45930 Divine Call CTCR final - The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod

of unresolved issues. While vacancy pastors have always been a part of the
church’s life, today it may be beneficial to enlist the services of an interim
pastor who has acquired specialized skills for guiding the congregation
through a transitional period while serving them with Word and sacrament.
The congregation has the right to determine whether or not it wants an interim
pastor. An interim ministry must never be imposed.
In each of the above-mentioned cases the church engages in careful
deliberation so that any call issued for a limited period of time may not dishonor
the divine institution of the office of the public ministry nor restrict
the pastor’s freedom to proclaim the whole counsel of God in keeping with
his subscription to the Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions. 64
May Calls Be Conditional?
Calls should never be issued under certain prescribed conditions. For
example, a call should not be extended to a pastor contingent on his
achieving particular objectives such as numerical growth, the successful
completion of a capital building project, the utilization of a particular program,
or the attainment of certain budgetary goals. Such conditions directly
infringe upon the divine character of the call issued by the church, and
detract from the central task of the office.
State regulations requiring a review of a potential minister’s integrity
in the area of sexual ethics can be acceptable to the church, since such a
review in effect seeks to establish that a candidate is “above reproach.” At
issue, however, is when this review takes place. In response to a request
concerning a Minnesota statute, the CTCR stated in a 1998 opinion that
unconditional calls have always been the rule in the
Synod. In fact, in the opinion of the CTCR, conditional
calls are inconsistent with Lutheran theology because they
appear to contradict the nature of the divine call as unconditionally
given by God through a Christian congregation.
64
George Nielsen provides evidence that termed calls among confessional Lutherans
were not unknown in the 19 th century. He cites the case of Pastor John Kilian, who was the
leader of Wendish Lutherans who came to Texas in 1854. Nielsen writes: “Among the Wends
who migrated in 1854 Kilian was without question the spiritual leader. He was consulted on
many other matters as well, but the temporal leadership of the Wendish community came
from laymen. The first indication of this lay leadership was in the 1854 call to Kilian. Kilian
did not gather the members of the Weigersdorf and Klitten congregation to lead them to
Texas; laymen from scattered villages in Saxony and Prussia first formed an association and
then asked Kilian to be their pastor. The laymen assumed the responsibility of gathering the
migrants and of financing the venture. The call they sent Kilian was for one year only, an
indication that the laymen could release themselves of the expenses of a pastor if they did
not succeed financially.” In Search of a Home … Nineteenth Century Wendish Immigration, Texas
A. & M. University Press, 1989, 70.
41