The heart of Lutheran Mission Matters beats in rhythm with the eternal and all- encompassing love that our God has for the world. No greater love can be found than in God sending His only Son into the world, not to condemn it, but to save it. His love is only matched by His Son freely laying down His life for all people of all times so that their relationship with their Father-broken by sin-might be healed. All of God’s revelation in Word and deed proceeds from His deep compassion for us who by nature are separated from Him. He describes us as sheep, harassed and helpless, without the presence, protection, and provision of the Good Shepherd (Mt 9:37-38). In the context of the Lord’s missionary compassion, He raised the issue of theological education, the need for the Lord of the harvest to raise up laborers for the harvest-which naturally assumes that they be well equipped for the missionary work set before them. I was asked some months ago to serve as guest editor for this issue of Lutheran Mission…

Shortly after John Johnson became president of Concordia Seminary in 1990, his various discussions with both the internal and the external constituencies of the seminary led him to initiate a needed curriculum review. The result was a four-year process led by a Curriculum Review and Design Committee (CRDC-which almost became, at times, a four-letter pejorative in its own right, as these projects tend to do). This began in 1991, concluded in 1995, and extended into a “phase 2” to evaluate the changes and implement further work in 1998-2000. This latter follow-up then somewhat lost its way in the face of various stresses, including the spikes in enrollment in 2001-2002 and the economic downturn at that time. Here we will focus on the CRDC process itself, in light of mission interests of the church-at-large and as the mission of Christ’s kingdom relates to pastoral ministry and its formation through a seminary curriculum. I was a member of that committee from the outset, representing the Exegetical Department, and eventually chaired the committee after L. Dean Hempelmann, then Academic Dean, left to become…