Scripture teaches that in order to preach and administer the sacraments, a man has to be called by God. Lutherans confess this in the fourteenth article of the Augsburg Confession: “Of Ecclesiastical Order [our churches] teach that no one should publicly teach in the Church or administer the Sacraments unless he be regularly called” (hereafter: AC 14). This isn’t just for the sake of good order. It’s the divine order which Holy Scripture teaches. St. Paul asks rhetorically in Romans 10:15, “How shall they preach unless they are sent?” A man is not to preach unless He is sent by God Himself. Hebrews 5:4 says, “No man takes this honor to himself, but he who is called by God, just as Aaron was.” Scripture is also very clear that men whom God has not called to preach and teach should not be heard. In Jeremiah 23 the Lord severely judges preachers He did not call but prophesy in His name, nonetheless. They are usurpers and should not be heard by God’s people.
God calls men into His ministry through His church. When the church extends a call to a man, it is divine because “the true church possesses the priesthood” (Tr 69) and thus it is its God-given right and power to call men to exercise the office of pastor (Eph 4:11). Lutherans confess in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, “For the Church has the command to appoint ministers, which should be most pleasing to us, because we know that God approves this ministry, and is present in the ministry” (Ap XIII.12). Ordination goes hand in hand with the Divine Call because Ordination is the public rite by which the called man is placed into the office. Throughout the Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope, Lutherans confess these two things, call and ordination, go together by divine right. The Treatise confesses, “For wherever the Church is, there is the authority to administer the Gospel. Therefore, it is necessary for the Church to retain the authority to call, elect, and ordain ministers . . . wherever there is a true church, the right to elect and ordain ministers necessarily exists” (Tr 67).
The Missouri Synod, however, has done away with the divine order regarding the Office of the Ministry. At the 1989 convention in Wichita, Kansas, the Missouri Synod approved the use of licensed lay deacons. These men were neither called nor ordained into the Office of the Ministry, yet they were licensed by districts to preach and administer the sacraments. The 1989 convention decided to call them deacons to distinguish them from pastors. The resolution cites the fourteenth article of the Augsburg Confession, that no one is to publicly preach or administer the Sacraments without being rightly called, but then says:
“When no pastor is available, and in the absence of any specific Scriptural directives to the contrary, congregations may arrange for the performance of these distinctive functions by qualified individuals, lest God’s people be deprived of the opportunity for corporate worship and the celebration of the sacraments.”[1]
The words “in the absence of any specific Scriptural directives to the contrary,” are troubling. Synod saw no Scriptural reasons why the office shouldn’t be exercised by men who are not called and ordained. It seems the delegates present at the 1989 convention thought of AC14 as a human rule rather than a confession of the Scriptural teaching that only men who are divinely called should exercise the Office of the Ministry. What follows then are guidelines delineating how laymen may perform the functions of the Office of the Ministry, usually under the pretense of “exceptional circumstances, when no ordained clergy is available, and the congregation would otherwise be deprived of the Sacrament for a prolonged period of time.” This was Synod’s solution for small rural parishes that could not afford to pay a pastor’s salary. They could elect a layman from among them, send them to a few classes at the District Office, and perhaps one at a seminary, so that he could serve them with Word and Sacrament, otherwise they would be deprived. There are other ways of serving small rural parishes without violating the Scriptures and Lutheran Confessions. But that wasn’t the goal of Resolution 3-05. The goal was something different entirely. The Executive Director of the CTCR wrote:
We have many dedicated lay ministers who for up to 20 years have been asked to carry out a ministry of Word and Sacrament without recognition or supervision, without roster or doctrinal oversight. If we want to undermine Art. XIV of the Augsburg Confession, the surest way is to leave things the way they are, and to have no accountability or supervision. The adoption of Res. 3-05 does not initiate a single new practice in the doctrine of the ministry of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. It will, however, initiate proper supervision of those practices which we have long recognized as being consistent with our understanding of the doctrine of the ministry.[2]
The true purpose of the resolution was to legitimize what districts had already been doing for some time. The director of the CTCR claimed that to do nothing would undermine the 14th article of the Augsburg Confession. The solution to this unfaithful practice wasn’t to get rid of it, or find a faithful way to deal with it, but to regularize it. Now, decades later, some large churches that have a called and ordained pastor also have lay deacons as assistant pastors. In some cases, women have been elected as lay deacons. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that a program designed to regularize an unscriptural act begot more unscriptural actions. Rightly has this resolution been called “the Wichita Recension of the Augsburg Confession.”
In 2016 the Synod passed Resolution 13-02A, “To Regularize Status of Licensed Lay Deacons Involved in Word and Sacrament Ministry.”[3] This resolution requires licensed Lay deacons still serving in their unscriptural role to apply for one of the many seminary programs leading to call and ordination. This is a step in the right direction but ultimately the resolution fails because it allows deacons who have served ten or more years to “have the right to apply for colloquy to the general pastor roster” as if they were already called and ordained. A third option is that these men can “apply for an exception.” A 2018 FAQ even states that District Presidents may, “in exceptional cases defined in the resolution, continue to grant licenses to preach and preside with the consent of the COP and the Colloquy Committee.”[4]
The same FAQ document is also clear that the lay deacon program isn’t being ended but retooled to concentrate on “assisting roles: evangelism, visitation, mercy work, etc.” It states:
The resolution states that “nothing in this resolution shall be construed as impeding the training, recognition, credentialing or service of deacons who do not publicly preach or administer the Sacraments, namely, those who serve in ministries of mercy, education, or visitation, and so forth, or in an outreach role, assisting in evangelism and church planting (but not in public preaching and administration of the Sacraments).[5]
The unwillingness of the Synod to end the lay deacon program perpetuates the confusion within the Synod about the ministry. Deacons will not publicly preach or administer the sacraments but have “ministries” nonetheless that include education and visitation. Both education and visitation are duties of the office of the ministry and part of the public preaching and administration of the Sacraments. While Resolution 13-02A is a step in the right direction, it continues to perpetuate the confusion about the office of the ministry that has plagued the Synod for so long.
Lay Ministry is just one of the ways congregations and districts of the Missouri Synod ignore the divine order taught in Scripture and confessed in the Augsburg Confession. During seminary training, field workers and vicars are required to preach without call and ordination. In some locations, field workers and vicars are required to celebrate the Lord’s Supper without call and ordination. Intentional Interim Ministers receive temporary calls to parishes with man-made expiration dates. Ministers are deposed and put out of the ministry without scriptural cause, as if they were “at will” employees of the congregations, rather than divinely called servants of Christ. There are pastors of the Synod who advocate for women’s ordination, contrary to the clear proscription of women from the ministry in Scripture. These beliefs and practices—including Lay Ministry—stem from a rejection of the divine order for the sake of expediency. As such, they are all unfaithful to Scripture and what Lutherans believe, teach, and confess about the Office of the Ministry.
[1] The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, “Resolution 3-05B: To Adopt Recommendations of Lay Worker Study Committee As Amended,” Tell Everyone What HE Has Done: Convention Proceedings, Fifty-seventh Regular Confession, the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, Wichita, KS, July 7-14, 1989. (St. Louis, Concordia, 1989), 112.
[2] Ibid., 114.
[3] Convention Minutes, 66th Regular Convention, the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, Milwaukee, WI, July 9-14, 2016. (St. Louis, Concordia, 2016), 13.
[4] Herbert Mueller, FAQs Update on Licensed Lay Deacons, 2018 (https://files.lcms.org/file/preview/80E42385-94CA-4E35-8862-3ADB883AC11A)
[5] Ibid.
