The Winning Election Platform for Candidates Seeking LC-MS High Office

As the districts gear up for their conventions next year and ahead of the 2026 Synod National Convention, we have gleaned what Ad Crucem's customers seem to care most about.

One aspect of being a retailer with a primary LC-MS customer base is receiving a lot of feedback and hearing conversations about Synod. With more than 10,000 customers accumulated in a decade, it’s reasonable to say Ad Crucem constitutes a very representative sample of LC-MS clergy and laity who like to share their opinions. Because of Ad Crucem's profile and product set, the audience skews heavily toward Synod’s confessional and liturgical majority, so be aware of the confirmation bias.

Based on Ad Crucem’s customer network and our travel to various conferences and events, the list below represents the easily winning prioritized platform for any incumbent or challenger seeking election to high office in the Synod. Let the retail politics commence!

1. Free the Small and Large Catechisms.

   1. LCMS pastors and parishioners are annoyed and frustrated at the persistent refusal to release the SC and LC into the public domain. The reasons cited for this are very stale, and there has been more than enough time to develop solutions (see #10a).

2. Develop a plan to encourage parishes to consolidate and rationalize to address the pastor shortage and congregational viability problem. Having multiple congregations within a 45-minute drive of each other is senseless and wasteful, especially if some or all of those parishes are already in a death spiral.

   1. Provide subsidized centralized services that help reduce parish-level overheads and operating risks, primarily related to payroll, benefits, insurance, and accounting.

   2. Be especially vigilant against predatory interests seeking to profit from consolidation. The benefits of consolidation and rationalization must flow to the congregations, not to the districts or Synod.

3. Publish detailed annual financial reports for Synod and all its entities, starting with filing official tax returns (Form 990) but extending to transparent yearly reports (offered as Excel packages) with a profit and loss statement, a balance sheet, and a cash flow statement, and a willingness to explain and justify expenditures without equivocation.

4. District rationalization: Expanding the number of districts based on the District HQ being not more than a three-hour drive (six-hour roundtrip) from any parish.

   1. All DPs must be attached to an altar and actively serving that parish.

5. Commit to never repeat the COVID-19 failures. Provide a detailed accounting of the primary shortcomings and how they will be prevented for the subsequent “health” or whim emergencies.

6. Reject female ordination.

   1. Clarify the limits of women’s teaching and leading in the church, including through writing and other media activities. Commit to stopping current abuses.

7. Make the National Youth Gathering Lutheran again or terminate it.

8. Bring errant churches and districts into fellowship or bid them farewell.

   1. There is widespread frustration that churches in the LC-MS with weak or no Lutheran identities are given a free pass because they pay the highest taxes to the districts and Synod.

   2. There is no option for a ‘big tent’ of Lutheranism where we all go along to get along - we either walk together in fellowship or we don’t.

9. Make the family great again.

   1. Reject contraception and all suggestions that “family planning” is adiaphora.

   2. Be bold about proclaiming the need for and value of fecundity (the way to make new Christians is to create new Christians…).

10. Publishing:

    1. Develop an independent Bible translation with ultra-liberal copyright terms (if not entirely public domain -see #1).

       1. Harmonizing the most reliable texts from the Septuagint (LXX) and Masoretic Text.

          1. Commit to a long-term program to update all Synod resources for the new translation.

       2. Produce a public domain hymnal with a common Divine Service.

       3. Stop publishing and coddling Stephen Paulson and anyone who compromises our confession, including the 1932 Statement.

       4. Remove all literature, music, liturgies, and VBS programs contradicting Scripture and the Confessions.

       5. Stop publishing vanity projects.

11. Pastoral formation:

    1. Set once-and-for-all alternate track limitations, focusing on ending widespread abuse of the Specific Ministry Pastor (SMP) program.

    2. Address the inconsistent colloquy process and outcomes that are overly driven by the pastor shortage and a desperate desire to fill pulpits.

       1. Make the examination process more rigorous and the detailed review results transparent.

12. Take control of the Concordias and restore them to their original missions. If resistance arises, be ready to sell them off and use the proceeds to fortify the remaining entities or start over.

    1. Encourage and support Luther Classical College unambiguously, as it embodies the original mission of LC-MS colleges in spades.

13. Radically reduce funding for overseas missions and terminate those not bearing fruit. Similarly, foreign vanity projects should be put on a strict diet or eliminated.

    1. Repurpose resources for vital but destitute congregations and schools.

    2. Expand national and local missions with an intentional fast-track program to recover lapsed baptized and catechized members.

14. Split the Synod executive between functional clerical and “civilian” roles (Lutheran Church Canada has achieved this) because of the default supremacy of the corporation and its bylaws over Scripture and the Confessions.

    1. The senior hierarchy would have a Chief Theological Officer to oversee Synod’s spiritual matters and a Chief Executive Officer to manage business affairs.

    2. There should be a nearly impenetrable “Chinese Wall” between the two that the Board of Directors mediates to prevent conflicts of interest and to prioritize the Word of God, even when it is incredibly costly in worldly terms.