# Congregational Meetings in Presbyterianism



## Marrow Man (Nov 28, 2012)

I have a parliamentary procedure question about congregational meetings. This is one of those "what-if" questions that one thinks about late at night.

The the ARP, only the session can call for a congregational meeting of the church (although every church must have at least one annual congregational meeting, for such matters as electing officers and adopting the budget). One exception to this is that in special cases, the presbytery can also call for a congregational meeting. In Presbyterianism (at least in most forms), the pastor is a member of his presbytery but not the local church. Plus, you have a distinction (at least in the ARP) between active communicant and non-communicant members, as well as inactive members. So, let's say the congregational meeting was going on and someone called for the meeting to go into executive session. Who then would have to leave the room during the meeting?

If the meeting had been called by the presbytery (where a member of the presbytery is presiding over the meeting), would that mean that all members of the presbytery would have to leave, along with the pastor? What about the members? Could only the active members remain (those are the only ones who could vote -- non-communicant and inactives cannot vote).

This is just one of those "just wondering" questions, but it seems that if such a situation arose, it could be problematic.


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## Alan D. Strange (Nov 28, 2012)

Tim,

I don't know whether your church order provides any particular insight on this or not. In the OPC Form of Government, for instance, the following pertains: "Every minister shall be a member of a regional church and has communicant fellowship in any local congregation of that regional church" (FG 6.4). One of the implications of this is that any minister would have the privilege of the floor and the right to remain in executive session in any particular congregation of his presbytery during a congregational meeting. Certainly it would be the case with a meeting called by Presbytery (of the congregation). There's never an occasion, in any body, when the moderator would be excluded during executive session. 

I think that the local governing body would have to make the distinctions that you mention at the local level between active and inactive communicants and non-comunicants. All things being equal, in OP churches executive session at the congregational level would exclude all who are not members of the local church (or ministers of that presbytery). Thus it would not exclude non-communicants unless the session determined for some reason that only communicants should be present. We do not have inactive membership so I am not sure how you determine such and what it means (can such people vote and speak at a congregational meeting? If so, executive session would not exclude them).

Peace,
Alan


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## Scottish Lass (Nov 28, 2012)

I would think the odds of someone even knowing they could call for an executive session, much less doing it, are pretty low, but I'll give it a shot. Regardless of who calls the meeting, I don't see how executive session could consist of anyone beyond voting members. What would need to be made clear at that point is exactly what type of business may be conducted in ES.


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## Romans922 (Nov 28, 2012)

Here is language from Robert's Rules (95ff of new 11th ed), "Whenever a meeting is being held in executive session, only members of the body that is meeting, special invitees, and such employees or staff members as the body or its rules may determine to be necessary are allowed to remain in the hall. Thus, in the case of a board or committee meeting being held in executive session, all persons-whether or not they are members of the organization who are not members of the board or committee (and who are not otherwise specifically invited or entitled to attend) are excluded from the meeting."

I believe this answers the 'inactive member' (whatever an inactive member is in the Church --> no member at all), that they are not permitted during executive session.

A member defined is on pg. 3 this should answer non-communing member question, "A member of an assembly, in the parliamentary sense, as mentioned above, is a person entitled to full participation in its proceedsings, that is, as explained in *3* and *4*, the right to _attend meetings_, to _make motions_, to _speak in debate_, and to _vote_." So non-communing members would have to be excluded for they are not members in the parliamentary sense. 

This should also answer the Presbytery question that they are not allowed to be there unless 'specially invited'. Because they aren't members of the congregation.


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## Scottish Lass (Nov 28, 2012)

Wonder who has the authority to "specially invite"? Again, I would think any voting member would have that power.


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## Romans922 (Nov 28, 2012)

The members of that society do, in this case the congregation can invite anyone they want.


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## Alan D. Strange (Nov 28, 2012)

The reason that I did not quote RONR is that it is not, in the first instance, necessarily, the controlling authority here. The Bible is the primary standard, the Westminster Standards the secondary, the Church Order the tertiary and then, finally, RONR the quaternary. Neither the Bible nor the WS clearly address such matters (though having principles that arguably do). The Church Order would have such implications, however, defining, e.g., who are members in good and regular standing. I teach polity, including RONR: trust me, you don't want simply to overleap the Church Order and go to RONR.

RONR, for instance, cannot properly exclude ministers of the presbytery of which the congregation is a part from the congregational meeting by going into executive session. Such ministers have no right of vote but they do have the right to attend a congregational meeting. At least in the OPC, because of what the Form of Government says. I think that a careful study of what is direct and implied in the ARP Church Order is necessary to answer these questions. 

Peace,
Alan


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## Romans922 (Nov 28, 2012)

Alan, I hope my words were not taken as attempting to express that RONR were of more authority in this situation. I don't know the ARP polity and I understand Tim does (since he is a minister in the ARP). But I also assumed that the ARP in its book of order uses the RONR as their parliamentary procedure manual (when their own book of order doesn't speak to the issue). I assumed Tim would use it wisely.


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## Marrow Man (Nov 28, 2012)

Alan, it was good meeting you during the NARPARC meeting at MARS a couple of weeks ago (Craig H. introduced us).

Part of the problem is that the ARP Form of Government is not as specific as the OPC Book of Order. Below is the section on congregational meetings.



> THE CONGREGATIONAL MEETING
> 1. Purpose:
> The purpose of a congregational meeting is to give spiritual and temporal direction in all matters not within the realm of duties assigned to the pastor, the session, the diaconate or higher church courts. Such matters as the election and calling of a pastor or associate pastor, the election of ruling elders, deacons, and congregational officers, the determination of certain procedures of the congregation, the adoption of the congregational
> budget as proposed by the diaconate and approved by the session, the authorization of expenditures for the erection or alteration of any building, the fixing of salaries, or the purchase of property are to be considered at a congregational meeting.
> ...


Here is the definition of an inactive member for those who have asked that question:



> The inactive roll shall consist of the names of persons removed from the active roll by the session because of their failure to meet the requirements of an active member [i.e., regular attendance and giving]. No names of persons, however, shall be thus removed from the active roll until the session has made diligent effort to restore such persons to active membership. The session shall encourage non-resident members to transfer membership to another congregation and if membership has not been transferred within a period of one year their names shall be placed on the inactive roll.


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## Marrow Man (Nov 28, 2012)

Robert's Rules are used for parliamentary purposes, but the ARP Standards do take precedence, of course.


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## Edward (Nov 28, 2012)

Marrow Man said:


> The the ARP, only the session can call for a congregational meeting of the church (although every church must have at least one annual congregational meeting, for such matters as electing officers and adopting the budget). One exception to this is that in special cases, the presbytery can also call for a congregational meeting.



In the PCA, the members of the congregation can call a congregational meeting as set out in the BCO. The standards for the largest churches are fairly low, as I recall - it's been a while since I researched the issue. 

But your question is interesting. 




Scottish Lass said:


> Wonder who has the authority to "specially invite"? Again, I would think any voting member would have that power.



No, it wouldn't be an individual - it would be the body.


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## Alan D. Strange (Nov 28, 2012)

Tim:

It was good to meet you, too, albeit briefly. Did you know Craig previously or had you just met him? As you could gather, he and I have known each other for some time (since Seminary).

It would not appear that inactive members would properly attend a congregational meeting in executive session. I still think that the meeting would need to make it clear if it wished to exclude covenant, non-communing members. I know that RONR would point in that direction, since non-communicant members don't vote, but I think that other, broader theological considerations might be in view here that impact this. The question is this: what's the ordinary purpose of executive session in a congregational meeting? To deal with matters thought inappropriate for those not members of the local congregation. This may or may not impact the attendance of covenant youth. For example, if you are reporting discipline, you may want to exclude visitors but include covenant youth who need to see and hear such. I do believe that members of presbytery would not rightly be excluded (the presbytery has sessional oversight, after all) in any case. BTW, this refers only to ministers, since they are the only continuing members of presbytery, ruling elders needing to be commissioned to each meeting of presbytery and only then and for those purposes called "members of presbytery."

Peace,
Alan


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## Marrow Man (Nov 29, 2012)

Good thoughts, Alan. It was just an inquiry I had, one of those places where Robert's Rules would seem to impede the intent of the purpose of congregational meeting. I have known of a situation before where a "rogue church" (Presbyterian) had a member sort of "take over" a congregational meeting and use RR's to prohibit the pastor from speaking to any items on the agenda (since he wasn't a member). That was a mess, of course. I was just thinking about how some clever person might (mis)use RR's to do the same via executive session. I like the stipulations of the OPC with regard to the pastor's function at such meetings.

Craig was my old RUF campus minister in college, at Georgia Southern back in 1989-1990. He was fresh out of seminary, and I was new Christian and new to Reformed theology. I literally had not seen him in more than 2 decades, so it was very nice to catch up with him during the meeting.


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