# LCMS Convention Workbook_St. Louis Missouri_2019_S341
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

V. REPORT OF THE 2016 RES. 4-03B TASK FORCE ON RECOGNIZED SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS

6. Ecclesiastical Oversight (District President
Role / Multi-District Operations)
The above material has detailed several aspects in which
RSO program administration will rely intentionally on the nearer
oversight of the relevant district president(s). Conversation with
the district presidents has indicated that they seek a better-defined
role in such oversight. Supervision and final administration of the
program, however, rest with the Synod (see Bylaw definitions of
oversight and supervision, Bylaw 1.2.1 [o] and [t]).
District presidents already have ecclesiastical supervision of
called RSO workers based in their districts. It is important to distinguish ecclesiastical supervision from employment supervision. The
definition of Bylaw 1.2.1 [i] indicates that ecclesiastical supervision is:
The responsibility, primarily of the President of
the Synod and district presidents, to supervise on
behalf of the Synod the doctrine, life, and administration of its members, officers, and agencies.
Such supervision, subject to the provisions of the
Synod’s Constitution, Bylaws, and resolutions, includes visitation, evangelical encouragement and
support, care, protection, counsel, advice, admonition, and, when necessary, appropriate disciplinary
measures to assure that the Constitution, Bylaws,
and resolutions of the Synod are followed and
implemented. Thus, ecclesiastical supervision is
also the presenting, interpreting, and applying of
the collective will of the Synod’s congregations.
Ecclesiastical supervision does not include the responsibility to observe, monitor, control, or direct
the day-to-day activities of individual members of
the Synod, whether in the conduct of their work or
in their private lives (cf. Bylaw 2.14.1 [a]). Further,
those constitutional articles and bylaws pertaining
to ecclesiastical supervision shall determine the
full definition of ecclesiastical supervision.
Ecclesiastical supervision, as it applies to the called, rostered
workers of an RSO and to the congregations and schools with
which it relates, does not include monitoring, control, or direction
of day-to-day activities.
This report has coined the term ecclesiastical oversight. As
ecclesiastical supervision is to supervision (Bylaws 1.2.1 [t] and
[o]; cf. Bylaw 2.14.1), so ecclesiastical oversight is to oversight.
Oversight in the bylaws sense is not (employment) supervision,
“to have authority over, to direct actions, to control activities.”
Oversight is “to monitor; to make inquiry and receive a response
thereto; to make suggestions; to bring concerns to the attention of a
higher authority” (Bylaw 1.2.1[o]). Ecclesiastical oversight is that
concept applied to the ecclesial relations of an RSO, the impact of
its operations on doctrine and (churchly) practice, on the witness
of the Church, the manifestation of the divine mercy, and on the
“life together” of Synod’s congregations and congregants. A district
president would exercise ecclesiastical oversight with regard to an
RSO’s activities in his district, as they relate to the church’s ministry, by monitoring (though certainly not on a day-to-day level),
making inquiries, receiving response thereto, making suggestions,
and bringing concerns to the attention of the Synod status-granting
office. This is not day-to-day oversight of policies, procedures, or
activities in general—and certainly not directive control of or in-

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terference in these things—but oversight of the relationship of the
organization to the church and its performance and multiplication
of the church’s ministry—oversight of its ecclesiastical influence
and impact.
One aspect in which local oversight is especially helpful is in
more regular interaction with and awareness of the conduct of office and public repute of leadership of RSOs not headed by rostered
church workers of the Synod. It goes without saying that the leadership and public face of an organization recognized by the church
should be expected—whether rostered or not—to conduct their offices and public lives to a standard similar to that biblically imposed
on those who hold a public office in the church. A local district
president is the most likely to know of issues with life or public
witness that would need to be addressed, and the most appropriate
to assist the RSO program administration in urging an organization
to godly resolution. It is an expectation of organizations desiring to
be recognized by the church that they would make every effort to be
led and represented by godly persons of good repute.
RSOs whose work spans multiple districts noted the concern
that increased district interaction and oversight would be confusing and perhaps even confounding if there is not a uniformity of
approach by district presidents to RSO ecclesiastical oversight and
RSO worker ecclesiastical supervision. As the Council of Presidents exists in great part “for the presidents of the districts and the
Praesidium of the Synod to counsel with one another on matters
regarding the doctrine and administration of the Synod, its regions,
and its districts, and to edify and support one another in the work
they share” (Bylaw 3.10.1.2), the task force recommends that a
discussion of common expectations and policies for ecclesiastical
oversight of RSOs be commended to the council as a significant
focus for the coming triennium and as a recurring item for training,
policy development, and casuistry.

7. History of the Recognized Service Organization Program and Its Predecessors
The history of Synod’s involvement with social ministry organizations began in 1858 with the Lutheran Hospital of St. Louis,
and over time recorded the development of orphanages, seniors,
physically and mentally disabled, homeless, and urban and vocational services. Walther’s Form of a Christian Congregation (1864)
expected that congregations would provide for congregants in need
and for poor, widows, orphans, aged, those suffering calamities,
etc., in general—an expectation and practice that led to the founding of social service entities by congregations and groups of individuals. Aftermath of the U.S. Civil War provided an urgent impetus to relief work. Over succeeding generations, as welfare services
expanded, the Synod faced a choice: incorporate these responsibilities into the work of the Synod and its districts or coordinate with
societies and associations created by congregations (or congregations and/or individuals acting in concert, but outside of official
Synod structures) as they perceived needs and their abilities to address them. Synod perceived its role in motivating and equipping
member congregations to face this task, which is “an integral, not
optional, function of the Christian and of the Christian congregation.” Synod felt it could encourage congregations to act in concert
on these matters, yet outside the synodical administrative structure.
(Relationship of Lutheran Health and Welfare Agencies to The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod: A Polity Statement, LCMS Board
of Social Ministry, May 1967.)
2019 Convention Workbook