Collection › LCMS Convention Workbook (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1973 · 50th Convention › Page 214
LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1973, Page 214

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

214 CONSTITUTIONAL MATTERS

5-05D

Amherst Lutheran Church, Williamsville, N. Y¥., Robert
W. Gromer, President; B. Jerry Wagner, Pastor.

5-05E

Faculty, Concordia Teachers College, River Forest, Ill.
John Groh, Secretary.

5-05F

Immanuel Lutheran Church, Palatine, Ill, Theodore A.
Braem, Pastor; Warren Hattendorf, Secretary.

5-05G

St. Paul Lutheran Church, Mount Prospect, Ill., Raymond
Avischious, Chairman; Esther S. Busse, Secretary.

5-05H

St.John Evangelical Lutheran Church, Forest Park, Ill,
E, Edward Schmidtke, Chairman; Erwin L, Paul, Pastor.

5-051

Cross Lutheran Church, St. Paul, Minn., Arlin Paulson,
Chairman.

5-055

Faculty, Concordia College and High School, Portland,
Oreg., E. P. Weber, President,

5-05K

Ascension Lutheran Church, Riverside, Ill., Rev. Paul R.
Landahl, Pastor.

5-06

To Call a Constitutional Convention

The present Constitution has served the LCMS for 125
years. Drafted by our synodical fathers in the context of
mid-19th century circumstances, it has absorbed numerous
changes as the years and the church’s situations progressed.
Overtures to recent conventions, especially since 1965, when
in Detroit the “Mission Affirmations” gave new expression
to our self-understanding, have increasingly confronted the
delegate assembly with requests for altering the polity of
the church. Responsive amendments, rejections, or assign-
ments for further study by the convention, while providing
some useful dialog and constitutional changes, have lacked
the comprehensive evaluation and total revision that is being
encouraged and demonstrated in many congregations and
some Districts, and that seems to be urgently needed at the
synodical level if our Constitution is to provide expression
and structure consistent with what we have become and
want to be by God's mercy.

Some of the specific issues which call attention to that
need include:

1. The frequency, size, and business of delegate conven-
tions. The amount of time and money spent in preparing
for and conducting sessions is a recurring concern. More
importantly, the large numbers frustrate efforts at orienta-
tion, involvement, and progress on the agenda, much of
which is left for disposal by the Board of Directors,

2. Representation and the franchise. If the one man-one
vote principle is valid, the present polity presents gross
inequities. (A District of 150,000 members represented by
62 voting delegates: another of 258,000 represented by 64.)
Based on equal clergy/lay congregational representation,
constitutional provisions disenfranchise nearly 23 of the
Synod’s professional workers. Additionally, some components
of our membership (nonwhites, women, youth, coastal Dis-
tricts) suffer de facto discrimination,

3. District practices and relationships to Synod. As Dis-
tricts have grown, they have called their own personnel
and, while remaining a division of Synod, have established
varying polities. We need to review the relationships and
relative functions of District and Synod in the light of cur-
rent activities.

4. Tenure, autonomy, and authority. Since positions with
limited tenure are increasing at all levels in the church,
tensions between central authority and individual autonomy
have been heightened by pressures for central direction and
expression and counter-pressures for local control, A com-
prehensive look at a unified polity seems necessary.

WuerEas, Some of these and other issues have received
the attention of the Commission on Constitutional Matters,
the Committee on Organization, the Commission on Mission
and Ministry, and other groups within Synod; and

Wuereas, The proliferation of concerns demands a com-
prehensive and unified approach to the total polity of the
Synod in which the issues can be raised, discussed, and acted
upon with more deliberate and involving process than that
afforded by conventions or individual commissions; there-
fore be it

Resolved. That the Synod in convention declare its inten-
tion of calling a Constitutional Convention, subsequent to
the 1975 convention: and be it further

Resolved, That the Commission on Mission and Ministry
in the Church develop guidelines for the Constitutional Con-
vention, including number and selection of delegates, ap-
pointment of directional committee, and procedures that will
involve all levels of Synod in presenting and discussing the
issues that will confront the convention; and be it finally

Resolved, That the Commission on Mission and Ministry
in the Church present the guidelines to the 1975 convention.

CoMMISSION ON MISSION AND MINISTRY IN THE CHURCH
L. C. Wuerffel, Chairman

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To Study the Polity and Structure
of the Synod with Reference to Mission
and Ministry

Wuereas, The LCMS has been responsive and productive
in meeting the needs of mission and ministry throughout the
125 years of its history: and

Wuereas, The Synod needs to continue its record of posi-
tive progress as it adjusts itself in polity and structure to
new opportunities and continuing needs; and

Whereas, The Synod wishes to be fair and equitable in
the treatment of its members and workers; and

Wuereas, The Synod has not revised its polity and struc-
ture with specific reference to the following matters:

a. The role of its advisory members and their inability to
contribute to the Synod's development by the exercise of
the vote;

b. The role of its teachers in synodical elementary
schools, secondary schools, colleges, and seminaries and their
inability to contribute to the Synod's development by the
exercise of the vote;

c. The role of its women teachers and the treatment that
is accorded them (e.g., lower salaries than men receive for
the same work, no franchise, etc.):

d. The status of teachers and other church workers with
reference to the rites and privileges of ordination and instal-
lation; and

WuerEas, The above concerns relate to the polity and
structure of the Synod; therefore be it

Resolved, That the Synod assign the Commission on Mis-
sion and Ministry in the Church to undertake a thorough
review and study of the Synod’s polity and structure, par-
ticularly with reference to the problems noted above but not
limited to the examination of those problems only; and be it
further

Resolved, That the Commission on Mission and Ministry
in the Church report its findings and make recommendations
for action at the next convention of the Synod.

FACULTY

Concorpia TEACHERS COLLEGE
Seward, Nebr.

W. Th. Janzow, President
James Nelesen, Secretary