# LCMS Commission on Constitutional Matters Minutes_St. Louis Missouri_JULY 26 1961_S8
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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Exhibit "B"'
COPY OF ORIGINAL COMMUNICATION

September 2, 1961

The Rev. August R. Suelflow, Research Secretary
801 De Mun Avenue
Saint Louis 5, Missouri

Dear Brother Suelflow:

At its last meeting the Committee on Constitutional Matters took
up for discussion your letter of May 15 which had been addressed
to Pastor W. H. Meyer, until recently member and chairman of

our committee. ‘

We shall try to give you our reaction to the items to which you call
attention.

1. THE STATUS OF THE SECRETARY OF MISSIONS. - The Survey
Commission presented a part of its report to the San Francisco
Convention and the delegates accepted the recommendations sub-
stantially as they were submitted. (cf. p. 245 and following of

1959 Proceedings) No provision was made in the accepted recom-
mendations to continue the office of the Secretary of Missions and
Since each of the Mission Boards in the Department of Missions
was provided with its own Executive Secretary we assumed that

the Secretary of Missions was purposely eliminated. Consequently
we dropped those paragraphs of the 1956 edition of the Synodical
Handbook which had dealt with the office of the Secretary of
Missions. We did this because we believe that Section 2.1113d of:
the Synodical Handbook authorizes us to do this.

2. EXECUTIVE STAFF INTERPRETED AS OFFICER? -

A. We call your attention to Article XI, Section B-1-b of the Synodi-
cal Handbook. This would seem to give the answer regarding
supervision of staff members, although the staff members are more
immediately under the supervision and guidance of the Boards or
Departments they are serving. - It should also be remembered that the
bulk of staff members are ordained pastors and teachers who have
signed the constitution.

B. We call attention to the fact that faculty personnel is also
included under this provision (Article XI, Section B-1-b) although
more immediately the various Boards of Control offer guidance
and supervision to faculty personnel. This guidance of faculty
personnel is directly placed upon the Executive Officer (the
President of the school) as one of his responsibilities (6. 91-f
Synodical Handbook).

C. In the case of staff members serving the various Districts,
we call attention to the fact that the Districts are the creatures