Official Handbook Source Text
Handbook page 42
Source: LCMS Handbook 2023, page 42.
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.
(k) Persons involved : “Persons involved” includes the complainant, the respondent, the administrator of the process, the ecclesiastical supervisor, a reconciler, panel members, the hearing facilitator, a witness, an advisor, or any others involved in the dispute resolution process.
(l) Reconciler: As used in this chapter, a member of The Lutheran Church— Missouri Synod or of an LCMS congregation who is appointed to be available to assist parties to a dispute with a view toward reconciling them or enabling them to adjust or settle their dispute and who has completed the Synod ’s training program. A reconciler does not judge or take sides but rather, with the help of God, assists both parties to find their own resolution to the dispute.
(m) Reply of r espondent: A written response issued by a party to a dispute containing factual assertions that answer a complainant ’s statement of the matter in dispute.
(n) Respondent: One who is named party to a dispute brought by a complainant.
(o) Review Panel : Three reconcilers selected according to these bylaws and one person who is a nonvoting hearing facilitator selected according to these bylaws who shall give a final hearing when the determination of the Appeal Panel is that a decision of the Dispute Resolution Panel should be reconsidered or reviewed.
(p) Shall: Retains its compulsory meaning in this bylaw section. Its use, however, in connection with time frame expectations may require exceptions at times upon good cause shown, to be allowed by the administrator of the process.
(q) Standard Operating Procedures Manual : A comprehensive procedures manual developed by the Commission on Constitutional Matters in consultation with the Secretary of the Synod and the Council of Presidents to ensure uniformity and consistency in the implementation of this bylaw section.
(r) Statement of the m atter in d ispute: A written concise statement containing factual assertions involving contended or conflicted issues between one or more parties. The statement may also contain a request for the type of relief to be granted.
(s) Time frame: Period of time allowed for carrying out a bylaw requirement, to be monitored by the administrator of the process, incidents of purposeful non-compliance to be reported to the President of the Synod.
(t) Witness: A person called to give testimony regarding facts to a dispute before a Dispute Resolution Panel. A reconciler appointed to assist parties in dispute resolution or a person called upon by a reconciler at the formal reconciliation meeting shall not testif y as a witness before a Dispute Resolution Panel in the same dispute.
Informal Efforts toward Reconciliation; Consultation
1.10.5 Before any matter is submitted to the formal reconciliation process, the
parties involved in a dispute must meet together, face -to-face, in a good - faith attempt to settle their dispute in the manner described in
