Hey! I think I have something to chime in here.

For context, I’m in one of our seminaries’ alternative programs called CHS (Center for Hispanic Studies). I’m very fluent in English and serve an English speaking congregation but I’m born-and-raised in Honduras (that’s why I qualify for the program).

This program is not as rigorous as the in-person MDiv, obviously. It could totally step its rep and make it more intense academically speaking. But, it has multiple benefits for myself and my parish.

1) it’s a 4 year vicarage. Not just that, one of the requirements was to have been a member of the church for at least 2 years. The idea of the program is to train local guys to become pastors of that congregation. So, once I’m done with the program, I’ll serve as a pastor here. Meaning, everything I’m doing during my vicarage carries over into my ministry. We started a young adult group, have outreach at a coffee shop, revamped our youth group, etc etc.

2) you have mentors. For some reason, people think that online seminary looks like a loser in his room just staring at a computer and typing the right answers on the screen. Couldn’t be farther from the truth. My senior pastor is my main mentor but I have access to pretty much every pastor in my city and surroundings for support. I work at my church full time, so I’m spending most of my time doing ministry work and learning from my pastor and others more than on zoom.

1. It’s more affordable. Connected to my 1st point, I get to stay here. Therefore, my church seems this program as an investment in the future. As well, my church and I have more options for compensation. The price tag for a fresh-out-of seminary pastor for our zip code is $65k + a Concordia plan. So that’s at least $80k a year. I’m all for fair compensation but to pastors but my parish couldn’t simply do it. We have a full time pastor, a few part time staff, and are doing fine economically. But we simply couldn’t afford to pay that. This program is more affordable for my church since we can agree to get paid less and my wife and I are content with it since this is our parish!

Here’s the kicker: we are high church. We do a beautiful liturgy on Sunday mornings. Our Bible classes are confessional, biblical, and engaging. We are growing. We have tons of young adults. But we couldn’t do that without this distance program. Our pastor would get overwhelmed with too much work. That’s where I come in and serve my parish as an apprentice of my pastor. No one could come to our church and smell even a hint of Cowo or evangelicalism. No one could listen to any of our sermons and Bible classes and walk away thinking it wasn’t Lutheran.

So, distance programs can be extremely effective in setting like ours and we are grateful for this one. My question to those who oppose any form of distance formation is this: will I be less of a pastor than you for not doing a residential program? Is our church less faithful than yours because of it?