Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, is pleased to announce that 14 students received calls to be pastors and missionaries, one student a received vicarage assignment and one student received an internship assignment in The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS). One M.Div. call is still pending. Great care is exercised in both the candidate call and the vicarage placement processes to ensure that the best possible match is realized between the seminarian and the ministry site. The assignments were given during the Seminary’s morning chapel service on Jan. 23.

Calls into the Pastoral Ministry

Master of Divinity Degree Program

• Ronald Rieger, Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, Medina, Ohio
• James Maxwell, St. Peter Lutheran Church, Whitefish, Mt.
• Paul Basil, St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, Elizabeth, N.J.
• Jonah Burakowski, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Marshall, Minn.
• Jonathan Schultz, Our Savior, Vernal, Utah, and Trinity Lutheran Churches, Rangley, Colo.
• Kevin Hintze, Grace Lutheran Church, Arlington, Texas

Certificate (Alternate Route) Program

• Gregory Pavelski, St. John, Kilkenny, and Trinity Lutheran Churches, Morristown, Minn

Ethnic Immigrant Institute of Theology (EIIT)

• Jean Parent, Salem Lutheran Church, Lake Worth, Fla.
• Lang Yang, St. Michael’s Lutheran Church, Richville, Mich.
• Gemedo Adema, Ebenezer Lutheran Church, Portland, Ore.
• Ebenezer Mallepalle, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Old Bridge, N.J.
• Michel Ovil, Salem Lutheran Church, Lake Worth, Fla.

Distance Education Leading to Ordination (DELTO)

• Daniel Flynn, St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, Ann Arbor, Mich.
• Douglas Francik, Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church, Anza, Calif.

Call Pending

• Robert Carter

Vicarage Assignment

Master of Divinity Degree Program

• Mark McCrory, First Lutheran Church, Chattanooga, Tenn.

Internship Assignment

EIIT (Deaconess)

• Saron Woldehaimanot, Our Savior Lutheran Church, Arlington, Va.

The master of divinity degree (M.Div.) program is the academic degree program in which most students who desire to be pastors, missionaries or chaplains in The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) enroll. It is a four-year program, including a one-year vicarage (internship). The certificate (alternate route) program closely parallels the M.Div. program. Although certificate students do not receive a degree, they study alongside those in the M.Div. program, including the study of the New Testament in Greek.

Ethnic Immigrant Institute of Theology (EIIT) is a specialized program leading to ordination for men engaged in pastoral missionary contexts in ethnic immigrant and urban cultures. Students are preferably first-generation immigrants leading immigrant-based churches. The program consists of distance education, contextual mentoring and regular on-campus (Seminary) modules.

The Distance Education Leading to Ordination (DELTO) program allows students to gain the experience of a vicarage along with their academic work, rather than as an intensive one-year internship. During their formation, the students are engaged in Word and Sacrament ministry as vicars under the supervision of an ordained pastor.  DELTO is being superseded by the Specific Ministry Pastor program (SMP) adopted by the Synod in Convention in July of 2007.

These students join more than 12,000 graduates from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, who have been prepared to serve as pastors, missionaries, chaplains and deaconesses in the LCMS.

For more information, contact Communications, Concordia Seminary, 801 Seminary Place, St. Louis, MO 63105; 314-505-7374;communications@csl.edu.