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LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2026, Page 498

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

ECCLESIASTICAL SUPERVISION AND DISPUTE RESOLUTION

498

2. Strengthen congregations and their members in giving bold
witness by word and deed to the love and work of God, the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit, and extend that Gospel witness into all the
world;
3. Recruit and train pastors, teachers, and other professional church
workers and provide opportunity for their continuing growth;
4. Provide opportunities through which its members may express
their Christian concern, love, and compassion in meeting human
needs;
5. Aid congregations to develop processes of thorough Christian
education and nurture and to establish agencies of Christian
education such as elementary and secondary schools and to
support synodical colleges, universities, and seminaries;
6. Aid congregations by providing a variety of resources and
opportunities for recognizing, promoting, expressing,
conserving, and defending their confessional unity in the true
faith;
7. Encourage congregations to strive for uniformity in church
practice, but also to develop an appreciation of a variety of
responsible practices and customs which are in harmony with our
common profession of faith;
8. Provide evangelical supervision, counsel, and care for pastors,
teachers, and other professional church workers of the Synod in
the performance of their official duties;
9. Provide protection for congregations, pastors, teachers, and other
church workers in the performance of their official duties and the
maintenance of their rights;
10.Aid in providing for the welfare of pastors, teachers, and other
church workers, and their families in the event of illness,
disability, retirement, special need, or death.

Article XI Rights and Duties of Officers
A. In General
1. The officers of the Synod must assume only such rights as have
been expressly conferred upon them by the Synod, and in
everything pertaining to their rights and the performance of their
duties they are responsible to the Synod.
2. The Synod at all times has the right to call its officers to account
and, if circumstances require it, to remove them from office in
accordance with Christian procedure.
…

B. Duties of the President
1. The President has the supervision regarding the doctrine and the
administration of
a. All officers of the Synod;
b. All such as are employed by the Synod;
c. The individual districts of the Synod;
d. All district presidents.
2. It is the President’s duty to see to it that all the aforementioned
act in accordance with the Synod’s Constitution, to admonish all
who in any way depart from it, and, if such admonition is not
heeded, to report such cases to the Synod.
3. The President has and always shall have the power to advise,
admonish, and reprove. He shall conscientiously use all means at
his command to promote and maintain unity of doctrine and
practice in all the districts of the Synod.
4. The President shall see to it that the resolutions of the Synod are
carried out.
…

2026 Convention Workbook

Article XII Districts of the Synod and Their Regulation
…
7. The district presidents shall, moreover, especially exercise
supervision over the doctrine, life, and administration of office of
the ordained and commissioned ministers of their district and
acquaint themselves with the religious conditions of the
congregations of their district. To this end they shall visit and,
according as they deem it necessary, hold investigations in the
congregations. Their assistants in this work are the circuit
visitors, who therefore shall regularly make their reports to the
district president.
8. District presidents are empowered to suspend from membership
ordained and commissioned ministers for persistently adhering to
false doctrine or for having given offense by an ungodly life, in
accordance with such procedure as shall be set forth in the
Bylaws of the Synod.
…

As it is also in the Bylaws of the Synod:
1.9.2
Before materials stipulated in Bylaw 1.9.1 are published,
they shall be submitted to (a) doctrinal reviewer(s). Reviewers shall
make a careful evaluation of the doctrinal content of all items
submitted. Materials are to be reviewed in a prompt manner and
completed in no longer than four weeks. Exceptions shall be
arranged by mutual agreement between the reviewer(s) and the
originating entity.
(a) The primary responsibility for doctrinal supervision and
review lies with the President of the Synod (Constitution Art. XI
B 1).
…
The district president shall, in accordance with the
4.4.4
Constitution of the Synod, in his ministry of ecclesiastical
supervision visit the congregations of the district.
(a) He shall arrange in advance for an official visit to each
congregation of his district at least once every three years and
otherwise as he deems it necessary. He may call upon the circuit
visitors and vice-presidents to assist him with the triennial
visitation of congregations.
(b) In his official visits he shall seek to bring about to the greatest
possible degree the achievement of the Synod’s objectives as
expressed in Article III of its Constitution.
(c) He shall conduct his official visits in an evangelical manner.
(d) He shall come to the pastor and the congregation as a
brotherly advisor, reminding them of the joy of serving in the
mission and ministry of the church.
(e) In his visits he shall include fraternal discussion in regard to
worship and communion attendance; participation by the
congregation in missions and the work of the church at large; the
congregation’s evangelism and education endeavors; its
cultivation of sound stewardship principles; all aspects of
compensation for professional church workers; the need for
maintenance of purity of doctrine; the strengthening of the bond
of Christian fellowship; and the provision of resources,
opportunities, and assistance so God’s people can grow in their
faith, hope, and love.
…

WHEREAS, All pastors of the LCMS make the same vows upon
their ordination and installation concerning pure doctrine; and
WHEREAS, It is the duty of district presidents to carry out
ecclesiastical oversight and supervision per the Bylaws of Synod;
and
WHEREAS, It is the duty of the President of the Synod to carry
out ecclesiastical supervision per the Bylaws of Synod; and