LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2026, Page 270

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THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS­­—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS

(e.g,, Commissioned Minister) within that congregation or from a neighboring congregation.
Third, the candidate should be trained and, in the event of longer durations, supervised by an
ordained pastor, ordinarily a vacancy pastor, circuit visitor, or district president.

assist laymen with the conduct of services, use of vestments, and other matters where confusion
with the pastoral office should be avoided.
While the Commission does not believe the public reading of sermons or conduct of public
services by laymen to be contradictory with the biblical and confessional standards for the
pastoral office, nor to cause confusion with the pastoral office (given the basic caveats and
guidelines noted above), it ultimately holds that this practice is neither desirable nor a long-term
solution to the problem of current and future pastoral shortages. Among the many necessary
qualifications of the pastoral office, the aptitude to teach stands out as particularly important
within a confessional Lutheran tradition that has long valued preaching and the right division of
God’s Word (2 Tim. 2:15). Congregations should eagerly desire a theologically trained, rightly
called and ordained pastor to preach and teach the Word in a way that addresses that Word to
their context. This requires both knowledge of the people pastorally and knowledge of the
Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions theologically. The opinion offered here and its
guidelines apply to legitimate emergency or temporary situations, so that the Word may be
preached and the people of God edified in conformity with the biblical and confessional
standards for the pastoral office. Yet it must not be viewed as an adequate regular or permanent
substitute for the examined, called, and ordained pastor serving in the office of the public
ministry.

It is incumbent upon both congregation and supervisory clergy to ensure that this practice be
reserved for true emergencies, such as the illness of a pastor or the inability to secure pulpit
supply on short notice, or other temporary situations, such as during a vacancy. Care should be
taken, however, not to use laymen in these instances simply to avoid the difficulty or cost
associated with procuring a pastor. In the event of a prolonged vacancy, the presence of a lay
officiant is no replacement for the appointment of a vacancy pastor, who may be available to
conduct services and preach occasionally and, even if that is impossible, provide pastoral care
and oversight to the congregation in the absence of its own shepherd. In the event of
congregations with no realistic prospect of financially supporting full-time clergy, other more
feasible options should be sought instead of lay officiants, such as alternate routes like SMP,
EIIT, Center for Hispanic Studies, or possibly the service of retired pastors, so that the
congregation may have a regularly called and ordained pastor to carry out all the distinctive
functions of the pastoral office for the spiritual benefit of its members. We also note the timehonored practice of establishing a dual or multi-point parish with one or more similar
congregations.
Other practical guidelines may be suggested pertaining to the specific functions entailed by lay
services. With respect to laymen reading sermons, they should only read sermons written by
ordained synodical clergy, and it should be made clear—by way of a bulletin or public
announcement—that this is the case. With respect to conducting worship services, the layman
should not administer the Sacrament of the Altar, nor should he exercise the keys by
pronouncing absolution. For these reasons, it is best to make use of non-communion orders of
service, such as Matins, the Order of Morning Prayer, or the Service of Prayer and Preaching,
which may be used by either ordained or lay officiants. (We note that LSB indicates the leader
position in all these services with an “L” and not with a “P” as is the case in Divine Service –
Settings One through Five). The truncation of one of the five settings of the Divine Service in
LSB to exclude Confession and Absolution and the Service of the Sacrament is possible, though
not desirable due to the potential for incidental confusion.
In order to facilitate a biblically and confessionally responsible use of this practice, the
Commission urges other agencies of Synod to assist in providing resources to support it. First,
the seminaries of Synod and the publishing arm of Synod would do well to consider establishing
a digitally available database of full-text sermons corresponding to the appointed pericopes of
the church year (both one-year and three-year). This would enable lay officiants to download and
read biblically, confessionally faithful sermons from ordained clergy rather than having to rely
upon a supervisory pastor to provide them one, especially in time-sensitive emergencies. It
would also allow for a greater diversity of sermons from which to choose. Second, the
responsible agencies of Synod, such as the Office of National Mission or Concordia Publishing
House, could produce liturgical resources for use by lay officiants. These would ideally include
other non-communion services designed for lay leadership that are based upon the current, more
familiar settings of the Divine Service, as well as rubrics and training resources dedicated to

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to accommodate the presence of an ordained pastor from another congregation. Scripture does
not necessitate that worship happen at a particular day or time each week. We are free to gather
on any day and at any time for the church’s public services of Word and Sacrament. The
Commission believes that such alternatives, while admittedly not optimal for clergy or
congregants, are far preferable to strictly lay-led services because they provide the congregations
with ordained clergy to meet their pastoral needs in a way that is consistent with Scripture and
the Lutheran Confessions. This position is consistent with the assumed presupposition that
undergirds the entire argument and conclusions of this response, namely that doctrinal fidelity to
our Confession rather than the force of pragmatic concerns must norm our practice.
Finally, the growing number of congregations that are not able to obtain regular pastoral care
merits further attention and careful consideration. To this end, the Commission recommends
more formal discussions in the next triennium to address the larger issue of Lutheran theological
foundations for mission and ministry, especially as those foundations are being challenged in a
post-Christian culture, where religious participation is on the decline and where demographics
are also rapidly changing. Such discussions might involve representatives of the CTCR, the
Council of Presidents, the Pastoral Formation Committee, and the seminaries, among others.
Conversation and collaboration between these parties could lead to the development of practical
and educational solutions to this looming problem that are consistent with, and indeed derive
from, those theological foundations.
Adopted April 13, 2023

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2026 Convention Workbook

By way of postscript, the Commission regrets that it is unable to provide a satisfying answer to
the more serious challenges many of our districts face, namely, the growing number of regions
with a high volume of small or financially strained congregations, which are simply unable to
afford a full-time pastor. Some are in rural areas that lack geographic proximity either to more
populous areas with active clergy that might be able to help fill needs, or to potential sister
congregations, with whom they might enter multipoint parish service. Others are in areas with
few retired (or even active) clergy to assist vacant congregations. These chronically underserved
regions will for the foreseeable future continue to struggle filling pulpits and providing pastoral
care. While the Commission understands the plight such congregations face, we are reluctant to
propose this model of lay readers and officiants as a legitimate, long-term option, for the reasons
cited throughout this opinion (the need for theologically trained clergy who are apt to teach and
preach, the proper administration of the Sacrament of the Altar, regular pastoral care, etc.). The
pastoral office is not an adiaphoron. The office of the public ministry has been instituted in Holy
Scripture for the purpose of preaching the Word and administering the sacraments. In accordance
with Augsburg Confession XIV, Lutheran congregations are to call ordained clergy to carry out
these distinctive functions of the pastoral office in their midst. When they can no longer obtain
the services of such clergy, the congregation must honestly and soberly reconsider its options for
ongoing mission and ministry, however difficult and painful that may be.
We do believe there are plausible solutions to such dilemmas that do not necessitate the
permanent use of lay-led services, as imperfect and unsatisfying as those solutions may be.
Options are available, even if they require creativity and adaptability on the part of pastor and
congregation alike. For instance, we would propose the use of lay readers/officiants in
conjunction with semi-regular conduct of services by an ordained pastor or circuit visitor. This
might entail, for example, three lay-led services a month without the sacrament and a fourth
clergy-led service with the sacrament. A congregation might also adopt a different service time

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