In April of each year the LCMS Council of Presidents meets on the campuses of our two LCMS Seminaries in connection with the assignment of vicars and the placement of candidates. This partnership between the COP and the Seminaries is a fundamental aspect of our Synod fellowship, especially as the training, certifying, sending, ordaining, and installing of pastors is one of the defining purposes of the Synod. The congregations receiving vicars and calling candidates are also partners in this necessary work, which is so vital to the life of the Church on earth, gathered by and for the ongoing Ministry of the Gospel.
Until the Day of the Resurrection of all flesh, there will always be a need for new pastors. Throughout the history of the Church, there have been a variety of ways by which pastors are prepared and placed into the Office of the Holy Ministry. That has been and is true within our Synod fellowship, as well, for the sake of providing well-suited and well-trained men for the pastoral care of God’s people among us. Significantly, in each case, the Seminaries, the COP, and the congregations of the Synod are involved, as an active and deliberate exercise of our fellowship.
The most recent issue of the Fort Wayne Seminary’s periodical, For the Life of the World, includes some reflections on the benefits and blessings of residential formation. You can find that issue online HERE. I was honored to contribute some thoughts on that topic, not only considering my own seminary experience in the early 1990s, but also reflecting on what I’ve been observing in my son’s experiences as a residential seminary student on campus now. Among other things, I call attention to the salutary value of life and worship together in the chapel, along with the conversations that take place in the classrooms and hallways, in the commons and the cafeteria. As the Word became Flesh and tabernacles with us in the Ministry of His Gospel and His tangible means of grace, so are instruction in the Word and preparation for the Ministry well served by in-person training.
Whether through residential formation or otherwise, it is decisively important to our Synod fellowship that the training of new pastors be done together in ways that involve professors, overseers, and laity. I’ve noted before that our church fellowship is most basically a fellowship of pastoral care. That is to say, what binds us together and unites us as a fellowship of the Lord’s Church is the preaching of the Gospel, the teaching of the Word of God, and the administration of the Holy Sacraments. With that in mind, it is so crucial that the preaching, teaching, and administration of these sacred things of Christ be carried out in harmony and with consistency throughout all the congregations of our entire Synod.
Not only when a man is first ordained to the Office of the Holy Ministry, but at every installation of a new pastor, we call upon that pastor to affirm his commitment to the Bible and the Book of Concord, and we ask him to promise that his entire conduct of the pastoral office – all of his preaching, teaching, and administration of the Gospel – will be in accordance with those Holy Scriptures and those Lutheran Confessions. Of course it is true that no two pastors are exactly alike, but the work of our Seminaries in the training and certification of pastoral candidates provides consistency in theological understanding, so that the public commitments and promises of our pastors mean essentially “the same thing.”
To “confess” (from the Greek, homolegeo) is to “say the same thing,” and our confession can only echo what has been said to us – what we have heard and received from our parents, pastors, and teachers. So, the fact that our pastors have been instructed, prepared, examined, and certified by our Seminaries goes a long way to ensuring the continuity of their confession of the Bible and the Book of Concord. And that continuity of confession – in preaching and pastoral practice – is the bedrock of our fellowship as it actually is and functions across our Synod in the life and worship of our congregations. Indeed, because the Church rests entirely upon the Word of God, nothing else is more important than the consistency and integrity of the pastoral preaching, teaching, and confession of the Word of God.