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LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2026, Page 386

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
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386

PASTORAL MINISTRY AND SEMINARIES

encourage such full-time, residential formation for prospective
pastors (2023 Res. 6-02A and 6-03A)” (PFC, Policy Requirements
for the Specific Ministry Pastor Program: Admission,
Administration and Supervision, Nov. 2025, Premise 6); and
WHEREAS, The same aforementioned policy states “The SMP
program should be structured in such a way that it does not
discourage or detract from full-time, residential seminary
preparation for men pursuing a lifetime of ministry in the LCMS”
(ibid.); and
WHEREAS, The same November 2025 policy requirements for
the SMP program state that they are “a reflection of the church’s
prioritization of full-time pastoral formation in a seminary
community” by creating age restrictions for participation,
increasing prior membership and service requirements, and
directing seminary admissions to prioritize those SMP applicants
who fit a more narrow scope of ministry (ibid., 5); and
WHEREAS, The needs previously expressed from 2007 Res. 501B still exist, particularly with regard to providing trained and
qualified pastors for both existing congregations and new church
plants; and
WHEREAS, Those needs are projected to increase in the coming
years, specifically:
• LCMS Research Services indicates 754 ordained clergy will
be reaching retirement age (67) in the next five years, 1,286
in the next 10 years, and 1,770 in the next 15 years. (LCMS
Data and Trends, Oct. 10, 2024, as presented to the Texas
District Board of Directors [BOD] on Jan. 28, 2025).
• LCMS Research Services further suggests that without
replacement of those who are retiring, the number of current
active ordained pastors in the Synod remaining in service
will drop from approximately 5,000 to approximately 2,900
in those 15 years. (LCMS Data and Trends, Oct. 10, 2024,
as presented to the Texas District BOD on Jan. 28, 2025).
• The Association of Theological Schools (ATS), which is one
of two accrediting agencies for the St. Louis and Fort Wayne
seminaries, indicates that by the seminaries’ reporting in the
Fall of 2024, there were only 322 M.Div. students across all
classes between both seminaries. That comes out to an
average of only 80 M.Div. students/year that will be
ordained in the Synod during this particular four-year cycle.
(ATS 2024–2025 Table 2.12 [this is the most recent
available data from ATS], ats.edu/files/galleries/20242025_annual_data_tables.pdf).
• If the current trends of retirement and replacement continue,
the Synod will have 500–800 fewer active pastors serving in
10–15 years.
• Numbers from LCMS Research Services presented to the
Texas District BOD during its 2025 presidential visitation
indicated a relatively small number of pastors, only 96, who
will be reaching retirement age (67) in 2060 and beyond,
suggesting a very small number of pastors currently on the
roster who are in their early 30s or younger and further
indicating a much more aged clergy roster (LCMS Data and
Trends, Oct. 10, 2024, as presented to the Texas District
BOD on Jan. 28, 2025).
and
WHEREAS, Among the other “good, wise, and appropriate
options” set forth by the PFC in their November 2025 SMP policy
2026 Convention Workbook

requirements for the shortage of pastors were “church consolidation
or partnerships, multi-point congregations, use of lay readers of
sermons, a blessed closure that enables assets to be used for fruitful
ministry elsewhere while ensuring existing members receive care at
nearby LCMS congregations, and so forth” (PFC, Premise 5); and
WHEREAS, These options that are offered, while certainly
appropriate in many situations, also can collectively reflect and
subscribe to a shrinking church body rather than finding solutions
to increase our proclamation of God’s Word and the footprint of
sound confessional Lutheran theology in a world and culture that
desperately needs it; therefore be it
Resolved, That the PFC, in collaboration, cooperation, and
consultation with the two Synod seminaries and the Council of
Presidents, and with additional consultation with the Colloquy
Committee for the Pastoral Ministry, bring to the 2029 Synod
convention, consistent with Bylaw 3.10.4.1, a recommendation to
establish a proposal of a new route or routes to ordination that:
• Considers new levels of residential academic programs
available at our seminaries that will cause them, as the 1866
Synod convention charged Synod’s leadership and seminary
faculty, to “assume the responsibility that as soon as possible
capable men are commissioned as Reiseprediger”
(Protokolle, 12.&13. Synodal-Bericht, 74, emphasis added;
a Reiseprediger being a traveling preacher who travels from
place to place to preach and plant churches, especially
serving vacant congregations), such programs to also
consider the inclusion of bachelor programs that lead to
ordination.
• Considers how to make our seminary training more
accessible to those seeking to serve in the pastoral office for
the sake of providing “good, wise, and appropriate options”
for pastoral ministry:
• To small congregations beyond those options that would
involve consolidating or closing the church but rather
offer hope and a path for revitalization and a robust
participation in Christ’s great commission to make
disciples.
• To forming congregations and church plants that would
otherwise not be able to offer Word and Sacrament
ministry to their people and pastoral leadership to bring
the Gospel and our Lutheran theology into new
communities.
• To multi-staff congregations who, in the spirit of Titus
1, have identified local leaders to be raised up to further
the ministry and Gospel outreach of the church.
• To congregations in regions of the U.S. where the costof-living often makes calling and providing for a pastor
to move into the area not feasible.
• Considers reimagining existing routes, both residentially and
through distance education/online, to more aggressively
address the current and impending pastor shortage for the
sake of our Gospel witness and the furtherance of
confessional Lutheranism.
• When combined with existing routes to ordination, both noncolloquy and colloquy, develops “a more coherent and
comprehensive model for pastoral education by which
various routes leading to certification, call, and ordination
are coordinated and potentially interrelated, so that, for