b)(1–4). It 
further speaks of the SMP’s “jurisdictional” limitations being on the 
basis of “theological education [] formed within the context of [an 
SMP’s] specific ministry and [that] does not represent the breadth 
and depth of theology and ecclesiology that forms a basis for pas-
toral oversight beyond the local level .” (In the related bylaw lan-
guage, 2010 Res. 7-05 replaced location with context, with the sole 
stated purpose of preventing the misinterpretation of Bylaw 2.13.1 
[a] to mean that an SMP cannot receive a call to a new position of 
service, even though he has been trained for such and certified for 
such as determined by his district president.) The prohibition of 
Bylaw 2.13.1 (a) does not, therefore, address the SMP’s exercise 
of pastoral oversight within his parish, as may be assigned to him 
in the role described in his call documents (e.g., sole pastor, staff 
pastor). Rather, it addresses and prohibits his undertaking  ecclesi-
astical roles exercising pastoral oversight in the church-at-large, 
such as (but not limited to) those listed in Bylaw 2.13.1 (b)(1–4). 
Granting that this is far from the only consideration in whether an 
SMP may properly be placed into such a role (see further below), 
Bylaw 2.13.1 (a) does not itself, therefore, prohibit an SMP’s spe-
cific context and call from being defined to include supervision of 
another called worker of the same parish, such as a commissioned 
minister. This understanding of Bylaw 2.13.1 (a) is consistent with 
the Synod’s designation of the SMP as pastor and even in some 
circumstances as sole pastor of his parish. The bylaw limits the 
SMP’s jurisdiction to the scope defined by his present call (see 
2007 Res. 5-01B, “Background,” Proceedings, 133–34) but does 
not make him less a pastor within the scope of that call. (This is not, 
however, to deny that his service as pastor remains, throughout his 
service as an SMP, subject to the additional supervision of a general 
ministry pastor.)
Considering specifically a sole-pastor SMP, while such SMP re-
mains under the supervision of another ordained minister (not 
SMP) who serves outside his parish, such SMP and not that su-
pervisor (whose call is elsewhere) is the pastor of his parish. The 
sole-pastor SMP (as opposed to being one in a staff-pastor position) 
exercises the fullness of the pastoral office in that congregation (in-
cluding preaching the Gospel, administering the Sacraments and 
the authority of spiritual judgment, Walther’s Ministry Thesis V). 
Any auxiliary offices in the parish necessarily serve under his pas-
toral oversight, as from his office as the pastor of the congregation 
all others originate as helpers to it (Walther’s Ministry Thesis VIII).