Limitations on Pastoral Authority
No church operates for a year without elders or a church board. In contrast, a pastoral position with a church may go unfilled for a year. Representative governance on the congregational level is a necessity; having a pastor is a luxury. Even so, a godly pastor who empowers and equips the membership is an important asset to a congregation.
In terms of rank, the pastor holds a membership in the local congregation like every other member. He returns tithes and offerings to God through the church just like every other member. He is subject to church discipline like every other member. In terms of vote, He has exactly one vote, just like every other member. In most circumstances he will not even exercise voting rights.
Jesus said, “you are all brethren” (Matthew 23:8). In Mark 10:42-43 Jesus teaches,
Those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant.
The pastor is not the CEO. He is not the military general for the church; he is the chief servant. He is employed by the local sisterhood of churches, better known in some circles as the conference. He is an employee, not of the local church congregation, but of the conference, and is assigned his post as a pastor by the conference and not by the congregation. A congregation cannot hire or fire the senior pastor; the conference administration hires and assigns a pastor to the congregation.
Normally, the pastor serves as chairperson of the church board. But many limitations are placed upon him in this role. There is confusion in the church over what authority the pastor has. Hear what the world church says about the pastor in relation to the local church congregation where he serves:
Pastors should not surround themselves with any special body of counselors of their own choosing, but always cooperate with the elected officers. CM p. 33
Because the pastor is appointed to the position in the church by the conference, the pastor serves the church as a conference employee, is responsible to the conference executive committee, and maintains a sympathetic and cooperative relation to and works in harmony with all the plans and policies of the local church. CM p. 79
The pastor should not assume all lines of responsibility, but should share these with the elders and other officers. CM p. 79
The word of God does not give license for one man to set up his judgment in opposition to the judgment of the church, neither is he allowed to urge his opinions against the opinions of the church. CM p. 64
I heard of a situation recently where the church board, acting fully within it designated responsibilities, invited a guest speaker. That guest speaker is an ordained Seventh-day Adventist pastor who is not under discipline. This particular case is not widely known. The pastor of that church declared that the speaker could not come and unilaterally rescinded the invitation to the speaker, overruling the church board.
Does the pastor have the right to overrule the church board, for example, by cancelling a meeting that the church board has voted to hold? He has never been given that authority and therefore does not have any such authority. The Church Manual warning that the Bible “does not give license for one man to set up his judgment in opposition to the judgment of the church” makes clear that the pastor who overrules his church board is acting in contradiction to this principle (CM p. 64), and is subject to discipline.
Coming back to what I shared a moment ago, why doesn’t the pastor normally vote in a church board meeting?
Why doesn’t the pastor vote? Because he is chairing the board meeting his duty in that role is to maintain a position of impartiality. He almost never enters into debate in a board meeting. If he feels a particular item is important enough, he can become involved in debate over a motion but must first step down from acting as chair while the motion is under consideration. Then he can make motions, speak in debate, and vote, just like all other board members. He cannot resume his role as chairperson until the question debated is concluded. Afterwards he can resume chairmanship of the meeting.
In the SDA church, normally the chairman of the church board is the pastor. The chairman of the board does not make or second a motion, or vote, and, is supposed to conduct board and business meetings from a position of neutrality.
Where do we get this? I am going to refer to ROberts Rules of Order. I know what someone might be saying. Someone thinks that parliamentary procedures are some kind of attempt to take power from the membership and give it to church administrators. Actually, Roberts Rules is very much in a similar line to the United States Constitution: it is an attempt to protect the rights of the minority from the majority. The procedures marked out help keep a minority from being run over by a majority, or a board from being run over by a pastor. Every day all across the western world thousands of meetings are conducted using the Robert’s Rules explicitly or in principle as the general parliamentary law.
Hear now how the person chairing the meeting is strictly limited:
If the presiding officer is a member of the society, he has—as an individual—the same rights in debate as any other member; but the impartiality required of the chair in an assembly precludes his exercising these rights while he is presiding. Normally, especially in a large body, he should have nothing to say on the merits of pending questions. On certain occasions—which should be extremely rare—the presiding officer may believe that a crucial factor relating to such a question has been overlooked and that his obligation as a member to call attention to the point outweighs his duty to preside at that time. To participate in debate, he must relinquish the chair… RR12, pp. 374-375
There is an exception, in what are usually called committees and small boards,
Except in committees and small boards, the presiding officer does not enter into discussion of the merits of pending questions (unless, in rare instances, he leaves the chair until the pending business has been disposed of… RR 12 th ed, p. 85
Is your church board a “small board”? In a small board motions can be addressed without being seconded (RR12, pp. 35, 488). In your board, when someone makes a motion does it have to be seconded? If so, then yours really isn’t a “small board,” and the pastor is obliged to maintain a position of neutrality. He cannot make or second motions, or enter into debate. The exception is, if there is a margin of one vote, he can vote and turn it into a tie, defeating a motion, or, he can add his vote to one side in a 50-50 split and make the Yes vote an actual majority. However, no wise pastor will be anxious to take sides in such a sharply divided decision.
In a committee a pastor is within his rights to participate more freely in discussion and decisions. But most often the committee functions under the authority of the church board and reports to the board, so,
A wise pastor will do what he can to encourage a spiritual atmosphere in a board or business meeting. These meetings, along with the other meetings of the church are occasions for worship.
Hints for Productive Church Board Meetings
== Have a regular schedule for your board meetings and make sure that the congregation membership knows when board meetings are held.
== Make it your congregation’s practice to hold open meetings, only entering into executive session on rare, necessary occasions.
== Provide board members with the agenda for the meeting a week or even longer before the meeting. Transparency is good for everyone
== Seek input on the agenda for the upcoming meeting
== Adopt an agenda at the beginning of the meeting. This helps keep everyone honest and ill-considered actions from being approved late in the meeting.
== Have a special season of prayer in which board members pray to receive the Holy Spirit for that meeting.
== Long meetings are to be avoided; no one is at their best in a long meeting.
== The meeting should be fast-paced and interesting.
If Pastor Commanded to Act Unethically
What if the pastor is commanded by his conference leadership to do something that violates the conference’s obligations to church members? Then the pastor is faced with an ethical dilemma. No conference has the right to mistreat a congregation, for example, by robbing that congregation of its voice, by contradicting a voted decision of the church board, interfering in the congregation’s selection of officers or delegates. In such a case the pastor is in the same position as any church member who is faced with a choice between working on the sabbath and keeping the sabbath holy and possibly losing his job. He is faced with an ethical choice caused by an unethical employer using coercion. A pastor must be an honest man. He may find that he can no longer work for an employing conference so long as unethical practices persist in its current leadership.
If conference leaders are willing to violate their obligations to a congregation, and the conference officers involved refuse to correct their behavior, a respectful yet definite process should be commenced to remove them. If officers are willing to act unethically toward one congregation in the sisterhood of churches, no congregation in the sisterhood of churches is safe.
There are very few things that could not be dramatically improved by the Church membership taking a more active role in helping their leaders be right.
Because it is late in the year and constituency meetings will begin to happen in just a few weeks, I am going to go ahead and deal with the constituency meeting in parts five and six!
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