KIRKWOOD • Late last month , the Rev. Gerald Kieschnick sat in his large office here, at the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod's world headquarters, and received a stream of church executives.

Most of the meetings were about the denomination's convention, held every three years, and which began Friday in Houston.

Kieschnick, 67, who has been the church's president since 2001 and is running for re-election this week, was clearly comfortable in his presidential role.

Dressed in a black shirt with a minister's collar, gray suit pants, black tasseled loafers, and wearing rimless glasses and a large gold cross around his neck, Kieschnick joked with younger staffers, prayed with administrators at the end of each meeting and quizzed them about everything from the desperate need for student housing at Concordia College of Selma, Ala., to the possibility of throwing out the first pitch at Sunday's Cardinals-Astros game at Minute Maid Park.

"I'd give my left elbow to throw out the first pitch at a Cardinals game," Kieschnick, a Houston native, told staff members in one meeting.

But Kieschnick won't take the mound Sunday. He's got a conflict - convention business that could radically change the structure and governance of the denomination.

The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, which was organized in 1847, counts about 2.4 million members, the second-largest Lutheran denomination in the country, after the more liberal Evangelical Lutheran Church in America with 4.6 million members. About 160,000 LCMS members reside in the St. Louis area. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis, by comparison, has about 500,000 members.

This year's convention, the church's 64th, will be longer than usual. Rather than call a special meeting between the 2007 and 2010 conventions to allow delegates to discuss and vote on a proposed massive restructuring of the LCMS, Kieschnick added time at the front of this week's convention.

That restructuring will be the central debate during the weeklong meeting, taking up nearly a third of the 104 resolutions offered by the church's various committees.

The convention will bring 1,250 delegates - half pastors, half laypeople - to the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston.

Among the most dramatic resolutions proposed are a reorganization of congregations within the church's 35 districts, a consolidation of the church's seven boards into one national and one international board, and an extension of officer terms to four years from three.

The vote on restructuring has been five years in the making. Kieschnick is its primary designer, and he has sold it hard to the people in the pews, traveling the country for the last three years with members of his restructuring task force to listen to suggestions, explain potential changes and answer questions, according to the Rev. Larry Stoterau, president of the denomination's Pacific Southwest district and a member of the task force.

"We're bringing the church body to where operations, missions and ministry can be accomplished more efficiently and effectively," Kieschnick said.

But where Kieschnick sees efficiency in fewer committees and boards, his critics see a power grab.

"The change we really need is not structural," the Rev. Matthew Harrison wrote in the Reporter, a synod newspaper. Harrison is executive director of the church's World Relief and Human Care office, and is running against Kieschnick for president.

"Part of me might like the massive increase in power proposed for the Synod president. That's why it's not a good idea."

Harrison is part of a movement that calls itself confessional Lutherans. They are traditionalists who stress a strict adherence to the Book of Concord, the 16th-century work that defined the central doctrines of Lutheranism.

Observers agree that Kieschnick is a conservative leader of a conservative denomination, but many also say he is focused on the evangelical stream of the church, instead of on traditional Lutheran doctrine. Traditionalists say that over nine years in office, Kieschnick has succeeded in watering down 500 years of Lutheran history.

In April, Kieschnick told the Post-Dispatch that "this is not a consolidation of power."

BBQ and hospitality

When nominations for synod president came in from the denomination's 6,170 congregations last year, Kieschnick received 755 - the lowest ever for a sitting president. Harrison received 1,332. Third in that balloting was the Rev. Herbert Mueller Jr., president of the LCMS Southern Illinois District.

Delegates on the floor of the convention will most likely choose their new leader on Tuesday.

Missouri Synod presidents have no term limits. Sitting in his office last month, Kieschnick did not seem like a man ready to give up the presidency.

"No, I am not," he said, forcefully.

That single-mindedness, Kieschnick said, came from his father - a Houston meat cutter and "overachiever" who died of cancer at the age of 66.

"My father was a strong man - emotionally, physically, spiritually," Kieschnick said.

His mother, Elda, 94, who still lives in Texas, has "the gift of hospitality," said Kieschnick, which she passed on to her son. Elda Kieschnick's hobby is creating decorative objects out of eggshells. One of her ostrich-egg creations sits at the center of a meeting table in her son's office.

Meat cutting and love of hospitality combine at Kieschnick's home in Kirkwood, where the president and his wife, Terry, often host barbecues for friends.

Whenever the Kieschnicks visit Texas they bring home 40 pounds of brisket in coolers from Austin-based

H-E-B. (Kieschnick is also proud of his pork tenderloin, chicken fajitas and grilled fish.)

Kieschnick said he and Terry had come to love St. Louis. They're regulars at Cardinals games, the Fox Theater, the Bach Society and area golf courses.

Kieschnick was one of four children, all brought up in the Lutheran church, though he was the only sibling to pursue a career in the church. He attended Lutheran schools but switched to public high school and eventually attended Texas A&M to study veterinary medicine.

But soon after graduating, Kieschnick entered seminary in Springfield, Ill. He and Terry married when Kieschnick was 23. They have two children and two grandchildren.

Kieschnick spent 11 years pastoring three churches in Texas, one of which he started from scratch. "We didn't even have a paper clip," he said. Now that church, Faith Lutheran in Georgetown, has 1,000 members.

After a number of years in development and public relations, Kieschnick rose to the top of the Texas Lutheran Foundation and then led the church's Texas district for 10 years before being elected to lead the entire denomination.

Some of those career choices were more difficult than others, Kieschnick said.

"When you love a place and a job, it's always hard to leave," he said. "But I've felt God's hand on my shoulder during those times, and said ‘Lord, what are you thinking?' And he says, ‘Just go. I'll show you. You'll figure it out.'"

‘Stampede' sculpture like life

In his office, Kieschnick has surrounded himself with collected pieces of his life. There's a copy of the "Treasury of Daily Prayer," two photos of himself shaking hands with President George W. Bush, a sign that reads, "Time is short; Hell is not," a bronze Frederic Remington sculpture called "Stampede" depicting a cowboy on horseback rounding up longhorns.

"That one reminds me of my life," Kieschnick said. "There's a cowboy, head down, rein in one hand, whip in the other, on a horse surrounded by mad cows."

In a meeting with the Rev. Frazier Odom, executive director of the church's board for black ministry services, Kieschnick asked why the number of young African-American men recruited to Lutheran seminaries was so low. "They see the suffering and what older black pastors have been through," Odom said. "They think basketball is the way out of poverty, and I don't think the ministry even crosses their mind."

"They don't have too many black pastoral heroes these days, I guess," Kieschnick said. "What can I do to help?"

"Direct your attention to them, especially," Odom said. "Assure them that God understands their concerns, too. That God provides. You're in the position to be a model to them. This is not a black-white thing. Maybe one of them will grow up to be the president of the synod."