The Ministry of Word and Sacrament

Carlos Schumann, Luz Maria and Sergio Fritzler.

From July 1 to 4, 2015, Luz Maria and I attended a seminar on the pastoral office conducted in Caracas by Sergio Fritzler of Concordia Seminary in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Carlos Schumann of the Confessional Lutheran Church of Chile and a representative of Luther Academy; and Sergio Maita of Cristo Rey (Christ the King) Lutheran Church in Maturin, Venezuela, who is now a missionary from Venezuela to the Dominican Republic. The theme was the pastoral office, but we started with the concept of vocation in the Christian life.

Sergio Maita and Elsy Valladares de Machado.

God has called every Christian to live not for himself but for Christ and his neighbor, living in Christ by faith, and for others through the love of God. The Word of God changes the identity of a human being from sinner and enemy of God to child of God through baptism (Romans 6:4). Every Christian has a vocation as a member of a family, as a citizen of his country, and also in the church. We speak in this regard on the priesthood of the baptized (1 Peter 2:9). Because of the blood of Christ, every believer has the right and responsibility to offer to God petitions, thanksgiving and sacrifices of thanksgiving. However, the Lord has instituted a ministry distinct from the priesthood of alll believers to which not all are called, the ministry of preaching and administering the sacraments. The apostolic doctrine emphasizes the centrality of both the preaching and the sacraments in Christian worship as the means of grace. The doctrine of the ministry delivers the gifts of salvation. The ordained ministry is a mark of the church (1 Timothy 3:1-7, Titus 1: 5-9).

"With regard to church government it is taught nobody should publicly teach in church or preach or administer the sacraments without a regular call. " Augsburg Confession, Article XIV. The Latin phrase for "legitimate appeal" is "rite vocatus." Rite vocatus is a public act and does not consist only of congregational authorization, but normally also involves the participation of called and ordained clergy (Luke 24:50-51; Acts 6:1-6, 13.1-3; 1 Timothy 4:14; 2 Tim 1:6-7; 1 Corinthians 16:1-4).

Luther Academy is an organization that promotes genuine, confessional Lutheran theology and research through conferences, scholarly exchanges, and publications that assist the church both to preserve and to proclaim to the world the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the only saving faith. Luther Academy Luther Academy is now presenting theological seminars throughout South America and Central America, and in West Africa, Uganda, Togo, India  and Indonesia.

Carlos Schumann, Bryan Noguera, Obed Coronado, Argenis Rivas,
Abel Garcia, Carlos Loturco and Sergio Fritzler.

Concordia Seminary of Buenos Aires is the seminary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Argentina, a partner church of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. The seminary in Argentina is collaborating with Concordia Theological Seminary of Fort Wayne, Indiana, in offering a series of on-line courses for training confessional Lutheran pastors in Central and South America called "Pastoral Formation in Hispanic America". I am enrolled in this program and the seminar provided me the opportunity to meet four other men from Venezuela who are also participating: Bryan Noguera, Obed Coronado, Argenis Rivas and Carlos Loturco. Also I was reunited with Eliezer Angel Mendoza, a Venezuelan who has been attending the Buenos Aires seminary on a scholarship and who has now graduated.

Abel Garcia, Eliezer Angel Mendoza, Sergio Fritzler and Elias Lozano.

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A milestone in distance learning

On June 21, 2014, Luz Maria and I traveled to Barquisimeto and, together with Pastor Abel Garcia, director of the Juan de Frias Theological Institute and representatives of member congregations of the Lutheran Church of Venezuela, began a course in the use of Moodle, the world's premier on-line learning platform.

Moodle is an acronym for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment. It is open-source software first developed in 2002 by Martin Dougiamas, a computer scientist at Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia.

As of June 2013 Moodle had a user base of 83,008 registered and verified sites, serving 70,696,570 users in 7.5+ million courses with 1.2+ million teachers. Moodle is used by Concordia Seminary, St. Louis: Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana; and Concordia Lutheran Seminary, Edmonton, Alberta, among many other seminaries throughout the world.

We just had to meet in Barquisimeto once. The rest  of the coursework has been done on-line. Our meeting place was la Universidad Centrooccidental "Lisandro Alvarado" (UCLA, but not the UCLA in California). Established in 1962, the university specializes in the teaching of human and veterinary medicine, and agronomy. We had the opportunity to receive instruction thanks to Laura Restrepo, a member of the university's faculty and El Paraiso Lutheran Church in Barquisimeto (if you are familiar with Latin American literature, you may know there is a well-known Colombian author and journalist named Laura Restrepo. This is not that Laura Restrepo).

In addition to Pastor Abel, Luz Maria, Laura Restrepo and myself, our group included:

• Pastor Miguelángel Pérez and Zugeimar Aranguren of El Paraiso Lutheran Church, Barquisimeto.
• Yenny Gamboa, Juan Carlos and Luis Miguel Silva of La Fortaleza Lutheran Church in Maracay.
• Obed Coronado of Fuente de Vida Lutheran Church in Puerto Ordaz.
• Lino Zerpa of La Ascensión Lutheran Church in San Felix de Guayana.
• Luz Maria's daughters, Yepci and Charli Santana.

By the end of the five-week course, we all should be certified to teach on-line courses with Moodle. The adoption of this system will be a milestone for the Juan de Frias Theological Institute.

The Juan de Frias program of theological education by extension has been a great benefit to the Lutheran Church of Venezuela in the absence of a residential seminary for preparing men for Word and sacrament ministry. A residential seminary is certainly the ideal, but the ILV has not had the resources to establish one so far. 

The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod once sent missionaries to serve as the theological educators for this program. For years before the explosion of Internet access, they would travel to each of the ILV's widely scattered congregations, training pastors and catechising the laity. Pastor Ted Krey, who now is LCMS regional director of Latin American missions, was the last of these theological educators. Since Pastor Krey left in 2010, the ILV has faced mounting difficulties in maintaining the theological education by extension program. This has been in part because the state of the Venezuelan economy has made it hard for the ILV to find the funds, in part because political unrest and a rising tide of violence has made travel more and more of a risk. God willing, the increased use of the Internet for distance learning will help the Lutheran Church of Venezuela to overcome these difficulties.

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Sojourn in Maracay

From August 20 to 23, 2013, Luz Maria and I attended a short course on ecclesiology (theology of the church) taught by Mark Braden, pastor of historic Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church of Detroit, Michigan.

Zion Detroit was founded on June 4, 1882, by a group composed mostly of German immigrants from West Prussia, now a part of Poland (this is the region from which my great-great-grandparents emigrated in 1839). By the early 1890s, the congregation had almost 3,100 parishioners, and was, at the time, the largest congregation in The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, which it had joined in 1883 (of course, at the time the LCMS was not named the LCMS, but rather the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio and Other States).
 


Pastor Braden is an adjunct member of the faculties of Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana, and of Concordia University Ann Arbor, Michigan, He teaches Biblical Greek online for the seminary, and New Testament for the university. Pastor Braden speaks fluent Spanish from having spent his childhood in Cadiz, Spain, where his father, an office in the U.S. Navy, was stationed. It always is a privilege to study under qualified instructors provided by the Lutheran Church of Venezuela's Juan de Frias Theological Institute. La Fortaleza Lutheran Church of Maracay, Venezuela, hosted the seminar. This is the church where Luz Maria and I had our marriage solemnized (because in Venezuela, first you are legally married in a civil ceremony and later, if you desire, there is a service of blessing in the church).

Krey challenges delegates to be ‘Baptized for Mercy’

Also, when I first arrived in Venezuela in 2003, I lived in Maracay with Pastor Ted Krey (now LCMS World Missions regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean) and studied Spanish at the Language College. Also at the time, Ross Johnson, who is now director of the LCMS Disaster Response ministry, was serving his vicarage at La Fortaleza Lutheran Church.
Edgar Coronado, the current pastor of La Fortaleza, was one of the first Venezuelans that I met when I toured the country in April 2003, before I began my long-term service that July. So it was with many fond memories that we traveled to Maracay.

Luz Maria and I did a presentation on the pastoral office, comparing the treatment of the subject in John Theodore Mueller' s "Christian Dogmatics" and chapter 6 of Sergio Fritzler's “El Oficio Pastoral”.

Mueller was a professor at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, from 1920 to 1964. His book is an abridged English version of Franz Pieper's classic three-volume work, Christliche Dogmatik. It was the first English translation of Pieper's work, and was, in turn, translated into Spanish by Andrés A. Melendez, founder of the Spanish Lutheran Hour (Cristo Para Todas Las Naciones).

 I remember reading the complete, unabridged English translation of Pieper's work by T. Engelder, J. T. Mueller; and W. W. F. Albrecht in my father's study years ago when I was a boy. It was a major influence on my thinking. Pieper, by the way, was also a native of Pomerania, the land of my ancestors. He was born west of Danzig (now known as Gdansk).

Sergio Fritzler serves as director of Concordia Seminary in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the seminary of la Iglesia Evangélica Luterana Argentina (IELA) (Evangelical Lutheran Church in Argentina). The chapter that we were assigned from Fritzler's book is more of a historical overview in the way perceptions of the pastoral office have changed from the time of Constantine (fourth century A.D.) until the present, while Mueller's handbook of systematic theology deals the topic in a more abstract way.

Nevertheless Luz Maria and I recognized a common theme: We Lutherans believe in apostolic succession, although in a manner different than that of the Roman Catholic Church. Christ Himself instituted the office of pastor to continue the work of the apostles: Preaching and teaching the apostolic doctrine and administering the sacraments. God calls and places men into the ministry of Word and sacrament using the church as an instrument. However, the right of apostolic succession is based on fidelity to the Holy Scriptures, not on an historic episcopate supposedly dating back in an unbroken line to the time of the apostles.

 Luz Maria elected president of women's organization

From Sept. 5 to 8, 2013, Luz Maria attended the national convention of Sociedad Luterana de Damas Venezolanas (SOLUDAVE), the Lutheran Church of Venezuela's women's organization. It took place at a retreat center near Barquisimeto, with the focus being on a study of the prophetess Deborah in the Book of Judges and the role of women in the church. Luz Maria was elected president of the organization.

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