of the LCMS. ELIM provided financial support to Seminex, along with public-relations assistance via its twice-monthly newspaper, Missouri in Perspective. In an attempt to drum up support for their cause, Seminex students barnstormed the nation as part of "Operation Outreach", meeting with LCMS congregations to explain their perspective of what happening in the rapidly evolving situation in St. Louis. Tietjen and the other Seminex faculty also contacted various congregations of the LCMS to enlist their support. Tietjen fully expected that a minimum of 1200 congregations of the synod would leave when asked. As part of the process of ordination in the LCMS, a prospective pastor must be certified for ministry, and per the LCMS constitution, only an official seminary of the synod could issue those certifications. In 1974, there were two institutions in Saint Louis claiming to be the official seminary, with both of them issuing certifications for the ministry. The expectation of Seminex backers was that if they could place enough of their graduates into pastoral positions, the overall synod would be forced to recognize Seminex as an official seminary of the LCMS. Privately, more than half of the district presidents gave their support to the Seminex faction and indicated that they would place graduates of Seminex as vicars and pastors, giving Seminex good reason for hope that they would eventually prevail. Beginning in 1974, presidents of eight of the 35 LCMS districts (equivalent of a diocese) began placing graduates of Seminex as pastors in violation of the LCMS bylaws and constitution. Outraged, the delegates to the next LCMS convention passed a resolution demanding that those districts cease placing Seminex graduates and granting the synodical president the power to remove a district president if the latter refused. Four of the districts subsequently ceased, while four defied the convention's resolutions. By 1976, the four dissident district presidents had been removed from office and they subsequently resigned from the synod. After the expulsion, a movement to leave the synod took shape among dissident congregations and church officials, most of them members of ELIM or congregations that had ordained a Seminex graduate. The largest number of departures came from the LCMS' non-geographical English District. In the end, more than 200 congregations left the LCMS, a small fraction of what Tietjen had expected. Separation of the AELC In December 1976, the departing congregations formed a new independent church body, the Association of Evangelical