LCMS Commission on Constitutional Matters — Minutes St. Louis, Missouri — March 5, 1982, Page 7

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Opinion Re Status of Board for Parish Services
The Commission on Constitutional Matters has been asked: "Is the Board for Parish Services justified in
regarding itself as a new board with a right to establish and fill a new position of Executive Secretary of
the Board for Parish Services?"
The Commission has also been asked to rule whether the Implementation Committee acted properly in
adopting a resolution which is recorded in its minutes as follows:
In regard to the status of a staff person when his present contract expires, the committee formally
resolved that the contract will be honored for the life of the contract. Thereupon the staff person
automatically goes under the principle of "serving at the pleasure of the board" established in the
newly adopted bylaw (2.803). In other words, if the board does not wish to continue his services,
it is the board's obligation to take terminating action with the approval of the President (see
Resolution 2-11),
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In reviewing the matter it is clear that Task Force II proposed to the 1981 synodical convention the
creation of three new program boards (elected) and two new support services boards (appointed) whose
entire memberships were to be elected or appointed in 1981 upon favorable action by the convention.
This proposal, as far as the two appointed support services boards were concerned, encountered no
difficulty and was approved by the convention.
The same cannot be said, however, of the proposal as it concerned the elected program boards and
specifically the proposed Board for Parish Services.
In Section B, 5, subsections a, b, and c (1981 Workbook, page 45) of its report, Task Force II had
recommended that approximately one-half of the membership of each proposed program board should be
elected in 1981 for five years and approximately one-half elected in 1981 for two years (all elected,
however, in 1981).
This proposal met with strong reaction from the Committee on Convention Nominations on the plea that
requiring all members of the boards to be elected at the 1981 convention placed too great a burden on the
Committee to provide an adequate number of qualified nominees.
Nevertheless the Floor Committee in proposing Resolution 2-08 accepted the proposal of Task Force II
and recommended it to the convention for adoption (Today's Business, Section A, page 48).
However, after the 1981 convention in Session 2 had declined Resolution 2-04 which called for the
creation of three program boards, the Floor Committee submitted Resolution 2-04A to carry out the
convention desire that Youth and Evangelism, which had been placed by Task Force II with the Board for
Parish Services, should be removed from that Board and continue as separate program boards, thereby
increasing the number of program boards from three to five. This resolution (2-04A) was proposed in
Session 5 and adopted in Session 6.
In drafting Resolution 2-04A to meet the wishes of the convention the Floor Committee also decided to
withdraw Resolution 2-08 and offered instead Resolution 2-08A, which was also distributed in Session 5
and adopted in Session 6.