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TO ESTABLISH SPECIFIC MINISTRY PASTOR PROGRAM (Res. 5-01) An Opinion- by Dr. Andrew Bartelt
In this article, the Seminary Vice President and Academic Dean, Dr. Andrew H. Bartelt, offers his opinon regarding resolution 5-01, concerning the Specific Ministry Pastor Program.
TO ESTABLISH SPECIFIC MINISTRY PASTOR PROGRAM (Res. 5-01)
An Opinion
Andrew Bartelt
Concordia Seminary, St. Louis
This summer’s convention will be asked to consider an important overture regarding a new approach to pastoral education and certification. While dramatic in what is proposed, the resolution is even more dramatic in what will be accomplished, gained, solved, and resolved. It comes to convention following substantial work, discussion, and engagement with various entities across the synod, including both seminary faculties, the BPE, the COP, the CTCR, and synodical and district mission leadership. In large part the proposal comes from the work of the DELTO Oversight Committee commissioned by the 2001 convention, but the issues addressed, and the proposal by which they are addressed have roots that go much deeper into our synodical history.
In recent months, several streams of significant work and study over these past years have come together in addressing several pressing issues regarding pastoral ministry. Concerns for addressing the church’s needs for such ministry, and for doing so in a faithful, theologically responsible way, have been with us a long time, from the Nothilfer of Wyneken’s day to the establishment of a practical seminary that developed into the Springfield seminary. More recently, in the 1980s, a number of “lay ministers” were identified as serving in Word and Sacrament contexts without the benefit of pastoral certification, call, and ordination. At the Wichita convention, Resolution 3-05b sought to regularize such men through a process of licensure under the office of district president. Subsequent conventions addressed the need for further theological education, for clearer theological justification, and for better synodical regularization of what has now become almost a way of life in our church for providing pastoral ministry through licensed deacons.
Following the 1998 convention, the faculty of Concordia Seminary devoted significant time in studying the issue of deacons, especially in light of the discussion at that time whether a new category of “ordained deacon” might help meet the needs for pastoral ministry where full time ministry cannot be maintained. After extensive study, our faculty concluded that such a position of “ordained deacon” (or “ordained elder”) was really describing one who would be serving as a pastor, and thus should do so from within the pastoral office as a called and ordained pastor. Indeed, this insight formed the basis of a proposal put forward by the synodical task force (following the 1998 convention, and including the presidents of both seminaries) to consider a new category of “assisting pastor.” This came as a late overture to the 2001 convention, but it never came to the floor. What that convention did do was establish the DELTO Oversight Committee, in which seminaries, district presidents, and other representatives of the synod and of the field were brought together to revise the existing DELTO program. In recent years, the work of this committee has been complemented by various other task forces and initiatives, all seeking to address similar issues.
This work includes the following: (1) By 2004, DELTO was revised and implemented under its new procedure. But almost immediately it was recognized that the admission restrictions did not allow DELTO to meet many of the needs that were now arising, especially in the area of mission planting from within an established congregation, where “full time ministry” was provided through the existing pastoral staff, in spite of their desire to engage a mission planter in Word and Sacrament ministry. (2) During this time, both seminaries developed new approaches to specialized immigrant ministry, particularly the Ethnic Immigrant Institute of Theology at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, and the parallel program in conjunction with POBLO at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne. (3) Our synodical national mission staff, seeking to implement the 2001 Ablaze! goal that would seek to plant 2000 new congregations by 2017, formed a New Church Development Task Force, with representation from both seminaries. This work also engaged the question of “in ministry,” experiential pastoral education, especially in raising up local leadership for contextualized mission planting and outreach. (4) President Kieschnick appointed a large church/seminaries task force which developed into a presidential summit on pastoral formation in May, 2006. As a focal point for discussion at this meeting, both seminaries prepared papers that addressed the theological assumptions underlying our doctrine of ministry, and they presented for discussion some new approaches to theological education and pastoral certification within different categories of the one pastoral office.
The past year has seen these various approaches begin to converge, both through conversation and dialogue between and among various task forces, and through engaging various entities within the church, including the Council of Presidents, district mission executives (N.A.M.E.), the Board for Pastoral Education and the faculties of both our seminaries, and significant interaction with the church-at-large. Most of these streams have now come together into support for the proposal, based on the memorial from the DELTO Oversight Committee and presented by floor committee 5 as Resolution 5-01, “To Establish Specific Ministry Pastor Program.”
This overture goes a long way in speaking to and resolving a variety of issues that have been troubling our church for many years, including a reaffirmation of the confessional principle articulated in AC XIV that those who would serve in pastoral ministry should do so from within that pastoral office, rite vocatus.
In sum, the following issues are coming together in a timely way.
1) Increased need for pastoral ministry. Such needs continue in the areas which DELTO was originally intended to address, specifically where full time ministry cannot be maintained. But new needs have also been identified, such as grass roots mission planting. If we are serious about 2000 new congregations by 2017, we need also to be serious about 2000 new pastors, qualified for aggressive missional leadership – a net gain of 2000 pastors, or about a 30% increase to the ministerium of our synod.
To be sure, both seminaries have significant mission emphases within their curricula, as well as a focused mission track already utilized for mission planting and mission contexts. However, one of the major sociological insights into mission planting is the helpfulness of the “right man in the right place,” and both independent and congregational mission plants will benefit from leadership that is already locally “inculturated." As a result, many new mission starts will engage those raised up in the field rather than sent off to or received from the seminary. One example of a blended contextualized/residential model already proving itself is the cross-cultural ministry program of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, with Concordia University, Irvine, in which pastoral students are actively engaged in an urban, cross-cultural mission plant, in the context of which they pursue seminary-level course work and application.
2) Need for clarity in our doctrine of church and ministry. Ever since the Wichita Convention (1989) provided for some regularization of licensed deacons, we have struggled over the propriety of those engaged in Word and Sacrament (i.e. pastoral) ministry without being placed into the pastoral office through call and ordination, as affirmed by AC XIV. Although the Wichita resolution was intended to deal with the specific number of such lay deacons at that time, it has become a significant “way of doing church and ministry” ever since.
In large part, the solution is simple: Assuming we care about our doctrine of the ministry and assuming we know the context, content, and intent of the confessional writings (e.g. AC V, XIV), those who would be engaged in pastoral ministry should do so from within the office, with the servant authority as one put into the office by a Divine Call mediated through the church. This is to say that those who serve as pastors should be pastors, called and ordained servants of the Word.
3) Need for integrity of pastoral education. On the one hand, the suggestion that all licensed deacons engaged in pastoral ministry should simply be called and ordained as pastors is a good one, almost self-evident. On the other hand, we have a long history of a well-educated and both spiritually and academically well-formed ministerium, with a collegiality and ethos that has served us well. One major feature, of course, is the breadth and depth of a seminary curriculum that integrates theology and practice and equips our graduates for pastoral ministry that is faithful to Lutheran theology and practice, whatever the context and focus of the Call.
But no matter what the level or extent of foundational pastoral formation, there remains the need for continuing education both for general and for specialized ministry. In fact, and in spite of a four-year fulltime residential program, we acknowledge that the outcome objective of seminary is, for the most part, “entrance level general ministry.” Beyond that, and upon that, is a lifetime of learning, growth, and varied ecclesiastical responsibilities as God would lead, guide, and call.
Given this spectrum of theological education connected to a posture of life-long learning, the church must determine a standard of pastoral formation, of maturity in the faith, and of education that encompasses and integrates both theology and practice by which the church can certify for ministry. Though the St. Louis seminary has long offered the B.D. degree, since 1971, consistent with seminary education throughout North America, that standard has been the M.Div. degree, recognized and regularized through accreditation standards, and now the primary first professional degree for pastoral ministry at both our seminaries.
However, our doctrine and practice of pastoral ministry have always allowed for a certain flexibility in standards and in levels of competencies for certification. Most notable in our LCMS history is the original model of the Springfield seminary as a more “practical” seminary with a curriculum that did not assume a full undergraduate pre-seminary humanities-based background, including both biblical languages.
To be sure, the curriculum proposed for the “specific ministry pastor” is at least quantitatively significantly less than other such alternate routes, and it may appear to lack one important feature and goal of the residential programs, namely to remove students from their local context precisely to experience not only a different setting but also one deliberately designed for theological reflection. Such a temporary and intentional “distantiation” within a larger and broader community of learning grounds theological understanding in the more general and universal context of the larger church. Application can then be “contextualized” into any specific culture, context, or special ministry setting. In short, one of the greatest advantages of contextualized, “in-service” education is also a potential weakness: it is contextual, but it is thus also limited to that one context.
On the other hand, much can be accomplished and gained by careful curriculum design and pedagogical strategies appropriate to such education, and we have learned much over the past few years. We have not only begun to try and test new models, but we have also engaged in critical reflection and evaluation. In fact, we are already working to develop a “next generation” curriculum specifically designed for integrating the best of traditional as well as of new distance ed models. This has also provided the opportunity to evaluate and even recalibrate our curriculum based on outcomes defined by our Confessional Lutheran commitment and focused on the contextualized needs and mission challenges of today’s and tomorrow’s church
Nevertheless, the concern remains that pastoral formation within only one specific ministry context may well be limited by that one contextual experience. The suggested solution is simple: such a pastor – fully a pastor and completely in the one pastoral office without restriction on his pastoral responsibilities – is, however, limited in his jurisdiction or area of service to that specific ministry. He is a “Specific Ministry Pastor.”
Thus, too, his service beyond his pastoral Call reflects similar recognition of his localized theological formation. Where questions deal with that specific ministry, e.g., representing the congregation at district levels and representing the interests and perspectives of the ministry in the church-at-large, he functions appropriately as any other member of synod. But concerning issues that represent the larger church, which assume a theological breadth and depth traditionally characterized by our M.Div. education or equivalent, his service is recognized as that of a specific ministry pastor, not a general pastor formed by a comprehensive theological education.
4) Need for appropriate use of technology in the service of distance education. Lutheran ministry has benefited greatly from a positive view and utilization of technology, from the printing press to radio and television. In the current generation, educational technology has generated renewed emphasis on effective pedagogy, and various models of distance ed have offered new ways of delivering education “beyond the walls” of the fulltime residential seminary community.
Over the past years, our seminaries have gained important experience by engaging distance educational models (in some cases built on older TEE models) in programs such as DELTO, the Hispanic Institute (now reconstituted as the Center for Hispanic Studies), and the Ethnic Immigrant Institute of Theology (EIIT) and Deaf Institute of Theology (DIT) at our St. Louis seminary. We have also discussed, debated, and discerned various strengths and weaknesses of residential, non-residential, and “in-ministry” models, and again learned much from innovative programs such as the cross-cultural ministry center at CU-Irvine, which provides pastoral certification through our St. Louis seminary. Further, we have built collaborative partnerships between seminary instruction and various district lay education and ministry programs, particularly in the revised DELTO curriculum.
In sum, the time is right to utilize the variety of technologies now available for effective teaching and learning, including an appropriate level of community formation, in order to enhance and complement the tried and true residential programs that will continue to provide for a well-formed and well-educated ministerium.
5) Need for comprehensive approach to pastoral education. It is clear that such new programs have begun to meet an important need for pastoral formation. It is also becoming clear that we can use them very responsibly for multiplying ministry, especially in specific contexts.
As such programs expand, we need to address the variety of needs in a more coherent and comprehensive way. Currently we have programs such as DELTO, EIIT, Deaf Institute of Theology, the programs of the Center for Hispanic Studies, all seeking to provide pastoral education leading to ordination, but built on different platforms. And none of them is readily compatible with the M.Div. program, so that a student could easily apply work done in these certificate programs to an M.Div. A comprehensive approach will better coordinate and relate these programs not only to each other but also to the residential M.Div. curricula. We are already developing a coherent plan that will integrate both residential and non-residential programs at both certificate and degree levels.
The past years have witnessed an extraordinary amount of interest, research, experimentation, and collaborative work, led by both seminary and mission field and engaging congregational, district, and synodical leadership. We have now come to a point where our church in convention will consider the proposal of the DELTO Oversight Committee, with support from these various constituencies. Not only will this proposal resolve a constellation of issues, concerns, and vexing problems, but it will also do so in a constructive and theologically responsible way. While not every aspect of the proposal will solve every concern in a way that is completely satisfactory to every member of synod, the churchmanship displayed by this process has been exemplary, and the result will move forward the work of our dear synod in providing competent, faithful, responsible pastoral ministry for the specific contexts of today’s mission challenges.
Written By: host
Date Posted: 7/3/2007
Number of Views: 1277
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