LCA/NZ Constitution Review (Phase 1)

This review confirms earlier investigations by the LCA Standing Committee on Constitutions and what it suspected two years ago – that the existing constitutional document requires re-constituting, a reordering – in short, a re-formation.

To date, church members are indicating that, without losing anything from the existing constitution, they would like to reorder its contents into three distinct documents: an inspiring Church Charter, an easy-to-read ‘Book of Rules’ and a concise Constitution for our legal structure.

Approximately 250 church members have engaged with the review (some representing congregations and agencies/boards). The review team and the facilitators have listened to these thoughts and opinions most carefully. Some people have completed surveys, others have written submissions, some have participated in working groups, and still others have been involved in telephone interviews.

The groups of people that have participated in this review to date include congregational members, Synod members, pastors, young people, people involved in cross-cultural ministry, people involved in aged-care ministry, Indigenous ministry, schools ministry, community services ministries, Australian Lutheran World Service, bishops, General Church Board members, members of the Standing Committee on Constitutions, District administrators and others.

Other key proposals:

• a focus on supporting ministry and mission with greater constitutional support for the diverse forms of ministry that now exists including church plants, cross-cultural ministry, ministry with young people and ministry with Indigenous communities. This will enable local ministry flexibility within theological and administrative order.
• being more inclusive of specialist ministries including ensuring they each have a ‘voice’ within the church
• changing our name (if possible) to the Lutheran Church of Australia and New Zealand
• improving the way we list the church;s objects
• simplifying the number of categories of ‘member’ in congregations
• more use of modern systems and technology within the church
• ensuring all our processes meet modern standards of good governance
• constitutionally linking our separate District synods with General Synod by unifying and making consistent the ‘delegate to Synod’ election process throughout the church
• using simple language and adding clarifying statements and/or definitions throughout to ensure our revised constitutional documents are clear to the reader.

Over the next three months we plan to hear more from church members, pastors, members of church boards and those involved in church agency mission and ministry.

• Communique 1 (13 December 2019)
• Communique 2 (6 February 2020)
• Communique 3 (28 April 2020)
• Communique 4 (15 July 2020)
• Communique 5 (7 September 2020)

• Constitution Review Terms of Reference
• LCA Five Principles of Dialogue

• LCA Constitution (2018)
• LCA Governance Framework
• LCA 'Our Direction' 2018-2024
• Theses of Agreement (DSTO Volume 1)
• Doctrinal statements
• Cleary Governance Report
• LCA Model Constitution for Congregations
• Ministry Structure in the LCA - structuring ourselves for growth in the 21st century (Rev Stephen Schultz, Assistant Bishop for Mission, SA-NT District, March 2019)

This is a ‘constitutional issues’ survey that all church members and/or agency representatives may complete. If you are completing this survey on behalf of a group you belong to (eg a congregation), you need to get their consent for you to complete the survey on their behalf.

The survey begins with a few compulsory questions (marked with an asterisk [*]) to enable data analysis. Then the real (non compulsory) survey questions follow:

1. What are the top 3 issues you (or the group you are representing) are experiencing now that could be improved by a change to the Constitution?
2. What do you think are the top 3 issues the whole of LCA/NZ is facing which need to be considered in the context of the review of the constitution?
3. What are the best 3 aspects to the LCA/NZ’s current constitutional arrangements?
4. What are the worst 3 aspects to the LCA/NZ’s current constitutional arrangements?
5. What key changes (if any) do you think need to be made to the existing LCA Constitution?

The survey closed in July 2020.

Summary of ‘Church Member’ Survey Results

Survey results identified a number of improvements respondents would like to see:

In-scope improvements

• an easier to read and understand constitution (they want to remedy the lack of clarity in several parts of the existing constitution and add clarifying definitions)
• a more Christ-focused and inspiring constitution
• a focus on supporting ministry and mission with greater constitutional support for the diverse forms of ministry that now exists including church plants, cross-cultural ministry, ministry with young people and ministry in Indigenous communities
• being more inclusive of specialist ministries including ensuring they each have a ‘voice’ within the church
• changing our name to the Lutheran Church of Australia and New Zealand
• improving the way we list current church objects
• simplify the definition of ‘membership’ of congregations to bring our definitions in line with typical current practice
• reorder the constitution into two or three distinct documents
• more use of modern systems and technology within the church
• ensuring all our processes meet modern standards of good governance
• clarifying ‘authorities’ within the church
• ensuring greater accountability of governing bodies and leaders
• have our separate General and District synods constitutionally linked and working together more
• clarity on the process by which doctrine within the church can be adopted and/or changed/rescinded
• a better legal structure for the church.

Review out-of-scope improvements suggested

• resolution of the ‘women's ordination’ matter, with most respondents seeking gender equality in the ministry
• a review of the future financing of the church to ensure sustainability
• agreeing on a new inclusive paradigm of ‘voting members’ within the church that would include representatives of our specialist ministries (eg schools, aged-care etc)
• a review of the Lutheran Confessions, the doctrinal statements and theological opinions, and the doctrinal practices of the church to ensure they are relevant for Christian ministry in the 21st century
  
• a review of what the future objects of the church should be
• making significant changes to existing processes (eg model of ministry) and structures (eg reducing the number of ‘Districts’) in order to have an effective, sustainable model of ministry, improve relationships and reduce the organisational costs of the church
• a review of pressing operational matters within the church in regard to pastors, volunteers and succession planning

Young Persons Survey Results

Almost all survey respondents self-identified as members and regular attenders of LCA and there was an approximately equal gender balance in respondents.

The main messages from these 18 to 31 year olds were

• They love the scriptural focus and fellowship of the Lutheran Church as they seek to live their life as a disciple of Christ
• They feel some congregations value their presence, but others don’t. (They report the local climate and culture of each local congregation is very important in attracting and keeping young people.)
• They would like congregations to engage and include them more in the life of the congregation and decision- making, including allowing modern forms of worship, music and Bible study.
• The church should listen more to young people.
• Decision-making in the church should be consultative, collaborative and representative.
• The church should involve more young people in decision-making throughout the whole church but particularly at congregational level.
• The church should provide more activities (eg camps) and forums relevant to young people.

Other messages included

• They had lots of ideas about how to ‘lead’ in the church, make better decisions and better engage young people.
• Current church membership criteria seems out of date and unimportant for many of them.
• Most of the respondents preferred bishops to be known as they are now, that is: Pastor x, Bishop of…; or as District Pastor; but not be just known as Bishop of….
• Although seemingly not an important issue to them, approximately one-third of survey respondents preferred the church name to be the ‘Lutheran Church of Australia and New Zealand’; one-third preferred the name of ‘Lutheran Church of Australasia’; a quarter of respondents preferred to keep the existing name (Lutheran Church of Australia); with the remainder of the respondents not fussed about the church name.

The role of these voluntary working groups is to assist the Review Team to analyse key issues. They consist of church members giving their time, expertise and energy to assist this review.

Ecclesial and Theological Issues Analysis Group

• Pastor Robert (Bob) Hamann (retired pastor)
• Pastor Michael Lockwood (Pastor, Redeemer Lutheran Parish, Toowoomba, Queensland)
• Pastor David Schmidt (Director, Mission and Ministry, Queensland District)
• Assoc Prof Lisa Schmidt (Executive Director, Lutheran Education Australia)
• Dr Norma Koehne (retired, former GCC member)

Key Definitions Issues Analysis Group

• Pastor Andrew Vanderwal (Congregation Pastor, South Australia; member of Constitution Review Group)
• Prof Wendy Mayer (Associate Dean for Research, Australian Lutheran College)
• Dr Gillian Heintze (retired, served on GCC until 2015, currently on Committee for International Mission)
• Pastor Neville Otto (Senior Pastor, St Paul’s Lutheran Church, Box Hill, Victoria)
• Margit Hubbers (former Secretary, Queensland District Church Board; LCA Standing Committee on Nominations)

Membership Criteria Issues Analysis Group

• Faye Schmidt, chair (Member of GCB and the LCA Standing Committee on Constitutions, member of Constitution Review Group)
• Paul Argyle (GCB and Council of Synod, NZ, member of Constitution Review Group)
• Vic Pfitzner (retired Pastor, ALC Lecturer and Principal)
• Nathan Hedt (Pastor, Pakenham–Lakeside, Victoria)
• Dale Gosden (School Pastor, Concordia College, South Australia)

Legal and Compliance IAG

• Alison Doecke (SA)
• David Kalisch (ACT)
• Martin Kriewaldt (Qld)
• Kim Baumeler (Tas)