The Lutheran church of Bolivia was planted by the Norwegian Lutheran Mission Society in the 1980s. Since 2010 the LCMS has supported pastoral formation of Bolivian men, raising up church planters and providing confessional Lutheran material. The Iglesia Cristiana Evangelica Luterana  is comprised of 16 congregations, missions and 1 ordained pastor. She has historical work in both Spanish and Quecha with indigenous Andean peoples.  She has 1 historical parochial school in Cochabamba. Her headquarters are in Sucre as well as her CLET Bible Institute. The ICEL is an emerging church not currently in fellowship with LCMS.

New Director at the Helm of Concordia the Reformer Seminary

On Sunday, September 10, Concordia the Reformer Seminary in the Dominican Republic celebrated the installation of her new director, Rev. Sergio Fritzler. Pastors from five countries participated in the special service, with seminarians, missionaries, deaconesses, Dominican Lutheran Church members, Concordia Lutheran school children and faculty joining in the festivities.

A Week of Intensive Pastoral Formation

Concordia the Reformer Seminary welcomed distance-learning Formación Pastoral Hispano (FPH) students and pastoral mentors from several Latin American countries to a week-long symposium in January. The FPH program is similar to the SMP program at our LCMS seminaries in the United States. This program consists of sixteen courses with the students taking four courses a year, with pastoral mentors assigned to them. The focus of the FPH program is on the pastoral acts.

A Stream of New Pastoral Candidates

The 2020 graduating class had their formal graduation ceremony postponed until May 2021, due to the pandemic. These outstanding men have completed all coursework and requirements for graduation, so even though they must wait a bit longer to don their caps and gowns, they are being ordained and installed as pastors in various countries across Latin America.