# LCMS Commission on Constitutional Matters Minutes_St. Louis Missouri_September 28 1952_S1
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

MINUTES OF THE FOURTH MEETING OF THE |
COMMITTEE ON CONSTITUTIONAL MATTERS
HELD AT CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
September 28, 1952

Terro

ll members of the committee being present, the meeting was opened with
a prayer by the chairman, the Rev. W. H. Meyer. |

Attention was called to a mistake in the new edition of the Handbook,
Section 13,05, second last line, where the words "their task, recognizing" are
to be inserted after the word "out", This will have to be corrected in the next
edition.

A. Handbook Matters:

1. The question was raised whether an (advisory) assistant pastor
who serves a voting congregation as vacancy pastor could be given a vote at the
convention of the District if the vacant congregation had, by resolution, asked
the District to have this pastor represent them with a vote. No final answer
was given and the question was to be given further thought before the next meet-
ing, but with reference to &rticle V of the Constitution and Section 3.09 of the
By-Laws it was agreed that the evident intention is to give a voting congrega-
tion two votes, the pastoral vote and the vote of the lay-delegate and thus to
preserve a balance. Perhaps each case will have to be dealt with individually,
unless we can formulate a by-law covering such cases.

2. The following case was presented. A number of congregations served
by a missionary-at-large are received into voting membership. The question is
whether a missionary-at-large can be given a vote if he has not been called by any
of these congregations and is subject to removal from his present field to some
other new field that is to be opened at the discretion of the Mission Board of the
District. tt was agreed that in this case the answer would be "no",

3. Recent developments have made it necessary to restudy the relation
of the President to the District Presidents, particularly in appeal cases. Take
the case where a District President has been accused and the appeal is made to

the. President to take action under Article XI, B, 1-d and 2. On the other hand