Disordered? Beginning to Sort out What Makes a Call "Proper"

Disordered? Beginning to Sort Out What Makes a Call "Proper"

Julie Smith

“Concerning church government it is taught that no one should publicly teach, preach, or administer the sacraments without a proper [public] call.” AC XIV

There are a growing number of churches whose pulpits are not currently occupied by someone with the type of credentials that have lately been the norm among Lutherans. Preachers who do not have a Master of Divinity, or maybe have little theological education of any kind, have been asked by a congregation to assume the office of ministry. Perhaps it is for one weekend while their pastor is on vacation, or perhaps it is open-ended, while the church engages in a traditional call process. Perhaps it is an open-ended contract, for all intents and purposes functioning exactly like any other call the congregation has extended to a pastor.

As these “non-traditional” arrangements become increasingly common, all sorts of questions arise around how we understand call, ordination, and the office of ministry. From time to time, mixed up in all of this is a discussion about the priesthood of believers, though this notion is often misapplied. Indeed, as our churches seek to faithfully carry out their missions in the face of challenging demographics, we find ourselves in a time of discernment. Where do we need to embrace the flexibility our Confessions allow? And yet where do we need to be unyielding in our expectations of those who would stand before a congregation and speak on behalf of the living God?

Where do we need to embrace the flexibility our Confessions allow? And yet where do we need to be unyielding in our expectations of those who would stand before a congregation and speak on behalf of the living God?

The Congregational Landscape

A quick perusal of the website of Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ (LCMC) reveals that about 75 of the 800 U.S. churches are currently searching for a pastor. At first blush, that does not sound like a bad number. Fewer than 10% of our congregations are in a search process. Meanwhile, 132 pastors are listed as “available for call.” With this apparent low demand and high supply, you would think that we should be able to fill these pulpits!

Unfortunately, like unemployment statistics which do not include people who have stopped looking for employment, the list of 75 available calls does not include the churches that have given up on the call process or have posted their available position in some other venue. Likewise, the “available for call” list is a bit of a catch-all that includes any LCMC pastor not currently serving in a call. Not all of them are actively looking for a parish call.

Added to this much less rosy picture are the pastors serving LCMC congregations who have not yet completed the certification process. This is the case in about 10% of our churches. There are a variety of reasons for this, but the primary reason is that these pastors have not completed a Master of Divinity degree.

Adding our vacancies to our non-credentialed pastors means that perhaps as many as 20% of the congregations of LCMC are not currently being served by an installed pastor with the “traditional” credentials. And the number could even be higher since all LCMC congregational data is self-reported.

Now that’s the situation in one denomination, but anecdotal evidence suggests that it is typical of the Lutheran landscape in general. Congregations of all sizes, in all sorts of locations, and with all manner of staffing configurations, are finding that it is taking a long time to fill pastoral vacancies, and filling those vacancies often requires adjusting their expectations. Call committees start their process with a vision of the ideal candidate, but as discouragement sets in, they shift their expectations from “ideal” to “acceptable.” And all too often the final decision quickly moves from “acceptable” to “willing to come here.”

In my work I visit many of these congregations, both when they’re in the call process, and later on when they find themselves dealing with the consequences of a call process that resulted in a mismatch between the congregation and the pastor. It does not take much probing to hear their frustration –frustration with our denominations, with our pastors, and with our seminaries. But when I ask them, as has become my habit, if they have sent anyone to seminary recently, their eyes quickly shift to the floor.

Becoming a pastor is something you might suggest for someone else’s child, grandchild, or spouse. But it’s not something your own child, grandchild, or spouse should really consider. There remains a certain mystery and respect around the pastoral vocation, and people certainly want a pastor available when the power of darkness erupts in their lives in some way, but that vocation belongs to someone else, from somewhere else.

The Seminary Landscape

Seminaries have sought to respond to the changing demographics in the church which have resulted in fewer enrollments. Programs have become more flexible many of them clearly designed for second-career students. Curricula that prioritize proficiency in ministry skills over academic disciplines have become, if not the standard, nonetheless, increasingly common. Online offerings have proven to be an effective means of delivering theological education to those who simply don’t have the option of moving. But making these adjustments has not been easy for seminaries. The long-standing value placed on rigorous theological education, with classical roots, lived in community, does not readily give way to a more streamlined, proficiency-based education. Seminaries have wrestled with decisions about language requirements, residential requirements, total credit hours, qualifications of instructors, and a host of other curricular matters. Taking seriously the Lutheran commitment to education, while also adapting to changes in the preparedness of incoming students, has proved challenging. The variety of options available to prospective students increases the temptation to further lower, or even eliminate, many academic requirements.

The longstanding value placed on rigorous theological education, with classical roots, lived in community, does not readily give way to a more streamlined, proficiency-based education.

Alongside the traditional Master of Divinity degree, a variety of training programs has emerged, boiling down the heart of theological education to a smaller number of core courses. These short programs make it possible to fill pulpits more quickly and are also well-suited for bivocational pastors who are carrying out a pastoral call alongside another vocation.

The Denominational Landscape

With a growing number of pastoral vacancies and wide variety of theological education options, denominations have sought to keep up with their responsibility to provide some form of oversight over their clergy lists. The North American Lutheran Church’s candidacy program and LCMC’s certification process each attempt to provide a framework for assessing pastoral aptitude. Both church bodies also provide alternative mechanisms (other than the MDiv degree) by which a person can be trained to serve as a pastor in his/her local congregation.

As we have seen throughout the history of denominations, no process is foolproof. Individuals make it through the various systems and prove, often too late, that they are not adequately prepared or do not have the appropriate temperament to serve in parish ministry. The NALC’s process places a higher burden on the candidacy program, while LCMC’s places a higher burden on congregational call committees. Each mode has its strengths and weaknesses. The strengths are rarely noticed however, while the weaknesses are glaring anytime there is a failure in the system.

In both of these processes, the goal is to identify the correct set of criteria for assessing pastoral candidates. Some combination of education and character formation tends to be the key, with education, of course, more easily measured and therefore, often receiving the higher priority. There may be an assumption that seminaries themselves are weeding out candidates based on character issues that surface, an assumption that hearkens back to an older model between seminaries and the denominations they served. But with the North American Lutheran Seminary as the only official denominational seminary in either church body, it is unreasonable to assume that seminaries are taking on a sort of unofficial role in candidacy/certification.

Rugged Terrain

As congregations, seminaries and training schools, and denominations operate within this constantly shifting landscape, we are brought back again and again to the commitments of our confessional documents. Article XIV of the Augsburg Confession insists on a “proper” call for preaching, teaching, and administering the sacraments. Sorting out what that means is neither easy nor new. It has been part of the work of Lutheran churches for five hundred years, and we haven’t always been especially good at it.

"Almost since the beginning churches in the Reformation tradition have had difficulty establishing a solid, and perhaps we could say, appropriately high doctrine of ministry in the shadow of more Roman Catholic understandings of holy orders. Lutheranism in particular has vacillated between a low understanding of ministry in terms of purely functional operations, where ministry is necessary merely for the sake of “good order,” and ostensibly “higher” views supported by episcopal and Roman claims to ontological status. In the former case, ministry is a function assigned to one merely for the sake of order. The called and ordained minister tends to be looked on as a more or less dispensable “hired hand” of the congregation. In the latter, the called and ordained ministry acquires something of an ontological status necessary and “constitutive” for the church. The clergy are the “real” church, or at least church makers. The question from which discussion must start is whether it is possible to arrive at a view of ministry that avoids the pitfalls of these two alternatives."1

Gerhard Forde wrote those words more than thirty years ago. I wonder how he would assess the progress of the two church bodies served by St. Paul Lutheran Seminary. The next sentence probably answers that. “In the terms of this study, a major contributing factor to this constant vacillation is a failure to comprehend just what ministry is and what it is supposed to accomplish.”2 This is the heart of our problem. If we’re unclear about the office of ministry, we will never be clear about the proper qualifications for that office. If we’re unclear what pastors ought to be doing, we will not be able to assess whether they are prepared to do it.

Gerhard Forde

But lo and behold, the Confessions have something to tell us on this matter! “To obtain such faith, God instituted the office of preaching, giving the gospel and the sacraments. Through these, as through means, he gives the Holy Spirit who produces faith, where and when he wills, in those who hear the gospel” (AC V). The office of ministry is about delivering the Word that creates faith. It is not about being CEO of the local franchise of the denomination. It is not about pointing to oneself as the source of good order. It is not about being the most educated person in the room. It is not about being a functionary, necessary for certain proceedings to be legitimate. It is about faith. It is about election. It is about the salvation of souls.

For ministry to be “proper,” for it to be “ordered,” it must be ministry of the Gospel. It must have, at its center, a recognition that sinners are put right with God by faith alone through Christ alone. It must be driven, in all things, to share this wondrous Good News. It can never be focused on personal power. Nor can it be focused on congregational autonomy.

What might an ordering of ministry that placed the Gospel at the center look like? What might a candidacy or certification process look like if, above all else, it was committed to sending out faithful witnesses to Christ? And what might it look like if it didn’t take those things as a given, but recognized that they must be fought for, relentlessly? What might a seminary curriculum look like if every single academic element were intentionally, explicitly serving the mission of the Gospel? Every systematic theology class, every history class, every Bible class, every educational outcome, every assignment, focused, not simply on demonstrating knowledge, but on developing the capacity to be a faithful and effective messenger.

There is not a pat answer to any of that. The ever-changing “secret sauce” recipe that results in “proper” ministry can’t be etched in stone. Nor is it easy to identify what qualifies a candidate for ministry. It is not so simple as, “these classes were passed,” or “this certificate was completed,” or “this essay answered all of our questions correctly.” And, even worse, it is dangerously irresponsible to assume that a person providing the necessary answers to a credentialing body is going to actually carry out the ministry of the Gospel once they are out there in the church.

For ministry to be proper it must be public and to be public means to be subject to scrutiny. Whether that scrutiny is by the local church council, by colleagues and neighbors, or by bishops and overseers, doesn’t finally matter. What matters is that any person who would be called into the office of ministry would accept that their work is subject to public scrutiny and would not invoke the authority of their office to avoid this scrutiny.

A disordered ministerial office is not one in which the preacher does not have the proper credentials. It is one in which the preacher is subject to no authority. It is not, automatically, disordered for a congregation to call a pastor who has not been approved by their denominational system. It is disordered if the one they have called fills her parishioners’ ears with something other than Christ. It is not disordered for a congregation to raise up from within their midst one who will tend to the pastoral office despite having no formal theological education. It is disordered to be dismissive of the value of continuing to be engaged in learning, no matter how many letters you do or do not have behind your name. It is not, automatically, disordered for someone other than the ordained to preach and administer the sacrament. It is disordered to interpret the priesthood of all believers as meaning that everyone serves in the public office of ministry as his/her vocation.

The church has a calling in the world. We are witnesses to Christ Jesus. That is our main job. Wherever we are not faithfully tending to that, our ministry is disordered. We bring order to ministry by increasing our investment in one another. And that means increasing our investment in every form of theological education, from Sunday School to doctoral programs. It also happens when congregations know when their preacher is delivering the goods, and holding him accountable when he doesn’t, regardless of his credentials.

The church has a calling in the world. We are witnesses to Christ Jesus. That is our main job. Wherever we are not faithfully tending to that, our ministry is disordered.

This will not be orderly in the “spreadsheets and checkboxes” sense of orderly. It will not be proper in the sense of “predictable and uniform.” What it will be is the radical freedom of the Gospel unleashed upon the world for the sake of the salvation of souls. But that’s often a messy business. And while our every instinct is to contain the mess with rules and systems, the Gospel isn’t interested in containing the mess. Because through the proclamation of the Gospel, Christ Jesus actually cleans up messes, brings life out of death, and that’s what proper, ordered ministry is all about.

Rev. Julie A. Smith is Coordinator for Districts and Fellowship Groups the Lutheran Congregation in Mission for Christ (LCMC) and is co-founder of St. Paul Lutheran Seminary.

Notes:

1Gerhard Forde, Theology Is for Proclamation. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), 179.

2Ibid., 179.