Sometimes reading a church’s bylaws is like taking a trip to the twilight zone.
Some are lengthy, very lengthy. Some are irrelevant. Some are unreadable.
And others are weird, really weird.
Knowing that I would get some incredible responses from my Twitter followers, I simply asked them if they were a part of a church with some weird bylaw provisions. Keep in mind, these are provisions in bylaws, not in a policy manual.
Here are my twelve favorites:
- No one can bring a colored drink to church, especially red Kool-Aid. I wonder how many church members were sneaking that stuff in their flasks.
- An active member is defined as one who gives at least one penny a year. Oh my. That would cut the Baptist church rolls in half.
- There will be very specific guidelines regarding the church van (but the church doesn’t own a van). The new bylaws amendment will be called “the Uber amendment.”
- Men serving communion are required to wear a coat and tie. I am totally flabbergasted they don’t have to wear pants.
- The church has to have a minimum of five deacons (but the church only has 20 members). It may get complicated if one of the available deacon candidates is a preschooler.
- No one can sell cassettes on church grounds. But 8-track tapes and vinyl records are fine.
- No one is allowed to bring glitter to church. I am definitely boycotting this church!
- No church member can be a part of a secret society. I wonder if that includes Democrats and Republicans.
- No church member can drink alcohol except during the Lord’s Supper. So that’s why the Lord’s Supper day is always such a high attendance day!
- No one can sell paintings on church grounds. This issue is indeed a pervasive sin in many churches.
- No one can come to church with diarrhea. That’s okay. They probably wouldn’t pay much attention to the preaching anyway.
- Members cannot have assigned pews. But you are allowed to bring your own personal chair.
I know you readers have some good ones to add to this list! If not, give me your prayerful insights into these twelve issues.
It should be fun.
Posted on May 2, 2016
With nearly 40 years of ministry experience, Thom Rainer has spent a lifetime committed to the growth and health of local churches across North America.
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77 Comments
#4 sounds like silly, but potentially very harmful, legalism. Sadly, I’m sure the legalism doesn’t stop with that one rule.
#8 makes sense when you consider people who may be in a church and be Masons at the same time. They may want to consider saying “Mason” specifically.
#8 only makes sense if you define a “Secret Society” ( if a member were in one wouldn’t it be a secret?). And any rule without scripture to back it is by its nature legalistic is it not?
Regarding #8, dare I say the Ku Klux Klan is a secret society as well? It’s less of a problem than it once was, but there have been churches who’ve members have been known to be a part of this and other similar groups.
The problem is that if it is secret, then no one is to know for sure who is a member.
I’m thinking the church that had #11 must have had a Diarrhea Monitoring Committee.
I would most definitely NOT want to be on that committee.
Now that’s funny.
… and they totally could have gotten around this by just having a segregated area of the sanctuary for people suffering from this affliction.
That way they could just…
… sit in their own pew. 😉
Dallas wins the internet!
Glad I wasn’t having a red drink when I was reading that one because I laughed really REALLY hard. Haha! Dallas deserves a medal or something.
Lol 🙂
These provisions make me think a podcast on writing a policy manual is in order.
I like it.
I second this!
All in favor, say “aye!” All opposed by like sign.
I agree with #1. We stopped serving Kool-Aid because the students couldn’t keep it in their cups. It was mostly the youth that were the problem.
When we recently revised our constitution and by laws, I argued against having dates and times for meetings enshrined in the constitution but the deacons insisted. Since then we have rescheduled our various meetings more often than not, usually at the request of the deacons.
I think some of these policies were written to give certain people a job to do but where they would have no real power.
The worst bylaws are the unwritten ones. Those are unlimited and frequently subject to change without notice.
Cleaning up after last night’s youth event, I agree with #1.
Having seen an incident before, I almost agree with #11. Don’t ask.
And… having felt entirely unwelcome in a church one time when I sat in someone’s pew… I actually REALLY agree with #12.
Yeah, you have to watch out for things that suggest exclusion of outsiders.
Granted it was just bad timing, but just so happened to visit a church a couple years ago that was celebrating their 40 year anniversary with a nice catered lunch after service.
The way they decided to organize things required the pastor to come up and apologize to my wife and I afterward, invite us back, but also politely ask us to leave.
Wow. A couple weeks ago we had a lunch after the Sunday service to honor some of the long-time, “pillar of the church” members. During announcements I made a point of inviting visitors to join us.
Bet you didn’t go back, huh?
I didn’t, and that did play a small role, but to be honest, a bit of bias in my part played a bigger role in that. We had just recently gotten out of a church plant with a young pastor (he was a year younger than I, and I was 30 at the time), so when we showed up and the pastor reminded me of myself when I was about 13, we weren’t ready to jump into that particular situation again so soon.
But not for bylaws!
#8 – Probably has to do with Masons. A big issue in the rural south. Many SBC churches have Masons in leadership positions. Great list, thanks for sharing!
or the Klan, maybe?
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha . . . I have been in so many churches in America that act and operate more secretively that secret organizations do.
LOL
I find it very humorous that people are scared of Masons. My father, brother, me, many friends who are Christians are Masons. Actually many preachers are Mason.
Some of the best values carried by man, mostly Christian, are lived by Masons.
I guess people are just afraid because they don’t know everything about us.
We can read and I know who Albert Pike is and it’s not good.
Membership could be withdrawn by a vote of the church but “The basis for the recommendation of the Membership Committee shall not be required to be made officially public, announced in public, or disclosed to the general church membership or the general public.”
In essence someone could be kicked out of the church and the church not even be told the reason.
Ugh.
Very true
Okay, I understand #8, #9, and #12 – historically significant issues in some denominations. (And #7 sounds like kind of a good idea!) Most of the others, I can at least take a guess what led to them getting put to paper. But I dread to even try *imagining* the set of circumstances that led to somebody proposing #11!
So true!
That was funny. I was in a church that averaged 90+ in worship on most Sundays. After looking through the Constitution and By-Laws (due to a church fight) it was determined there wasn’t a quorum, which was 33% of the board basically. The Documents were written in the 1950’s when the membership was about 700 members and an average of 250 in worship. So I did the math.
12 acting elders, and anyone who was elected an elder but wasn’t serving a 3 year term was on the board.
24 acting deacons, and anyone who was elected a deacon but wasn’t serving a 3 year term was on the board.
16 department chairpersons – various things from property to S.S. evangelism etc. (Half of the departments didn’t even exist anymore.
12 Elected officers, Chair, vice chair, secretary, clerk, librarian, members at large, etc.
5 Adult S.S. Class presidents –
So, with those numbers, and Elders and Deacons who were not serving an elected term we had the potential for over 80 people on the board, which would have made at least 25 members of the board to be a quorum. We never had more than 8-10 able to come to a board meeting ever.
Needless to say, we did some revisions with much bloodshed to get the board down to 12 people.
Haha! We have a “Native American Coordinator” yet we have no “Native Americans” that attend our church. And the person in this role is half Latino . . . I don’t even know what to do with that.
Thom, are you serious with #2 ? Oh boy!
Yep. That’s what the pastor reported to me.
Ours defines a voting member as one who gives an offering and participates in communion. (That could be interpreted as giving a penny.)
Granted it is weird to have in the by-laws about no ‘red drinks’ but I can totally understand where they are coming from. Can’t tell you how many red stains we have because of ‘red drinks’ that are spilled and not wiped up.
As a former school janitress, even if they are wiped up, they stain through the wax and into the tile (if tile). Permanent.
My old school husband/Pastor thinks they ought to just have been taught this an have some manners, and really I do too, but I am always disappointed. We actually have to TELL them. And they never internalize it. We have to tell them over and over. What I want to know is how to get them to internalize this stuff, especially bible stuff, let alone manners.