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Synod's Task Force Gets High and Low Marks
Task Force States Need for Unified Polity The long awaited 80 page, 8½ x 11 "Preliminary Report of Task Force on National/District Synod Relations" was just received in the mail. The Task Force gets high marks for identifying the current polity crisis in the LCMS and low marks for legitimizing District bureaucracy. Regardless of the opinion of the growing factions of the Board-of-Director-CEO-Church Growth/Leadership Training-PLI enthusiasts and pre-Walther-Hyper-Euro-Lutheran Pastors in the LCMS, according to the Task Force, POLITY MATTERS! Has the Task Force been reading Reclaim News? We quote from the report: "Education about the polity of our Synod is needed, to varying degrees, by all the members of our Synod as well as some of the lay members of its congregations." "... in recent years many pastors, teachers, an other professional church workers have embarked upon their initial placements with little or no familiarity with the Constitutions and Bylaws of the Synod." "A lack of familiarity with our basic polity on the part of the Synod's members and lay members of our congregations has increasingly resulted in attitudes, teachings and practices that are at variance with and sometimes even inimical to the Synod's polity." But what about the freedom of the Gospel to do whatever we like in the LCMS? The Task Force correctly says there are two reasons for the Synod's polity, first that congregations "do the same things in matters of doctrine and practice" according to God's Word. Secondly, there is a need for unity in matters of adiaphora (things neither commanded nor forbidden in Scripture) such as congregations "calling only rostered Missouri Synod Pastors." According to the Handbook congregations that call pastors from outside the Synodical roster are automatically expelled from Synod. This is a law that we all follow in the Synod, out of love. Obviously, our love is the fulfillment of the law. The Task Force makes the following observation about American Culture: "In the last 30 years, cultural critic Dr. William Bennett notes, our society as a whole has placed less and less value on sacrifice, restraint, and moral obligation, and 'greater value on things like self-expression, individualism, self-realization, and personal choice.'" This is gives a clear picture of the self-styled pastors who are inventing their own polities throughout the Synod. Task Force Endorses District Bureaucracies The following statement says volumes about the LCMS: "Full-time or part-time? During the 1960s and 1970s the number of full-time District presidencies grew dramatically throughout the Synod. Today only two of our Districts have a part-time president, whereas only two had a full-time president in 1962." We also note that the Synod had 3 million members in 1962 as opposed to 2.6 million today. Yet, regrettably, the Task Force concludes that District Presidents should remain full-time because of "the complexity and the volume of problems that are being brought to District Presidents." Congregations founded the Synod and now the Task Force is telling us that congregations are no longer viable without an entrenched full-time District bureaucracy. The Task Force explains in detail why visitations circuits should be no larger than 5 to 7 congregations, but fails to follow this logic as to why Districts should be no larger than 100 congregations. A part-time District President with his own congregation would be compelled to delegate his duties to the vice-presidents and circuit counselors. Synod for the District Office and by the District Office The Task Force made no claims of speaking about congregational polity. But its perception is that LCMS congregations can't exist without a full-time District President and staff. As one reads the 80 page document it becomes clear that the Task Force views District Presidents as the primary readers of their document an not the lay people and congregations. What will these District Presidents let us do? We must be careful not to upset them, even though their office is not included in the Bible. The Task Force has altered Christ's words to "Wherever two or three are gathered together with a full-time District President, there am I in the midst of them." Hence the Task Force proceeds to put a Band-Aid on a broken leg. Their correct conclusion that the Seminaries and pastors don't follow the Synod's polity is even more compounded by the fact that the congregations and laypeople are ignorant of congregational polity. The result of raising a generation of confused laity, is that 10 times the number of full-time District Presidents will not be enough to properly administer LCMS congregations. The Task Force is relying on institutional dry rot in place of congregational viability to "save" the Synod. Perhaps we will need the loss of additional hundreds of thousands of members and another generation before the Synod decides that it will be much stronger with autonomous, self-governing, self-reliant and polity savvy congregations led by Voter Supremacy. To the Task Force we say: The District President is not the Church! Without lay people you don't have a church! When this write was 17 in New York City the Atlantic District had 155,000 members. Now it has 40,000 members. This is the handwriting on the wall for the Synod's "large" districts. Evangelizing with District Bureaucracy? The majority of District Presidents have become the primary promoters of PLI and Church Growth/Leadership Training in order to prove they know how to get results. Collecting a large crowd to enjoy religious entertainment is now called a "large congregation" in the LCMS. The Task Force shows us the Synod turned in on itself. It must save the Full-Time District President in order to save the congregations. The Synod is rife with the verve of Church Growth gurus teaching the Gospel of congregational corporate management and marketing. At the same time, there is virtual silence on the Synod's historic position of congregational polity and Voter Supremacy. Walther built the Synod (notice, I said Synod, not church) by attracting lay people to the LCMS that not only had better doctrine but a better polity than any other church body and that our laity practiced the full Biblical blessings of the priesthood of all believers. Now the "layman's church" has become the Full-time District President's Church. Maybe if we had a 1000 Full-Time District Presidents we would have enough people to play the organ, teach Sunday school, take out the trash, and cut the grass. Make that 10,000. On the surface, the Task Force seems to have moved in opposite directions. On the one hand, the Task Force notes that a number of Districts are now training and certifying their own workers for their Districts. The Task Force "notes that the Synod has not authorized any sort of church worker certification or commissioning, however termed, at the District level." On the other hand, the Task Force recommends that the Synod should be divided into four regions for the purpose of electing the five vice presidents and organizing regional district budget consultation to avoid duplication of efforts. First, they defend national certification of workers to preserve Synodical unity and then they sow the seeds for the break-up of the Synod into four smaller Synods led by four regional vice-presidents with another layer of bureaucracy between the District Presidents and the Synodical President. The best advice we can give the Task Force is to place the congregations first.
August 16, 2000 |