# LCMS Commission on Constitutional Matters Minutes_St. Louis Missouri_August 17 18 2018_S7
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

To facilitate the convention’s consideration of this question, the commission offers the following overture,
by which the convention may adopt the definition that “(a) congregation(s) with a (head) pastor of its/their
own, who is not the (head) pastor of any other congregation(s) constitutes a congregation-or-parish, even
though it might share other (assisting) pastors with other congregations.” Unless the possibility of making
such distinctions is restored to the bylaws, the present practice will persist.
Appendix: Overture to the 2019 Convention of the Synod
To Clarify the Meaning of Parish as it Relates to Congregational Representation
at District Conventions and Election of the Synod President,
and to Distinguish Assisting Capacity Pastoral Calls
Rationale
At the time of its inception, one of the major founding principles for the polity of the Synod was an equity
between the laity and clergy in the decision-making process of the Synod. This was written into the
Constitution by designating that the right to vote belongs to the member congregations of the Synod, with
each congregation (the German term was Pfarrgemeinde, or “pastor-congregation”) receiving two votes:
one was the vote of its pastor, and the other was the vote of its lay delegate (in the German, these were
Deputierten der Pfarrgemeinden). A footnote of the 1847 constitution of the Synod describes what was
understood by the term Pfarrgemeinde:
A Pfarrgemeinde is either one single congregation or the sum of the individual congregations
which the pastor serves, as in Germany the territory in which he serves is called Kirchspiel or
Kirchensprengel. The pastor may serve 3 or 4 or more congregations, locally separated; they
are in relation to him essentially only one congregation and must, therefore, jointly send to the
convention one delegate.
When the Constitution of the Synod was translated into English in 1924, the term congregation was used
to refer to a Pfarrgemeinde comprising a single Gemeinde cared for by a pastor, and the term parish was
used to refer to a Pfarrgemeinde comprising two or more Gemeinden cared for by a pastor. Thus, one
German term Pfarrgemeinde was divided, in English, into two constituent cases. Thus, while the term
parish was not used until 1924, the concept that a parish is “two or more congregations being cared for by
the same pastor (or pastors)” goes back to the 1847 Synod constitution. This arrangement, that
representation was on the basis of Pfarrgemeinden ensures a congregation-pastor parity, a “balance of
power,” at the conventions of the Synod between the laity and the clergy. Even more fundamentally, it sees
to representation of the congregations—which are the voting members of the Synod—on an equitable basis
by units of preaching and hearing. One may be reminded of Luther’s bipartite definition of the Church as
comprising hearers and those who preach to them: “holy believers and lambs who hear the voice of their
Shepherd” (Smalcald Articles, Part III, Art. XII 2).
These same apparent desires, for Synod to be composed fundamentally of units of preaching and hearing
(Pfarrgemeinden or pastor-congregations) and to maintain equity between the laity and the clergy at the
conventions of the Synod, led to establishment of advisory membership when Synod was formed in 1847.
This category was created to allow pastors to fulfill their desire to join the Synod while their congregations
yet desired to remain independent. Typically, in the early period of the Synod, a large number of those
pastors in attendance at conventions were advisory members, entitled to voice at the convention but no
vote.
Thus, while the understanding and intention of the Synod is clear regarding voting representation at
conventions of the synod—a parish being the total number of congregations cared for by a pastor (or
pastors)—unique situations occurred and were addressed by the Synod. One of these situations was the
practice of forming a Gesammtgeminde as Lutheranism expanded in certain cities. Perhaps the most notable
of these was the Gesammtgeminde in St. Louis. In 1847, due to the growth of Trinity Lutheran Church in
St. Louis, where C.F.W. Walther was the pastor, the congregation started a school and church on a second
CCM Minutes – August 17–18, 2018 – Page 128