LCMS Commission on Constitutional Matters — Minutes St. Louis, Missouri — March 15–16, 2024, Page 4

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Opinion:

Yes, in limited circumstances.

The commission must first clarify the sense of “supervisory authority” in the question. Whether an SMP
can exercise “employment” supervision, generally, over others employed by his parish is a matter of the
congregation’s self-governance (Const. Art. VII), into which the commission does not intrude. The
commission specifically addresses pastoral oversight, 3 that being the sense in which the holder (sole or
senior pastor of the congregation) of the Office of the Holy Ministry in that place oversees the doctrine,
practice, and life of those occupying any auxiliary offices in the congregation, a consequence of their offices
assisting and being responsible to the Office of the Holy Ministry he bears (cf. Walther’s Ministry Thesis
VIII).
As explained above, Bylaw 2.13.1’s main paragraph limits the development of an SMP to a “specific Word
and Sacrament ministry context” for which the training, which lacks necessarily the breadth and depth of
general pastoral formation, in the judgment of the district president, can be expected adequately to prepare
him. His subsequent calls are limited to ones for which the district president can certify his limited training
as preparing him.
Bylaw 2.13.1 (a), as explained above, does not address the pastoral authority of an SMP within his context
(call, parish) and therefore does not itself preclude his role being defined to include supervision of, for
example, a commissioned minister within his parish. This does not diminish the responsibility of the district
president to approve the training and calling of SMPs to only those specific ministry contexts for which the
training is adequate and for which more fully prepared options are not available (2013 Res. 5-04B). While
the commission cannot foreclose the possibility (e.g., with regard to an SMP who also served capably as a
commissioned teacher/principal) that a particular SMP could be equipped to exercise pastoral oversight,
within his parish, over a commissioned auxiliary minister, it does not find this ordinarily to be the case—a
position supported by, for example, 2013 Res. 5-04B’s assertion that SMPs not be used where a
commissioned minister could fulfill the duties. Ultimately, however, this lies within the determination by
the district president that the specific ministry context (call, parish), involving as it does whatever
supervisory capacities with regard to auxiliary offices present in the context, is one for which the necessarily
limited training of an SMP adequately prepares him.
Question 2:

For example, if a large congregation with a staff of senior pastor, SMP, a director of
Christian education, a full day school staff, and a director of parish music experiences a
vacancy in the senior pastor position, what would be the appropriate relationship between
the SMP and the commissioned workers?

Question 3:

If the answers to the above questions indicate that there is never a circumstance that an
SMP might have supervisory authority over a commissioned worker, would that obligate
congregations in the scenario envisioned above to engage a vacancy pastor in order to
maintain proper supervisory authority over, not only the SMP, but also all commissioned
workers involved?

Opinion (regarding Questions 2 and 3): Relationships inherent to the SMP’s current call would be
unchanged. As to relationships requiring adjustment due to the senior pastor vacancy, it is the parish’s
determination—with the benefit of the advice, counsel, and ecclesiastical supervision of the respective
district president and within the commitments it has made as a member of the Synod—how pastoral
oversight will be provided for in the vacancy. (It should be noted that an assistant or associate pastor
remaining in the parish does not always serve as the senior during a vacancy, even where he is a general
pastor.) If the district president cannot certify that the SMP is adequately trained to take on oversight of the
congregation’s auxiliary offices (or otherwise, to carry out the role of the senior pastor), the congregation
will need to obtain the service of a different vacancy pastor who is so equipped. The SMP “is eligible to

3

See note 1 above regarding the use of oversight in a sense likely far more general than that of Bylaw 1.2.1 (p).
CCM Minutes – March 15–16, 2024 – Page 16