Official Handbook Source Text
Handbook page 61
Source: LCMS Handbook 2023, page 61.
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.
Rites of Ordination or Commissioning
2.10.3 The president of the district that will have ecclesiastical supervision of the
worker (see Bylaw section 2.12) shall be responsible for the rites of ordination and commissioning of candidates for the ministry called to that congregation, agency, or other calling body.
(a) The rite of ordination or commissioning should normally take place in the presence of the congregation, agency, or other calling body by which the candidate has been called.
(b) In the case of missionaries called by the Synod, members of a faculty of an institution of the Synod, or non-foreign specialized ministers called by the Synod, the rite shall take place in a setting approved by the district president of the calling entity.
(c) If an unusual circumstance warrants it, as in the case of missionaries and non- foreign specialized ministers, the district president may authorize that the rite take place in the home congregation of the candidate, or an other appropriate congregation, with the permission of the call ing congregation or other agency or calling body.
(d) A service of celebration on the part of the candidate ’s home congregation is encouraged.
(e) The district president shall issue a diploma of ordination or commissioning.
Forms and Practices
2.10.4 The rites of ordination and commissioning and the rites of installation
should be in accordance with forms and practices developed by the Synod for that purpose, and in all events the minister shall be solemnly pledged to the Scriptures as the inspi red and inerrant Word of God and the Symbolical Books of the Lutheran Church as a true exposition of the Scriptures.
2.11 Continued Eligibility of Individual Members
Active Members
2.11.1 To remain on the roster of the Synod as an active member, an ordained or
commissioned minister of religion must be a communicant member of a congregation which is a member of the Synod (except as provided in paragraph [c] below) and be regularly performing the duties of one of the following:
(a) An ordained or commissioned minister serving a congregation of the Synod.
(b) An ordained or commissioned minister serving an educational institution (an “association school”) solely governed by congregations of the Synod and recognized by a district of the Synod.
(c) An ordained or commissioned minister serving a congregation that is not a member of the Synod, as approved ( on the basis of policies adopted by the Council of Presidents) by the president of the district in which the congregation is located.
