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LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2026, Page 492

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

492

STRUCTURE AND ADMINISTRATION

the government), and in the Synod “the Office of the Ministry” has
been termed “the highest office in the Church” (Francis Pieper,
Christian Dogmatics Vol. III [St. Louis: Concordia Publishing
House, 1953], 461), which should not be understood as
contradicting the rest of what Pieper wrote about the ministry
(extensively citing the Bible, Luther, and the Lutheran
Confessions); and
WHEREAS, It is good and helpful to distinguish between the men
whom God has called to perform the duties of the divinely instituted
preaching office in the Church (Predigtamt) for proclaiming and
teaching God’s Word and administering the Sacraments
(pastor/bishop/teaching elder), on the one hand, and the men and
women whom churches may appoint to perform other duties or hold
other offices in the churches, who are expected to believe, teach,
confess, and uphold the same confession of faith; and it is helpful
for the Synod to certify and keep records of those who have been
deemed qualified and have been appointed or called to these other
offices; and
WHEREAS, The New Testament uses various terms to describe
how people are designated or authorized to perform God-pleasing
duties in the Church, such as, “called” (κλητὸς, Rom. 1:1; 1 Cor.
1:1), “call” (καλέω, Gal. 1:15), “set apart” (ἀφορίζω, Acts 13:2;
Rom. 1:1; cf. Gal. 1:15) or “appoint” (ἀναδείκνυμι, Luke 10:1;
“point out,” Acts 1:24; καθίστημι, “put in charge,” Acts 6:3; Titus
1:5; Heb. 5:1; see also Matt. 24:45–47; 25:21–23; ποιέω, “make,”
Mark 3:14; Heb. 3:2; τίθημι, “set,” John 15:16 and 1 Cor. 12:28; 1
Tim. 2:7; 2 Tim. 1:11; “by prophecy with the laying on of hands,”
1 Tim. 4:14; or “ordain” [KJV, the Greek word χειροτονέω involves
either laying on hands or a show of hands, Acts 14:23], or “appoint
choose, or hand-pick,” 2 Cor. 8:19), but there is no mention of
ordaining (initiating someone into a specific “order”) or
commissioning (though it does mention “putting in charge” or
“appointing,” καθίστημι, Acts 6:3) of the people who are to do other
kinds of service or hold other offices in the Church; and
WHEREAS, Historically the Synod has affirmed that, “the
preaching office is conferred by God through the congregation as
the possessor of all ecclesiastical power, or the Keys, and through
the call that is prescribed by God. The ordination of those who are
called with laying on of hands is not a divine institution but an
apostolic, churchly order and only a solemn public ratification of
the call” (C.F.W. Walther, Ministry Thesis VI, 1852; in ed.
Harrison, The Church and the Office of the Ministry [CPH, 2012],
p. 5), a position reaffirmed by 2001 Resolution 7-17A, “To Affirm
Synod’s Official Position on Church and Ministry” (Proceedings,
172–73); and
WHEREAS, For most of its history, the Synod carefully
distinguished between pastors, who serve in the “preaching office”
or “pastoral office,” which “is not a human institution but an office
that God himself has established” (C.F.W. Walther, Ministry Thesis
II, Church and Ministry, p. 5), “the highest office in the Church,
from which flow all other offices in the Church” (Ministry Thesis
VIII, ibid.), on the one hand, and “auxiliary offices,” which in
biblical times included the offices of elders and the deaconate, and
in Walther’s day included the offices of “schoolteachers who have
the Word of God in their schools, distributors of alms, sextons,
precentors [i.e., leaders of singing] at public worship, and others”
listed in Ministry Thesis VIII, section 1 of Church Ministry (ibid.,
p. 286); and

2026 Convention Workbook

WHEREAS, The current Synod Constitution and Bylaws use nonbiblical terminology for these two groups of workers in the church
(“ministers of religion—ordained” and “ministers of religion—
commissioned”) instead of biblical terms, making a distinction
without biblical difference (e.g., what we call “the Great
Commission” was delivered to men whom Jesus appointed to the
Divine Office, who are currently rostered as “ordained ministers,”
while there is no biblical term for those currently rostered as
“commissioned minister,” those whom God permits the church to
appoint to serve in ways other than public preaching and teaching
of God’s Word and administering the Sacraments); and
WHEREAS, Historically the Synod, in its Constitution and
Bylaws, has referred to “pastors” also as “ministers of the Gospel,”
and referred to other theologically trained church workers by
various terms that describe their training, duties, or functions; and
WHEREAS, The practices of the Synod have become examples to
Lutheran churches around the world, living under the laws of
widely divergent governments, and the doctrine and terminology of
Lutheran churches should not be determined by the civil
governments in which we find ourselves; and
WHEREAS, The terminology “minister of religion—ordained and
ministers of religion—commissioned” (Const. Art. V) first entered
into Constitution in 1992, replacing the historic wording (through
1986):
Membership in the Synod is held and may be acquired by
congregations, ministers of the Gospel, and teachers of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church who confess and accept the
confessional basis of Article II.
and
WHEREAS, From 1989 through 2004 the Synod in convention
added numerous man-made offices to the list of “ministers of
religion—commissioned,” incorporating the graduates of programs
offered by various colleges and universities of the Synod:
Membership in the Synod is held and may be acquired by
congregations, ministers of the Gospel, teachers, and
deaconesses of the Evangelical Lutheran Church who confess
and accept the confessional basis of Article II. (1989 Const. Art.
V);
Membership in the Synod is held and may be acquired by
congregations, ministers of religion—ordained and ministers of
religion—commissioned, such as teachers, directors of Christian
education, directors of Christian outreach, and deaconesses of
the Evangelical Lutheran Church who confess and accept the
confessional basis of Article II. (Const. Art. V; added 1992;
“certified lay ministers” added in 1995; “parish assistants” added
in 1998; “directors of parish music” added in 2001; “directors of
family life ministry” added in 2004; the “such as” list was moved
to the Bylaws in 2019);
and
The following two whereases are present only in the Central Illinois
District Board of Directors submission:
WHEREAS, The Central Illinois District has for the most part
continued using the historic/biblical terms “pastor” and “teacher” in
its Constitution and Bylaws (which also conform more to the terms
commonly used in congregations to refer to these workers whom
we authorize to teach the faith) after the Synod changed its
terminology in its Constitution and Bylaws; and