LCMS Southeastern District Chaos Intensifies

Pastor takes option to resign call. Complainants were unconstitutionally stripped of member voting rights and punitively shunted into a fictitious class of membership.

[Editor’s note: The original version of this article contained information from the Nov 30 congregational assembly. Due to a misunderstanding, a source asked us to remove that portion of the article as a resolution continues to be attempted. Secondly, we have updated the supermajority statement to clarify that Robert’s Rules says ballots should be used for disciplinary matters. See footnote 2.]

Ad Crucem News has learned that Wayne Fredericksen resigned from the roster of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) effective today (December 1, 2025). That also terminates his tenure as pastor of Our Savior Lutheran Church & School (OSLCS) in Arlington, VA. The announcement was made during a congregational meeting with Southeastern District President Harmon in attendance. The original complainants in the case were recommended not to attend the meeting.

Fredericksen was given the option of either resigning or undergoing an investigation. His resignation was forced after he disqualified himself from the preaching office by attending his lesbian daughter’s “legal union” with another woman last December. His resignation letter also referenced a “five-year-old” issue in which he modeled a transgender stole in the sanctuary. No mention was made of his accountability for first graders attending a queer musical and Islamic supremacist books in the school library.¹

District President Rev. Dr. Bill Harmon presided over a meeting at OSLCS on Sunday to address the ongoing dispute. Harmon appears to have escaped any ecclesiastical discipline despite his attempt to foreclose a meaningful investigation into the problems at OSLCS back in June, as well as his continued complete ineptitude in the matter.

No remorse or contrition is offered in Fredericksen’s letter, and he even references a future event to “give thanks for the ministry we have shared.” Harmon did not deal with the theological dissolution of the congregation. OSLC Associate Pastor, Rev. Dr. Jeff Kloha, was present at the Nov 30 meeting, but did not participate, according to reports.

At the time of this reporting, we are unaware of any disciplinary action taken against other LCMS rostered staff or against the congregational leadership—despite the church’s nearly instantaneous self-absolution and insistence that OSLCS “is in full compliance with our Constitution, ByLaws (sic), and LCMS teaching,” in the face of compelling public evidence to the contrary.

OSLCS Governance Manipulation

On October 19, 2025, an OSLCS Voters’ Assembly rode roughshod over the congregation’s own Constitution and Bylaws by passing a motion to “remove the voting privileges” of three named voting members. The motion cited no grounds, was taken by a voice vote, denied the affected parties any opportunity to defend themselves, and appears to have relied on a single ambiguous bylaw clause that cannot authorize the creation of new membership classes.

Only Three Classes of Membership

The OSLCS Constitution recognizes three and only three classes of membership:

1. Baptized

2. Communicant

3. Voting

The Bylaws regulate how a communicant becomes a voting member and the limited circumstances under which voting membership may be lost. Those circumstances are strictly defined and do not permit arbitrary and capricious deprivation of voting rights.

The Bylaws contain no provision for a fourth class, such as “Communicant Member Deprived of Voting Rights.” Treating such a category as a standing membership status for governance or discipline is ultra vires; far beyond the authority granted by the Constitution, and inherently invalid and unbiblical in our opinion.

Complainants Barred from Voting Membership

The three complainants were voting members in good standing and were the direct subjects of the motion. Under Bylaws II(D)(2):

• Meetings may be closed only to non-voting members and guests.

• Voting members may never be excluded, least of all when their rights are under deliberation.

Even secular nonprofit law recognizes that members whose rights are being adjudicated must receive notice, the grounds for action, and a meaningful opportunity to be heard. The fact that Christians fell far below the governance standards practiced by unbelievers is, at this point, a grim pattern rather than a shocking surprise.

The minutes also omit any record of who moderated the debate, whether debate limits were imposed, or whether all sides had access to the floor. In other words, an indictment of the congregation’s procedures.

Unfortunately, this is not unprecedented. OSLC’s behavior echoes the highly irregular “excommunication” of then 19-year-old Ryan Turnipseed from his Oklahoma congregation.

The Only Permissible Grounds for Vacating Membership

OSLCS’s Bylaws specify the only legitimate grounds for removing someone from membership:

• Transfer

• Joining a non-fellowship church

• Whereabouts unknown (after one year)

• Self-exclusion (after two years of abandonment and pastoral/elder admonition)

• Excommunication (Matt. 18 process, written notice, right to be heard)

Bylaw I, §2.A.6 then states:

“Any motion…to remove an individual from membership…shall only pass upon the approval of a three-fourths majority of those present.”

A voice vote cannot should not establish a supermajority². Consequently, nothing in the minutes indicates that the complainants’ communicant membership was terminated. Instead, the assembly fabricated a new disciplinary half-step: ‘remove voting rights but keep communicant membership,’ which the Constitution simply does not allow.

Turning a Clause Into a Blank Check

It seems congregational leadership may have relied on conflating I, §2.A.6 with a portion of Article I, §2.B.4:

“Only the Voters’ Assembly may terminate membership and act on resolutions to terminate voting membership…”

This clause is jurisdictional, not substantive. It tells you who may execute a termination, not what kinds of terminations may occur.

General clauses must be interpreted in harmony with specific, exhaustive clauses. Treating §2.B.4 as a blank check renders the entire membership article meaningless. It is a direct violation of standard interpretive rules and, at a minimum, blatant governance malpractice.

Termination Action Is Void

Because the Voters’ Assembly lacked:

• constitutional authority

• bylaw grounds

• due process

• notice

• a hearing

• a counted ¾ vote (a voice vote cannot should not suffice under Robert’s Rules)

• and because the action created a new, unauthorized membership class

…the October 19 action is not merely improper. It is null and void under the congregation’s own governing documents.

Slipshod Governance a Hallmark

Immediately before stripping the three members of their rights, the assembly improperly received two new members.

The Constitution requires admission into a defined class (baptized, communicant, or voting). The Bylaws assign different procedures and rights to each. By failing to record which class these individuals entered, it is unclear whether:

• they were eligible to vote immediately,

• they were under pastoral care as communicant members, or

• their admission altered quorum requirements.

Yet the assembly simultaneously removed long-standing voting members while possibly adding new voting members without disclosing their class, an act of administrative negligence or deliberate opacity.

The disorganization goes even deeper. Under Bylaws II(C)(1), a quorum is required for any valid action. The minutes do not record that a quorum was established at all. If quorum is not recorded, parliamentary authorities presume:

• quorum was not properly established,

• all actions requiring it, including the removal motion, are invalid, and

• the meeting was procedurally defective.

Furthermore, the minutes repeatedly violate basic parliamentary form, e.g.:

• “Two new members were welcomed…”

• “Approval of the agenda was approved…”

These are not motions; they lack mover, seconder, vote method, and recorded result.

Numerous reports were “presented” with no motion to receive or adopt them—actions which require a quorum, which was never established.

Most strikingly, the minutes do not indicate the meeting was ever declared “closed”—yet the complainants were excluded anyway. There is no recorded motion to close, no vote to close, no debate on closing.
This alone is prima facie evidence of unlawful exclusion.

The Secretary’s minutes follow none of the standard LCMS minute guidelines, which ordinarily require:

• mover/seconder

• summary of debate

• exact vote results

• adoption of reports

• quorum declaration

• attendance count

• clear distinction between action items and informational reports

OSLCS shows none of these. Combined with the theological irregularities, these point to systemic dysfunction, not isolated “oopsies.”

Conclusion

OSLCS’s October 19 meeting was not an unfortunate lapse or a minor procedural wrinkle; it is the predictable outcome of a congregation that has abandoned the most elementary norms of Christian accountability and congregational governance. A church that cannot keep its own Constitution cannot credibly claim to keep the Confessions it swears to uphold. A church that strips voting rights from its own members by ambush and voice vote has lost both a parliamentary contest and its integrity.

The LCMS has long insisted that doctrine and practice must walk together. What has unfolded and continues to ferment at OSLCS is the opposite: a congregation that tolerated false doctrine now collapsing into false governance, and leadership willing to weaponize procedure to protect itself from scrutiny.

Nothing done on October 19 was permissible. Nothing done on October 19 was constitutional. And nothing done on October 19 can remain standing if the LCMS wishes to be taken seriously as a church body that governs itself under the Word of God. The congregational meeting of November 30 reflects a congregation in rebellion against the Synod’s requirements for Biblical and Confessional subscription.

The time for evasions is over. The time for terminal accountability in this situation is now. The LCMS Board of Directors needs to take control and initiate a thorough investigation of the school, the congregation, the district, and the process that got us to this point.

1. Contrary to prior assurances, the disputed books have been returned to the school library.

2. Robert’s Rules explicitly forbids strongly recommends not using a voice vote for a supermajority requirement. They state that whenever a vote:

• Alters membership rights

• Removes members

• Involves discipline

• Or requires anything other than a simple majority

It must should be taken by a recorded vote (roll call or ballot) per §45:19 “Any vote related to charges or proposed charges before or after a trial of a member or any officer should always be by ballot.” https://cms3.revize.com/revize/dundeeil/Roberts-Rules-of-Order-Newly-Revised-12th-Edt.pdf