10 Jun Miscellaneous Decisions from the US National Conference

The US National Conference delegates acted on 22 proposals for changing the Discipline. Some were minor, some more substantial. Here are several which weren’t addressed in other posts.

• The Discipline has required that the pastor be a member of the church board of administration. A proposal saying the senior pastor “may” (instead of “shall”) be a member of the board was defeated. So the pastor remains a voting member of the local church board.
• Paragraph 423.1, on Lay Delegates, was rewritten. Now, the only responsibilites of lay delegates are to represent the church at the national conference. They no longer need to be chosen every year (and the church can select them in any way it sees fit–no need to elect them).
• Added this line: “It is recommended that money from the sale of closed churches be given to the US National Conference to start new churches.” This used to be a policy statement, but was removed somewhere along the line.
• All of the national directors are now voting members or the National Conference. The directors who are ordained ministers have been voting members because of their clergy status, but not the laypersons. So in 2011, if they are still around, Steve Dennie, Marci Hammel, Donna Hollopeter, and G. Blair Dowden will have a vote.
• Added responsibilities to the Bishop and to the Executive Leadership Team. All were basically administrative in nature, intended to conform better to the overall structure.
• Added a line to the paragraph about clusters which says, “The cluster to which the local church is accountable shall be the cluster in which the senior pastor is a member.” This covers situations where the senior pastor and associate staff may belong to different clusters (there are clusters, for instance, designed just for youth workers).