Pastoral Formation Committee releases SMP document

In November, the Pastoral Formation Committee of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) finalized and approved a document that will govern the ongoing implementation of the Synod’s Specific Ministry Pastor (SMP) program. The document expresses policy requirements, effective immediately, aimed at providing clarity for the continuation of the SMP program.

The new document, “Policy Requirements for the Specific Ministry Pastor Program: Admission, Administration and Supervision,” is the outcome of many years of effort to better define and codify the SMP program, which was created by the 2007 Synod convention as a program of theological education for use in specific circumstances and contexts. In 2013, the Synod in convention created an SMP committee to provide oversight to the program and identify ways to clarify and strengthen it, but that work was never finalized, and the SMP committee no longer exists.

In 2019, the task was reassigned to the Pastoral Formation Committee, which had been created by the 2016 convention to ensure consistency in pastoral formation across the Synod. The PFC’s work on the SMP program was extended by the 2023 convention and has included interviews with all 35 district presidents and 59 circuit visitors, formal surveys and informal conversations with thousands of pastors and laypeople, and meetings with multiple stakeholders across the Synod. The PFC comprises the presidents of both LCMS seminaries, the Synod’s chief mission officer, and the executive director of the LCMS Office of Pastoral Education as an advisory member.

The new document includes:

A Preamble that briefly reviews the history of the SMP program and the work of the PFC;

A set of 17 premises that guided the committee’s considerations; and

A list of eight policy requirements that address who may apply for the SMP program and how it is to be administered.

Read/download “Policy Requirements for the Specific Ministry Pastor Program.”

Posted Nov. 12, 2025