verbum domini manet in aeternum

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's)

Explain how you rate your directory?

All parishes in our directory are reviewed for a rating. In order to qualify to be Recommended by The White Rose Ministries, we require a number of criteria to be met:

  • To the best knowledge possible, the Pastor holds a quia subscription to the Confessions and has informed us of such.
  • The parish practices the Historic Liturgy exclusively. There are no “contemporary”, “praise”, or “entertainment” services.
  • The Word and Sacrament is preached and administed at the congregation and this is the primary mission of the parish.
  • Women do not assist in communion, as elders, or in any other area which is normally a function of the Pastoral Office.
  • The congregation offers only closed communion which requires membership in a church which is in full fellowship with the parish. (Example, an LCMS member can not commune at a WELS altar)
  • A representative of The White Rose Ministries has visited the parish and has spoken with the Pastor and finds no reason to question the Confessionality of the parish.
  • The White Rose Ministries would have no problem suggesting these parishes to members of confessional Lutheran discussion groups and organizations.

Parishes which can not meet all seven criteria can be given a suggested rating. Generally, these parishes will meet nearly all of the Recommended criteria and The White Rose Ministries has every reason to believe that the Pastor is leading the parish toward meeting these criteria.

There are simply some parishes that receive a Not Reviewed rating. This can be for a number of reasons.

  • We have had difficulty in obtaining complete information from some parishes for various reasons.
  • The parish has recently changed Pastors and we have reason to believe the information may no longer be a true reflection of the Parish.

Why do you rate parishes with a “Not-Recommended” rating?

The parish has provided enough information that it is clear that a Confessional Lutheran would not feel comfortable at this parish. The congregations with this rating may meet one or two of our crieterias, but do not meet the majority of them.

My parish is not liberal and meets the criteria for inclusion in your directory but still is rated "Not-Recommended"?

Please contact our offices. We will suspend the recommendation while we review the information provided to satisify our concerns. This is done within a thirty day window. If we do not receive information in response from the parish, it will be indicated on the record and the Not-Recommended will be restored to the listing.

What Lutheran denominations are listed on the website?

We have listed all of the congregations we have located in the Chicagoland area of Illinois, Northwest Indiana, and Southeast Wisconsin. We do not have any ELCA churches listed and will not list them. The bulk of our records are from the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, and the Evangelical Lutheran Synod. We have also included a number of smaller, independent churches and churches affiliated with small synods. Most have broken off of the LCMS, ELS, or WELS. An example is the Church of the Lutheran Confessions, which appears to be toward the right of the Confessional spectrum.

Why do you list the LCMS as being confessional? Haven’t they abandoned the confessions with the whole Prayer for America service?

Officially, the official doctrines of the LCMS are confessional. While practice in many instances is contrary to the official doctrines of the Church (for example some Committee on Constitutional Matters or Committee on Theological and Church Relations decisions and Yankee Stadium), the written and official documents say otherwise. Rev. Dr. Norman Nagel has pointed out the youth of the Synod are leading a charge to confessionalism. Both Concordia Seminary in St. Louis and Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne are turning out confessional pastors. Laymen of the Church are becoming more educated and are taking action. Yes, there are both Liberal theologians and uber-Confessional theologians in our Synod, some fresh out of the Seminary system, but we feel confident that God is still at work in the LCMS and there are good confessional pastors and congregations within her.

You may hear some Pastors and Congregations who have been abandoned by Synod for being Confessional. Other confessional pastors are left without a call or forced out of the ministry. For some this is enough reason to leave Synod. For others, they have felt that it was the right time to leave. We will not disagree. Others have not reached this conclusion and are being allowed to remain confessional in the Synod. We will continue to remain listing the LCMS congregations until such time that their public doctrines are no longer confessional. That may be tomorrow, it may be fifty years. If you’ve already left, simply ignore the LCMS ratings.