# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1899_S126
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

126 Proceedings of the 24th General, or

is to be composed — namely, of the representatives of the
congregations, each two to seven of which must send one pastor and
one deputy; of the Synod's professors; of the General President and
the District presidents; and of the representatives of the advisory
members of the Synod, one for every seven advisory pastors and one
for every seven parochial school teachers. The assemblies thus
composed according to the Constitution have, as such, the task of
carrying out the business assigned to the synodical assemblies,
whether jointly in open session or in committees to which the body of
those assembled may entrust certain preparatory work. It goes without
saying that all the members of the synodical assembly present in
accordance with the will of the Synod and the Constitution are
obligated, for the duration of the assembly, to devote themselves to
the business assigned to them, and that the assembly can make claim
upon the gifts and abilities of all its members provided for by the
Constitution; and just as the whole of any assembled body disposes
over its individual members, so the synodical assembly disposes, in
the first instance, over those members of which the assembly, in
accordance with the will of the Synod, is composed. Thus the
assembled Synod and its organ, the presidium, also have both the
right and the duty to draw upon the constitutional members of the
assembly for particular service on committees or commissions as well,
and those so drawn upon are obligated to render the service required
of them.

"On the other hand, the designation 'members of the Synod' is also
applied to those individual persons who, as members of synodical
congregations, stand in organic connection with the Synod through
their congregational membership. Thus, for example, an addition to
Chapter IV, B, of the Constitution states: 'This right of appeal must
be granted to every member of the Synod,' and the Synod's act of
incorporation states that the treasurer shall be eligible from among
the lay members of the Synod (lay members of the Synod). In both
cases, according to our Synod's long-standing practice, this is also
to be understood as including such members of synodical congregations
as have not been delegated to a synodical assembly, and when such
members appear at a synodical assembly, they certainly do not thereby
cease to be members of the Synod in this second sense; and the Synod
assembled in its representatives, by making use of such voluntarily
present members of synodical congregations for services to the Synod,
does not thereby overstep the bounds of the Synod. Of course, such
members present without the general powers of a delegate can only
cooperate in a service capacity on the Synod's behalf if they have
been charged with such particular services by the delegates, and it
is for the delegates to decide whether they wish to draw upon such
members for such particular services and