On Thursday morning, August 20, our own Mike Copp stood with the fall 2026 cohort of vicars and deaconess interns in the Chapel of St. Timothy and St. Titus at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis and heard his assignment read aloud.

“Michael Copp — Epiphany Lutheran Church, Houston, Texas — Texas District.”

For those of us who have been following Mike’s progress, this is the news we have been waiting for. His vicarage will be served right here, among the people who have known him and prayed for him from the beginning.

“God Will Let None of His Words Fall to the Ground” The service was Matins on the Commemoration of Samuel, and the preacher was Rev. Dr. Ronald Mudge, provost of Concordia Seminary. He preached on the appointed reading, 1 Samuel 3:1–21, the account of the Lord calling the boy Samuel in the night.

His message to the new vicars and interns was direct. A call to serve is a vocation, and a vocation comes with responsibilities that are not self-chosen. “You will not do what you want to do,” he said. “You will do what the Lord wants you to do.” Samuel’s first word from the Lord was a hard one, a word of judgment against Eli, the man who had raised him, and Samuel delivered all of it anyway.

But the heart of the sermon was the strength of the gospel itself. We sometimes act as though the gospel were weak, Dr. Mudge said, as though it needed our force behind it to accomplish anything. The disciples would disagree. The Apostle Paul would disagree. So would each of us, if we stopped to consider what Christ has already done in us through His Word. He closed with the promise of Isaiah 55, that God’s Word does not return empty, and with the line from Samuel that framed the whole morning: God “let none of his words fall to the ground.”

What Comes Next Mike is part of Concordia Seminary’s Specific Ministry Pastor (SMP) program, a four-year distance education program that prepares men for pastoral ministry in a particular place and situation. The vicarage is what the seminary calls “concurrent,” meaning it is served at the same time as the coursework and in the very place where the student already ministers. It normally runs about 24 months.

So Mike’s vicarage is not a departure. It is a deepening. Over the next two years he will carry a vicar’s responsibilities here at Epiphany while continuing to teach in our school, taking one seminary course per term, meeting weekly in a live online classroom, and traveling to St. Louis for a week-long intensive each January. Walking with him through all of it will be Pastor Jeff Muchow, serving as his pastor-mentor. The seminary provides the curriculum, but the day-to-day guidance and encouragement come from a pastor on the ground who knows the student and the congregation.

After the vicarage and the first nine of sixteen courses, Mike becomes eligible for certification by the seminary faculty, and then for call and ordination as a Specific Ministry Pastor in this specific ministry. This is the beginning of a long and deliberate road, and Epiphany is on it with him the whole way.

It is worth remembering that Mike did not arrive here on his own. The program requires the congregation to identify the need, to indicate its intention to call him once he is certified, to provide a mentor, and to pledge support throughout the program. Epiphany asked for this. Thursday morning was the church saying yes back.

So pray for him, for his family, and for his study. The coursework is demanding, and he is carrying it alongside a classroom full of students and the work of a vicar. Encourage him, too, because a word of thanks means more than you know during a formation year. Receive his ministry and let him serve you, since that is how a vicar learns to be a pastor. And remember Pastor Muchow, who carries the work of mentoring on top of everything else he does.