LCMS Commission on Constitutional Matters — Minutes St. Louis, Missouri — May 2, 2022, Page 5

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is free and, indeed, bound to offer the calling congregation his prayerful wisdom, experience, knowledge,
and counsel to persuade the calling congregation why such candidate is not recommended. However, a
district president must assume only such rights as have been expressly conferred upon him by the Synod
(Const. Art. XI, A 1), and, while there may be wise and pastoral reasons for recommending why a requested
candidate is not recommended, there is no authority in the Constitution and Bylaws of the Synod given to
the district president of a calling congregation—perhaps intending to prevent such a call—to withhold the
basic adequate information described above on any ordained minister of the Synod. The district president
cannot prevent a congregation from acting unadvisedly, but given his duty to advise, his denial of
information must not be the precipitant of such an unadvised act.
There are three qualifiers on this basic duty:
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First, if information were to be requested on a specific ministry pastor who in the determination of
the involved district president(s) with regard to a call “for which he has not been certified” (that is,
that is outside the specific ministry context for which he has been trained), it suffices for the district
president simply so to indicate to the calling congregation. Such a call not only may not be accepted
by the SMP pastor; it may not even be offered to him, and the congregation is therefore not
permitted to extend it. (Bylaw 2.13.1)
Second, information may be requested on an ordained minister whose standing on the roster of the
Synod would not allow him to accept the call; that is, he may be on either restricted (Bylaw 2.13.2.2
[b]) or suspended (Bylaw 2.13.4.2 [c]) status. Here, the man’s status and the reasons for it—
particularly in the case of restricted status, which may be investigative in nature, regarding
allegations not yet fully resolved as true or false—may not be known to a congregation, and a
district president may not be able fully to share them.
Third, information may be requested on a man who is neither restricted nor suspended but whose
personal or family circumstances would reasonably preclude his acceptance of a call at a given
time. These may be of a very private nature, such as a particular health or financial issue being
addressed at a given time, and may not be fully disclosed by the pastor in the usual information
provided to a calling congregation.

In these second and third cases, the district president has responsibility as ecclesiastical supervisor both to
the congregation and to the man concerned. He must, in providing counsel, balance the interests of the
congregation’s call process and of the reputation of the restricted or otherwise constrained ordained
minister. While the commission cannot prescribe the exact means of doing this in every case, it appears to
the commission that there are approaches that provide adequate counsel and protect the reputation of the
man concerned.
The district president might, for example, consult with a restricted or suspended ordained minister at the
time status is initiated, as part of his ministry to him (Bylaw 2.13.2.4; 2.14.4.3 [b]), advising the man that
he cannot accept a call while on said status and inviting his statement that while on said status any
congregation requesting information on the pastor will be informed that the ordained minister himself has
indicated that he is unable to consider a call at this time. This simple statement, from the minister himself,
would suffice as counsel to any potentially calling congregation if conveyed by the district president. The
minister’s failure to provide such a statement might require the district president to reveal to an inquiring
congregation the existence of status prohibiting acceptance of a call.
The same approach might be taken with a pastor not on restricted on suspended status but dealing with
personal circumstances that would make the extension of a call to him, or his acceptance of it, inadvisable.
Either when information on the pastor is requested or when the district president becomes aware of such
circumstances, he could consult with the pastor and ask him if he would like information shared with an
inquiring congregation, perhaps making it clear that if he does share the information, he will have to be
forthright about circumstances rendering a call inadvisable. If the pastor prefers that the information not be
shared, in this instance the district president may indicate to the congregation simply that the ordained
CCM Minutes – May 2, 2022 – Page 109