Lutherans were, strange as it may seem, a minority in colonial America. Lutherans also struggled finding pastors to serve them. It would only seem natural that groups would form where a band of congregations could work for the common good, not only to fight for rights but also to educate future leaders and pastors and teachers.
In 1748 Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, with the help of others, founded what would become known as the Pennsylvania Ministerium. This was the first collection of congregations to gather together for the common good, the first "synod" if you will.
Muhlenberg assessed the Lutheran church in the Americas. He didn't limit his ministry and focus upon just the 3 congregations that had called him as Pastor (through Dr. Francke), he expanded and stretched the scope of his ministry to include other Lutheran congregations that were without pastors and German communities that were without Lutheran Congregations. Thus he did the work of a synod. Muhlenberg made extensive mission journeys in the colonies (and later states) of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Delaware, Maryland, South Carolina, and Georgia by horseback or wooden sail boat or canoe. Muhlenberg also corresponded with Lutherans in all of these areas and with Lutherans living in areas beyond the reach of his missionary travels.
He organized new congregations, actively worked to keep all the Lutheran churches with whom he had contact closely in association with one another, and organized the pastors that he was able to gather around himself and his ministry into a "synod" or "ministerium." This group would originally be called "the Swedish and German Ministerium" and "The united preachers of the Evangelical Lutheran congregations of German nationality in these American colonies, especially Pennsylvania." Soon it would call itself "An Evangelical Lutheran Ministerium in North America."
Not all went smooth. Many congregational leaders were adamantly against "bureaucracy." This may have led to early synodical efforts to call synodical leaders to fill offices on a part-time basis while the officers served congregations full-time.
The ministerium established the training of new pastors in America, published a common hymnal (Lutheran Service Hymnal), mediated disputes in congregations and developed and introduced constitutional provisions in congregations that greatly added to peace and harmony.
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