Official Handbook Source Text
Handbook page 17
Source: LCMS Handbook 2023, page 17.
This page reproduces text from the 2023 LCMS Handbook for study and navigation. Readers should verify procedural, legal, parliamentary, or governance questions against the official LCMS Handbook and appropriate LCMS authorities.
c. As many circuit visitors as each district may determine upon d. A district secretary e. A district treasurer, who may be elected by the district convention or appointed in such manner as the district may prescribe
4. Additional officers, boards, and commissions are elected by the districts as they are required for the execution of the business of the districts.
5. The election and time of service of the district officers shall be determined by the Bylaws of the Constitution of the Synod.
6. All officers of the districts have the same rights and duties as those outlined in this Constitution for the officers of the Synod but only insofar as these apply to the district and only within the boundaries of their districts.
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.
9. Furthermore, the district presidents shall a. See to it that all resolutions of the Synod which concern the districts are made known to the districts and are carried out by them;
b. Submit an annual report of their administration to the President of the Synod and, in general, permit him to obtain all necessary insight into their official activities as district presidents;
c. Perform, either in person or by proxy, the ecclesiastical ordination of the candidates for the ministry assigned to their districts , the commissioning of the candidates for the auxiliary offices assigned to their districts, and the installation of all ministers , ordained or commissioned, called to serve within their districts;
d. Sign all examination papers and certificates of ordination and, in general, all official papers and documents of their district.
10. The meetings of the districts of the Synod are composed of the following:
a. Voting Delegates Every member congregation or multi-congregation parish is entitled to two votes, one of which is to be cast by its pastor and the other by the lay delegate elected and deputed by the congregation or parish.
b. Advisory Delegates Advisory delegates are all commissioned ministers, and those ordained ministers not presently serving as voting representatives of congregations, who are members of the Synod within the district. In addition, a congregation that is part of a multi -congregation parish, other than the congregation supplying the voting lay delegate, may elect and depute an advisory lay delegate.
