Are Church Constitutions Biblical?

Hosts: TJ Freeman, Joe Wagner, and Josh MacClaren

Summary: In this episode of Rural Church Renewal, TJ Freeman emphasizes the role of church governing documents like bylaws, church covenants, and statements of faith in maintaining a healthy church. From personal stories about his own challenges in rural ministry, TJ shares practical advice on how to review, respect, and progressively update these documents for the benefit of the congregation. He underscores the importance of patience, strategic thinking, and working with church leadership to implement necessary changes while ensuring alignment with the Scriptures. Additionally, TJ invites listeners to upcoming resources and events aimed at supporting rural church leaders.

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Transcript

Somewhere in a filing cabinet in your church, you've got a bunch of papers, and on some of those papers you have bylaws, everybody's favorite topic. You hopefully have something like a church covenant and something like a statement of faith within your church's founding documents or governing documents.

You may think about those daily, or you may never think about them at all. But the question is, do you have your paperwork in order?

That's what we're talking about on this episode of Rural Church Renewal. Everybody's favorite topic, maybe not, but one you really need, so stay tuned. 

 Thank you for joining us for another edition of Rural Church Renewal. My name is TJ Freeman, and like you, I have the opportunity to serve the Lord from the context of the rural church.

Or if I wanted to speak like a normal human, I'd say I'm a rural pastor. You may be a rural pastor. You may be a rural deacon. You may be married to one of those things. You may be an elder in your rural church. Or you're just the head of the Cleaning the bathroom committee. I'm glad you're listening to this because this podcast exists to help the rural church thrive.

Not so that we have, you know, a growing roster or everything we ever hope to the rural church would be, but because God wants to use the church as the primary means of demonstrating his glory in your region. And around the planet and all the way to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. So whether you're armed with a toilet scrubbing brush, or a Sunday school curriculum, or something else, your role in that rural church is vital for the demonstration of God's glory.

So we need your church to be a healthy rural church. And I say we on purpose. 'cause listen, we on the same team. Got that?

Your church is not just meant to be this isolated, insulated, autonomous thing, where you guys do what you think is best and, as long as you keep everybody happy, it's good. And as long as you're not dying too much, too fast, everything's okay. No, the Lord has us working together for the sake of his kingdom.

We are the church in our generation, and we are meant to be the global demonstration of God's glory, who pursues the advancement of his kingdom together for the sake of his glory. That's why I'm talking, and hopefully that's why you're listening. You know, now feels like as good a time as ever to introduce myself.

I have been a pastor here at my church for the last 13 years. I did not want to be a rural person, and the Lord and his kindness made me one. He brought me back here to rural Pennsylvania. I'm the one that was driving the truck, but I can see how the Lord orchestrated the circumstances of my life to bring me to this place.

Didn't like it for a long time. Loved the people. Didn't like being rural. Because why does everything have to close at five and some days it doesn't open at all? What made Monday national rural don't go to Workday? Like the restaurants are closed. Stuff like that really became a challenge for me. And maybe you've experienced some of that as well.

Not to mention just the interpersonal stuff that goes on in rural towns. That's just different from a big. Community where you can just blend in. I was scrolling the old Facebooks yesterday and I saw somebody commented on a post and they said, I don't know how you live rurally. I just couldn't do it. And I thought, man, I have felt like that too.

And I'm glad now to be rural and I'm glad to be in a rural church. And so I, out of a desire to see God's glory spread through the rural church, and correct some of the misconceptions that I had when I came in from a city church into the rural church. I've just been working on this project called, at one point it was called Rural Pastors Talk.

Now it's called Rural Church Renewal with some of my dear friends who are rural pastors. I happen to be the only one on this episode, but. Check back for some previous episodes. If you want to get to know Josh MacClaren and Joe Wagner, two of my best friends and fellow rural pastors. So I'm coming to you really in hopes of us together, thinking more carefully about what it means for our church to be healthy.

And that's why I mentioned in the intro you got these documents that are the governing documents of your church. When I came to my church, our documents were a mess. We had an older constitution and we had some very outdated stuff in our covenant.

In our statement of faith, we had a prohibition era. Just universally printed mass market, kind of a church covenant and a statement of faith that was, oh, probably taken off of another church's statement of faith on a website in the late nineties or something, and that both documents just kinda read that way.

Now I want to be careful because I love historic confessions, and I think that what we confess as churches today should be rooted to something historic where people long before us thought about things. Way more carefully than we're prone to these days, and that's just good and healthy. But what I wanna argue for in this episode is just starting to think about your church's governing documents as a tool to help your church be healthy.

So, constitution, let's start there. You probably have something called bylaws. Your bylaws will start off with something like the definition of what your institution is, what its name shall be. Why do they use the word shall so much in those things? I don't know. Maybe there's a definition of what it means to have a senior pastor or just pastor.

Maybe there's a definition of deacons, trustees. If you have elders. There are things, words in there like, what's a quorum? How do you vote on stuff? All of that stuff really matters, and it's going to be some reflection of your theology wrapped up in that, even though some of it is just prudential. So for this episode, what I think you can do to, to be a blessing to your church is get your mind around that thing and use it.

You're gonna have stuff in it you don't like. When I came to my church, there were some things in there that I thought. Wow. I almost don't even know if I can function this way, but somebody in your church's history identified that as the way that your church is to function and your congregation voted for it and they've joined the church under the impression that you're going to carry out what your church said it would do.

So if you're gonna be intellectually honest, you have a responsibility to know your constitution and to help the congregation in love abide by it. One of the rules that just made life hard for me when I came, had to do with the promotion of meetings. I guess somewhere in our church's history, some little group had some meetings that led to some votes that not everybody knew things were gonna be voted on and not everyone knew the meeting was happening.

And I think a little group took some power. Wrongly by exploiting some stuff. So the congregation had a pendulum swing the other way, and it was basically like nobody's ever have allowed to have a meeting unless everybody knows about it way in advance. And everybody's there and we know that things were expected didn't vote on, you know, 27 years before we're gonna vote.

It was really, really, really tough. And we had a choice as elders do we abide by that thing, or do we tell the congregation this is impossible? And we decided if we're going to be honest and have good scruples, there's your word of the day, good scruples, then we're gonna have to abide by this thing. And so we did and we made sure to the best of our ability, we did everything that laid out there.

And it was like once you accomplish step step 600, finally you can have a meeting. And we would go through all 600 steps and make sure that we got it all done and all done right to the best of our ability. And by the way, that became a good point of discussion later when we were talking about reconstituting.

To help the congregation see, there are some things in here that actually are unreasonable, and in many, many, many cases, churches respond to bad behavior by overcorrecting and legislating that overcorrection into a policy or a constitution or something like that. That is exactly what happened at my church.

I'm sure there's something in your church's history that's similar to that, so you. What I've just shown you is kinda two principles. Number one, you're gonna have to abide by it. Don't take the job. If you can't do that, doesn't mean that you think it has to stay that way forever. Number two, come up with a strategy to help correct things that are genuinely wrong.

I'm not saying things you just don't like, okay? There might be something in there that your congregation and the church you've agreed to come shepherd really wants to have something a away that you don't want to have it. You don't have to go change in all your preferences.

But if there's something that's really in the way, something that's theologically wrong, whatever, you're gonna have to work on that. Now let me tee this little ball up. You're probably going to have some things in your rural congregation's constitution that are getting in the way theologically, and you're going to, because you love theology, because you love the Lord, you're gonna develop, a soar, an abscess that gets bigger and bigger and bigger in your mind.

Because you're gonna see this thing. You're gonna wish the congregation, man, I just preached the gospel. Why can't they just get to gospel? You know? You're gonna wish the congregation just love Jesus and theology as much as you do, and they're gonna be in love with that little rule that you don't like, and that will abscess in your brain until it hemorrhages and you leave or they fire you.

It happens all the time. If the rural church is going to be healthy. We need a generation of leaders who are willing to tolerate things that are not right for the sake of helping that church become right over time. If you try to change that thing in your first year, second year, first five years, sometimes even first 10 years.

You will not only fail, you will make the church hate your position more, which means the next guy who comes in either needs to hold their position or plan to get fired like you did, or be discouraged like you were. There are some things that you should be able to tolerate even though you hold a different position and you want the church to hold a different position for a long time because you're leading them as a shepherd.

From a rocky, craggy dry place. To a green pasture with flowing water and the journey there may be incredibly difficult. In fact, you might be the guy who spends your entire ministry just trying to get the sheep back on their feet to know that they need to head a different direction, and then the next guy gets to lead 'em.

And if that's you, from an earthly perspective, that stinks. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry. If you have to spend three decades just trying to help. Wake up sleepy sheep before they can even start heading in a new direction. But it's kinda like Paul said in second Corinthians seven, sorry, not sorry. Like I'm sorry that it hurts, but I'm not sorry if it helps your church be healthy.

Long after you're dead. Wouldn't you rather have a healthy church in your town 50 years from now than another unhealthy, angry group of people that you embittered because you pushed too hard on good theology too soon? You might do that if you teach really good theology in a way that's too. On the nose or too fast or too cold, or too, you guys just need to understand this and you probably don't have the Holy Spirit if you don't.

All these things we do. If you do that, you might as well consider yourself having given them an inoculation to the gospel because they are going to develop a resistance to anything or anyone who sounds like you. You probably have the right doctrine. You're probably leading 'em the direction they need to go.

But if you do it like a, well insert your derogatory comment there that I was about to make. If you do it like a punk, you're actually harming Christ's kingdom. You're saying you're doing a good thing. I'm just preaching the gospel. I'm just standing on good values, just standing on good theological truth.

True, but you've gotta shepherd the flock of God that's among you. And that means knowing your church's constitution abiding by it and coming up with a wise, patient, strategic, congregationally informed, way to change it. So I started with this just in my head, and it was me on my knees before the Lord asking for help.

And then I brought in my only other elder I had at the time, and we started talking about changing a constitution is really hard and the congregation's been through a lot. So that was 2013. We waited, we decided to wait, and I didn't like that. I was impatient. And I had a patient elder, praise Jesus that that was the case.

And we waited and we talked about things that were frustrating. And then over time, I had occasions in meetings and sometimes even in a sermon. To mention something that was in our constitution that was not squaring with scripture. And I tried to do it in as loving and winsome way as I could, and where I had the chance to give a little jab on the jaw, I would, and I tried to knock that thing out, but sometimes it was really resistant and I had to go back to body shots over time.

You know, you just punch in the bag, punch in the bag, punch in the bag, and then eventually you get to punch one on the chin. Sounds like I know what I'm talking about with boxing. I don't, there was this guy who was at a church not far from me, a Pentecostal guy, and he had one leg. And he would box people and he would, for some reason, he would always get pastors to come box with him.

And man, my nose has never bled like it bled when this guy was boxing me. It's my only boxing experience. But I learned enough from him to know you keep on hitting the body until you finally get a kill shot or a knockout shot, whatever. You're gonna have to do that with your constitution, just wherever you can.

You get it in there, but you gotta do it in a way that is measured. Don't be a fool. Don't be an idiot. Can, can I say idiot on this podcast? I think I am. And what I, what I mean by that is you're not like sarcastically, you know, taking shots at this thing and it's me against the Constitution and they don't like it.

Like, one time took off my tie and I got some jabs about not wearing a tie that put the person making the jabs at odds with me. Not 'cause I love the tie or whatever, but because he was saying in a condescending way, remarks about wearing your best on the Lord's day. Okay. You don't like it when people do that to you?

I don't either. You could accidentally do that to your people who think that the constitution you have at your church might even be like above the Bible. That's wrong. They are wrong, but you cannot come at them in a, um, I'm looking for a word here, an arrogant way. In a condescending way. You can't talk about it every Sunday.

You gotta think about this. We ended up being able to reconstitute in 2016. So I actually came in December, 2012 and we reconstituted, I think it was November, 2016. So like three years later we're reconstituting. And it was a journey and we got the whole congregation involved. I wasn't trying to hide stuff, I wasn't trying to put my favorite things in there.

Prop up things that I think would be an advantage to me. I wasn't trying to trick them with theological words, so you don't even know what you agreed to. Tried to walk through it in a way that was really faithful and the congregation could own. And lemme tell you what, that was really liberating.

And now when we teach our membership classes and we walk through our bylaws, I think people are generally encouraged and we actually enjoy teaching these things. Two documents you really need to make sure you have in there. A statement of faith that reflects what your congregation believes to be a right confession of the truth.

Well, maybe another time I'll talk about statements of faith at length, but just think. This is the the baseline of what it means to be a believer. What do you need to believe about Jesus? What do you need to believe about his church? What do you need to believe about salvation? What do you need to believe about the future?

What do you need to believe about the ordinances? What do you need to believe about the word? What do you need to believe about the nature of God? These kinds of things. And you're putting those in there saying, these are the non-negotiables. So if you cannot agree to these things, you cannot be a member of our church.

'cause we're not sure you're a believer. Therefore if you nuance down and you're like, you must believe in a pre-trip rapture and Jesus is coming in 2027 at six o'clock on a Friday. If you do that to people, you niche down in your eschatology, you're going to ostracize people who are genuine believers.

Is that what you want in your rural church? Or are you open to recognizing the fact that Jesus is coming back and there can be some variety in our understanding of exactly what that looks like and we can still all get along just fine. If somebody comes into your church and they say, well, God is Trinity, but he sometimes is Father and he is sometimes Son, and he sometimes spirit.

Is that okay? If so, you're, you're in a heretical church, okay? So you gotta figure out where are these lines that we're drawing in the sand, and that's what goes in your statement of faith and scripture needs to back that up. And scripture in context needs to back that up. Second document is your church covenant.

This is where your people say, this is how we will live. Lemme give you a very common error in church covenants, people sign them, or maybe not even, they just know, okay, my church has a covenant and has stuff in it that I've agreed to do, but I don't know what it is, and nobody takes it that seriously anyway, so it really doesn't matter.

We never talk about it. You know, I took a membership class, I think they said some stuff. So you end up with things in the covenant that people say they'll do and they don't do and they don't even feel bad about it 'cause they're not even really aware or they haven't been made to feel that it's important.

So you've gotta be the champion of your statement of faith and your church covenant. And if your church covenant says in there, something like mine said, we will not participate in the sale or use of alcohol or tobacco. That was in there. And I'm just gonna be honest, what happened in my congregation, and if you have this in yours, is probably happening in your congregation too.

There were people who signed that paper. That did not abide by that because they didn't think it was important, so they would sign it and then they would work at a restaurant where alcohol was sold, or they would under their conscience, drink a glass of wine with dinner in their house, or whatever. You know, there's a whole broad range of how people feel about alcohol and tobacco, and so.

Our covenant restricted all the way down to no participation in the sale or use. So you're either gonna block a whole bunch of people or you're going to make liars out of your church members. You do not wanna do that. Now, this is going back to what I said a second ago that might be there and it might need to go away or be modified, but you cannot just do that tomorrow.

So you're going, oh no, I got people lying in my church, or, oh no, I got people you know, in the church that are holding people to a standard beyond scripture, whatever. Sure. Figure that out. Pray. Strategize. Work with your leaders. Work with your congregation. Don't push too hard, too fast. If you do, you've inoculated the congregation.

You've divided over that issue, probably the congregation in a way that's not healthy, and that is going to hurt your church's representation of the God in your area, and your church might be the only church preaching the gospel in your area, and you need to be healthy. Not because you guys are awesome or because you wanna have a cool crowd or whatever, but because God wants to glorify himself through the local church in a way that reaches to the heavens.

He's put you there for a reason. He's kept that church there for a reason. He's entrusted you as a shepherd or as a leader in that church for a reason. So you're gonna have to figure these things out. You can't ignore them. You can't rush them. Pray, get God's help. Bring in your leadership, bring in your congregation, work together for the glory of God.

So how about those documents a? Maybe it's time to open that drawer of the filing cabinet that you don't wanna be in. Start learning them, start owning them, start thinking about 'em. Work with your teams. Work with the powers that be, the elders, the deacons, the trustees, whatever. With God's help and pray that the Lord will enable you to have good documents. That will help your church, not just in your generation, but for many to come really pursue his glory in your town.

If I can help you with that in any way, just reach out to me. My email is tj@brainerdinstitute.com. That's Brainerd with an E. You must be a brain nerd. Although it doesn't have two ends. Brainerd institute.com. First name tj@brainerdinstitute.com. I'd love to help you out in any way. We have a bunch of resources, by the way, over at the Brainerd Institute website.

We have articles about stuff like this. We have some cohorts if you're interested in talking about these things more with some groups, we've got local gatherings of pastors. If there's an equipped gathering in your area. We'd love to get you connected there. If you're looking to start an equip group in your area, you'd like to have some tools to help you meet with other local pastors, we'd really like to talk to you about that.

And we have a conference coming up. Oh, man. If you've not signed up for the conference yet, it's October 10th and 11th. We're meeting at a beautiful historic church in downtown Wellsboro, Pennsylvania. This is the kind of place you wanna come for a romantic getaway with your spouse. This is the kind of place you wanna hang out with your church leadership team.

And Sean DeMars is coming. He is a really, really good brother who will preach his heart out to us and his testimony will encourage you. We're also gonna speak on rural ministry. We've got some missionaries that work in rural ministry. I'm gonna share a little bit about a theology of place. We're gonna talk to leadership teams about how to function in a healthy way.

It'll just be really rich. Something special for rural pastors wives, ministry wives that my wife is doing. Head on over to brainer institute.com and get signed up for that. Tickets are going, but they still are available now. We would love to have you there. Well, thanks for listening to this episode. I hope to have my comrades back soon, Josh and Joe. But hey, until next time, we'll see you right here on Rural Church Renewal. Goodbye.