LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2019, Page 189

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9. STRUCTURE AND ADMINISTRATION
through their congregations, without disseminating
private addresses.
therefore be it
Resolved, That Bylaw 3.1.8 be amended as follows, to
remove the requirement that delegate mailing addresses be
published in print and online in the Workbook:
PRESENT/PROPOSED WORDING
Pre-Convention Publications
3.1.8
A Convention Workbook containing a convention
manual, reports and overtures, the names and mailing
addresses and congregations of all voting delegates, and
other information shall be published under the editorship
of the Secretary subject to approval of the President.

and be it further
Resolved, That the contact information of convention
delegates shall not be sold nor distributed apart from
official Synod convention business and only to agencies of
the Synod for official convention business.
Action: Adopted (4)
After discussion by the assembly, the chair proposed closing
debate; this carried [Yes: 763; No: 191] and the resolution was
adopted [Yes: 847; No:120].

To Amend the Constitution
to Address Individual Membership
and Advisory Representation
RESOLUTION 9-05
Overtures 7-17, 9-13–16, 18, 39 (CW, 472–73, 495–500,
511–12); Overture L9-47 (TB, 1:34–39)

Rationale
Constitution Article V B and XII 10 B catalog the categories
of individual members of the Synod (ordained and
commissioned ministers) other than those who are the
voting pastoral delegates of each congregation-or-parish
(Pfarrgemeinde, hereafter, parish, being understood to be
one or more member congregations served by the same
pastor[s]) and/or electoral circuit (which voting delegates
are listed in Const. Art. XII 10 A and V A, respectively).
Const. Art. V B and XII 10 B serve, in the present
Constitution of the Synod, a dual purpose. On the one hand,
they specify those who are only advisory at a convention of a
district or the Synod (cf. Bylaws 3.1.2.1 [d] and 3.1.3). On the
other hand, they specify who, besides pastors who
represent voting member congregations, can be an
individual member of the Synod: other ordained ministers,
commissioned minsters of various categories, and
candidates for these offices, having once been installed to a
first call (Bylaw 2.6.2). At present, the language of Const.
Art. XII 10 is redundant with that of Const. Art. V A–B, as the
latter explicitly treats district and Synod conventions.
Resolutions

The Commissions on Constitutional Matters (CCM) and
Handbook (COH) have been presented this triennium with
three issues related to these two dual-purpose passages
(and their partial reflections in Const. Art. VI 3, 6 and XII 9
c). The COH initially proposed to address the first two
issues in two separate overtures, Ov. 9-18 and 9-39. With
the third issue (prompted by CCM Op. 19-2903), it became
apparent that all three issues were manifestations of the
same constitutional problem—an unclarity, compounded
with time and change, in the statement of individual
membership and advisory representation—and thus could
be addressed by a single constitutional amendment. This
late overture proposes a unified solution to all three
problems: those addressed in Ov. 9-18 and 9-39, as well as
the new one of CCM Op. 19-2903.
Briefly, the five problems identified with the Constitution’s
treatment of individual membership and advisory
representation are as follows:
1. Unclear advisory ordained participation in the
district convention (Ov. 9-18): In an earlier time
beginning with the foundation of the Synod, when
each parish (Pfarrgemeinde) had only one pastor
(Prediger), all other called pastors being assistant
pastors (Hilfsprediger), every individual member of
the Synod had a clear and constant place under
either Const. Art. V A (XII 10 A), as a representative
of a voting congregation, or V B (XII 10 B), as an
advisory member (or under their pre-1917
predecessors, Const. Ch. III 1 or 2). Since at least
1970–72 (CCM Ag. 54, 377), however, when the CCM
ruled (not without a recorded dissent) that associate
pastors (a term arising in practice rather than by
convention adoption) could serve as parishes’ voting
pastoral delegates—and even more since the
ratification of 2016 Resolution 11-09 removed
assistant pastors from the list of Const. Art. V B (XII 10
B), allowing parishes the option of designating them
as voting pastoral delegates—this is no longer the
case. Pastors in multi-pastor staffs can now move
fluidly between Const. Art. V A and B, between
voting and advisory roles, on the basis of a parish
choice.
This is of little consequence, except that Const. Art.
XII 10 B designates as advisory to the district
convention, along with all commissioned ministers
of the district, the ordained ministers listed. One
pastor of each parish is voting; the others are to be
advisory (cf. Bylaw 4.2.3: “All nonvoting ordained
and commissioned ministers who are members of
the Synod within the district shall serve as advisory
delegates”). Const. Art. V B and XII 10 B had this
same sense when adopted and translated between
1917–1924, and until the practice of naming associate
pastors arose. Before that, one pastor was the voting
Prediger, “the pastor,” and all others were
PROCEEDINGS OF THE 2019 (67TH) LCMS CONVENTION | 189