Official Workbook PDF page source text

LCMS 2026 Convention Workbook: Reports and Overtures, PDF page 421

encourage such full -time, residential formation for prospective 
pastors (2023 Res. 6-02A and 6-03A)” (PFC, Policy Requirements 
for the Specific Ministry Pastor Program: Admission, 
Administration and Supervision, Nov. 2025, Premise 6); and 
WHEREAS, The same aforementioned policy states “The SMP 
program should be structured in such a way that it does not 
discourage or detract from full -time, residential seminary 
preparation for men pursuing a lifetime of ministry in the LCMS” 
(ibid.); and 
W
HEREAS, The same November 2025 policy requirements for 
the SMP program state that they are “a reflection of the church’s 
prioritization of full- time pastoral formation in a seminary 
community” by creating age restrictions for participation, 
increasing prior membership and service requirements, and 
directing seminary admissions to prioritize those SMP applicants 
who fit a more narrow scope of ministry (ibid., 5); and 
W
HEREAS, The needs previously expressed from 2007 Res . 5-
01B still exist, particularly with regard to providing trained and 
qualified pastors for both existing congregations and new church 
plants; and 
WHEREAS, Those needs are projected to increase in the coming 
years, specifically: 
• LCMS Research Services indicates 754 ordained clergy will 
be reaching retirement age (67) in the next five years, 1,286 
in the next 10 years, and 1,770 in the next 15 years. ( LCMS 
Data and Trends , Oct. 10, 2024, as presented to the Texas 
District Board of Directors [BOD] on Jan. 28, 2025). 
• LCMS Research Services further suggests that without 
replacement of those who are retiring, the number of current 
active ordained pastors in the Synod remaining in service 
will drop from approximately 5,000 to approximately 2,900 
in those 15 years. ( LCMS Data and Trends , Oct. 10, 2024, 
as presented to the Texas District BOD on Jan. 28, 2025). 
• The Association of Theological Schools (ATS), which is one 
of two accrediting agencies for the St. Louis and Fort Wayne 
seminaries, indicates that by the seminaries’ reporting in the 
Fall of 2024, there were only 322 M.Div. students across all 
classes between both seminaries. That comes out to an 
average of only 80 M .Div. students/year that will be 
ordained in the Synod during this particular four-year cycle. 
(ATS 2024 –2025 Table 2.12 [this is the most recent 
available data from ATS] , ats.edu/files/galleries/2024-
2025_annual_data_tables.pdf). 
• If the current trends of retirement and replacement continue, 
the Synod will have 500–800 fewer active pastors serving in 
10–15 years. 
• Numbers from LCMS Research Services presented to the 
Texas District BOD during its 2025 presidential visitation 
indicated a relatively small number of pastors, only 96, who 
will be reaching retirement age (67) in 2060 and beyond, 
suggesting a very small number of pastors currently on the 
roster who are in their early 30s or younger and further 
indicating a much more aged clergy roster (LCMS Data and 
Trends, Oct . 10, 2024, as presented to the Texas District 
BOD on Jan. 28, 2025). 
and 
W
HEREAS, Among the other “good, wise, and appropriate 
options” set forth by the PFC in their November 2025 SMP policy 
requirements for the shortage of pastors were “church consolidation 
or partnerships, multi -point congregations, use of lay readers of 
sermons, a blessed closure that enables assets to be used for fruitful 
ministry elsewhere while ensuring existing members receive care at 
nearby LCMS congregations, and so forth” (PFC, Premise 5); and 
WHEREAS, These options that are offered, while certainly 
appropriate in many situations, also can collectively reflect and 
subscribe to a shrinking church body rather than finding solutions 
to increase our proclamation of God’s Word and the footprint of 
sound confessional Lutheran theology in a world and culture that 
desperately needs it; therefore be it 
Resolved, That the PFC, in collaboration, cooperation, and 
consultation with the two Synod seminaries and the Council of 
Presidents, and with additional consultation with the Colloquy 
Committee for the Pastoral Ministry, bring to the 2029 Synod 
convention, consistent with Bylaw 3.10.4.1, a recommendation to 
establish a proposal of a new route or routes to ordination that: 
• Considers new levels of residential academic programs 
available at our seminaries that will cause them, as the 1866 
Synod convention charged Synod’s leadership and seminary 
faculty, to “assume the responsibility that as soon as possible 
capable men are commissioned as Reiseprediger ” 
(Protokolle, 12.&13. Synodal-Bericht
, 74, emphasis added; 
a Reiseprediger being a traveling preacher who travels from 
place to place to preach and plant churches, especially 
serving vacant congregations), such programs to also 
consider the inclusion of bachelor programs that lead to 
ordination. 
• Considers how to make our seminary training more 
accessible to those seeking to serve in the pastoral office for 
the sake of providing “good, wise, and appropriate options” 
for pastoral ministry: 
• To small congregations beyond those options that would 
involve consolidating or closing the church but rather 
offer hope and a path for revitalization and a robust 
participation in Christ’s great commission to make 
disciples. 
• To forming congregations and church plants that would 
otherwise not be able to offer Word and Sacrament 
ministry to their people and pastoral leadership to bring 
the Gospel and our Lutheran theology into new 
communities. 
• To multi-staff congregations who, in the spirit of Titus 
1, have identified local leaders to be raised up to further 
the ministry and Gospel outreach of the church. 
• To congregations in regions of the U.S. where the cost -
of-living often makes calling and providing for a pastor 
to move into the area not feasible. 
• Considers reimagining existing routes, both residentially and 
through distance education/online, to more aggressively 
address the current and impending pastor shortage for the 
sake of our Gospel witness and the furtherance of 
confessional Lutheranism. 
• When combined with existing routes to ordination, both non-
colloquy and colloquy, develops “a more coherent and 
comprehensive model for pastoral education by which 
various routes leading to certification, call, and ordination 
are coordinated and potentiall y interrelated, so that, for 
2026 Convention Workbook
386 PAST ORAL MINISTRY AND SEMINARIES