Meetings that Matter

I am a member of a team that is looking at revising our church’s constitution. We met last night to look at recommendations received from members suggesting changes as well as our own changes that we would like to recommend.

When your team is made up of a Pastor, a Lawyer, a Chartered Accountant and a very practical home improver it can be interesting!

It is actually a very interesting exercise as we look at constitutions of various churches as well as the guideline that the Baptist Union (to which we belong) provides.

For some of the items we had to refer back to Scripture to determine what should go in, so it was a learning experience in some ways. One of the most interesting items was when we discussed the wording for “Communion” – is it a sacrament or an ordinance? Do you mention “wine” or “grape juice”? We got past the last one in an interesting way! (If you really want to know you can ask me!)

Other discussions we had were whether the church was there for the members or if the members were there for the church and the implications of that. Some constitutions had us gasping in horror at the hard lines that the churches take (and we thought we were quite hard core). But the interesting thing was that when we looked at why the churches said what they did, it was generally Biblical and actually made a lot of sense.

We have by no means completed the process but I can say that it will be interesting when we bring the ‘findings’ to the church. It is not something you do lightly.