LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1979, Page 59

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PRESIDENT’S REPORT 59

only one meeting with the plenary, in which I stated my
own concerns and answered questions as raised by
members of the Task Force. I did not want anyone to say
that this committee was working at the behest of the
synodical President.

May I also say at the very beginning that the Task
Force has not done everything that I think needs to be
done relative to the reorganization of the Synod. I would
strongly urge that the convention ask this Task Force,
or a successor group, to continue its work for at least
another biennium in order that certain other things can
be dealt with. For example, the Task Force did not
address itself to the question of 35 U.S.A. Districts. I
think a great case could be made for reducing the
number of Districts. The American Lutheran Church,
which has about two or three hundred thousand mem-
bers less than we do, functions with 16 U.S.A. Districts
and seemingly is getting along as well as we are. A great
deal of thought could go into the subject of amalga-
mation of some of our Districts so that administrative
expense could be saved.

Study ought also to be made regarding the sharing of
executives at the District level. Perhaps two or more
Districts might share certain kinds of executives. There
are other items that ought to receive serious consid-
eration by a committee on organization. If the conven-
tion prefers, perhaps rather than retain the present
Task Force, a continuing committee on synodical struc-
ture ought to be created which would give constant
study to the matter of the revision of our Bylaws and our
overall structure. We are living in an age of rapid
change, and we need constantly to be asking ourselves
the question if our present structure is adequate to meet
the challenges facing us.

Furthermore, I want to say that in my 10 years as
President of the church I have learned to live with the
present structure. At first I was very frustrated with it,
particularly after having spent the previous seven years
working under what I still consider to be the best
organized part of our entire synodical structure, namely,
that dealing with the higher education work of the
Synod. Soin talking about the report of the Task Force, I
am not coming to you today suggesting that these
changes are proposed at my request. I have learned to
live with the structure, even though I suffer from great
frustration and consider it extremely cumbersome. For
example, in what other organization in the world does it
take at least six months to get a new executive on board?
No provision is made really for handling the work of the
board or committee until an executive is in office. Our
method of nomination, screening and election, together
with the schedule of meetings, means that when an
executive leaves his position we can assume at least a
six-months vacancy, and in the event the man called
declines, then we usually have to wait another two or
three months.

I could go on and on describing the cumbersomeness
of the present structure but hasten to say that it is
possible to work under it, and if the Synod did nothing,
the present officers could continue to work. But if you
find yourself frustrated with the synodical structure, let

me assure you that those who work under it every day of
their lives not only share your frustration but could give
you about a hundred more reasons for being frustrated.
It is not the best way of developing efficiency and high
morale among our staff people or in getting the Lord’s
work accomplished.

My main concern about the present structure is that
it tends to produce a political and oftentimes manipu-
lative situation in the interest of making some progress
and in getting some things done. Quite frankly, the
office of synodical President, as stipulated in the 11th
article of the Constitution, is a perfect illustration of
what I’m talking about. On the one hand, if you read the
first portion of the article, you would conclude that the
President is pope. If you read the second half of the
description, you would conclude that he is totally impo-
tent and has to refer all serious decisions to a convention
of the Synod meeting every two years. The result is that
the President, as for example in the matter of the fact-
finding endeavor at Concordia Seminary and in the
matter of removal of District Presidents from office, in
order to be constitutionally correct not only causes
consternation at conventions but asks people who are
neither psychologically nor theologically nor proce-
durally in tune with the actual problems to make
decisions under time pressures which they are extremely
reluctant to make. And then once the decision is made, it
is set in such cement that no opportunity is provided for
any kind of reconsideration of the matter brought about
by further developments among any decisionmaking
group.

Basically we have a situation that between conven-
tions nobody is in charge, and yet between conventions
some extremely important decisions need to be made
which cannot be delayed until the next convention of
the Synod. Likewise, this situation produces a lack of
decisiveness on the part of the leadership of the church,
which is oftentimes confused with vacillation or uncer-
tainty.

Another illustration is that occasionally we get a
person elected to a synodical board who turns out to be
utterly incompetent to do the job assigned to that
particular board. In some instances a person may
actually be such a detriment to the work of that board
that he ought to be removed. Yet there is no provision for
removing anyone from office other than by the electoral
process, and if a person is able to keep his political
fences mended, he can continue for a span of up to 12
years, virtually to paralyze and in some cases possibly
destroy a valuable institution or agency of the Synod.
The result is that a president and others who recognize
this are reduced to all kinds of subterfuges and jaw-
boning in order to obviate a catastrophe.

Some years ago the synodical leadership, in recog-
nition of this difficulty of no one being in charge
between conventions, proposed a reduction of the time
between conventions of three years to two years. How-
ever, the converse of this is that we now have so many
conventions that the synodical staff spends one year
recovering from the last convention and the next year in
preparing for the next, with insufficient time in between