“Patrick” is simply wrong and here in his screed against seminary training for pastors.

First, as it stands now, tuition for seminary in the LCMS is covered by donors. So the histrionics about seminary graduates being sold into debt slavery, making them prisoners of false doctrine, is a strange fantasy not grounded in reality.

Second, I wonder if “Pat” would want his cardiologist, his airline pilot, or the folks who are engineering the bridges he drives over to also be trained by “short apprenticeships.” Are there also calls to abolish all medical schools, law schools, engineering schools, and flight schools? Should we similarly train our military this way? Can’t we just get our recruits to do their basic training on Zoom? They could simulate shooting, cleaning their rifles, marching, and even flying and as working aircraft mechanics by means of apps on their phones. That way, we wouldn’t need to pay to house them. We could even let them stay in their jammies all day and have an AI drill instructor teach them how to handle weaponry and avoid trench-foot. Or maybe their uncles who were in the army 20 years ago could just provide them with “short apprenticeships.” I’m sure our national security wouldn’t suffer.

Maybe that’s different. Because, you know, medicine and law and police work and engineering and the country’s defense are important. Any dude with a Bible and a “Booka Conquered” can jump up in the pulpit after watching a couple training videos, and maybe - for advanced pastoral studies - watch some Davey and Goliath reruns. By contrast, it’s just preaching. It’s just not that important, and really, anybody can do it, right?

I find that a lot of people (mainly those who never went to seminary, and who have no idea what pastoral formation entails) think that training a pastor is essentially a matter of just imparting certain technical skills. “Patrick” mentioned elsewhere that he had come from a Protestant church body in which any male is permitted to “speak” in that church body’s worship services. Apparently, “Pat” has held onto that particular doctrine that denies the Office of the Holy Ministry in lieu of a kind of functional approach at odds with the Lutheran confessions.

There is indeed education in pastoral formation. There are languages to learn. There is intensive study of Scripture to be undertaken. There is church history spanning a couple millennia to delve into. There is the study of systematic theology, of the theology of worship, of christology and sacramentaology and various understandings of the Word of God to be pored over. There is the world of hymnody, music, and liturgical chanting to be joyfully encountered to the edification of one’s spiritual formation. There are also practical things to learn, such as giving Law/Gospel pastoral care to parishioners, how to take care of oneself spiritually, how to hear a confession, how to celebrate a Divine Service and other liturgies, how to pray ex corde, how to prepare and deliver a sermon, how to deal with antagonists, what to do regarding demonic issues, how to teach youth and adults, how to manage resources, how to lead a staff if applicable, etc.

But what is truly missing in a computer-based apprenticeship model is formation.

I am still trying to find the quote that appeared in a circa 1998 CTS recruitment video, but the Rev. Prof. Kurt Marquart of blessed memory observed that “Pastors are not mass produced” but are formed by the Holy Spirit in the crucible of the Scriptures. Pastoral formation happens not in atomized, individualized screen-based training modules, nor by exposure to one single pastor/instructor. We pastors are formed with our fathers and brothers in the life of the seminary: in the classroom, the dorm, the dining hall, the faculty offices, the confessional, the library, over beers at Gemuetlichkeit, and especially the chapel. We pray together (as much as four times a day in the daily offices), eat together (with seminarians and with the faculty), debate together, fight with each other, reconcile with each other; laughing, weeping, struggling, helping, being helped, singing, blowing off steam, rejoicing, and mutually sharpening the iron of one another, together, in the flesh, incarnationally, face-to-face, as brothers sub crucem (under the cross), over the course of three years (plus a year in a parochial setting, a practicum apart from the campus) - not isolated and insulated from one another, not rushed through a Netflix-style subscription model. Formation takes time. It takes years. It just does. That is the reality of the matter. There is no such thing as a free lunch or an instant bottle of wine.

As for me, 23 years after surrendering my old life to prepare for the Office of the Holy Ministry, when my seminary brothers show up for a visit, or when we find ourselves together for a conference - we have a bond that simply cannot be understood by anyone who has not been formed for the ministry or for similar service. It is a bond that is both fraternal and supernatural. It strengthens all of us, and by extension, strengthens our congregations. I can’t begin to imagine what would make it worth our while to trade it away for some dark pottage of Gnosticized convenience, or being able to have just-add-water mass-produced pastors on the cheap.

Pastoral service is a service. We are the Church Militant. Barring truly extraordinary circumstances, if you want to skip seminary because you don’t want to leave your good job, or you don’t want to have to move, or you don’t want to have to spend four years studying, or you don’t want to have to get a degree, or you don’t want to have to learn biblical languages, or you don’t want to have to buy books, or you don’t want to have to… well, frankly, you are not fit to serve in the Office of the Holy Ministry. There are other ways for you to serve the kingdom, but the pastoral office is not for you. The ministry means that you can be sent anywhere. God may call you to serve in a foreign mission field, or a chaplaincy of some sort, or to a congregation elsewhere in the country, a long way from your current home. No soldier gets to hand-pick where he serves. We are men under orders. We are men who are called and sent. We are men who have left one room, shut the door behind us, and have entered another. And as our Lord said, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62). Our Lord had His discipuli (students) with Him for three years before their ordinations and calls. Their tuition cost them their lives. They walked away from their fishing businesses, Matthew left a good government job, and all of the eventual apostles gave up all the other constants in their lives when our Lord said, “Follow Me.” And all but one died as martyrs. And that is what we are signing up for, certainly figuratively, possibly literally. The cost is far greater than your tuition.

I recently ran into an ELCA pastor of a more moderate stripe within his communion. He told me that their seminaries have all become Social (In)Justice institutions. And so, those who want to actually study theology have to bypass the seminaries. They have an ELCA “house of study” in South Dakota - affiliated with the North American Baptist Conference’s Kairos University - to do just that. And you can study under their tutelage remotely, even earning an MDiv for a $300/month subscription to online video classes with a weekly online live session and “mentoring” over the computer. But not to worry, seminary students are expected to be in a “ministry context” - such as teaching Sunday School.

Amazingly, we have LCMS pastors promoting not just this model, but actually promoting this very ELCA house of studies under the auspices of a Baptist seminary as an alternative to both Fort Wayne and St. Louis. The CEO of this so-called Luther House is an ELCA female “pastor.” So, why in the name of everything that is holy, would anyone in the LCMS be promoting that a man bypass our seminaries, secure an degree from this Baptist institution under the auspices of the ELCA, and then colloquize by means of the back door into the LCMS ministry?

Frankly, it should not be permitted.

You can learn more here on a podcast run by an LCMS pastor:

I have no doubt that those selling this to the LCMS are going to sing the praises of our seminaries, how great they are, how this is only to augment their fine work because of our pastor shortage, yada yada. But watch the above. Pay attention to what is being said. It is a thrashing of our current seminary system as outdated and ineffective. Don’t let them spin their way out of it. Our seminary administrations should pay close attention, as should our Praesidium.

Of course, seeking to bypass seminary formation is nothing new. It is a way for liberals and non-liturgicals in our midst get their Trojan Horses into our parishes. And why are we always being set up on blind dates with the ELCA? This is worse than kissing your sister. At least you know that your sister is a girl. The ELCA is the Dylan Mulvaney of the so-called Lutheran world, and it seems like the matchmakers are determined to get us to drink Bud Light with him. In case our “moderates” and agents of change in the LCMS haven’t noticed, we have had enough with the ELCgAy. Enough already! We’re done. Just stop. They aren’t Evangelical. They aren’t Lutheran. They aren’t Church. And they seem to hate America to boot. I don’t think I’m alone when I say that I don’t want anything to do with the ELCA. Is the message getting through? Or do I have to stop being so subtle. I can become a little more explicit if need be.

Aside from God’s grace, which is free, nothing worthwhile is easy. There is a cost of discipleship, and a cost in serving in the ministry. There is sacrifice involved in all vocations and in their preparation, some more than others - and some being more critical than others. Matters of life and death do require more rigorous and exacting training - as well as a longer period of study and formation. It is an investment in that which is important. And as crucial as vocations like medical doctors, airline pilots, police, EMTs, the fire service, military personnel, engineers, etc. are - the Office of the Holy Ministry is more so. For we deal with eternal life and death. We should not be seeking a workaround to make the training easier, nor should we look to apostate organizations to train and form our pastors. If anything, we should be looking to make our pastoral formation even more rigorous and committed to excellence within our own confession - and within our own superlative seminary system. In the midst of clown world, we should be doubling down on our confessional rigor - both the Bible and our quia subscription to the Book of Concord.

Unlike some other church bodies, we don’t just require male genitalia (and some don’t even require that much), a pulse, a modicum of biblical aptitude, and a winsome public speaking persona to place someone in the pulpit. We do believe that the ministry is not only an important vocation, but a divine institution - and is worthy of both doctrinal and confessional fidelity as well as unabashed rigorous formation for the men in the Office.

So often, we engage in chronological snobbery, thinking we can do everything better than the combined wisdom of the centuries.

And we need to push back hard against this Progressivist thinking. Don’t tear down Chesterton’s Fence. Our seminaries need to be strengthened, and alternate routes to the ministry need to be rare exceptions: pursued only in truly extraordinary circumstances, and remaining under the oversight of our own seminary professors - not farmed out to other organizations whose confessions of Scripture lead them to ‘ordain’ women, worship the goddess, accept higher criticism and a quatenus subscription, and promote abortion and deviant sexuality - among other abominations.

Finally, if you are thinking that God might call you into the Holy Office, I urge you to pray fervently for discernment. Visit our seminaries: the chapels, the classrooms, the dining halls, and the grounds. Talk to your pastor and other pastors. Talk to our faculties. If you commit to this life of service, be willing to walk away from your current work and lifestyle, and don’t look back. Be willing to throw your heart and soul into your studies and formation, and don’t look for a shortcut. You need this formation! You will not regret investing the time and work for the Holy Spirit to operate in this holy office and calling. You will thank God for preparing you for a life that is challenging, but also rewarding beyond imagination. Don’t cut yourself short, and don’t sell yourself short. Proceed with faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, who called the apostles, and whose name their successors proclaim, by whom they preach, teach, and celebrate. Let iron sharpen iron.

As for my interlocutor: “Come on, “Patrick!” How about you send a monthly offering to our seminary fund instead, and think about the spiritual well-being of those yet unborn - who will need actual, well-formed shepherds and not hirelings who have been rushed through an alternate program. Again, you would not want other crucial people in your life to have taken a quicker, easier, and cheaper pathway.

And since I shamelessly glommed onto the Rev. Hans Fiene’s now-iconic “Come on, Patrick!” line, here is a link to his Lutheran Satire YT channel, as well as to the original “Come on, Patrick” video from ten years ago (tempus fugit!).