What purpose and objectives
does WLS aim to serve?
The purpose of Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary is to equip pastors for the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod or for churches and cultural groups within its confessional fellowship.
In partnership with sister seminaries and theological training programs of its fellowship, WLS accomplishes that singular purpose with two distinct emphases:
- Primarily, WLS prepares men to begin pastoral ministry by providing the spiritual, theological, and professional training needed to enter that ministry.
- WLS also partners with pastors in their ministry-long pursuit of spiritual, theological, and professional growth in all their God-given callings.
To carry out its purpose,
Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary has established the following objectives:
- to lead theological students and pastors in a reverent study of the inspired and inerrant Word of God so that they are able to understand and apply its Christ-centered message of law and gospel;
- to encourage theological students and pastors to grow in their personal faith through daily contact with the means of grace;
- to teach all the areas of the theological curriculum in a thorough and scholarly fashion, in full harmony with the Holy Scriptures and in conscious agreement with the Lutheran Confessions;
- to train theological students and pastors in the skills required for ministry in an ever-changing world;
- to instill in theological students and pastors the kinds of attitudes that will assist them as they carry out their ministry in the contemporary world, e.g., confessional in stance, evangelical in approach, mission-minded in spirit, culturally sensitive, appropriately flexible, and zealous both to nurture and to equip the saints.
All the work of the seminary on campus, in field work, and in its service to the church, is focused on fulfilling these objectives.