LCMS Commission on Constitutional Matters — Minutes St. Louis, Missouri — June 16, 2020, Page 3

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there are matters of adequate notice and venue that may limit attempts to reschedule a district convention,
should a planned meeting become infeasible, a district convention could—if there is a possibility of fairly
attempting to accommodate all stipulated participants, voting and advisory, at another time—be
rescheduled within the district convention year of the triennium. The program and accommodations for the
meeting may be varied as compelled by circumstance, so long as the essential nature of the convention
(above) and of a churchly, deliberative assembly is preserved. Districts need to make a good faith attempt
to have a convention, making every reasonable attempt or attempt(s) within the dictates of fairness and
good stewardship of the district’s resources.
Should a district be unable to convene or achieve the required quorum at any point during the district
convention year, it would simply have no regular convention in this triennium.
There remains the possibility, “in cases of urgent necessity,” for specific business, and by the procedure
specified (Const. Art XII 15) of calling a special convention of a district, and these are not limited to the
district convention year.
Question 4:

In the event that business ordinarily conducted through the above physical meetings cannot
be conducted by some other means, and physical gathering cannot be achieved within the
time allotted in the triennial cycle for each mechanism, what is the result (e.g., for elected
offices)?

Bylaw 3.2.4 provides for terms of office aligned with the regular meeting schedule of the triennial cycle.
Its subparagraph (f) provides that “[i]ncumbents shall serve until their successors assume office.” Should a
district be unable to meet in the current triennia, the current term of service of all elected incumbents would
be extended until the next election can take place and successors can be inducted into office. The rules of
succession and vacancy appointment already in place in the districts would pertain, should any incumbent
be unable or unwilling to continue in office. As the current term is, in a sense, being extended, any
applicable term limits would not remove elected incumbents from office until the corresponding election
can take place. As there are, in this situation, no “pending successors-elect,” the usual limitations of Bylaw
3.2.4 (f) and (g) on the starting of new programs and the appointment of new appointees during the “interim”
would also not apply.
Should a district that fails to hold a regular convention within the district convention year of the triennium
consider it to be of urgent necessity, outside the district convention year of the triennium and in such a
situation, to conduct elections, and if the proper procedure would be followed (Const. XII 15), a district
could conduct a special (physically convened) convention for this purpose.
Careful attention should be given by the districts and their officers, boards, and commissions, to report to
the congregations on their activities and the situation of the district, even if a convention is not certain to
take place or possible to convene.
Looking forward to the Synod convention, the principal required function of district conventions is, in those
seventeen or eighteen districts electing representatives in a given triennium, the election of members of the
Synod Committee for Convention Nominations (Bylaw 3.12.3f.). CCM Op. 12-2653 indicated that when a
district convention has failed to elect a member of the CCN, the district board of directors must fill the
resulting vacancy “to fulfill the district’s obligation to the Synod.” That provision would be applicable,
should a district fail to meet in convention and elect its representative.
Otherwise, the work ordinarily done by a district convention in preparation for the Synod convention
(consideration of reports, submission of overtures, discussion and forwarding of suggestions for triennial
emphases) is possible to be done by other means (including congregations, circuit forums, church worker
conferences, and the district board of directors).

CCM Minutes – June 16, 2020 – Page 18