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LCMS 2026 Convention Workbook: Reports and Overtures, PDF page 533

2. Strengthen congregations and their members in giving bold 
witness by word and deed to the love and work of God, the Father, 
Son, and Holy Spirit, and extend that Gospel witness into all the 
world; 
3. Recruit and train pastors, teachers, and other professional church 
workers and provide opportunity for their continuing growth; 
4. Provide opportunities through which its members may express 
their Christian concern, love, and compassion in meeting human 
needs; 
5. Aid congregations to develop processes of thorough Christian 
education and nurture and to establish agencies of Christian 
education such as elementary and secondary schools and to 
support synodical colleges, universities, and seminaries; 
6. Aid congregations by providing a variety of resources and 
opportunities for recognizing, promoting, expressing, 
conserving, and defending their confessional unity in the true 
faith; 
7. Encourage congregations to strive for uniformity in church 
practice, but also to develop an appreciation of a variety of 
responsible practices and customs which are in harmony with our 
common profession of faith; 
8. Provide evangelical supervision, counsel, and care for pastors, 
teachers, and other professional church workers of the Synod in 
the performance of their official duties; 
9. Provide protection for congregations, pastors, teachers, and other 
church workers in the performance of their official duties and the 
maintenance of their rights; 
10. Aid in providing for the welfare of pastors, teachers, and other 
church workers, and their families in the event of illness, 
disability, retirement, special need, or death. 
Article XI Rights and Duties of Officers 
A. In General 
1. The officers of the Synod must assume only such rights as have 
been expressly conferred upon them by the Synod, and in 
everything pertaining to their rights and the performance of their 
duties they are responsible to the Synod. 
2. The Synod at all times has the right to call its officers to account 
and, if circumstances require it, to remove them from office in 
accordance with Christian procedure. 
… 
B. Duties of the President 
1. The President has the supervision regarding the doctrine and the 
administration of 
a. All officers of the Synod; 
b. All such as are employed by the Synod; 
c. The individual districts of the Synod; 
d. All district presidents. 
2. It is the President’s duty to see to it that all the aforementioned 
act in accordance with the Synod’s Constitution, to admonish all 
who in any way depart from it, and, if such admonition is not 
heeded, to report such cases to the Synod. 
3. The President has and always shall have the power to advise, 
admonish, and reprove. He shall conscientiously use all means at 
his command to promote and maintain unity of doctrine and 
practice in all the districts of the Synod. 
4. The President shall see to it that the resolutions of the Synod are 
carried out. 
… 
Article XII Districts of the Synod and Their Regulation 
… 
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. 
… 
As it is also in the Bylaws of the Synod: 
1.9.2 Before materials stipulated in Bylaw 1.9.1 are published, 
they shall be submitted to (a) doctrinal reviewer(s). Reviewers shall 
make a careful evaluation of the doctrinal content of all items 
submitted. Materials are to be reviewed in a prompt manner and 
completed in no longer than four weeks. Exceptions shall be 
arranged by mutual agreement between the reviewer(s) and the 
originating entity. 
(a) The primary responsibility for doctrinal supervision and 
review lies with the President of the Synod (Constitution Art. XI 
B 1). 
… 
4.4.4 
The district president shall, in accordance with the 
Constitution of the Synod, in his ministry of ecclesiastical 
supervision visit the congregations of the district. 
(a) He shall arrange in advance for an official visit to each 
congregation of his district at least once every three years and 
otherwise as he deems it necessary. He may call upon the circuit 
visitors and vice -presidents to assist him with the triennial 
visitation of congregations. 
(b) In his official visits he shall seek to bring about to the greatest 
possible degree the achievement of the Synod’ s objectives as 
expressed in Article III of its Constitution. 
(c) He shall conduct his official visits in an evangelical manner. 
(d) He shall come to the pastor and the congregation as a 
brotherly advisor, reminding them of the joy of serving in the 
mission and ministry of the church. 
(e) In his visits he shall include fraternal discussion in regard to 
worship and communion attendance; participation by the 
congregation in missions and the work of the church at large; the 
congregation’s evangelism and education endeavors; its 
cultivation of sound stewardship principles; all aspects of 
compensation for professional church workers; the need for 
maintenance of purity of doctrine; the strengthening of the bond 
of Christian fellowship; and the provision of resources, 
opportunities, and assistance so God’s people can grow in their 
faith, hope, and love. 
… 
WHEREAS, All pastors of the LCMS make the same vows upon 
their ordination and installation concerning pure doctrine; and 
WHEREAS, It is the duty of district presidents to carry out 
ecclesiastical oversight and supervision per the Bylaws of Synod; 
and 
WHEREAS, It is the duty of the President of the Synod to carry 
out ecclesiastical supervision per the Bylaws of Synod; and 
2026 Convention Workbook
498 ECCLESIASTICAL SUPER VISION AND DISPUTE RESOLUTION