# LCMS Convention Workbook_St. Louis Missouri_2019_S412
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

412

LIFE TOGETHER

PRESENT/PROPOSED WORDING
6.2.1
The granting of recognized service organization status by
the Synod signifies that a service organization, while independent of
the Synod, fosters the mission and ministry of the church, engages
in program activity that extends the mission and ministry of the
Synod, is in harmony with the programs of the boards of the Synod,
and respects and does not act contrary to the doctrine and practice of
the Synod.
(a) Under the governance and policies of its own board, a
recognized service organization operates with freedom and selfdetermination as a ministry organization, structurally
independent of the Synod or districts or member congregations
of the Synod and its agencies, in the establishment and evaluation
of its own objectives, activities, and programs, in organization
and administration, and in financial matters.
(b) The Board of Directors of The Lutheran Church—Missouri
Synod shall adopt common policies for granting recognized
service organization status.A recognized service organization
respects the rights and obligations of Synod’s members,
individual and congregational. Respecting proper evangelical
supervision, counsel, and care of church workers and
congregations, a recognized service organization accepts and
agrees to facilitate the respective district president’s ecclesiastical
supervision of its rostered workers and his role in the recognized
service organization’s call process. A recognized service
organization recognizes a congregation’s right and duty to
regularly call its own pastor and agrees not to extend pastoral
ministry to a congregation without the specific consent of the
congregation’s district president.
(c) Each other granting office or agency may also adopt policies
and criteria approved by the Synod’s Board of Directors to assure
that that the office or agency’s unique needs are met.A
recognized service organization respects the authority of Synod’s
districts. A recognized service organization working within a
geographical district, or with a congregation of a nongeographical district, accepts and agrees to facilitate the
ecclesiastical oversight of the respective district’s president over
the organization’s activities within his district. The overseeing
district president shall report unresolved doctrinal and practical
concerns to the Synod mission office granting status.
(d) A recognized service organization operating domestically
respects the role of districts in mission planning. A recognized
service organization shall pursue church planting or
establishment of preaching stations/missions only after
consulting with and obtaining the concurrence of the
geographical district’s president and board or committee
responsible for missions.
(de) Operating with freedom and self-determination in its
mission independent of control by the Synod, a A recognized
service organization also operating internationally agrees to
inform, seek the counsel of, and cooperate with the Office of
International Mission in its international work and respects
protocol documents that may exist between The Lutheran
Church—Missouri Synod and her partner churches that have
been made available to the recognized service organization.
(f) Each recognized service organization shall be required to
give its assurance in its governing documents that recognition as
a service organization is not an endorsement by the Synod or a
guarantee of financial responsibility for the debts and obligations
of the organization or for services provided or offered.

and be it further

2019 Convention Workbook

Resolved, That Bylaw 1.2.1 be amended to include a definition
of ecclesiastical oversight, as follows:
PRESENT/PROPOSED WORDING
1.2.1
The following definitions are for use in understanding the
terms as used in the Bylaws of The Lutheran Church—Missouri
Synod:
…
(i) Ecclesiastical oversight: The responsibility,
primarily of district presidents, to monitor; to make
inquiry and receive a response thereto; to make
suggestions; to bring concerns to the attention of a
higher authority, namely the Synod status granting
office, as relates specifically to the ecclesial relations of
a recognized service organization operating within his
district, and the impact and/or reflection of its work on
the mission and ministry of the church.
(ij) …

and be it further
Resolved, That new Bylaws 6.2.2 and 6.2.2.1 be added,
renumbering existing Bylaw 6.2.2 as Bylaw 6.2.4, to provide for
distinction of three classes of RSO based on the type of work done
by the RSO, providing a basis for a positive definition of Synod’s
expectations for each, and for a further distinction of ESOs and
MSOs regarding their degree of churchly governance and support
(and therefore freedom to act in an unconditioned, churchly
manner), as follows:
PRESENT/PROPOSED WORDING
6.2.2
Policies shall distinguish the three classes of recognized
service organization, with criteria, procedures, and benefits
appropriate to each, further distinctions being drawn within the
categories as needed:
(a) A witness service organization, under the Scriptures and
Lutheran Confessions, engages in Word or Word-and-Sacrament
ministry (including chaplaincy), religious media/programming,
mission society activity, support of specific missions, missionand-ministry training, church worker professional development,
church worker care, or other work directly related to the church’s
proclamation. A witness service organization is governed solely
by Synod (or partner church) congregations or a board comprised
solely of members of member congregations of the Synod (or its
partner churches).
(b) An educational service organization, under the Scriptures
and Lutheran Confessions, operates a Christian school (other than
one governed solely by a Synod congregation or congregations),
camp (with Christian programming), or the like. (Schools
governed solely by Synod congregations, by virtue of their
recognition as such by their districts, do not need recognized
service organization status and have the rights and
responsibilities of parish schools without obtaining recognized
service organization status.)
(c) A mercy service organization facilitates the church’s
extension of the divine mercy without compromising the
church’s scriptural and confessional standards. It does so in areas
in which cooperation in externals is possible, in demonstrated
coordination and connection with member congregations of the
Synod or its partners and, wherever possible, in close proximity
to the Word-and-Sacrament ministry of the Synod and/or its
partners.
6.2.2.1
Policies of the Board of Directors and the mission boards
and offices of the Synod may distinguish, within the educational and
mercy service classes (educational service organization and mercy
service organization), tiers of status recognizing different degrees of