A Special Congregational Meeting

Revising the Constitution and Bylaws

Written by Pastor Doug

A church’s Constitution and Bylaws are like the skeleton in your body. They provide the structure that supports the body, but you don’t see them or think about them much, unless something is broken.

Very few people give any thought to the Constitution and Bylaws at all. However, every decade or so, it’s good to take a look at them to see if there are changes or adjustments that would help the church to function more effectively. The last significant changes to these at BBC were made in 2004.

There are two major components that are being addressed in the proposed changes.

First, TABCOM Executive Minister Rev. Dr. Mary Day Miller urged all TABCOM churches to look at their Constitution and Bylaws, to make it harder for a pastor or a small group of individuals to take a church and all its assets and people out of the denomination. In response to that request, Jerry Cerasale and the Advisory Council worked diligently to make appropriate changes to the Constitution and Bylaws as the Region recommended.

At the same time, in the spring of 2020, the Advisory Council, enlisted the assistance of Dr. Van Latham, a seasonal attender of BBC, to assist BBC in looking at our organization, structure and ministry alignment with staff.

For those of you who don’t know him, Van is known for his work in organizational and leadership development. He’s the head of PathPoint Consulting and helps businesses and nonprofits improve organizational capability and performance through effective people practices. He has consulted with some of the world’s most recognizable companies such as American Express, Biogen Idec, CVS/Caremark, Ernst & Young, Harvard University, Hershey’s, Hubbell, Lenovo, McGraw Hill Financial, Marriott, and PepsiCo.

In addition to leading PathPoint, Dr. Latham is a Clinical Professor of Organizational Behavior, Coaching, and Consulting in executive education at the Naveen Jindal School of Management at the University of Texas at Dallas. He was previously on the executive coaching faculty at the Harvard Business School. We are deeply grateful to have had the generous help of someone with Van’s experience, knowledge, and skill.

The most significant change from this work is to try and simplify the Bylaws so that in a rapidly changing world, we can adapt and innovate without having Bylaws that are so specific and prescriptive that we have to go back and change them frequently as circumstances and ministry changes.

For example, at the turn of the century, BBC had only one pastor who worked with all the Boards and Committees, then we made a change to Core Ministries in 2004 by which time we had three full-time pastors.

We’ve also added ministries that didn’t exist, like Assimilation, which later became Connecting.

Now there is the whole new frontier of online digital ministry which wasn’t around in the same way 15 years ago.

So instead of listing specific Core Ministries in that section of the new Bylaws, you will find what Pastor Rick Warren calls the five purposes God has given the church:

1. Centering our lives around God (worship)
2. Learning to love God’s family (fellowship)
3. Cultivating spiritual maturity (discipleship)
4. Contributing something back through serving (ministry)
5. Telling others about God’s love (missions and evangelism)

All our current core ministries are expressed and included in those five purposes.

Children and Students are part of Discipleship.

Deacons are under Ministry; Missions, Worship, and Fellowship are clear.

Every Core Ministry that exists or is created to help BBC achieve one of the five purposes will be under the direction of a pastor working with a Core Ministry leader, much as it is today.

Those five purposes provide an unchanging umbrella for things the church will always do.

The other significant change is to go from having two church councils, the Ministry Council and the Advisory Council to one Leadership Council.

In the last twelve years, three different individuals have worked with BBC to some degree in looking at our organizational structure and ministry – Steve Macchia, President and Founder of Leadership Transformations, Inc., Bill Easum of The Effective Church Group, and Van Latham. All three looked at our Constitution and Bylaws and BBC’s organizational structure and all three told us the same thing: there should be one church council for purposes of clarity, leadership, better communication, and decision making. The proposed changes make that recommended change.

We will have information sessions on Saturday, January 22 at 10:00 am and Thursday, January 27 at 7:00 pm to answer questions and explain the proposed changes in greater detail.

We will do the same at a Congregational Meeting on Sunday, January 30, 2022, at 11:15 am at which we will vote on all the proposed changes.

Copies of the Revised Constitution and Bylaws with the proposed changes will be available by January 2 at the Information Center or by emailing the church office (bbc@brewsterbaptistchurch.org), so anyone who wishes may look through them with plenty of time.

We want to thank Van Latham, as well as David Quinones and Suzanne Christie who represented the Ministry Council and Teecia Kent and Bud Nugent who represented the Advisory Council, and Jerry Cerasale, whose legal background was tremendously helpful, for all their time and effort to bring the Revised Constitution and Bylaws to the church for a vote, and we appreciate all the input that was received from both the Ministry Council and the Advisory Council.