BAPTIST church meetings are the place where God’s people meet to discern together, through listening, scripture and prayer. A digital platform such as Zoom, has been a great help for churches to remain in contact and build our relationships during lockdown. Some congregations have also used it as a medium for church meetings – where leaders can share information and the congregation can pray together. However, it has its limitations when it comes to making significant decisions. Potentially, not all members will be able to participate and contribute equally to the discernment process. For this reason, we think it is probably wiser to wait until there can be a return to face-to-face meetings before making any major decisions on vision or policy; or matters of significant capital expenditure or significant changes in the fabric and facilities of the church premises.
MOST management decisions can be made by the church’s leadership team during lockdown. However, there are some matters that church constitutions usually reserve for the church meeting, such as the appointment or reappointment of leaders, the approval of accounts, admitting new members and calling a new pastor.
In many situations the appointment of Deacons/Officers can be delayed until a meeting can be safely held, with the current leaders invited to remain in role until this happens. Where Deacons/Officers are not able to continue there is a possibility for the remaining Deacons/Officers to co-opt others to assist in the leadership of the church. In some cases, it may be deemed necessary for churches to include these items in online church meetings.
Likewise, the approval of accounts and admission of new members can be either delayed or included for online discussion where there is nothing in these items deemed controversial.
It would be unwise to attempt to appoint a new minister during lockdown. The advice for churches in settlement is that early contact with a potential minister can take place electronically but a full process of meeting the church and discernment should wait for lockdown to finish.
IF the leadership believe a significant decision of the members must be made before face-to-face meetings are possible, please contact your RM in the first instance, after which specific advice may need to be sought from the Legal & Operations Team or Anthony Collins Solicitors. An example of this would be the urgent appointment or removal of a minister.
(If you do decide it is essential to hold a church meeting, you need to be confident you have a platform which will enable all members to participate and contribute. If there are some members who do not have the skills or equipment to join digitally, then it is important to establish a framework in which they can be aware of the meeting agenda and express a contribution. This may well be by the leadership receiving or making individual phone calls ahead of the meeting to seek views, contributions or questions, which can then be fed into the discernment process in the meeting. If you do hold a digital church meeting, it will be important for the church trustees, usually the leadership team, to minute why a non-standard practice has been adopted. Each church will have a different constitutional framework, making it difficult to give universally applicable advice, but in general what the constitution provides should be followed as closely as possible, subject only to those changes made necessary by lockdown restrictions.)
ADVICE from the Charity Commission states that organisations will not be penalised if their AGM is postponed. Churches registered as charities who are due to submit Annual Reports should get in touch with the Charity Commission.
