The Lutheran Seminary Program in the Southwest is an extension program of Wartburg Theological Seminary and the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, and it works closely with the supporting synods of Region 4 of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to prepare persons for ordained ministry in the ELCA. Through a non degreed program of Theological Education for Emerging Ministry (TEEM), LSPS expresses the mission commitments of both sponsoring seminaries by educating women and men to serve as pastors who have a clear understanding of mission and ministry in cross-cultural and borderland realities of the Southwest and other regions of the country.

LSPS exists to form students:

• Who have a clear sense of their biblical and confessional heritage as Lutheran Christians and a commitment to explore its meaning for cross-cultural and borderland realities;
• Who can identify the principles of ministry in multicultural contexts and will have the skills and sensitivities necessary for service in those settings;
• Who have a Lutheran pastoral identity marked by ecumenical interaction and concrete involvement in cross-cultural realities.