In their effort to be contemporary and creative in worship, many LCMS Congregations are trying to bring innovation to the Lord's Supper.

One of these innovations is to find someone else to consecrate the elements besides the pastor.

Such a practice or rather lack of it, also illustrates how many LCMS Pastors and congregations no longer understand their own religion, why they are practicing it, and what constitutes the real presence of Christ's Body and Blood and assures the forgiveness of sins in the Lord's Supper.

1. Does the Pastor speak the Words of Institution by his own authority or by the authority of the congregation?

Luther writes: "We do not let our pastor speak the words of Christ for himself, as though he were speaking them for his own person, but he is our mouthpiece, and we all from our very hearts speak the words with him." (Pastoral Theology, Fritz, CPH, page 144, 1932, also "Christian Dogmatics, Pieper, Vol. III, p. 368, CPH.")

"About the consecration, Gerhard writes: 'Since at the institution of the holy Supper, Christ explicitly commands that we do what He did when we administer it, it follows that THE MINISTERS of the church, when they want to celebrate the holy Supper, MUST repeat the Words of Institution, consecrate the bread and wine in this way, and distribute them to the communicants.'" (Pastoral Theology, Walther, CN 1995 page 131)

2. Does the consecration of the elements only belong to the pastoral office or others, such as the choir?

The Office of the Ministry is to preach the Word of God and administrate the sacraments, namely Baptism and the Lord's Supper.

Only the congregation can issue a call to this office. The minister has no authority to call anyone else to do his work of the ministry without a call from the congregation. In other words, the Voters' Assembly did not call the church choir, consisting of men and women to be its pastor and carry out the work of the ministry.

The Augsburg Confession states:

Article V: Of the Ministry.

"That we may obtain this faith, the Ministry of Teaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments was instituted. For through the Word and Sacraments, as through instruments, the Holy Ghost is given, who works faith, where and when it pleases God, in them that hear the Gospel, to wit, that God, not for our own merits, but for Christ's sake, justifies those who believe that they are received into grace for Christ's sake.

They condemn the Anabaptists and others who think that the Holy Ghost comes to men without the external Word, through their own preparations and works."

Again the Augsburg Confession states:

Article XIV: Of Ecclesiastical Order.

"Of Ecclesiastical Order they teach that no one should publicly teach in the Church or administer the Sacraments unless he be regularly called."

3. Can the President of Synod consecrate the Lord's Supper in a congregation instead of the church choir?

It should be noted that the President of the Missouri Synod, the Vice Presidents, and all of the officers of the Synod have no authority to consecrate the elements of the Lord's Supper at a Synodical Convention, because they have no call to be the pastor of the Synod. Rather, the Convention asks a guest pastor from a local congregation who receives the entire Convention as guests at his church and then serves them Communion. If the President of the Synod is forbidden to consecrate the elements at a local congregation without a call, how can the church choir be given such authority without a call?

4. If the choir can consecrate the elements who else may consecrate them?

The selection of the choir to perform the consecration of the elements by the pastor, begs the question whether the Sunday School, ushers, ladies society, etc. may also consecrate the elements. The pastoral office may only be given by the congregation to the one they call to be their pastor. Therefore, if the choir is to consecrate the elements they must have a call from the Voters' Assembly to assume the duties of the pastoral office.

5. Must the Words of Institution be spoken over the bread and wine?

Walther writes, "If the Words of Institution are not at all spoken OVER the elements, so the elements are not blessed or consecrated, one is not doing what Christ commanded. So He does not fulfill there what He promised; one is not celebrating the meal instituted by Christ; Christ's body and blood are not present; and nothing is distributed and received except bread and wine. (Pastoral Theology, Walther, CN 1995 page 133)

There is a question of proximity. How far away from the elements can the Words of Instituting be spoken?

If a pastor speaks the Words of Institution in a neighboring congregation at the same time another congregation five miles away is celebrating the Lord's Supper, (whose pastor does not speak the words), does the real presence of Christ's body and blood take place in the neighboring congregation?

Can the pastor speak the Words of Institution while sick in bed in the parsonage and at the same time consecrate the elements on the altar in the church service?

How far away can the choir be from the elements?

Walther says the words are to be "spoken over the elements" or there is no consecration and no forgiveness of sins. Over means "over" and not "over there" or anywhere else.

6. Does the physical presence of the pastor consecrate the elements?

Not the physical presence, gestures, voice, certificate of ordination, robes, or sign of the cross produce the real presence of Christ's Body and Blood in the Lord's Supper.

"Not the word or work of any man produces the true presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Supper, whether it be the merit recitation of the minister or the eating and drinking or faith of the communicants; but all this should be ascribed alone to the power of Almighty God and the Word, institution, and ordination of our Lord Jesus Christ." (Lutheran Confessions, Thorough Declaration VII, 74)

Walther explains on page 132, that the Words of Institution are an effective consecration not because of the physical presence of the pastor, not because we carry out the Words of Institution with historical accuracy, but because the Word of God itself consecrates the elements of bread and wine.

"Rather we believe and confess uprightly that the presence of the body and blood of Christ depends exclusively on the will and promise of Christ and on the constantly continuing effectiveness of the first institution." (Pastoral Theology, Walther, CN 1995, p. 132)

7. Can lay people consecrate the Lord's Supper?

If the choir can consecrate the Lord's Supper why can't the congregation read the words of institution out loud in the church service?

Walther says the lay people should not consecrate the elements of the Lord's Supper. However, if a layman did consecrate the Supper, Walther writes: "No one doubts the administration of the holy Supper by a layman who had been temporarily called by a whole congregation in an emergency, although not ordained, would be valid and legitimate...But in this way the layman is administering it not as layman but as a minister who has been truly called for a time." Page 136.

Again we note that whoever consecrates the Lord's Supper must do so with a call from the congregation. The pastor has no authority to grant the duties of his office to another. Such an action takes the authority to issue a call from the Voters' Assembly.

8. Do the Words of Institution produce the Body and Blood of Christ by the recitation of the pastor or by the confession of the congregation?

The Methodists, Baptists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Reformed Church of America, etc., say the same Words of Institution as the Lutherans but they do not receive Christ's Body and Blood in the sacrament and their sins are not forgiven in the Lord's Supper. Nor would they receive the true Lord's Supper in their congregations if a Lutheran Pastor spoke the Words of Institution nor can the faith of a Lutheran lay person cause him or her to receive the true Lords Supper in the above churches.

The real presence in the Lord's Supper only takes place in those congregations where the congregation publicly confesses that the Words of Christ's institution of the Lord's Supper are to be understood literally and not symbolically.

Where a congregation publicly denies the real presence they make the Lord's Supper symbolic, invalid, empty, and meaningless. In the same way, the Baptisms of the Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses are invalid even though they use the same words as the Lutherans because they deny the public confession of the Trinity.

"In the same manner I also speak and confess (says Luther) concerning the Sacrament of the Altar, that there the body and blood of Christ are in truth orally eaten and drunk in the bread and wine, even though the priests [ministers] who administer it [the Lord's Super], or those who receive it, should not believe or otherwise misuse it. For it does not depend upon the faith or unbelief of men, but upon God's Word and ordinance, unless they first change God's Word and ordinance and interpret it otherwise, as the enemies of the Sacrament do at the present day, who, of course, have nothing but bread and wine; for they also do not have the words and appointed ordinance of God, but have perverted and changed them according to their own [false] notion (Concordia Triglotta, CPH, St. Louis MO 1921, "The Formula of Concord. Thorough Declaration VII". Of the Holy Supper. par. 32 page 983)

"The Reformed doctrine is an actual disavowal and renunciation of Christ's words of institution. Hence they have no word of God for their Supper. He did not institute a Supper in which bread and wine are distributed and received as symbols of the absent body and blood of Christ." (Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics CPH, St. Louis, MO 1953 Vol. III page 371)

"The administration of the holy Supper is not made invalid and powerless by the unworthiness, unbelief, or false intention of the administrant (see the Augsburg Confession, Article VIII). But those false teachers who, with the agreement of their congregation, publicly pervert the Words of Institution and give them a meaning according to which the body and blood of Christ are not really present in the holy Supper and are not distributed nor received--those who therefore retain the sound of the words but take away what makes them God's Word, namely the divine meaning, and so deny and suspend the essence of the holy Supper, such as the Zwinglians and Calvinists--they do not celebrate the Lord's Supper, even if they ostensibly retain the consecration. They distribute only bread and wine."... "For it [the real presence] does not rest on human faith or unbelief but rather on God's Word and ordinance." (C.F.W. Walther, Pastoral Theology, Translated from 5th Ed. 1906, by John Drickamer, Lutheran News, 1995, New Haven, MO 1995, p. 139)

Walther quotes Luther: "So where the public confession of the Word is, no matter that the rascal may be as he wants, then nothing is taken away from the Sacrament. And this is the reason: If a rogue also swears by the name of the Lord, it is still the true name of the Lord; he would not be sinning if it were not the true name of God by which he was swearing. . . . But the Sacramentarians take the substance totally away; therefore they also have nothing in the Supper except bread and wine." (C.F.W. Walther, Pastoral Theology, Translated from 5th Ed. 1906, by John Drickamer, Lutheran News, 1995, New Haven, MO 1995 page 140)