Constitution V (e)

So we did trustees last week, I think. Is that correct? We did trustees. OK. So treasurer, that should be the first thing up. And I waited for treasurer because I thought with treasurer, we stopped there so that we could do treasurer and budget and finance together. Can everybody read that? OK. The treasurer shall ensure that all funds and securities of the church are properly secured in such banks, financial institutions, or depositories as appropriate. The treasurer shall pay all accounts and debts promptly in compliance with the church's budget or as duly directed and sign all checks. The treasurer shall also ensure that full and accurate accounts of receipts and disbursements are kept in books belonging to the church and that adequate controls are implemented to guarantee that all funds belonging to the church are appropriately handled by any officer, employee, or agent of the church. The treasurer shall also be responsible for presenting reports of the account balances, revenues, and expenses of the church at each regular members meeting. The treasurer shall render to the elders annually or whenever they may require it, an account of all transactions as treasurer and of the financial condition of the church. We'll stop there because that's the what of the position. That's the job description. And I don't think that's that different from what the treasurer does now. I saw our treasurer here. She's treasuring, so she doesn't have time to come. Oh, poor Cheryl. Any questions? This is not different than what our treasurer is doing now. So there's no major changes that I was able to find when I looked and compared and contrast. So that's really the what, that's what the treasurer will do. I don't see any questions. This is kind of the who and the how. The treasurer should be nominated annually by the deacons and approved by vote at a member's meeting to serve a renewable one-year term. So that's the how. They'll be nominated annually by the deacons. The reason for the deacons being the ones who nominate the treasurer, the deacons are the ones who are going to be responsible for the budget. So they're going to nominate the treasurer who is actively working with the budget. That was the connection there while the deacons are the one nominating. Any question there? Yes ma'am. It doesn't have a, there is no required sabbatical, which sounds Yeah, there's no change there. Now, if you want to call Cheryl down to say, no, amendment, you know, we need to add a sabbatical. But she's in the nursery. By God's providence. We are so thankful for her. I mean, thank her. She worked so hard. So make sure you tell her that. She works very hard for us. So, by the deacons, one year renewable, and this is kind of the who, no active elder, deacon, or paid staff member of the church shall be eligible for the church office of treasurer. So it's not telling you who it is, it's telling you who it cannot be. The reason there is just a protective principle. Same reason I never touch money. Just something I was taught not to do at seminary because scandals happen. So they're trying to make a protection there. So those who have, especially the majority of the accounts, they'll be responsible for the majority of the accounts, they're not the ones signing the checks. So that's the protection clause there. The treasurer may be removed from office upon the recommendation of the deacons and the subsequent approval by vote at a member's meeting. So really the only thing different there is how this person is nominated. And the treasurer is a one-year renewable now, so that's not changing. Any questions? Glad you made it. Yes, Carol. If Cheryl's not here, can anyone else sign a check? Cheryl's always here. I don't know. I'm waiting for Brian. Yeah, and I would assume the trustees would have some role here being the owners of things. We'll look into that. We can add a clause that provides temporary delegation. We wrote this assuming Cheryl would always be here. And we hope she is. Did you have your hand raised? I was just wondering who was kind of like the auditor of all this. We used to do some sort of auditing on this. Yes, we are going – we are actually – that It wasn't done for a while. We are going back and getting it done when it was not done. And I think you typically have someone from outside do the auditing. So somebody you hire out. I believe that's correct. But yeah, the auditing, you never hire anybody. Okay. Okay. Well, I know it's getting the backlogged auditing is getting done and there will be audits. That's part of the treasurer's job is to make sure that check is there. Other questions? We're moving on to operations. Members Meeting, that is the new name for what we now call Church Conference. In every meeting together, members shall act in that spirit of mutual trust, openness, and loving consideration that is appropriate within the body of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now that is really the only statement that we give in how we will conduct ourselves at this meeting. for the primary purpose of saying we're Christians, we're coming to work together, there's a unity, there's a mutual respect, there's an appropriate way of talking with one another and loving consideration. So that's just simply saying how we are going to conduct the meeting is in the spirit of brotherhood. Any questions about that? All right, 283, there shall be a regular members meeting at least quarterly at some time apart from a public worship service agreed upon by the membership. Additional members meetings may be called as required by the elders or by the church in a members meeting. The date, time, and purpose of any meeting shall be announced at least two weeks before the meeting. So a few things, there will be no fewer than four members meetings a year and they will be quarterly. So one per every three months. And that's just saying what the minimum is going to be. We thought about it, we wrestled with it, what do we want to require? And we thought that is definitely the minimum amount of meetings that I think are necessary for us to be able to do the regular business of the church. We expect there will be more. but that was what we wanted to require as the minimum. So this is just minimum requirement. So every three months there will at least be one. The elders will present what that calendar will be like. The church will approve it. You see there it's service agreed upon by the membership. Additional members meetings may be called as required by the elders or a church in a membership meeting. The date and time of those meetings must be announced at least two weeks before the meeting. So if we have a regular scheduled member's meeting, let's say the spring meeting, it's going to be in May. Well, if you nominate an elder in May, you have to wait 30 days to vote for them. And so you would probably, the day we would, I assume, we haven't done this yet. I moved everything over there. If all goes to plan, once an elder will be nominated, they would also call a members meeting 30 days later. And the other mark there that stands out is they're not happening during the worship service. These are Sunday nights, Wednesday night, or whatever night the elders in the church agree upon. Any questions about how often or how they're called? Alright, line 288. A moderator designated by the elders shall preside at all members' meetings of the church. The elders shall see that the stated meetings of the church are regularly held and that required reports are submitted to the church by the responsible members. A moderator is somewhat left very open. It doesn't say a moderator will be one of the elders. It doesn't say a moderator will be one of the deacons. It gives the elders freedom to designate whoever they believe would be the best moderator. Now, why they wouldn't choose me, I don't know. But they would have the freedom not to. And then the elders are responsible to make sure that any reports necessary would be provided for the members meeting. Sorry, I'm somewhat distracted. Line 291. Provided all constitutional provisions for notification have been met, the members present shall constitute a quorum. All votes shall be tallied based on the number of votes cast by members present. In addition, any members serving under the commission of this church on the mission field shall also be eligible to vote remotely. So here we say that any member's meeting, as long as the provisions have been met, the provisions that have been set forth, those have been met, so the two weeks' notice, and we give a two weeks' notice, if we're going to call a meeting at every public meeting, Sunday morning, Wednesday night, that's being announced, so people are aware of it, at any meeting, the members present, they will constitute the quorum. And here we are not giving a percentage, and we're not giving a total number. What we're expecting is that if these meetings are properly announced, the membership will come together and present a faithful group that will be representative of the body. And then all those votes would be tallied to be official at that meeting. Any question about that? Because that's somewhat different than now, because I believe our quorum is 35. which if Obama comes again, we may not make, because I'm looking around and we may not have, we may have just hit 35, I don't know, so. Any questions on the quorum? Yes, Roy. Okay. Yeah. I would expect none of the people to say no. But still, it would be possible. It would be possible. All the important things require specific notice. And you can't change the Constitution just because you showed up. You have to have had what you were going to vote on out there two weeks ahead of time. That's all I'm saying. And you'd also trust the elders to say, hey, Let's skip this because this isn't appropriate. Yeah, if there were a crisis or an emergency, I would assume that the meeting would be canceled. But if not, and this is a small group, what we're hoping is that they would be wise in terms of what kind of important votes are going on. If it's an elder, I'm hoping most of the church especially is coming. As we've already stated before, we expect members to be at these meetings. It's where you're voting in new members. It's where you're possibly voting out old members or disciplined members, where you're voting on the budget items. This is important stuff for the life of the church. So, we really want to encourage people to come. We wrestle with this because of that concern. It's one of the kind of wisdom issues that we've wrestled with the most. Really, if you're going to do a quorum, I would think you'd have to do 50 plus 1. But, let me give you a stat. 90 people voted Sunday morning. We have a membership of 145. That's a Sunday morning. To actually get 50% of your church to show up on a Wednesday night members meeting is going to be very difficult. And so whenever you start wrestling with a number, it really becomes difficult to determine what kind of number. Because 35 could be an obsolete number sooner. It could be a majority of the church. It's just difficult to determine that number. Even Robert's Rules Brian and I, we have wrestled with this. When we said we would do our homework with any kind of question or challenge, we really did want to make sure we thought through everything well. It actually cites religious organizations as the kinds of organizations that wouldn't have a number or a percentage for a quorum for that very reason. I saw your hand up, Hayden. I'm pretty sure this is the blank. Yeah. It originally said 10%, and that was somewhat confusing, because at the time we had about 150 attended, but 350 on the roll. And that meant that 10% was 45, and now it's all confusing, and the numbers went up and down, and nobody was doing it. Because I've done copies, and a lot of things have been adjusted and changed to a higher 35. Can you say all that again, Brian? One of the reasons Robert's Rules lists for why a religious organization might not have a quorum is unlike other groups where in order to be a member you have to pay dues or you have to be elected or something like that. If you're a member of a church, you're usually a member until you're actively removed, right? So they've taken you off. And so if you had a number that was 30% or 50% or something like that, and there was a split and say 25 or 50% of the people just walked away, your quorum is still based on that total number because you have to have a meeting in order to remove the people from the list. And it can make it actually almost impossible to operate unless like everybody who's left shows up because you're trying to provide a percentage of something that really no longer exists. But it is important to be careful to make sure you don't have secret meetings or unannounced meetings. That's why the two weeks notice is important. You don't want to have someone say, oh, we're meeting tomorrow and nobody has time to plan. You want to make sure that it's announced in services that there's two weeks. The regular meetings would be something that would be done annually. People would know about them well in advance to say we're going to have one every other month or every month or whatever it is so that they could build that in and so there would be no surprises. I think Roy has a good point. I would just say, why don't we take that under advisement? I mean, I'm just thinking out loud now, but maybe, I mean, I like the wording there, but maybe we can just say, except for an act of God. And if an act of God is sort of like legal language, and if that means snowstorm or something of that order. then we would not have the meeting. We actually have been taking it. I mean, we have been considering it. So we, this again, this isn't the final draft that we propose for votes. So that doesn't mean this is the draft. As we've wrestled with it, we've actually seen that this is not typical, but we will consider it the act of God clause, which John Bowman will cringe when he hears that. It's not unusual to have a clause like this. Yeah, so we are taking it under advisement. The committee will gather again to rethink this actually for the fifth time most likely. We've already discussed it once in meeting together since we proposed this draft and amendments are always All votes shall be tallied based on the number of votes cast by members present. The one significant difference there is that any member who has been a commissioned missionary and cannot be present, they can vote while on the field. And we thought that was important because Let's say a pastor change is going to take place or a budget change is going to take place that would affect that missionary. I felt it was what we thought was important for them to have at least as much of a vote. They can't be present because we sent them to Africa or wherever they are. And so it's important for them to be able to be part of the discussion and so forth. Does that make sense in terms of the missionary? Since we have sent them out, it felt that it would be fair to let them have a say in the business here. Well, they're necessarily tied to. If they move their membership, then that obviously would not count. So, it has to be a member who has been commissioned from the church and is on the mission field. Anything else in the quorum, please contact Brian or I or any member of the Constitution Committee. As we said, that is still something we're thinking through. The last line, and then I'll take questions for anything in the section. At any member's meeting, officers may be elected in positions filled as needed so long as all relevant constitutional requirements have been met. And so there, of course, we can't just vote in an elder that's not been nominated 30 days prior, but we can fill other positions that don't have such a requirement. So any questions on anything related to the member's meeting? We changed the name because the first time I was invited to a conference, my first thought was, who's speaking? And so, we wanted to emphasize the fact that this is a meeting of the members to discuss the life of the church. I'm trying to avoid saying the word business because, well, it's not business. It's real spiritual matters that relate to us and our life together. Uh, so we went with members meeting. Yes, Mr. I think you were speaking at that first conference. Isn't that correct? That probably was. I didn't know it though. That was the problem. So, so that's why the name change. Any, any other questions on the members meeting? All right. Section two. Budget and finances. Each year the deacons, after consulting with the elders and receiving the input of the membership, shall present to the church an itemized budget. A budget shall be presented at two consecutive members meetings prior to the start of each fiscal year. A draft budget shall be discussed at the first meeting. A budget shall be approved at the second meeting. The deacons may recommend necessary adjustments to the budget during the fiscal year. So here, as we stated earlier, the same reason why the deacons will be appointing the treasurer, the deacons will be responsible for coming up with the budget. And so they will be consulting with the elders. The elders will be giving vision and direction, and the deacons will determine what and how one might be able to do those things in the vision and direction financially. And the deacons will also be asking for input from the members. This isn't that different in one sense because this is exactly what Matt Kaiser and the Finance Committee are doing right now. They're asking members to talk to him or anyone on the Finance Committee to tell them, how are things in your budget line? Have you used all your money? What do you want to do next year? Do you need more? Do you need less? And he's talking to the deacons and I for vision. So, it's a different group, different structure, but the same principle. And I encourage you all, if you are responsible for a line item, to talk to Matt Kaiser or one of the Finance Committee members. Any questions on that? Line 303. Those who have been allocated funds in the budget may spend such allocations according to established procedure without further approval of the Church as long as the treasurer who releases such funds concurs that the expenditure is within the budgeted allotment and verifies that the church has the money to cover the expenditure. So there, the budget, when it's voted in, people know who's responsible for which line. So right now, the Properties Committee has the building's maintenance line. They know they've got that money to spend that, according to their wisdom, without getting a church vote. And Cheryl can look at the receipts and see, yes, this was replacing the AC unit, or, well, we can't afford an AC unit with that, whatever it was. I'm just thinking of the things we replaced recently, mowing, whatever it may be. So there's a check and balance in that the treasurer's looking and saying, wait a second, this receipt for a hummer doesn't match the, the, The line for evangelism. Yes. So the whole goal here is to make sure people have the freedom to do what they are called to do and so forth. Any questions thus far? This again isn't any different other than the structure. Those bringing a motion before a members meeting to spend church funds that are not budgeted or that are in excess of a budget item must first confer the deacons regarding the proposed expenditures. If you want to use more than the line item that you have been given, they're just saying, make sure you talk to the deacons first. The deacons are the ones who will be using most of those funds anyway. But if there is a major need in the nursery and the nursery workers are saying, we need to ask for this much more money, we're just saying, check with the deacons first to make sure that the budget, what they think is in the budget and their freedom in the budget is correct. just making sure we know what kind of requests are being made beforehand. Any questions about that? Line 310, the deacons may authorize individual non-budgeted expenditures of up to $2,000 without consulting the church in a members meeting. Any such expenditures shall be reported at the next members meeting. The reason for this is an emergency fund. In case something happens, we don't want to have to wait for the next members meeting, especially if they're only quarterly. So I think in the history of the church, there were some trees that needed to be cut down and that was done in an emergency situation. The church couldn't wait for a members meeting to get those taken care of. Even more important than the trees hanging over the sanctuary is my comfort in my office. Yes, we did this with the AC unit. So we're just trying to, and that's a bump up. It was, I believe it's now only $500, but just trying to think through the kinds of emergencies one can have. $2,000 seemed like a, a good number to use and it's not just you can use two thousand dollars the church will be notified of that expenditure and the treasurer will be aware of that expenditure because he or she will be signing the checks. So it's not absolute liberty but it is giving them freedom for emergency situations. Any questions about that? Line 313, no money shall be solicited by or on behalf of the church or any of its ministries without the approval of the elders. And here is just a matter of how we would take up different offerings or go and try to collect money. This is added in a lot of constitutions. I don't think we have a big problem with this, but apparently in some churches people go door to door asking for funds for their church and we're just saying we don't want to have members kind of going out on their own and asking for money in any way or calling their neighbors and saying, you know, would you help our church out? We're financially strapped. We trust the Lord and His provision and we're just asking you, don't go out and try to raise money without first talking to the elders. Yes. Does this also apply to asking for donations from companies for things like VBS when we ask a restaurant to donate some food or companies to do things at wholesale? Yeah, I think Brian wants to answer that question. I'm not doing VPS next year, but I'm just kind of asking and wouldn't see that there would be a problem going to the elders, but would that be a step that you would prefer us to take? The intent was that the elders would be glad to approve any sort of standard ministry thing. They may review that and decide whether that's appropriate, but my guess is they'd say sure, no problem. The idea is that you don't want people going out on their own. So say somebody decides, hey, we need a new sound system. I don't like the one we've got. Instead of going through the church budget process and having the church decide what the priorities are, they go from sunny school to sunny school and say, hey, if everybody gives me 50 bucks, we can buy a new sound system. Well, maybe there are other priorities that the church has and we wouldn't want somebody going out and doing something separate from what the church is doing. So it's more of a protection. It's not intended to prevent people from sort of doing normal ministry things, but it's to prevent ministries from becoming independent from the church, or individuals taking, representing themselves as having the authority of the church when they really don't. Fantastic. Any other questions that Brian wants to answer? the employees. Line 316, the elder shall represent the church as an employer and shall hire, oversee, evaluate and dismiss church staff as needed except as elsewhere limited in this Constitution. This responsibility may on a case-by-case basis be delegated to the deacons or another staff member. The elders may also bring recommendations to any members meeting for finding new staff positions. Here it's just simply saying the elders are the ones who We really are taking over a lot of the personnel committee responsibilities, the current personnel committee responsibilities in hiring, overseeing, and evaluating. So one of the instances where we thought it would be helpful to be able to say they can delegate to the deacons, if the deacons are the ones primarily focused on taking care of the physical facility, then the elders don't need to worry about overseeing a janitor or hiring a janitor per se. So that may be one of those cases where the elders say, you need this, here's the funds, the church votes on those funds, and the deacons are responsible for funding the person and overseeing them. Any questions on employees? All right, last section, amendments. The statement of faith or covenant may be amended upon the recommendation of the elders and the subsequent approval by a two-thirds vote at a members' meeting with two weeks' notice, provided the amendment shall have been offered in writing at the previous members' meeting. Any other article of this Constitution may be amended by a two-thirds vote at a members' meeting meeting with two weeks' notice, provided the amendment shall have been offered in writing at the previous members' meeting. So here, it's just simply stating how we can amend this in the future. That doesn't refer to amendments that will go into this before it is voted on. But this is saying if this is voted in and taken to effect, there are still opportunities to amend it. And it follows the two weeks notice rule and the two-thirds vote. And the reason we want it in writing is the importance of having an amendment in writing and let me encourage you to if you're going to do an amendment to this Constitution that it be in writing is that people know exactly what they're voting on. Any questions about that? Any questions at all about anything else in the Constitution? All right, well, we just finished walking through what it took us a few months to write. It's easier to teach than to write and to come up with and debate these ideas. Let me conclude how Brian began. Not everything in this document was completely agreed upon by every person on the committee. On much of the biblical basis, whenever there's a lot of scripture provided explaining why we've done something, we were in agreement there. But the two-thirds vote, quorum, there's different things that are just matters of prudence. We had a lot of disagreements and a lot of discussion. And we had happy disagreements that we were able to conclude and say, fine, this is something we're all peaceful with. But some of us were happier than others at some times. So I say that in the sense that you offering suggestions and amendments that you're probably just helping another one of the constitutional committee members, you know, have another go at getting his way. So don't be shy. We have been kicked around the quorum. It actually sent us into a lot of study. I read Robert's Rules today. Well, I want to make sure that we're thinking through these things. Well, I thought it was, I thought, I thought what Roy asked and somebody else had asked a couple of times, I thought it was a helpful question. Uh, and it was worth thinking through again and it'll be helpful thinking through it again. So please don't be shy with questions, comments, amendments. You're not going to offend us. Uh, we want to make sure this is a good document that will be voted on. Um, and we expected it to be different. So when we handed you this, We expect it to be better after talking through it with you, and it will be. There's already been changes that are better, and that's because we want the church to be involved in the process. Yes, the Constituent Committee members led the way, but we expect it to be different at the end, and we're thankful for it. Any other questions or comments on what happens next procedurally? Yes, Mr. Alsop. No, there is not. Baptist churches have... I want to say always. Almost always. That's one of the marks of a Baptist church. The oddity would be one who designed this, and that is the emphasis on the autonomy of the body. And a lot of that goes back to a lot of the passages we read earlier. I think you were there for Matthew 18, where Jesus says, all earthly authority, whatever you bind, on earth is bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth is loose in heaven. It's the assembled body that has that authority. We don't have an authoritative figure. Now what we have tried to do as Southern Baptists is cooperate with other Baptist churches. So Tuesday I went and had a three hour meeting with other Baptist pastors in the area and that is to help mutually encourage and strengthen and But there's no way in which they have any authoritative say over what we do. But there's trying to be a healthy cooperation so that if we ever are in trouble, I can go to a Lindsay or a Bruce or another Keith or a Jason. And the goal there is to be brothers who help one another and help other churches. So, does that answer your question? That's a long answer. I could have just said no. But yeah, the Baptist Church, while there are very few kind of odd groups, well, one or two oddities in the equation, but autonomy is one of the marks of a Baptist Church. So the Southern Baptist Convention does not. The president of the Southern Baptist Convention has no authority over the church. We agree to partner with them because we have the statement of faith in common. And we have a similar purpose. But there is no word he has over us. Most people couldn't even name the president in this room. I'm guessing. It's Fred Luter. First African-American Southern Baptist president. Other questions? All right. Well, let's go into our time of prayer, and then Mr. Papi is going to lead us through a song.