What's Really In Your Bylaws

As June approaches, now is the time to consider if your church's bylaws are up to date. I always stand amazed at the number of churches that allow years to pass by without updating their bylaws. That is what happened to a church in South Carolina. The church had been around for many years and their bylaws had not been read or even seen in many years. The church's decisions were made by the pastor with the aid of the board of directors. However, there was one problem. The bylaws they adopted 18 years earlier called for a voting membership. The bylaws specifically stated that every two years the congregation would vote as to whether they could keep their pastor. The bylaws also called for the membership to vote on the church budget, salaries and the removal and addition of board members.
Over the years, the church ceased to follow their bylaws. In fact the pastor was the chief decision maker and with the aid of his board, set and approved the church budget, salaries and appointed and removed board members. Claiming a scriptural form of government, they have been running this way for several years.

Do you know what's in your bylaws?

It is a fair question to ask you if you know what is in your church's bylaws. Have you gone over them carefully to know what is your authority as the pastor? How about the board of directors? Have you considered if the current bylaws are legally the correct ones? While doing nonprofit compliance audits of churches, I have discovered many pastors who do not know what is in their bylaws. As a result, they usually make decisions based on rules they adopt that have no legal standing. They do not know that not only is their tax exempt status in jeopardy, but so is their ministry. I will explain later!

Are your bylaws yours?

Another area where churches make mistakes is using bylaws they believe are theirs without a paper trail to substantiate that the bylaws have been adopted properly. This often happens when the church decides to replace or amend their former bylaws. Many times a church decides that they need to rewrite their bylaws. The church schedules a board meeting, and they adopt a new version without considering the amendment clause of the old bylaws. The consequences to this action can be serious, because courts have ruled on cases where churches violated their own bylaws in adopting new ones.

Three clauses that need to be in your bylaws.

The bylaws of your church is considered the governing document. While there are many provisions that must be in your bylaws, there are three in particular that you need to consider.

1. Ushers Responsibilities: Because many churches encounter disruptive individuals in services, ushers need to know that they are usually the first responders to this type of behavior. What should their response be? Having a clause in your church bylaws that dictates an usher's responsibilities during a worship service can be useful in legally protecting him/her should an occasion arise in which they need to deal with a disruptive person. Such was the case with a church in Kansas. A woman entered the church yelling at the pastor that he was maligning her name. She also yelled at the church members that they should leave the church. After many attempts to calm her she only became more belligerent.  When it looked like she was going to become violent an usher, trained in the military, performed a restraining maneuver on her that caused her pain for only a short moment. He released her when she promised to leave in peace. She did leave, but she sued in court for pain and suffering.  The court threw out her case claiming (among other reasons) she had no case because the church's bylaws ordered the ushers to maintain "a worshipful atmosphere in the church," and to "take care of any disruption or emergency situation during services."
2. Pastoral Vision: How the pastor cast vision for the church? I have heard many pastor casting vision from the pulpit. "We will start x number of new churches in the next 5 years . . . We will be a church that reaches into all the world . . . we will be a church that will train and equip ministers of the gospel and send into all the world." Sound familiar? The problem with this is that the vision does not have a road map that gets the church to where the pastor says its going. In order to make this happen there should be an clause in the bylaws that charges the pastor with writing the vision and making it plain as found in the book of Habakuk. The Pastoral Vision clause should require that the pastor set the policies and procedures that empower the staff, ushers and volunteers to make necessary decisions that reflect the pastor's vision but do not burden him/her with certain day-to-day matters that distract from the bigger picture.
3. Removing a Member: When a church member publicly or privately and without repentance lives a lifestyle that is contrary to Scripture, the time may come for the church to have that member removed.  The procedure used must be exactly as described in the bylaws.  Did you know that the largest source of church disputes concerns such matters and the provisions of the bylaws regarding how this is handled? Never assume that a church member living in unrepentant sin will go down quietly.  You may not even have a procedure for removal, which means you may not even be allowed to remove a member once he/she has been added to membership.  If that provision is missing, you need to amend the bylaws.