Center for Missional and Pastoral Leadership Responds to LCMS Seminaries

CMPL response is the strongest confirmation that it is targeting potential LCMS pastors.

Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Kloha, Dean of the CMPL at the Institute of Lutheran Theology, has responded to last week’s warnings from the LCMS seminaries:

LCMS Seminaries Warn Off Unsanctioned MDiv Programs

Kloha’s statement concedes the doctrinal convictions of LCMS leaders, but asks for a more collaborative and contextual approach to address the pastoral shortage in LCMS congregations.

The LCMS’ own health plan projects that within ten years, given current retirement and death rates and current LCMS seminary graduation rates, around 45% of LCMS congregations will not have access to regular pastoral care. It is frankly astounding to us that this is not seen as the number one issue facing our congregations. Already today healthy congregations that can afford to pay a full salary and benefits are experiencing vacancies of up to four years or more, with multiple calls issued and declined. CMPL would gladly help in the effort to provide faithful and effective pastors, if we were permitted to do so.

Kloha asserts the effectiveness of online education, citing ILT’s accreditation by the Association of Theological Schools (ATS). He writes that the CMPL and ILT's Master of Divinity program is comparable to programs at CSL and CTSFW, including required Greek and Hebrew. Course content also mirrors traditional residential programs, and the faculty, with over 70 years of experience, has trained nearly 2,000 LCMS pastors and leaders.

He disagrees that there is any inherent superiority in residential pastoral formation based on historical challenges in the LCMS seminaries. Kloha adds,

This is a time for creative faithfulness in providing workers for Christ’s harvest fields. In the first century and more of LCMS history, congregations (not the synodical structure) were at the forefront of bringing the Gospel in creative ways to their communities…

We are undeniably now also in an age that requires rethinking institutions. What may have worked 50, 75, or 100 years ago may no longer be effective. The same Gospel, the same theology, the same Confession remains, but how we raise up people to speak that Gospel and Confession can and must change. CMPL is willing to be a part of the conversation, and some small part of the solution.

Kloha draws attention to CMPL’s cost structure, which is designed to match or undercut the seminaries on a total-cost-to-student basis. The cost of a full M.Div. program has been set at $163 per credit hour for a total of ~$14,700. CMPL compares this to estimated yearly costs for residential seminarians of $15,000 to $20,000, not including relocation expenses, but net of free tuition offered by the Sems. CMPL offers the M.Div free to “church planters and their congregations to support new ministry initiatives”.

The CMPL response is the strongest confirmation that it is targeting potential LCMS pastors in the expectation, or hope, of being able to place them in Synod congregations.

☩TW☩