Alternates to residential seminary education
Some information has been floating down the pipe about the "Specific Ministry Pastor Proposal". (I referenced this in December of 2006.) If your pastor or elder is attending as a delegate, make sure he is aware of the proposal in his handbook. From The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod - Letters to the Editor (March)
From Pr. Stefanski of CAT41.org:Specific Ministry Pastor program A December 2006 Reporter article (“COP eyes 'harmony and trust,' OKs proposed alternate-route 'in principle' â€) may have given the impression that the Specific Ministry Pastor program (referenced in that article as “Pastor-Specific Ministryâ€) was developed through the work of the Pastoral Formation Leadership Summit, held last year.
Although it was discussed and supported in concept at the summit, much work has gone into it over the past few years. In fact, the origins go back to earlier work on Distance Education Leading to Ordination (DELTO). The seminary faculties discussed the issues addressed in this proposal already in 1995, and again in 1998.
The church's needs and our confessional commitment, as well as a strong desire to maintain the integrity of theological education and the implementation of a more comprehensive approach for pastoral formation (enveloping residential and non-residential, distance education, and continuing education), inspired and gave birth to the Specific Ministry Pastor program proposal soon to appear in the Convention Workbook.
The Synod's DELTO Oversight Committee, the seminaries, the Board for Pastoral Education, and the COP are part and parcel of the formation of the proposal and support its implementation. It is very significant in the life of the church. A church-wide discussion of the Specific Ministry Pastor program proposal will benefit our church's confessional and missional commitments.
Dr. L. Dean Hempelmann St. Louis Dr. Hempelmann is executive director of the LCMS Board for Pastoral Education and chairman of the DELTO Oversight Committee. — Ed.
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The Rev. Dr. Dan Gard of the Ft. Wayne seminary has written a response to the "Specific Ministry Pastor Proposal" that he would like all delegates to see, so that they may vote in an informed manner at the 2007 LCMS synodical convention.
We are making Dr. Gard's paper available in Adobe Reader (.pdf) format for easy reading and printing, as well as Microsoft Word (.doc) and Rich Text (.rtf) formats for the use of those who might want to serialize the paper in more 'bite-size' chunks (although it really is not very long at all, in spite of its Scriptural and Confessional thoroughness).
The links from which to download are:
Please circulate these links as you see appropriate.
EJG
