Synod approves training and accreditation authority

A Training and Accreditation Authority will be established in the LCANZ. The body will assess training and accreditation needs across the church and ensure that effective strategies are in place or developed to respond to them.

Synod approved the establishment of the body proposed by General Church Board and following a presentation by Pastor Greg Pietsch, who led the Ministry Future Project established by the College of Bishops. He said that, as a result of this churchwide research, the LCANZ is in a better position to understand the ministry personnel learning needs across the church and to respond accordingly in developing training and accreditation opportunities.

‘Historically the church prepared pastors and lay workers for its congregations and other ministries, and teachers for its schools, through full-time pre-service study over a number of years in our seminary and teachers college in Adelaide’, Pastor Pietsch said. ‘But, as the Ministry Future Project shows, pre-service training has all but disappeared.’

He said there is now a much greater focus on in-service training, ‘usually with the desire for specialised training specific to the particular type of ministry, such as school chaplain, aged care chaplain, pastoral carer, and specific ministry pastor’.

Pastor Pietsch also highlighted the impact of the growing number of pastoral vacancies on lay people.

‘Increasingly, pastoral vacancies are permanent and increasing in number, with local lay people taking leading ministry roles in ways they haven’t before, and without a pastor there to train them. Learning in-place for lay people is, of course, essential.’

The Training and Accreditation Authority will map ministry roles across the church, whether ordained or lay, paid or voluntary, including specialisations, and research initial and ongoing ministry accreditation and incorporate this into a Ministry Personnel Framework.

The body will include representatives from the College of Bishops, Australian Lutheran College, Lutheran Education Australia and LCANZ Church Worker Support, as well as district mission directors and representatives from Lutheran service organisations.

It will also connect closely with the Congregational Life Resource Hub project, under which resources and services from across the church are being collated and curated in a central website location, easily accessible by members of the church. Ongoing, these resources will be refined and structured to align with the training needs identified by the Training and Accreditation Authority.

The establishment of the Training and Accreditation Authority marks a significant step in ensuring that ministry personnel are effectively equipped to serve the church, Pastor Pietsch said.