LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2016, Page 134

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134

I. OPINIONS OF COMMISSION ON CONSTITUTIONAL MATTERS

that districts “consult with the Board for Missions before directly
funding a synodical overseas mission” (1981 Proceedings, p. 131).
The same 1981 convention greatly expanded the bylaw section
governing the Board for Mission Services. Newly adopted Bylaw
2.213 required the Board for Mission Services to “formulate, recommend, review, and supervise the mission policies of the Synod,
recommend and monitor budgets, review organizational effectiveness, and provide for an aggressive and united mission effort for the
Synod,” as well as to “call, appoint, assign, withdraw, and release
missionaries (pastors and teachers) and other workers for the ministries and areas within its direct responsibility, always safeguarding the rights of the partner churches and workers involved” (1981
Handbook, p. 66).
Res. 5-37 of the 1983 convention, “To Add Bylaw Paragraph to
Board for Mission Services,” inserted a new paragraph “c” into the
bylaw adopted two years earlier, instructing that the mission board
“[s]erve as the only sending agency through which districts and other
entities send at their expense workers to the mission areas of the
Synod.” According to the resolution, “[s]ome confusion has existed
in the past when districts and other entities have sent missionaries
(clergymen, teachers, and others) to foreign mission fields at their
expense,” noting that there has been the assumption “that this is to
be done through the [Synod’s] Board for Mission Services” (1983
Proceedings, p. 195).
When the newly adopted bylaw was incorporated into the 1983
Handbook, the new paragraph read: “c. Serve as the only sending
agency through which workers and funds are sent to the mission
areas of the Synod, even though programs are supported by districts
and other entities” (p. 69). It is this version that current Bylaw 3.8.3
essentially reiterates, as proposed by the Blue Ribbon Task Force on
Synod Structure and Governance and adopted by the 2010 convention. The bylaw’s historical background clarifies the intent of this
specific provision of the bylaw, i.e., that for the sake of good order
and effectiveness, the Board for International Mission is to serve as
the Synod’s only sending agency through which workers and funds
are sent to the foreign mission areas of the Synod.
That this practice may be considered restrictive in the present day
was addressed by the 2013 convention, noting that “[d]uring the last
50 years, people’s ideas about mission have changed owing to the
ease of global transportation and communication, the affluence of
North American society, and the desire of people to have direct and
personal contact with a specific mission project” (2013 Res. 1-08 “To
Work Together in Mission,” Proceedings, p. 103). The convention’s
response was twofold:
Resolved, That the Synod, by the next convention, develop and provide a mission best-practices policy document for districts and congregations engaged in mission projects to assist them better to carry out
their mission in their life together; And be it further
Resolved, That these best practices include encouragement to districts and congregations to communicate their international mission
activities to the Synod’s Director of Church Relations and Offices of
National and International Mission for the purposes of healthy coordination and good stewardship.

By not altering the wording or meaning of Bylaw 3.8.3 and instead
offering these two resolve paragraphs, the Synod itself has provided
input into a proper understanding and application of the bylaw. It
continues to stand in principle, and Synod leadership must develop
the ways and means for its application today, as God’s people, with
their “greater fervor and interest in foreign mission, … coordinate
their resources for maximum effect” and “work in unity as they carry
out the Lord’s commission in making disciples of all nations” (2013
Proceedings, p. 103).
2016 Convention Workbook

B. Districts and Foreign Missions

Districts are established by the Synod “in order more effectively
to achieve its objectives and carry on its activities” (Bylaw 4.1.1).
They are “the Synod itself performing the functions of the Synod”
(Bylaw 4.1.1.1). As such, “[t]he Constitution of the Synod is also the
constitution of each district; the Bylaws of the Synod shall be primarily the bylaws of the district” (Bylaw 4.1.1.2) and resolutions of the
Synod are “binding upon the districts” (Bylaw 4.1.1.1).
Over time, even with the above principles in place, the Synod
recognized the need to spell out more clearly its relationship with
its districts. 1967 Res. 4-07 (1967 Proceedings, p. 105) was adopted
upon request of the Commission on Constitutional Matters to clarify
further the districts’ relationship to the Synod, the commission itself
offering the proposed wording that is now Bylaw 4.1.5 (2013 Handbook, p. 188):
4.1.5 Jurisdiction with respect to everything that is administered by or
for the entire Synod resides in the national Synod itself. Jurisdiction includes but is not limited to general supervision of doctrine
and practice; foreign missions; institutions of the Synod; qualification for ordination, commissioning, and installation of ordained
and commissioned ministers and requirements for individual as
well as congregational membership in the Synod; publication of
official religious periodicals; conduct of negotiations and affiliations with other church bodies; and the like.

Foreign missions is one administrative area that the Synod has,
since early on, reserved for itself by decision of its congregations
meeting in convention. This does not include non-foreign missions,
which take place within and are the business of each district, so long
as such administration “always serve[s] the interests of the Synod”
(Constitution Art. XII 12). But a district cannot call a pastor or other
rostered worker of the Synod to serve in a “foreign area” (defined as
“located away from one’s native country” by the American Collegiate
Dictionary). The commission has already spoken on this subject in
its Opinion 11-2607, where it stated in response to a related Question regarding the calling and placement of missionaries outside the
district’s own borders: “The principles governing districts of The
Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod are contained in Article XII of
the Constitution as well as Bylaw 4.1. The Synod itself has retained
exclusive jurisdiction with respect to the placement of foreign missionaries (Bylaws 4.4.3 [b], 4.1.5, and 3.8.3)” (CCM November
11–13, 2011 Minutes).
C. Congregations and Foreign Missions
“Congregations, the basic units of the Synod, have joined together
to form the Synod and relate to one another through it” (Bylaw 1.3.1).
“Committed to a common confession and mission,” congregations
“join with one another in the Synod to support one another and to
work together in carrying out their commonly adopted objectives”
(Bylaw 1.1.1).
In its report to the 1981 Synod convention, Task Force II specifically identified the two basic reasons for which the Synod was
called into being, these two basic functions guiding the Synod in its
restructuring at that time:
1. In support of the congregations. The Synod was designed to help the
congregations and their members to preserve the purity of God’s Word
and to assist the congregations in their mission and ministry right where
they are. Through the years the Synod has therefore provided many
tools and helps in education, evangelism, stewardship, and other phases
of congregational life and ministry.
2. In behalf of the congregations. In this respect the Synod has reached out
to other church bodies either to establish or to maintain unity of confession and in that way to carry out the Scriptural directive to maintain
the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. The Synod has also served
in behalf of the congregations by enabling congregations to do together
that which individual congregations could not do by themselves or