Here Am I, Send Me (But Not Through That Door)

A few weekends ago, I sat in a sanctuary full of hope with four LCMS representatives and left with the sense that many of the concerns people brought into the room had not truly been heard. However, I went home with a clearer calling than I had when I arrived. 

That's not for nothing. But let's back up.

The "Listening Event"

The Shepherd of the Desert Lutheran Church hosted what they called “LCMS Pastoral Formation Listening Event” here in the Phoenix area, four LCMS seminary representatives, one room, and a bunch of people who actually care about where the pastors are going to come from. The stated purpose was to hear from people on the ground about alternative pathways for pastoral formation outside traditional residential seminaries.

Honest first impressions? I sensed that the panel had the body language of people who had already decided. That was my impression before the first question was asked. There was a kind of polite, institutional we're here but we're not really here energy hanging over the whole thing. Like a meeting someone is physically present in while being mentally three emails ahead.

Several attendees later told me they shared similar concerns. 

The Actual Problem We Need To Address

Pastor Jeff Sutherlin opened the floor with a sobering reality: nearly 1,000 empty pulpits in the LCMS right now. A thousand. And the answer to that is not "well, the seminaries are doing fine." That's not a solution. It's an observation that sidesteps the problem.

Then Pastor Tim Lawson made a point that was almost surgical in its precision: maybe the seminaries aren't preparing graduates to be boots on the ground ready to pastor to specific communities, socioeconomic classes, age demographics, rural congregations, working poor populations. His comments resonated with many concerns I've heard from congregations.

Yet, I left feeling that his concerns were not meaningfully addressed. 

You want to know what that kind of pastoral formation looks like in the real world? It looks like the church I serve at. It looks like sitting with people in their living rooms. It looks like preaching in jeans to a congregation that's working two jobs and barely hanging on. That formation doesn't happen exclusively in a classroom in Fort Wayne or St Louis.

The LHOS Question And the Wall

Tania Hilton, my wife, the one person in the room willing to walk straight up to the thing everyone was tiptoeing around, stood up and asked specifically about Connor Longapie. A man who attended Luther House of Study, the same program that I and others completed, and who was colloquized and ordained into the LCMS in October of 2025.

She didn't ask a trick question. She asked a straightforward question that never really received a satisfactory answer: If this is already happening for men outside our denomination, why are we making it so difficult for those raised within it?

The answers she received were roughly:

• Well, he came from a different church system and had been ordained elsewhere.

• This has been the rule for 100 years.  

• LHOS is not an orthodox seminary because they don't teach biblical inerrancy and they ordain women. (But they will still ordain someone who received a degree from them as long as they are not LCMS when they graduate.)

That last one had me gripping my armrest. I attended LHOS. I sat in those classes. Based on my experience as an LHOS student, those characterizations did not align with what I encountered in the classroom.  Chris, Lars, Nick, and Sarah, my professors, hammered the inerrancy of Scripture. It wasn't background noise. It was the foundation on which everything else was built. And the women's ordination question? The framing we were taught was not "should women be ordained"; it was "what will create a stumbling block for your congregation." That's a profoundly Lutheran pastoral hermeneutic.

The room after that exchange felt like what happens when someone makes a claim everyone knows is wrong, but the person saying it has all the credentials. The door slammed so hard it created a dust storm in the valley. That's about right.

The Hallway

At the break, I introduced myself to Dr. Bruss. It felt as if he were looking at me the way people look at you when they've already placed you in a category. His body language seemed tense before I said anything, and his first comment felt like a jab about my lifting weights and staying physically fit, something Saint Paul commends in Scripture. Fine. I've disarmed worse. I tried to make it easy, opened up about my LHOS experience, about the genuine pastoral formation that happened in the community at Christ Greenfield, about how I didn't enter that program expecting ordination but found my way toward it through genuine theological growth and years of vocational service.

Then he cut me off and asked, "Then why are you begging?"

From a man I had never met. Thirty seconds into our first conversation. In front of my brother and fellow graduate, Tim Unick, who, by the way, is a lifelong Lutheran, was born, baptized, confirmed, married, and raised his family in the LCMS.

The absolute truth is this, that landed right on the chin. It stopped me dead in my tracks like a liver punch. Not because I was offended, but because at that moment, I felt as though I wasn’t being heard. I had hoped for a conversation about my experience, my formation, and the questions I was carrying. Still, I got the distinct impression that Dr. Bruss was not interested in my story. 

As I continued sharing my story and mentioned that I'm a Registered Nurse, his response "You're a nurse, huh?" struck me as more dismissive than curious. Whether that was his intention or not, I walked away feeling as though I had already been placed into a category before I had the chance to explain who I was or why I cared so deeply about this issue. Christ had a remarkable way of seeing people before seeing their labels. I left wishing there had been more of that spirit in the conversation.

I chose not to react emotionally or end the conversation because I knew that would only distract from the point I was trying to make.

And the point I wanted to make still matters.

The Preceptor Analogy

I have precepted hundreds of nurses, nursing students and new graduate RNs. That is not an exaggeration. I've worked in telemetry, CVPCU, CPCU, PCU, neuro PCU, step downs, trauma ICU, and I've had students come from programs ranging from excellent to deeply concerning. Here's what I know about competency assessment:

You don't throw someone on the unit because their school has a name you recognize. You precept them. You walk alongside them. You assess their clinical judgment in real situations with real patients. You identify gaps and close them through the facility educator, action plans, and structured remediation. And then, when you're confident they can function safely, you release them.

If they come from a school I haven't heard of, that is not disqualifying. That is a cue to assess more carefully. My job is not to protect the reputation of a particular nursing school. My job is patient safety.

What the LCMS needs is a precept model for pastoral formation, not an institution-centered model. And honestly? We have it. At Christ Greenfield, I served as a student-in-training for three years. In multiple ministry contexts. Under Pastor Tim Ahlman, a Concordia St. Louis grad, and Pastor Michael Heiden, also a Concordia Seminary St. Louis grad. The ULC cohorts did bi-weekly check-ins where nothing was off the table: theology, personal struggle, pastoral formation, all of it. The content came through LHOS. The formation happened in the LCMS community.

Maybe I'm missing something, but when I look at the years of supervised ministry, mentoring by LCMS pastors, theological training, and ongoing accountability, I don't see a shortcut. I see a bridge. 

I don't want LHOS to replace the residential seminary. I've never said that. I'm saying: for those of us who completed the program, did the work, served the congregations, and demonstrated the formation, give us the assessment. Walk alongside us. Identify the gaps and close them. Then make a call.

Instead, Dr. Bruss's parting shot was, "Your pastor should never have advised you to attend LHOS."

Let that land for a second. The man responsible for pastoral formation, who has never seen me preach, never observed me with a grieving family, never heard me work through a theological hard question with a congregation member, never witnessed me speak the Gospel to an admitted atheist, told me my formation was wrong. Based on what? A conversation in a hallway.

So What Now?

Here's my honest answer: I don't know. But I know what Isaiah said when he encountered the living God, and the need was obvious.

Here am I. Send me.

He didn't say, “Send me if I can get the right paperwork first”. He didn't say, “Send me pending approval from the council”. He said, "Send me," because the mission was right in front of him and no one was going.

There are nearly a thousand empty pulpits. I am bi-vocational; I have the training, I have the formation, I have the call. Yet I left Phoenix with the impression that defending existing structures had taken precedence over a serious exploration of alternative pathways. When preserving the institution becomes more important than advancing the Gospel, it's worth asking whether our priorities are in the right order. At this point, I have little to lose by asking the question. The decision has already been made that my path to ordination does not fit within the current system.The Holy Spirit continues to work even when institutions struggle to adapt. 

The need is real. The workers are few. The harvest is plentiful.

Here am I.

Nathan is an RN, Psych NP student, a former Air Force medic, a Kairos/LHOS MDiv graduate, and a lay ministry worker in the Phoenix area pursuing ordination through the LCMS.