Before the conclusion of the 1987 International Lutheran Deaf Association’s biennial convention at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, a task force was commissioned by President Lester Ahls to develop and print a Handbook.

One purpose of this Handbook is to provide official guidelines which will assist the ILDA convention chairmen and their subordinate committee chairmen in preparation for a fruitful ILDA convention. This Handbook should also assist the ILDA Board of Directors in the fulfillment of their duty in overseeing the preparation of conventions.

Members of this Task Force/Handbook Committee were: Lester Ahls, Ron Byington, Beth Firnhaber-Lockard, Rev. Ron E. Friedrich, Rev. Shirrel Petzoldt, Rev. Rodney Rynearson and Archie D. Marshall, Chairman. Thanks to the ILDA historian, Donald Mowl, for his valuable input. Special thanks to Pastor Rynearson’s secretary, Sandi Green, for all her work in preparing and printing this draft.

The Handbook Committee met three times before finishing this assignment. Their first meeting was held on November 6-7, 1987, the second on October 14-17, 1988, and the final meeting was held on February 17-20, 1989. All meetings took place in Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, MO.

As brothers and sisters in Christ we live under grace and are ruled by the Gospel; and as children of Christ we seek to live and work together in obeying Jesus’ command. This command encourages us to spread the Gospel which is the Good News to all nations. Our goal is also to reach out to all deaf and hearing-impaired individuals and communities throughout the world. Therefore, we voluntarily enter into agreement with one another in the spirit of putting together this Handbook in order to reach our goals.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

Red cover handbook was published in June 1999. The handbook’s computer word file was submitted to The Deaf Lutheran editor in 1999 for occasional prints in the newsletters.

(December 2000) David G. Brown, The Deaf Lutheran editor, has been working with Rev. Ron Friedrich in getting this handbook published on ILDA's and LCMS's website.   www.LCMSdeaf.org [now www.deafjesus.org/ilda]

(March 2001) The handbook’s file has been converted to portable document format, .pdf by David G. Brown. (The pdf file was updated March 2006).

(August 21, 2002) President-elect Pam Kane met with Mary Tingler and David G. Brown to work on the next revised version of the Handbook (Green cover handbook not updated correctly). Orange cover handbook was published in May 2003 with changes made by Sandi Green.

(March 2006) David G. Brown made corrections and updated the Handbook computer files and web pages. Buff cover handbook laser-printed and provided to the Executive Board members during their meeting April 2006. The Deaf Lutheran editor has and is keeping the handbook’s latest computer files.

(2009) Rev. Jerold Munz, Pastor Advisor, recommended major changes in the Constitution and Handbook. Rochester ILDA convention approved the changes

(2017) Constitution changes were approved by the Indianapolis convention on July 15, 2017.  Handbook changes were approved by the ILDA Board at the Indianapolis, IN, convention on July 13, 2017.  Copies of the Constitution and Handbook changes made are on record in the Secretary’s minute's binder.