When a congregation is calling a pastor, it can be an exciting but stressful time. What a blessing to know that we never walk alone! We are thankful to have a God who walks each step with us. Throughout this journey, remain steadfast in prayer that the Holy Spirit would guide each decision and those who are a part of the process. If you run into any questions along the way, your Circuit Visitor and district office staff are blessed to be of service any way we can.
- Contact your Circuit Visitor when your congregation is looking to call a pastor. You can find a link to a listing of our Indiana District Circuit Visitors here. https://lcms/circuit-visitors/
- Arrange a pre-call meeting held with district president and / or your Circuit Visitor.
- Congregation duly appoints call committee as specified by their constitution & by-laws.
- Circuit Visitor works with Call Committee and should attend all Call Committee meetings.
- Conduct a congregational self-study, which will be provided by your Circuit Visitor or by contacting the district office.
- Open self-nomination process and receives names of potential pastoral candidates from congregational members. Your Circuit Visitor can provide a nomination form for use, if desired.
- Send in completed self-study and list of self-nominations with candidate names to the district president. Once this information is received, the district president works on gathering information for the official call list.
- While the DP works on the call list, the Call Committee begins working on the questions to ask potential candidates.
- Completed call list is sent to the Circuit Visitor to share with the Call Committee.
- Call Committee is requested to have the majority of information for the call documents completed when it comes to the “short list” of candidates for the voters’ information.
- Once voters choose a candidate, complete call documents. A link to the call documents is available from the district office.
If calling from the field (a pastor already ordained), give the complete set of original call documents to the pastor being called, and send a complete copy to the district office. If calling straight from a seminary (a man not yet ordained), the set of original call documents must be sent to the district office for processing, NOT to the seminarian. Do NOT fill out the person’s name on the call documents, even if a specific person is being requested. The name of the requested individual should be indicated in an accompanying cover letter. - Keep CV and district office informed of any acceptance or declination of the call.
Call Contact Information
Circuit Visitors List / Contact Information https://lcms/circuit-visitors/
District President’s Office: Lisa Slack – Assistant to the President
260.423.1511, ext. 2204 or lisa.slack@in.lcms.org