CONSTITUTION AND BY-LAWS
St. Paul Lutheran Church
Parkersburg, West Virginia

PREAMBLE
Jesus Christ, our Lord, has established His Church in the midst of the world (Matthew 16:18). This Church is the very Body of Christ (I Corinthians 12:12-27; Ephesians 5:23ff). As a local congregation in Parkersburg, West Virginia, we subscribe to the following Constitution with the joyful assurance that His Word will prosper and grow among us. The temporal and spiritual affairs of the congregation shall be governed by this Constitution in prayerful hope that thereby His Word may not be bound, but have free course and be preached and taught to the edifying of Christ's holy people.

ARTICLE I. NAME
The name of this congregation shall be ST. PAUL LUTHERAN CHURCH, located at Parkersburg, Wood County, West Virginia.

ARTICLE II. PURPOSE
The purpose of this congregation is to proclaim the full witness of the Gospel of the grace and truth of God in Jesus Christ to all men, everywhere (Luke 24:45-49), through God's own Word and His blessed Sacraments, to equip those called by that Gospel to build the fellowship of Christians, to engage in the work of Christ's loving ministries, and to nurture those in the fellowship (Ephesians 4:11-16) according to the Word of God and the Confessions of the Lutheran Church.

ARTICLE III. CONFESSIONS
This congregation accepts all the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments as the inspired and revealed Word of God, and all the Symbolical Books of the Lutheran Church, contained in the Book of Concord of the year 1580, as the correct presentation and true exposition of Christian Doctrine drawn from the Holy Scriptures, viz:

The Three Ecumenical Creeds: Apostolic, Nicene, and Athanasian.
The Unaltered Augsburg Confession
The Apology of the Augsburg Confession
The Smalcald Articles
Luther's Large Catechism
Luther's Small Catechism
The Formula of Concord 

No doctrine or practice in conflict, or inconsistent, with the above norms of our faith and life shall be taught or tolerated in this congregatio

ARTICLE IV. MEMBERSHIP
In the firm belief that God's Word and His Blessed Sacraments bring faith, salvation and membership in the Church, Christ's Body, the membership of this congregation shall include:

1. Baptized Members
   Baptized membership in this congregation is held by all those who are baptized with water in the name of the triune God and are under our pastoral care.
2. Communicant Members
   Communicant membership in this congregation may be held only by those who:

1. Are baptized in the name of the triune God.
2. Have declared their acceptance of the confessions of this congregation as contained in Article III of this Constitution.
3. Have been accepted into communicant membership in accordance with the By-Laws of this congregation and shall remain faithful to the responsibilities of membership as contained in these By-Laws.
4. Strive to live by the Holy Spirit to manifest the fruit of the Spirit in their lives (Galatians 5:22-25), and strive to not live in the manifest works of the flesh (Galatians 5:19-21).
5. Do not hold membership in organizations, secret or open, whose tenets conflict with the Word of God, and which practice forms of religion without confessing faith in the triune God and in Jesus Christ as the only way of salvation.
2. Voting Members
   This congregation shall administer all its affairs through the Voting Membership. Only communicant members, who have qualified according to the membership provisions of the By-Laws, shall be received as voting members of this congregation.

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