# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1959_S249
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

CONSTITUTIONAL MATTERS 249

“3.35 Election and Time of Service of District Officers

“a. The District President, Vice-Presidents, Circuit Counselors,
and the elective members of the Board of Directors shall be elected
in the year following the regular sessions of the Synod;

“b. All other officers and boards may be elected in the second
year following the regular session of the Synod for the time of
service fixed by the Bylaws of the Constitution of the Synod.”

Action: This resolution was adopted.

Report: Survey Commission
RESOLUTION 31, COMMITTEE 6

Memorial 502, pages 411—437, Reporis and Memorials

In the endless mercy of God, The Lutheran Church — Mis-
souri Synod has become a great and growing church. It is a church
richly blessed with a dedicated membership, with material re-
sources, with unprecedented opportunities, and above all else,
with the pure and precious Gospel. Her remarkable growth, par-
ticularly during the past two decades, has multiplied the problems
and increased the difficulties of administration. Not that efficient
administration is to be viewed as an end in itself. There is a pres-
ent and persistent possiblity of becoming so efficient as to be no
longer effective. Organizational administration when properly un-
derstood is to serve the church — to serve in preserving her doc-
trine and practice and in promoting her continuing program of
evangelizing a lost world.

An awareness of the need for improvement in synodical or-
ganization and administration was not a new or sudden develop-
ment. On the contrary, the last three conventions of The Lutheran
Church — Missouri Synod emphasized this need and urged reme-
dial action. It was the 1956 convention, held in St. Paul, which
addressed itself resolutely to the matter and by enabling resolution
established a commission to survey the organizational structure,
the administration, and the operational procedures of the Synod
with a view toward improving the effectiveness, efficiency, and
economy of the Synod as it seeks to fulfill its objectives. The Survey
Commission undertook what the Synod assigned —a task of no
small proportion! — and has produced much of manifest value under
its mandate to study and propose improvements for a democratically
conceived and democratically structured administrative organiza-
tion. Based on extensive research, the Survey Commission’s Re-

port seeks to develop a philosophy and system of administration
which, in a manner appropriate for the Missouri Synod, reflects
the best of modern administrative principles and practices, while