LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2013, Page 412

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412

Specific Ministry Pastor (SMP) Task Force

grated, formational efforts, and when theological schools do their work
wisely and well, they provide exactly this kind of education. Theological schools provide a crucial resource to communities of faith by making
possible the kind of learning their leaders most need... Seminary education is not about texts on the one hand and people on the other. Often,
faculty members become the most important texts their students read.
(Earthen Vessels, pp. 23, 32)

A three-year study (by reputed authorities on this subject) of the
culture and formation of students enrolled in two theological schools
of very different denominational backgrounds resulted in conclusions
on this subject common to seminaries in general:
It is not just in the classrooms that students are socialized. The total
experience of each school’s culture teaches and reinforces the school’s
normative message as well as offering knowledge and skills needed for
the practice of ministry... Although we have used the term “formation”
to describe the influence of the school’s culture on students, we do not
believe that students become mere clones of the culture or of particular faculty members. Not only do the students encounter variations in
the core message among faculty and other authority figures within the
schools, but as we have shown, they are also encouraged according to
the norm of free inquiry to think for themselves and develop, within
limits, their own perspectives. (Being There, p. 265)
Formative education requires prolonged and intensive exposure
to an educational institution. The clear lesson of our study is that the
schools in which we conducted our research had significant formative effects on students who spent time in them and became engaged
in school life. Students who were marginal to life in the school or who
were not exposed to it for very long may have absorbed certain academic “contents,” but they were likely to leave with their preexisting views,
values, and patterns of acting unchanged... Part-time study, especially if
accompanied by full-time work, may make it difficult for the student to
focus on both formal learning and all un-programmed opportunities that
school life provides. We also have doubts about “virtual” education. We
are not opposed to technology; however, teaching and learning by computer and various video technologies cannot, we believe, duplicate the
intense and various experiences available to a student who physically
attends a school. In summary, few of the new forms and technologies
seem to us to deliver the full benefits of actually being there, on location
at school, in its buildings, with its various populations, for long enough
periods of time to learn what the school has to teach: the ways of life and
worldviews as well as information and technical skills. (Being There,
pp. 274, 276)

Not everyone has doubts about “virtual” education, including many participants in the SMP program of the Synod. In their
Christianity Today article, “Absent in Body,” Stephen and Mary
Lowe believe online learning can do the same as residential education, and sometimes even better:
With opportunities for online learning growing by leaps and bounds,
many people are now able to take advantage of Christian higher education without having to leave their ministry, family, or work. While
course quality may be on par with traditional on-campus learning, questions exist regarding the ability for significant spiritual formation away
from a campus community... [But] Social ecologies are not limited to
physical face-to-face encounters. Online communities offer another
kind of social interaction that can be as influential in promoting human
development as physical communities... When studying the reciprocal
relationship between the Apostle Paul and the churches he founded,
there is a similar dynamic at work. While Paul ministered to churches
in person, a great deal of his ministry was carried out while physically
separated from his congregations. He reduced this physical distance
through a mediated form of communication: the epistle...
A similar dynamic is at work in online Christian education. An
ecological perspective allows us to appreciate the fact that humans can
influence one another across space and time in much the same way as
when physically present... The cohort format provides a context that
fosters a strong learning community. Students build significant relationships and share life together in these learning communities... [T]he big
question facing online education is whether spiritual formation can truly

2013 Convention Workbook

take place online. The research on social presence and learning communities indicates that it can. A student’s ability to conceptualize learning
in their own setting may be more transformative than traditional forms
of education.

The Lowes’ research suggests that students have more interaction
with a professor in an online course than in most traditional face-toface courses, and that most students would argue they experience
more authentic company in their online classes than in traditional
courses. In their words: “Students repeatedly remarked that they
learned more about God, themselves, and others in the online seminary course they completed. The importance of peer relationships
in an online community cannot be underestimated. With respect to
spiritual formation, the role of the community has tremendous influence—it’s how students nurture one another toward greater faith
maturity.”
In her “Time for Reflection” article, Jennifer Woodruff Tait
agrees, reporting on a Wabash Center online seminary education
conference, noted that “participants agreed that online education as
a whole provides more opportunity to engage students individually.”
But she also noted that “individual encounters don’t happen accidentally—both students and teachers have to be committed to making
the interactions work.” But seminary student formation must include
more than online exposure to professors. She also reported from the
conference:
[T]he group created a collection of ways to encourage spiritual
formation online: online prayer forums and Scripture readings, live
streaming of chapel services, and Twittering prayer requests. They also
discussed ways to cultivate a less authoritarian faculty presence in the
online classroom—more vulnerable to student questioning and less
controlling of results. But underlying these specific tips were deeper
questions: In what ways is online education providing the spiritual formation that prepares students for their ministries?... [T]his is the sort
of question that online faculty might be hungry to discuss. And it is the
kind of question that educators need to grapple with—not one that can
be handed off to a team of software designers working in isolation from
questions of pedagogy.

C. About The Role of the Layman in Answer to Modern Day
Ministry Needs
As noted by Francis Pieper in his Christian Dogmatics, “Scripture
distinguishes sharply between the spiritual priesthood and the public
ministry” (Vol. III, p. 440). Any Lutheran discussion of the Office
of the Holy Ministry reflects this sharp distinction and includes reference to the Augsburg Confession, as in the CTCR document “The
Ministry in Its Relation to the Christian Church”:
The Augsburg Confession states: “To obtain such faith God instituted the office of the ministry, that is, provided the Gospel and the
sacraments” (AC, V). Concerning the call to the Ministry, the same
Confession states: “It is taught among us that nobody should publicly
teach or preach or administer the sacraments in the church without a
regular call” (AC, XIV).

This distinction is also sharp in C.F.W. Walther’s letter to Jacob
Aall Ottesen (Concordia Journal 18, p. 167) where he distinguishes
between emergency situations (“Who would deny that there could
be cases of this kind?”) and regular public teaching of the people in
a pastor’s stead and publicly leading them in prayer. Regarding the
latter, Walther’s words:
This is so diametrically opposed to the doctrine of the Office in
Scripture (1 Cor. 12:28; Acts 6:4; Titus 1:5), to Article 14 of the Augsburg Confession, to all witnesses of pure doctrine, and to the constant
practice in our church, that one cannot fathom how one who is otherwise
fairly conversant with God’s Word and the orthodox church can be in
uncertainty for a moment. To base such a matter on the spiritual priesthood of Christians is nonsense, for if that were the case, no has reason
to wait for the calling of a pastor. Even less can the matter depend on