Official Handbook Source Text
Handbook page 209
Source: LCMS Handbook 2023, page 209.
This page reproduces text from the 2023 LCMS Handbook for study and navigation. Readers should verify procedural, legal, parliamentary, or governance questions against the official LCMS Handbook and appropriate LCMS authorities.
(h) Call and, in any sense involving distinctive function(s) of the pastoral office, be served by only those ordained ministers or candidates designated by Bylaw 2.5.2.
(i) Call only those commissioned ministers or candidates designated by Bylaw 2.5.3.
6.1.2.2 Auxiliaries shall continue to meet the above requirements for continued
recognition.
6.1.3 An auxiliary assumes the following responsibilities:
(a) It reports annually, through its chief elected officer, to the President of the Synod and, upon his request, to conventions of the Synod.
(b) It provides the Synod, through its chief elected officer, with an annual program report for sharing with the appropriate boards and offices.
(c) It keeps the Synod advised of any new program under consideration.
(d) It submits all material of a biblical or theological nature to the Synod for doctrinal review.
(e) It is responsible for its own debts and liabilities and so indicates in all of its agreements of a financial nature, statements of ownership, financial offers, and other legal documents, agreements, and promotional materials, and all other communications o f a financial nature in accordance with criteria determined by the Board of Directors of the Synod, so that it is clear that being an auxiliary is not regarded as an endorsement by the Synod of its organization and administration, or as a guarantee on the part of the Synod for the fiscal solvency of, or any financial responsibility for, the organization or for services expressly offered or implied.
(f) It honors and upholds the doctrine and practice of The Lutheran Church— Missouri Synod as set forth in the Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions.
(g) It operates with freedom and self -determination in its mission, independent of control by the Synod in its organization and administration, while at the same time it respects protocol documents that may exist between The Lutheran Church— Missouri Synod and her partner churches that have been made available to the auxiliary.
6.1.4 Being a recognized auxiliary of the Synod offers the following privileges:
(a) Eligibility of ordained and commissioned ministers of the Synod serving such organizations to remain on the membership rosters of the Synod as “active members,” if otherwise eligible.
(b) Auxiliaries that have agreed to address call- related disputes through Synod’s dispute resolution process, and their called workers, have access to the process (Bylaw section 1.10) in regard to such disputes.
(c) Eligibility for obtaining church extension loans from the Lutheran Church Extension Fund— Missouri Synod (LCEF), unless the policies of LCEF preclude such organization as an eligible borrower.
