PASTORAL THEOLOGY LECTURE 39 CONSTITUTION, BYLAWS, & COVENANT [note: there are 2 supplement handouts that go with this]

A church’s ‘Constitution & ByLaws’ is a very important document indeed; especially in these days of compromise and a “That’s just your opinion” attitude amongst church members. However, a church shouldn’t ‘have to have’ this document; for, if the only Christian church in a town was yours, and there wasn’t 100 different flavors of Christianity out there in America, there wouldn’t be this great need for all this clarification of beliefs, practices, and philosophies.

A Constitution & ByLaws document will deal with the ‘practices’ and ‘convictions’ of the church; whereas, the Statement of Faith will deal with the ‘doctrinal’ beliefs the church holds. For instance, a church would be wise to include a statement about how the church is to go about removing a pastor from their position; or to include a statement about the liberty that a Treasury may or may not have with the church’s monies; or to include a statement about how to conduct a church business meeting in an orderly manner; or to include a statement about the limitations of women in leadership roles….

I believe that it is important to label a statement as either ammendable, or non-amendable. A non-amendable item cannot be changed in its meaning, substance, or intent; it can only be clarified (if needed). In general, the Statement of Faith and Covenant is all automatically non-amendable. An individual ByLaw might be made ammendable so that if a different man assumed the pastorate, he would have some liberty in how to do ‘business as a church’.

All potential new members should be given a copy of the Church’s Statement of Faith, Constitution & ByLaws, and Covenant. They should read it in its entirety, be given opportunity to ask questions about it, and then be asked if they are willing to uphold it. There may be a few statements that are different than there current conviction/belief, so they might not be able to state that they ‘fully’, 100% agree with everything, but the matter is whether they will uphold it…suppor it… not say anything that would go against any of it. A new baby Christian probably will not be able to understand all of what these documents state, but, what is important at the stage that they are in is if they are willing to learn more, support it as they understand it now, and not ever speak out in disagreement to any of it.

Example: a prospective new member may not agree that the spending limit without a church vote for a Pastor should be set at $350; they may feel $500 would be better (or $100)…but are they willing to support that $350 figure? Or will they potentially make this a bone of contention sometime down the road?....

The Church Covenant is something to be used to help discern whether or not a potential new member should be brought into the membership. If they are not willing to covenant to God and the church with the statements therein, then it would be best not to have them become members. The key is whether or not they agree that the covenant reflects God’s will for them, and whether or not that they will make a significant effort to follow it (though, we all are sinners, and will most likely fail repeatedly at keeping the covenant….sad to say). The Covenant is not to be used as some sort of legal entrapment to quickly bring an erring member to church discipline proceedings. The Covenent should be used to remind the church members what they had covenanted to; it will help them “reset” their lives to that original vow, promise, covenant. Often, a church will post their Church Covenant in a prominent place in the main preaching auditorium.