parish they serve, and lay training schools where laypeople can be certified to lead congregations. Martin Wells,
bishop of the Eastern Washington-Idaho Synod, said, “In our synod we have three or four [lay-led con- gregations] now.” He expects there will be more in the future. In those situa-
JOHN SPANGLER
Andrew Chavanak, who gradu- ates this spring from the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg (Pa.), says some classmates are wor- ried about the small number of pos- sible calls.
$1 million in grants covering part or all of their seminary tuition. For congregations, a long pasto-
ral vacancy or the prospect of not being able to afford a pastor can be demoralizing.
Stephen Bouman, executive direc- tor of Congregational and Synodical Mission, said that because the call situation has changed radically in the past five years, congregations need to alter their conception of the kind of person they will have as pastor. Bouman noted the growing emphasis on “bi-vocational” clergy who may have careers outside the
24 The Lutheran •
www.thelutheran.org
tions, Wells said, people selected by their congregations are given training and are licensed to preach sermons and preside at communion, a license that must be renewed each year. Wells said the process isn’t “intended to pro- vide cheap labor” for congregations, but to serve particularly dif- ficult situations.
An alternate route Some new pastors are being ordained, often for special settings, without having to go through four years of college, three years of seminary and a year of internship, the usual route to the ordained ministry. TEEM (Theological Education
for Emerging Ministries) is an ELCA program designed mainly to prepare pastors for specific ethnic communi- ties. Candidates chosen by the ELCA take a short period of instruction and spend no more than a year at an ELCA seminary. Then, if approved by a synod’s candidacy committee, they are ordained.
The new pastors are assigned mentors to continue their education and training following ordination.
Today more than 375 people have gone through the TEEM program or are currently preparing for ministry through that nontraditional process. Wells believes it’s likely that
alternate routes to ministry will be expanded in the future. Pastors with the longer, traditional seminary edu- cation leading to a master of divinity degree will become “teaching pas- tors” for those who reach ordina- tion through the TEEM program or are licensed as laypeople to lead congregations. What does all this mean for the future of congregations and pastors? ELCA officials believe many con- gregations unable to support pastors will need to be merged, yoked with other congregations or closed. Pas- tors, especially younger ones, will be reluctant to take calls to places that seem stagnant or are in terminal decline. Bouman said pastors who do go to such places may need to be “mission developers or redevelop- ers,” ready to change the character of those congregations.
And congregations may need to prepare for a different kind of pasto- ral leadership: a “bi-vocational” pas- tor with another profession, someone ordained through the TEEM program or a layperson licensed to preach and preside at the sacraments. Wartburg’s Olson said ELCA seminaries continue to look at the “big picture” and are listening to recent graduates about the problems of beginning ordained ministry. Olson and ELCA bishops say they
are pleased with the quality of those preparing for the pastorate, but that the days of a quick, smooth “easy route” from seminary to parish are over, as are the days of two-month or three-month pastoral vacancies. Olson noted, “All the seminaries are trying to work to prepare lead- ers for the church that will not be the church that was.” M
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