At the end of my last article about the Licensed Lay Deacon issue, I indicated that this time around I will talk about the history of deacons, something which I have already discussed a bit in my previous articles.  The office of Deacon is the oldest “auxiliary” (helping) office in the Church, and one which has blessed the Church greatly over the centuries.

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Thus far I’ve discussed the background of the “Licensed Lay Deacon” issue, as far as this Convention is concerned:  the concern is with laymen who are serving in the pastoral office without being properly called and ordained as pastors.  I’ve also discussed the history of this issue:  in 1989 the Synod Convention permitted the licensure of laymen to serve in Word and Sacrament in emergency situations.  Today, I want to address the theological points associated with this issue:  the Office of the Public Ministry.

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The Licensed Lay Deacon issue is not something that sprang up overnight, so it certainly cannot be solved overnight, either.  The concept of a layman being licensed to serve in Word and Sacrament was first adopted by The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod at the 1989 Synod Convention in Wichita, Kansas.  At that Convention it was decided to permit men who had been trained and licensed by districts as “Licensed Lay Deacons” to preach, teach, and administer the Sacraments.  Since then most of our districts have created their own LLD training program (according to the Task Force report, all but eight districts employ LLDs (Convention Workbook (CW) p. 251)).

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In talking about the Synod Convention, the one issue that comes to mind with the most frequency is the Resolution 4-06A Task Force.  In 2013, the previous Synod Convention adopted a resolution creating a task force to study the question of Licensed Lay Deacons and report back to the Synod with recommendations.  This is a huge issue which has caused a great deal of polarization within The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod over the last 30 years, and I don’t think it’s going to go away overnight.  My guess is that we will spend a lot of time at the Convention trying to figure this out in a way that is both faithful to our Confessions and faithful to the mission of the Church.

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One of the responsibilities of voting delegates to The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod’s National Convention is keeping the members of the circuit you represent informed about what happens at the Convention.  There are a lot of ways to do this, but one I’ve chosen is pretty familiar to me (and many others, I’m sure):  a blog.  I already operate a church blog, but I didn’t want to get things jumbled up, so I’m starting a new blog on the church website to discuss important Convention issues and keep people informed of what happens each day of the Convention.

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