Editor’s Note: Articles from Set Apart to Serve, the LCMS’ church work recruitment initiative, are hosted here on The Lutheran Witness site. Visit the “Ministry Features” page for regular content on church work recruitment and formation.
“We wished indeed to lead our churches and schools, first of all, to the fountains of Holy Scripture, and to the Creeds, and then to the Augsburg Confession. … We most earnestly encourage that the young men be instructed in this faithfully and diligently, especially those who are being educated for the holy ministry of the churches and schools. Then the pure doctrine and profession of our faith may, by the Holy Spirit’s help, be preserved and spread also to our future generations, until the glorious advent of Jesus Christ (Titus 2:13), our only Redeemer and Savior.”[1]
Over 85 Lutheran civic and church leaders subscribed their names to these words and to the whole Book of Concord (1580).
This is the same confession that our 11,389 full-time rostered, ordained and commissioned LCMS church workers[2] have vowed to uphold. At their ordination and/or installation, they vowed to confess the unaltered Augsburg Confession to be a true exposition of Holy Scripture and a correct exhibition of the doctrine of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. They also confessed that the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, the Small and Large Catechisms of Martin Luther, the Smalcald Articles, the Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope, and the Formula of Concord (as contained in the Book of Concord) are in agreement with this one scriptural faith.
The 1580 Lutherans also confessed: “In these Last Times and in this old age of the world (Acts 2:17), what a remarkable favor of Almighty God has arisen after the darkness of papal superstitions! According to His unspeakable love, patience, and mercy, He willed that the light of His Gospel (2 Cor. 4:4) and Word — through which alone we receive true salvation — should arise and shine clearly and purely.”[3]
We know these confessors continued to battle the darkness of a fallen world. Bloody wars continued to break out against Lutheranism and between nations; the plague brought suffering and death; poverty prevailed; personal freedoms were limited; farming and business were difficult. Yet, whether in 1580 or 2024, we Lutherans confront the sin and darkness of this world with the same “Confession … prepared from God’s Word.”[4] This confession is rooted in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our light and our salvation.
There are many interpretations of the Bible today. Only one leads to the full, free forgiveness of sin and to eternal salvation: Christ alone, as the Scriptures testify of Him (John 5:39). Luther wrote, “The first and chief article is this: Jesus Christ, our God and Lord, died for our sins and was raised again for our justification. … Nothing of this article can be yielded or surrendered. … Upon this article everything that we teach and practice depends.”[5]
As our LCMS church workers preach and teach God’s Word from pulpits, classrooms, youth rooms, meeting rooms, dinner tables and hospital rooms whether about Baptism, sexuality, the Ten Commandments, resiliency, Holy Communion, comfort, God’s will, diversity, state mandates, budgets, vocation or anything else — all of it has its meaning in Jesus Christ.
Forming confessing church workers begins in the home, the local congregation and the Lutheran school. We immerse our children in Word and Sacrament in the Divine Service, as faith comes by hearing (Rom. 10:17). We teach them to know the Small Catechism by heart. As they mature, we read and study the Augsburg Confession with them (Heb. 5:13–14). I led 60 high school boys through the Augsburg Confession at Christ Academy at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, a year ago. They ate it up! At our Concordia universities, all our church work students read and study the Book of Concord. Men studying for the holy ministry at our seminaries receive even more instruction in the Lutheran Confessions.
Our ordained and commissioned church workers are immersed in the Lutheran Confessions that they may rightly understand, teach and confess Christ to our children and youth, singles, the married, the middle-aged, the handicapped, the elderly and the dying. And why is this important? Because “there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
To learn more about church work formation and recruitment, visit lcms.org/set-apart-to-serve.
[1]“Preface to the Christian Book of Concord” in Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2006), 10.
[2] Currently, 5,549 ordained and 5,840 commissioned.
[3] “Preface,” 3.
[4] “Preface,” 3.
[5] SA II 1–5.
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