You Can't Mass Produce Pastors
We don't make pastors. We don't we don't form pastors, but neither do brick and mortar traditional residential programs. They don't. This is the categorical error that people make most often is thinking that seminaries, theological schools, form pastors. They don't. And that's incredibly, that's fundamentally against any Lutheran notion of what it means to be formed as a pastor. The only one who can form a pastor is the Word of God Himself. Okay? We don't do it. The real question you have to ask yourself is how is that person being formed? Now, traditionally, residential brick and mortar was the way that pastors were educated, not formed, educated. And it wasn't necessarily because it was best.
— The Rev. David Patterson, Institute of Lutheran Theology
You can’t mass produce pastors and theologians. They can only be produced one by one by the Holy Spirit in the agonizing school of experience, crunching with the Word of God and the Sacraments. They see that as a divine miracle that has life- and resurrection-bearing power.
— The Rev. Professor Kurt Marquart, Concordia Theological Seminary
How are pastors formed? The above two quotations represent two divergent and competing ideas regarding pastoral formation.
The first quote is from a recent podcast video called “Why Most Lutheran Congregations Are Stuck at 50 Members” (15:33) by an LCMC pastor and faculty member of the Institute of Lutheran Theology - a pan-Lutheran online seminary. The LCMC is a church body that left the ELCA over their position on homosexuality. The LCMC denounces deviant sexuality, but affirms women’s “ordination.”
The second quote is from the sainted Kurt Marquart, LCMS pastor and faculty member of Concordia Theological Seminary from a 1999 seminary recruitment video called “Today’s Seminary, Tomorrow’s Pastors” (10:06).
Professor Patterson’s assertion that pastors are not formed by seminaries but rather by the Word of God is a fallacious false dichotomy. It is the logical equivalent of saying that we are not saved by grace, but rather by Jesus. Professor Marquart’s assertion acknowledges that pastors are miraculously formed by the Word of God, but by means of the Word’s application by means of the seminary.
Professor Patterson incorrectly limits the role of seminary to that of mere education. And by education, he means it in the narrow sense of schooling, of acquiring academic knowledge by means of classroom lectures and study. He does not make this assertion, but it logically follows from his premise that a man (or a woman?) can be formed into the holy ministry by just staying home and reading his (or her) Bible. By contrast, Professor Marquart asserts that pastoral formation at the seminary is experiential, that formation happens in the “agonizing school of experience crunching with the Word of God and the Sacraments.”
The entire video is not only an important artifact of Concordia Theological Seminary of a quarter century ago, it remains a source of wonderful quotes from some of the leading Lutheran scholars in the world, one that serves today as an apologia for men to continue to come to our two confessional and faithful seminaries, and not be tempted by the siren song of quicker, easier, and cheaper.
Jesus called the first apostles by simply saying, “Follow Me.” There was no way to be formed while staying at home, watching a screen, keeping one’s existing job, or dictating one’s own call. There was no quicker, easier, or cheaper way. Jesus said, “Follow Me,” and they quit their jobs, left behind their former lives, and physically went to where their Teacher was, in order to become His students. They were indeed formed - which included education and study, but did not comprise only of it. For they were indeed formed into preachers “one by one by the Holy Spirit in the agonizing school of experience, crunching with the Word of God and the Sacraments.” It was truly “a divine miracle” that had “life- and resurrection-bearing power.” We continue to form men for the holy ministry in the same way. We are indeed “apostolic” as we say in the creed.
We should expect differences of opinion regarding pastoral formation between church bodies. The LCMC “ordains” women, which is the same fundamental error of the ELCA in upholding homosexuality. For if one is faithful to God’s Word, a woman can no more take vows to serve as a pastor than can she take vows to take unto herself a wife. And I do believe forming men for the ministry under the auspices of church bodies that confess female “ordination” to be dangerous.
In fact, this very podcast in which Professor Patterson makes his case, the Luther House of Study (LHOS) is mentioned as a putative alternative to our two LCMS seminaries to form LCMS pastors. LHOS’s CEO is an LCMC “ordained” woman. She was interviewed on the topic of alternative methods of pastoral formation by the same podcast team that interviewed Professor Patterson in, an episode called “Why Competency Based Theological Education.” There was no mention that she was, in fact, a lady clergyman, nor that this is forbidden by the Word of God - the same Word by which (and by Whom) men are indeed formed into pastors.
And this is consistent with those who agree with Professor Patterson that pastoral formation is only a matter of education, only a matter of learning stuff. For that reduces it to a mere acquisition of knowledge. And that can indeed be done by watching videos, even those of a woman “pastor,” no different than how one can learn how to kill weeds in the garden, or how to solve an algebra equation, and to learn such things from anyone - even if the instructor is an “ordained” woman, a person whose lifestyle is incompatible with Christianity, or even an AI bot. This all flows from the reductio of formation to education, that is, to taking classes, to rationally inputting data.
But I would point people to the “Today’s Seminary, Tomorrow’s Pastors” video if you have not seen it - and especially if you are a man who is considering whether or not God might be calling you to serve in the holy ministry. In my own case, I was at first looking for quicker, easier, and cheaper way - one that would allow me to live where I wanted, keep my lucrative job, and call the shots myself. I was acting like the disciple who was hedging his bets in following Jesus. At the time, I too thought of seminary as just schooling, just an academic hoop to jump through. As I spoke with people and became more serious, I realized that this was not the case. I surrendered to the Lord’s will that I leave my job and my home, take a leap of faith, and go to the “agonizing school of experience, crunching with the Word of God and the Sacraments.” It was not “agonizing” in the sense of being painful or unpleasant, but it was rigorous and challenging - and it was a great joy. It stretched by mind, fortified my spirit, and formed me by means of the Word of God - which is central to every class and every experience, both in and out of the classroom. And it was also a confession that my life was not my own, that I truly understood and confessed that the Holy Spirit would send me where He wanted me to go, not where I decided.
Before having studied with (and being formed by) Professor Marquart and the other outstanding professors whose classrooms I was privileged to sit in, whose company I was blessed to enjoy - I didn’t realize what this meant. But I did have an idea of it because of this video (which I did watch a number of times as I prayerfully considered applying to seminary). But the blessing that I actually received by not only studying in person with this caliber of scholars, but also having access to them in their offices, in the cafeteria, over beers, and worshiping in person - was invaluable and irreplaceable. And this is not even to consider the brotherhood forged by the shared experience of seminary life.
I would like to add that experiential formation, “crunching with the Word of God and the Sacraments,” does continue within that brotherhood of pastors in the pastoral life. The pastor highlighted in the “Today’s Seminary” video, the Rev. William Parsons, has spent many years serving, and continues to serve, in my district. Although we are not close friends and have not spent a lot of time together, he has been an enormous blessing to me at crucial times in my service in the kingdom. He has been a dear friend and mentor to me in ways that I’m certain he doesn’t even realize. And I concur with the things that he said in the video expressing gratitude for the preparation he received at seminary.
When I was considering seminary, in addition to this video, I was given a CD of the seminary Kantorei: the sixteen-man choir comprised of seminarians. Thanks to the in-person voice training that I received by volunteering in my first year to be in the chapel choir (which sings for Divine Services in the chapel), in my second and third years, I was blessed to sing with the Kantorei under the direction of Kantor Richard Resch. Though one can take music lessons online, there is no way to sing in a choir together by some kind of electronic simulacra. And the rigorous experience of practice, touring, and learning from men of the caliber of Kantor Resch, and the brothers with whom I sang, is simply not possible except by attending seminary in the flesh. Singing is an important component of what we do as pastors in the real world. And singing our Scripturally-based liturgy and magnificent corpus of Lutheran hymnody is indeed “crunching with the Word of God.”
Seminary life also included forging bonds with men from all over the world. The Russian project was happening while I was a seminarian, as men from the former Soviet Union came to Fort Wayne to join us in our studies and our formation. Two of my classmates in my Greek class were African (one from Kenya, one from Rwanda). We also encountered European, Asian, and South American students. We had deaf students, and some of my classmates became fluent in ASL. Some of my classmates did an extra year in England or Germany. I was privileged to study with, and be formed by, faithful Lutheran professors not only from all over the the United States, but also from South Africa, Japan, and Germany. I took a course with a visiting professor, the now-sainted Dr. Vassilios Tzaferis, an extraordinary archaeologist in the Israeli Department of Antiquities. And I also swept floors and sorted used clothing for the privilege of access to the food and clothing co-ops, which helped us immensely with the difficulty of living on a vastly reduced income. Indeed, seminary life teaches seminarians and their families how to live by faith in God’s merciful providence. I count all of these things as crucial parts of my own formation.
To be sure, some education can be done effectively online. My undergraduate degree - which I completed after I had resolved to apply to be accepted as an MDiv student - was from a pioneer in distance learning (two of my classes were actually done via U.S. Mail, as the online component did not yet exist). I have just begun my thirteenth year as a faculty member of Wittenberg Academy, which is an accredited classical Lutheran online institution. And I am close to completing a graduate degree via online classes. But again, these are academic endeavors that do not require vocational formation, such as a man being formed into a pastor. There are callings that require more than simply learning information. Student pilots can benefit by reading books and using a flight simulator. But to become a licensed pilot, to be formed into a pilot entrusted with flying passengers, he still has to actually fly a plane - and do it many times. Ditto for the formation of doctors and lawyers and soldiers and nurses and barbers. Having become a pastor, pilot, doctor, lawyer, soldier, nurse, or barber, one can enhance one’s ongoing education by means of watching videos and reading. But in order to become those things, there is simply more to formation than education.
And indeed, “You can’t mass produce pastors.” The cost of following Jesus - especially to proclaim the Word and administer the Sacraments - is your life. As our Lord said, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” And as Philip said to Nathaniel, “Come and see.” And in doing so, he was convinced to be formed “in the agonizing school of experience, crunching with the Word of God and the Sacraments,” and it truly was “a divine miracle that has life- and resurrection-bearing power.”