LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2026, Page 145

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

OFFICER, BOARD, AND COMMISSION REPORTS
ing to minimize their number of exceptions. With this realignment
and the reduction in exceptions requested and because of the work
of the Synod President to reduce the number of exceptions granted, only 7 percent of the 2026 Synod convention electoral circuits
required and were granted exceptions, instead of the 22 percent
expected if the districts had done no realignment. This, combined
with a small but significant slowdown from the projected 8–9 percent triennial drop in confirmed membership to closer to 7 percent,
has relieved the situation for the moment, but this will not remove
the necessity for the Synod to address this at the 2026 convention to
prevent even greater challenges down the road. It should be noted
here that exceptions are not only for those circuits that fall below
the 1,500 communicant minimum but are also granted for those
which must exceed the upper limit of 20 congregations in order to
reach the 1,500-communicant limit.
The task force gave consideration to a number of options. The
first set of those options was to deal with the matter of exceptions.
In the past, districts have typically requested exceptions for electoral circuits which fall below the 7 to 20 congregations and 1,500
to 10,000 communicant member parameters of the Bylaws instead
of redrawing circuit boundaries so that visitation circuits meet the
requirements of the Bylaws to be electoral circuits. As the Synod decreases in both the aggregate communicant membership and
the number of congregations due to closure or consolidation, the
pressure upon the districts will continue to be felt going forward.
Some districts may find it more difficult to eliminate the request for
exceptions because of geographical constraints (the “saltwater” and
non-geographical districts in particular). Because of this, the task
force considered the various reasons for exceptions and a means
to allow continued exceptions but under tighter parameters spelled
out under bylaw requirements. If no exceptions were permitted, the
Synod would then place the full responsibility squarely on district
boards of directors to assure compliant-sized electoral circuits.
Second, the task force considered changing the current upper
limits for electoral circuits, currently 20 congregations or 10,000
confirmed members. It was noted that the upper limit of confirmed
membership number is never reached, but removing the upper limit
on numbers of congregations (or parishes, as will be addressed later) could be helpful for some districts in forming electoral circuits.
With this, the task force considered another limit placed on the formation of visitation circuits into an electoral circuit. Currently, the
bylaw allows for two adjacent visitation circuits to be formed into
an electoral circuit; anything else requires the request for an exception. Removing this limit of two visitation circuits would allow
more flexibility for districts both to create visitation circuits with
ideal sizes for ministry needs while allowing them greater flexibility when they must be combined to form an electoral circuit.
Along with this was the consideration of removing the requirement that visitation circuits combining into an electoral circuit be
“adjacent” and allowing non-adjacent visitation circuits to combine
into an electoral circuit. The rationale for this was that visitation
circuits which could be ideal sizes to combine into an electoral circuit are not always adjacent to each other and that changes in communication technology would facilitate non-adjacent visitation circuits to meet. However, it was determined that such a change would
affect only a few districts and circuits and, while helpful, would
not contribute greatly to the solution of the problem. Furthermore,
it was feared that such non-adjacent permission might create its
own problems similar to the gerrymandering seen in the political
sphere and that cobbling together a patchwork of visitation circuits

145

which do not share knowledge of each other and which would need
to elect delegates who are unknown to each other would create its
own set of problems.
The task force discussed simply changing the composition of
circuits from “congregations” to “parishes” and thus acknowledging the growing number of multi-congregation parishes being
formed due to declining size and ability to support a full-time pastor. This was also seen as a means to encourage circuits to have a viable number of actively serving pastors to support the health and vitality of those visitation circuits. Without a “critical mass” number
of pastors within visitation circuits, the circuit will find it difficult
to network together “for [the] mutual care, support, advice, study,
ecclesiastical encouragement, service, coordination, resources, and
counsel” for the sake of both congregation and Synod. If a circuit is
composed of several congregations in dual or tri-parishes, then the
functioning of the circuit and the pastoral winkels can be adversely
affected. It was noted from the surveys that winkels suffer if fewer
than five pastors are present. Having a greater number of pastors is
beneficial to the health and vitality of both congregation and clergy.
Requiring six parishes in a circuit rather than seven congregations
would increase the likelihood of having six or more pastors present
at winkels. Obviously, this proposal would have a greater effect on
districts with a higher number of multi-congregation parishes; however, a change from seven congregations to six parishes would help
both rural and urban circuits ensure adequate visitation needs as
well as balanced electoral representation for the Synod convention.
Another option considered by the task force, a so-called “relieved model,” would attempt to provide more flexibility in the size
of circuits to allow for circuits with larger congregations in urban
and suburban areas (and therefore well above the confirmed member limit) to have fewer congregations, while providing for circuits
with many small congregations in sparsely populated regions to
qualify with somewhat fewer members, through the use of a mathematical equation. While the current thresholds of congregations
and communicant members do not take into account the difference
between larger and smaller congregations, this could potentially
account for population and geographic differences. Although this
could provide some stability from triennium to triennium and might
relieve the pressure on districts to realign circuits, the formula is
complex and presents its own difficulty to circuits and districts and
would require much more explanation and understanding to be useful. For these reasons, the task force decided not to recommend this
option at this time.
Finally, the task force considered completely separating visitation from electoral circuits so that the districts were not in any
way bound by the boundaries of the visitation circuits in creating
electoral circuits which would meet the current criteria. Districts
could conceivably draw different maps for each purpose. Visitation
circuits would continue to have the purpose of ecclesiastical visitation and pastors’ winkels while electoral circuits could be drawn
differently for the limited purposes of election of delegates to the
Synod convention. In this way, the Synod could decide to reduce
the overall size of the convention both for cost savings and in order to facilitate more deliberation among fewer delegates. The task
force considered how it might work to simply apportion the number
of delegates to each district based upon a formula of number of
congregations and communicant membership and leave it to the
districts to draw the electoral map based on those numbers, perhaps
even without geographical constraints. The task force believed that
such an option represented a fairly radical change both in represen2026 Convention Workbook