Call Day 2026: An answer to prayer

Students, faculty and other guests prepare to process into Kramer Chapel for Call Day at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, on April 29. (LCMS/Erik M. Lunsford)

By Cheryl Magness and Mary Henrichs

On April 28 and 29, the seminaries of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) held their annual assignment and call services, during which second-year students received their vicarage and deaconess internship assignments and fourth-year students received their first calls to pastoral and diaconal ministry. While the formal celebration of Call Day includes the majority of the seminaries’ assignments and placements, additional calls may be made at other times during the year.

Concordia Seminary, St. Louis (CSL)

On April 28, a total of 97 CSL students received their assignments as vicars and deaconess interns (at 3 p.m.) and their first calls to pastoral and diaconal ministry (at 7 p.m.) in the Chapel of St. Timothy and St. Titus on the CSL campus.

Preaching for the first service of the day, the Rev. Joel Shaltanis, pastor at Lord of Life Lutheran Church, Plano, Texas, called hearers to a “life of service” that models Christ’s sacrificial love.

“The sheep you serve are not your sheep; they are the Lord’s, and you are His servant. … As Jesus told His disciples, ‘Whoever would be great among you must be your servant … even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many’” (Matt. 20:26–28).

Jacob Diercks, who received a vicarage assignment to First Lutheran Church in Bozeman, Mont., said that he and his wife, Julie, are excited for the adventure ahead and look forward to living in Montana and experiencing its beauty but will miss the seminary community.

“I especially look forward to getting to do what I have been training for and learning about the last two years,” Diercks said. “I get to put all these skills to use and learn some new ones along the way. … [But] I’m going to miss the great community that we have here on campus. … I’m excited to share stories with them in our fourth year.”

During the service, 50 Master of Divinity (M.Div.), two Residential Alternate Route (RAR) and two residential Deaconess Studies (DCS) students received assignments. One deaconess student has an assignment pending.

Preaching for the 7 p.m. service on John 10 — “I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep” (John 10:11) — the Rev. Brady Finnern, president of the LCMS Minnesota North District and chairman of the LCMS Council of Presidents, highlighted the church’s need for pastors but also reminded the assembly that any one person is only a small part of the eternal church.

“As district presidents,” Finnern said, “we … visit congregations, and what a humbling reality that is [to] realize that the beloved people of those congregations have been following the Good Shepherd long before [our arrival].” Finnern called all in the church, both the sheep and the shepherds who serve them in Christ’s name, to keep their eyes fixed on the Good Shepherd, who “has purchased the church with His own blood” (Acts 20:28) and who knows what His church needs and has promised to provide it.

The pastoral students receiving calls during the 7 p.m. service included 28 M.Div. students, three RAR students, three Ethnic Immigrant Institute of Theology (EIIT) students and three Cross-cultural Ministry Center students. Four residential DCS students and two EIIT-DCS students also received calls. One deaconess student has a call pending.

A ‘bittersweet’ leaving

Among those who received calls was Biruk Chiksa, a former literature and linguistics teacher who grew up in the Coptic Orthodox Church in Ethiopia but converted to Lutheranism in high school. Chiksa, who is married and has four children, will serve as a missionary for the LCMS Atlantic District, based in Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y. He said he became Lutheran because although “we had Scripture at home” when he was growing up, “no one read it. [In the Lutheran church], I had a chance to read the Scripture and get to know Jesus.” He is “very excited” to begin his service to the Atlantic District, where he will work with church revitalization.

Biruk Chiksa is congratulated by the Rev. Dr. Thomas Egger, president of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, after receiving his call papers on April 28. (LCMS/Frank Kohn)

Both Harry “Tucker” Wright and Tyler Simmons are also entering the pastoral ministry after careers in other areas: Wright in IT and music ministry, and Simmons in the military.

Simmons, who is married and has four children, “knew I was going to be a pastor since I was 3 … [but I] didn’t want to have to go into debt to get my education, so I joined the military instead.” He served in the Marine Corps for 9-1/2 years, then joined the Navy, but one morning, sitting in church, “it just clicked that God was saying, ‘Now.’”

He credits the Rev. Dr. Craig Muehler, director of LCMS Ministry to the Armed Forces, with helping him navigate the transition from military service to seminary. He also credits the seminary, his teachers — “Every single professor wants to give you what they wished they had or what they were thankful for [as they entered] the ministry” — and the generosity of the church, which “rallies around and supports and wants pastors,” for bringing him and his classmates to this point. He describes leaving as “bittersweet.”

Simmons will serve as pastor at Faith Lutheran Church in East Wenatchee, Wash.

Wright, who is married with grown children, had also long wanted to enter the pastoral ministry, but did not see a clear path until later in life. When he talked to his pastor about seminary, he was told, “If you go … you will come out a changed man. … I didn’t really believe him, but the formation and the environment here have changed everything: the way I look at life, the way I approach Scripture, the way I approach people in general. … It’s been absolutely wonderful, and I’ve been able to do things that I never dreamed possible.”

Wright will serve as pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Fredericksburg, Va.

Jacob Manning and his wife, Julie, both came to CSL immediately after college and met as first-year students — Jacob in the Master of Divinity program and Julie in the Deaconess Studies program. They began dating in their second year at CSL, then spent a year apart as Jacob served a vicarage in Florida and Julie served an internship in Texas. They married in August 2025 after returning to CSL for their fourth year.

Jacob is thankful not only that he met his wife at the seminary, but that he was able to meet “so many different people from all across the world. … We’re all Lutheran … all one theology, all one doctrine, but different ways of expressing it.” The Mannings both received calls to Loving Savior of the Hills Lutheran Church in Chino Hills, Calif., where Jacob will serve as associate pastor and Julie will serve as deaconess.

A complete list of assignments and placements, including an interactive map and photos, can be found at csl.edu/call-day.

Deaconess students line up ahead of receiving their calls in the Chapel of St. Timothy and St. Titus at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, on April 28. (LCMS/Frank Kohn)

Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne (CTSFW)

Across two evening services in CTSFW’s Kramer Chapel, 67 students received their assignments as vicars and deaconess interns (April 28) and their first calls to pastoral ministry (April 29). In addition, on May 14, seven deaconess students received their placements during daily chapel at CTSFW.

Preaching at the vicarage and deaconess placement service, the Rev. Eric Lange of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Gresham, Ore., echoed St. Peter’s call for Christians to “have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind” (1 Peter 3:8). He urged vicars to love their supervisors, who are likewise called to love them: “We all have one Shepherd, who has made a covenant of peace, an everlasting covenant with you.”

During the service, 28 M.Div. students and two RAR students received vicarage placements, and three students in the M.A. in Deaconess Studies—Distance program received internship assignments.

‘Coast to coast’

One of the men receiving his assignment was Ryan Skove of Riverside, Calif., who joined the LCMS as an adult. He and his wife, Kelly, grew up in broadly evangelical churches, and he was previously active in bi-vocational ministry with an Anabaptist church.

“But then I discovered the Confessions,” he said, which “helped answer a lot of questions that I didn’t even know I had.” He first found Lutheran doctrine online from various confessional Lutheran YouTube channels until “eventually, I just decided to buy the Book of Concord and try to read it myself. That was one of those turning points.”

The Lutheran teaching on the Means of Grace stood out to him in particular: “I didn’t grow up with that at all … If you don’t have [the Means of Grace], God is basically just in your emotions … that’s how you find Him. But in the Means of Grace, He actually comes to you in this real, tangible way.”

After becoming members at Christ the King Lutheran Church in Redlands, Calif., another turning point came when Kelly “hinted to [the pastor] that I was interested in ministry.”

With their pastor’s encouragement, the Skoves made the leap to CTSFW. Although moving his young children 2,000 miles across the country wasn’t easy, “immediately, the seminary helped us,” and the Skoves were welcomed into a vibrant seminary community.

“You pray together, you reach out to each other when you’re struggling, and they’re there for you,” said Skove of the brotherhood he’s found on campus. “There are arguments, there are disagreements, there’s working out that stuff, all in brotherly love … You learn so much from each other.”

Skove will serve his vicarage at Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Asheville, N.C., in the Southeastern District. Having lived in the West and now the Midwest, the Skoves are excited to go east: “We wanted to do coast to coast.”

‘Heralds of the Gospel’

The Rev. William Harmon, president of the Southeastern District, preached at the Candidate Placement Service the following day, during which 34 candidates — 30 M.Div. and three RAR students from CTSFW and one M.Div. student from Concordia Lutheran Theological Seminary in St. Catharines, Canada — received calls into the pastoral ministry: “You, tonight, are being called into an office where you have the great privilege to be proclaimers of His grace. You are being given the honor to be heralds of the Gospel.”

One of those heralds is Jonathan Poppe, who became a student at CTSFW after nine years serving as a Lutheran school teacher. Having grown up attending Lutheran schools, Poppe taught for three years at a Lutheran school in Hawaii and then for six years at a Lutheran school in Rockford, Ill., after graduating from Concordia University Chicago, River Forest, Ill. His path to the seminary was shaped by his time in Lutheran schools, both as a student and as a teacher: “We need good Lutheran schools, and I want to be a part of that.”

Sent on vicarage to Grace Lutheran Church in St. Peterburg, Fla., which has a school of about 300, Poppe learned a lot on the ground about school ministry, but not necessarily what he was expecting: His vicarage “changed pretty drastically after a month and a half in.”

In Fall 2024, St. Petersburg was hit by Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Fifty families of the congregation were displaced, and the church suffered over a million dollars in damages. “Almost all the classrooms were unusable,” said Poppe. While the school was being restored, the preschool had to meet in the gym, and grades 5–8 had most of their classes in the church sanctuary, where Poppe taught a weekly theology course.

Back on campus at CTSFW in Fall 2025, Poppe found that “almost everybody had … something defining about their vicarage,” and they relished the opportunity to talk through those situations together. “The time … here is irreplaceable,” said Poppe. “Time with this group of guys, to grow close to them … [to] just sit and talk together. And the time with the professors. [Everyone has] time for you here.”

Poppe, who is president of his class, will serve as pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in Hilbert, Wis. — a church that also has a Lutheran school. He and his wife, Haley, have two children.

A complete list of CTSFW’s assignments and placements, including an interactive map and photos, can be found at ctsfw.edu/callday.

The Rev. Dr. Jon Bruss, president of Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, addresses pastoral candidates in Kramer Chapel during Call Day on April 29. (LCMS/Erik M. Lunsford)

The church prays

LCMS President Rev. Dr. Matthew C. Harrison addressed candidates at both call services. “For the better part of 200 years, the Missouri Synod has been praying that the Lord of the harvest send workers,” he said to those assembled in Fort Wayne. “You are the answer to prayers, not only now, but prayers that have gone on for decades, centuries.”

Across both seminaries and including all routes this call season, 79 candidates received calls into the Holy Ministry, while 78 calls went unfilled. The Rev. Dr. Jon Bruss, president of CTSFW, asked the church “to keep those blood-bought Christians in your prayers. Pray that the Lord of the harvest will … raise up men for those congregations, raise up pastors.” Both seminaries are reporting increased enrollment in their incoming classes.

“Call Day fills us with a holy awe,” said CSL President Rev. Dr. Thomas Egger. “The living God is calling workers for His harvest. He has given them glorious news to proclaim: Christ is risen! He is living! Come find mercy and eternal life in Him. We thank God for each one receiving a call, and we will be praying for them.”

Posted May 21, 2026