How does one become a Pastor in the Lutheran Church?

Since the future pastors of our church have started studying theology in Stellenbosch, and we have met more and more of them, the following comments have come up quite regularly in conversations: “How does one become a pastor in the Lutheran church? It seems to take quite long and include a very wide spectrum of subjects”. I want to give an answer in terms of information, but also as a way of encouraging people to consider this path if you find yourself drawn to ministry in the church. It is indeed a matter of being drawn – not just a rational career choice. In our traditional language we speak of someone being “called to the ministry”. Now this may be a deeply-felt conviction that God is calling you to be a servant of the Gospel. But it can also happen that there are others in the congregation or the wider faith community who see that you “have what it takes” to be a pastor, a shepherd of God’s flock. This usually happens when they see you being actively involved in the congregation. This “outer calling” is a legitimate reason for you to investigate further, what this might mean for your journey through life.

You will need to take the following steps:

1. Have a conversation about this with your pastor. He or she will guide you in discerning more about this “call” or “vocation” and be able to give you ad- vice about the next steps. (Some time spent working in a congregation would help greatly in this discernment process.
2. Together with your pastor make contact with the bishop of your church and make an appointment for an interview with him or her. Among other things, you will be required to do a set of psychometric tests. If your pastor and the bishop agree that you “have what it takes”, the process of enrolling at the Faculty of Theology of the University of Stellenbosch can go ahead, and you can request to become a candidate for the ministry of the United Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa (UELCSA). This includes the opportunity of applying for bursaries for your studies and you will be placed into the care of the Tutor/Director of Studies appointed by UELCSA to accompany all theology students and interns throughout their studies.
3. The degree that you will register for is called a Bachelor of Divinity (a four-year course). This includes many different subjects – the ancient languages of Hebrew and Greek, church history, systematic theology, practical theology and a whole lot more that you will need in order to be able to work responsibly as a pastor in our church. Once you have done your Bachelor of Divinity, you will register for a Master of Divinity, which is a course-based Master’s degree that takes another year to complete.
4. After these five years of academic studying, you can enrol for the First Theological Examination which includes both written and oral examination before the Examination Board of the United Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa.
5. If you pass the First Theological Examination and the Church Council of UELCSA discerns that you can be appointed as an Intern in a congregation of the one of the member churches, you will be sent to such a congregation for your internship (usually this takes approximately two years and can be done in two different congregations – one of these years can be done overseas).
6. After your internship you enrol for the Second Theological Examination, which again includes written, practical and oral examinations by the Examination Board of the UELCSA. Once you have passed this exam, the Church Council of UELCSA can decide to ordain you into the office of the ministry and appoint you as Pastor Collaborator in a congregation of one of the member churches of UELCSA. You are a pastor now, but not eligible to be called by a congregation yet – you will still be working under the guidance of a pastor from a neighbouring congregation, until the church committee of that congregation and the Church Council of the member church in which you are serving agree that you can be declared eligible to be called (the Pastor Collaborator time can extend over one to four years).
7. Once you have been declared eligible for a call, the congregation in which you have been serving can decide to call you and you can decide to accept that call, or you can also decline and seek to find another congregation in which to serve.

It is indeed a long process (at least seven years), in which you will need to buckle down and learn many things, but also grow in faith, courageously face doubts and questions about your faith, and perhaps even struggle with uncertainty about your calling. All of this is good – because you will be called to guide, comfort and support people who are also going through such questioning, doubting

and uncertainty about their lives. I have been using the phrase “have what it takes” with some hesitation, because it is not quite so simple to determine whether someone “has what it takes” to become a pastor. A faith community following Jesus of Nazareth should be quite critical of any kind of “measuring of human potential”. After all, have a look at the first disciples of Jesus. Did they “have what it takes”? No
modern “personnel manager” would have employed any one of them and if I look at their track record, I would agree that they were not suitable according to human standards. But God seems to work only with people who are not suitable – perhaps God cannot find any other ones. The Bible tells the long story of God’s faithfulness to faithless, failing, sinful and unsuitable humans. That is how
God gets the work of proclaiming Grace done. Ask yourself whether God might be calling you to be a proclaimer of Grace too.

Felix Meylahn