A process turned upside down. . .

Listening to a series of old lectures by Dr. Kenneth Korby has once again unsettled what is settled and drawn attention to what has become the norm but is not normal.  It is always good to have things upset every now and then and Dr. Korby does this but within the framework of Scripture and our Confessions.

An example of this has to do with the way we recruit men to be pastors.  He suggests that the seminary should have no role whatsoever in recruiting men to the office of the ministry.  What is so shocking here is that we have forced this role upon the seminaries of the church because they survive through the tuition and fees of students more than the financial support of the churches whom they serve.  When we took away the checkbook and suggested that the seminaries could finance the cost of forming new pastors, we also gave them the responsibility of recruiting men to that office.  The problem, of course, is that the seminary is far removed from the parish where such youth and men are.  How can the seminary discern the character of such candidates or know the esteem in which they are held?  Yet that is what has become the norm.  Not only do we expect the seminary to fill the church with ministers of the Gospel but we expect that the selfsame seminary will find a way to cover the cost of training these men to be pastors.  The pastor's role has become merely a character reference in the process and the district president's role has become a rubber stamp.  Oh, sure, there are exceptions but in ordinary practice the seminary recruits, trains, and then certifies men for office -- all on the dime of the candidates and people with deep pockets.

Looking down the line is the issue of examination and certification.  We have at the same time we delegated the responsibility for recruiting and training men to be pastors also delegated the examination of these men and their certification to the same seminary.  It is not their fault.  We in the Church have done this and, in part, because we do not want to admit how little we know those who go to seminary or how little we know about their readiness to be pastors.  

Perhaps in the old days (when I was headed toward the seminary) this was less true.  Boarding high school, a junior college system with completion at a senior college -- all of which were set within a context of men and other church workers preparing for church work -- provided some time to know and a variety of people to review and judge those preparing along the way.  Every year advancing through the system was a review and a judgment upon the character of that young man toward the final review and judgment.  Vicarage was not only under a bishop who was tasked both with training in place and judgment of the credentials of the candidate but also expected a district president to be regularly involved.  That was the case in my own vicarage.  My DP at the time, Ron Fink, not only watched me during that vicarage year but visited me quarterly and examined my progress along with the pastors of the circuit of my vicarage congregation.  

With the change in the system, more accurately the dismantling of that system, the seminary was left to decide who should be trained and what kind of training that candidate should receive and if that candidate had actually been successfully trained.  How often don't act to fail when we fail to act?  In other words, by inaction and our willingness to have others take responsibility, we have put our seminaries in an impossible situation.  They recruit to fill the classrooms (and eventually the pulpits) and train them up in the way they should go and then tell the Church they have been successfully trained and arrange to send them out on behalf of Christ.  The only problem with this is that these candidates are not well known to the Church nor have they been examined by the Church in their ability to do the basic things that pastors do -- like preach, teach, preside, hear confession, etc...  We ought to know better but that has become the abnormal norm in the LCMS.  Our District Presidents are charged with the responsibility for the roster but this is not simply a matter of moving around names but of knowing these men, knowing the congregations, knowing both well enough to give aid and counsel in time of vacancy and aid and counsel when disputes arise.  This is not one part of their responsibility but the lion's share of their episcope or oversight -- yet one that is too often lost in a maze of competing responsibilities and duties that mirror a CEO more than they do a bishop of the Church!

At every stage along the way I was commended to the Church -- from the first year of college to seminary graduation and certification.  Yet few of those involved with or charged with the responsibility of examining and commending me had ever actually heard me preach or teach or saw me preside at the Liturgy or had even a clue if I knew what to do with a penitent or impenitent.  But is this not the primary responsibility of a pastor?  Again, I do not blame the seminary.  The seminaries are doing what we told them to do.  I blame a church body in which supervision and oversight have become bad words, when episcope has been confused with the color of a clerical shirt instead of the will and duty to know well enough the ministers and candidates to commend them to the Church.  I blame congregations when a personable pastor has become a more important goal than an orthodox one.  I blame pastors who think that their congregations are their own play yards to do as they please and who fail to attend winkels and conferences.  And I blame a congregationalism in which it is easy to think only of your own parish instead of what is right for and best for the Church at large.

I am nearing the end my years of full-time service and I can say without a doubt that I have learned that I am both unprepared and unworthy of the office I have held for some 42 years.  There are days in which I am sure that the Church should have passed me up and sent me down for a more thorough formation into the office I sought.  I am painfully aware of the many ways I have failed the good people entrusted to my pastoral care.  And that is about the only thing that commends me -- the fact that I know now how much I do not know about being a pastor and regret more than anything those who suffered through my mistakes as I tried to figure it out.  Every pastor worth his salt should feel the same way.  But every Church ought to reconsider how we treat the issue of episcope (oversight of doctrine and practice), how we recruit and train and examine those who would be pastors, and their record of service to the Church.  The times are difficult but that means we need better prepared and examined men not less.  And before it is too late, maybe we ought to reconsider how we have been doing this process.