You know how hard it is in a voluntary organization like the church to find a group of top-notch thinkers willing to commit themselves to the task of By-Law revision? It’s like the work of scraping, prepping, and painting the 125-year-old building. Except some people actually like doing that.
But when the By-Laws stipulate that the document should undergo biannual review, when it has not been touched in seven or eight years, and when the current version speaks in the distinctive voice of the 1980s, you know it’s time to gird up and tackle the job in earnest.
The church I serve is fortunate that the vice-chair of Council is a smart corporate guy who agreed to lead a committee that included an attorney who has been a member for two decades. As pastor, I met with the group for six months as we went through section by section, line by line, striving for coherent ecclesial vision.
We were guided by several common understandings:
• The By-Laws are a legal document (we are incorporated in the State of Connecticut) outlining how we carry out the business of the church. But, more deeply, it is a theological document describing our ministry and identity – who we are as a congregation in the Church of Jesus Christ.
• By-Laws should be updated every few years to bring the document into conformity with current practice. The church is a dynamic, living body, constantly changing with the times and with members’ development.
• By-Laws revision serves as a corrective for us. Reading the document closely with an eye for needed updates inevitably brings into focus some important things we’ve forgotten and tasks that we have neglected.
• The updated By-Laws are aspirational. We revise the document periodically in order to incorporate the current vision, plan, and aspirations of the congregation. So the church’s strategic plan, adopted last year, guided our work.
• Rather than seeing the By-Laws as restrictive, we understand them as guidelines that empower our members for ministry. We have tried to keep each section streamlined and straightforward, enabling members to engage in any area of ministry for which they have a passion within the mission of the church.
• We hope the revised By-Laws will help us live up to the ideal stated every week in our worship program: “Every member a minister.” One immediate change was to substitute “ministry” language where we saw “board” language. While it is important to run some parts of the church in a business-like manner, we are a church and not a business.
The committee did the first phase of its work independently, feeling it was imperative for an overall philosophy to tie the By-Laws together as a whole. After many re-writes, tracking and assessing successive changes, a complete draft had been achieved. This document went to all the ministries, committees, and other groups of the church for their review, critique, and further editing. When everyone seemed more or less happy, the committee presented its work to Church Council, which, after a bit more tweaking, presented the proposed revisions for consideration and approval by the congregation.
The cover letter begins: “Church Council is pleased to present to the congregation the first thorough revision of our church’s By-Laws in many years. Not that you will find fundamental changes in the way we are organized. The proposed document stands in continuity with all our basic principles and traditions, as we organize ourselves for faithful service in the 2010s. Nevertheless, many aspects of our By-Laws needed updating from the old language of the 1990s.”
Right now we are praying for an affirmative vote from the congregation. The committee shares a deep sense of accomplishment (like admiring a freshly painted building), but none of us wants to go back and start scraping again. We believe that, with this thorough revision, the job in two years will be a whole lot lighter.
Charles Hambrick-Stowe is pastor of the First Congregational Church, Ridgefield, Connecticut. He was formerly an academic dean at Northern Seminary in Lombard, Illinois.
