In this part I will address the content of the presentation and the recommendations of the Task Force in more detail, reporting on some of the major changes and providing information gleaned from the Q&A portions of the presentation. Part Three will offer my analysis and commentary on the good, bad and ugly of the Synod and this restructuring proposal.
The final report is published here. If any of these posts are of interest to you, I recommend you read the whole thing, in all it’s mind-numbing detail.
Recommendations #1-3 were essentially brushed over by the panel. They include
#1 Affirm and Clarify Governing Documents
#2 Clarify the Congregational Principle
#3 Restore Circuits to their Primary Purpose
Despite some significant changes to the wording of the Constitution, the panel emphasized #3 the most throughout the event. They explained this by telling us to stop thinking of “circuits” as we know them now. Instead we should think of them like “clusters” of similar congregations.
Recommendation #4 is to establish yet another Task force to continue to study the configurations of the Districts, with an aim toward reducing the number to streamline expenses, reduplication and things of the sort.
Recommendation #5 and #6 deal with congregational representation at District Conventions. The main thrust is that every congregational will receive two votes: 1 lay and 1 “Associate Member of Synod” which means ordained or non-ordained church worker. A congregation may choose to send whatever Associate Member of Synod it wishes to the convention, be they pastor, principle, DCE, teacher or whomever. Furthermore these two recommendations include allowing dual parishes and vacancy parishes the right to each send one lay and one associate member, giving them more votes than they currently have. The controversial proposal of allowing congregations with 1000+ members an additional lay vote is included. However, if all these proposals are passed, the effect will be that a total of 560 votes will be given to large congregations, 411 to dual and tri-point parishes, and up to 750 for vacancy congregations based on today’s number. This is not an issue of allowing larger congregation to bully smaller ones with more votes. Probably the opposite. The panel explained the principle for this was equal representation at District Conventions.
Recommendations #7-8 invovle establishing five geographical regions which would then elect a regional Synodical Vice-President for their region. This is not to “represent the region” as the Synodical VPs represent the President, but to allow a more equitable distribution of the prasesidium and to allow VPs to not be clustered around the Great Lakes regions, but to play a greater role in attendance at District Events and so forth across the entire Synod.
Recommendation #9 is to change the terms of elected offices from 3 years to 4 and change the “cycle” of conventions to match this. The cycle would be: Year 1, Circuit Convocations; Year 2, District Convocation; Year 3, District Convention; Year 4, Synodical Convention.
Recommendation #10 calls for District Conventions to elect delegates to the Synodical Convention, according to the percentage of total synodical membership holding district membership. In other words, if the Oklahoma District had 3% of the total communicant members of the LCMS, then they would be allowed a 3% share of delegates to the Synodical Convention. In other words, the number of delegates to the Synodical Convention would not be determined by the number of valid circuits, as it is now, but on the size of the district as a whole.
#11 recommends halving the size of the convention to 650 delegates. There is precedent for this in our history, and would introduce a substantial cost-savings for the Synod.
There are a series of recommendations I don’t wish to comment on. Those may be found in the final report at the link above.
Recommendation #16 might have been controversial. It gives priority to convention resolutions to circuits and districts over overtures submitted by congregations. The rationale is that if a congregation cannot convince her circuit or district that said issue is important, it is likely not to convince the Synod as a whole to vote or even consider it. Point taken. The other reason this is not as bad as it may sound is that the Floor Committees already ignore whatever overtures they wish. But this recommendation could force them to at least consider the district resolutions more heavily than they sometimes do.
Recommendation #18 is a big one. It recommends completely restructuring the boards/committees/commissions of the Synod into two main offices: the Office of National Mission and the Office of International Mission. These two offices would direct and implement the priorities, resolutions and goals of the Convention. The Offices would be supervised and report to a newly created position called the Chief Missions Officer, who would report to the President. The CMO would be appointed by the Synodical President and approved by the Synodical Board of Directors. It is claimed that this position would be chiefly administrative.
Recommendations 19-21 all direct further task force work in clarifying the priority of the consitution of the by-laws, renaming the synod, and examining certification of pastors.
Again, in Part Three I will offer my commentary on this.
Possibly Related posts:
Recent Comments