Official Handbook Source Text
Handbook page 24
Source: LCMS Handbook 2023, page 24.
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.
Bylaws, the “synodwide corporate entities” of the Synod are the following corporations:
(1) Concordia Historical Institute
(2) Concordia Publishing House
(3) Lutheran Church Extension Fund— Missouri Synod
(4) Lutheran Church— Missouri Synod Foundation
(5) Concordia University System The term “synodwide corporate entity” is not used in these Bylaws to include foreign corporations created by the Synod in order to undertake foreign missions.
(x) Task force: An appointed group that has an ad hoc assignment to accomplish a specific task and whose duties have a definite expiration date.
(y) Voting member: A member congregation of the Synod (see Constitution Art. V A).
1.3 Synod Relationships:
Congregation, National, District, Circuit
1.3.1 Individual Christians are joined together in a worshiping and serving
community, the congregation. Congregations, the basic units of the Synod, have joined together to form the Synod and relate to one another through it.
1.3.2 The Synod divides itself into districts and authorizes its districts to create
circuits. The criteria for the creation of districts and circuits are determined by the Synod in convention. Districts and circuits are included among the component parts of the Synod. The Synod also divides itself into regions to accommodate elections that require regional representation.
1.3.3 The Synod, including its component parts, is regarded as an extension of
the congregations to the extent and for the purposes determined by the congregations acting through conventions. The Synod and its component parts are designed to assist congregations and their members in conserving and promoting the unity of the faith and in carrying out their mission and ministry. The Synod, including its component parts, also serves as the structure through which congregations carry out certain functions that can be performed more effectively and efficiently together with other member congregations.
1.3.4 Congregations together establish the requirements of membership in the
Synod (Constitution Art. VI). In joining the Synod, congregations and other members obligate themselves to fulfill such requirements and to diligently and earnestly promote the purposes of the Synod by word and deed.
1.3.4.1 Members agree to uphold the confessional position of the Synod
(Constitution Art. II) and to assist in carrying out the objectives of the Synod ( Constitution Art. III), which are objectives of the members themselves. While congregations of the Synod are self- governing (Constitution Art. VII), they, and also individual members, commit themselves as members of the Synod to act in accordance with the Constitution and Bylaws of the Synod under which they have agreed to live
