What Are Church Bylaws?

in first corinthians chapter 14 paul writes a letter to a very troubled church the church of corinth this church was struggling with a lot of internal problems one of the problems was there was sexual immorality among the leaders of the church another issue that he was dealing with is that the church was misusing spiritual gifts particularly speaking in tongues prophecy and paul gives some instructions some practical guidelines on how those spiritual gifts were to be utilized in the local church at the end of chapter 14 as he's kind of wrapping up his teachings on spiritual gifts and use of local church this is what he says in verse 40. but all things should be done decently and in order paul says that the structure of the church the mission of the church while we have a a huge mission to accomplish and that is to make disciples of all nations and baptize them and teach them to obey all things that christ has commanded as we're doing that ministry as a corporate ministry we're to do it with decency and we're to do it in an orderly fashion over the last few weeks if you've tuned in online or if you've been here on campus you've heard me mention that there are new bylaws coming and for some of you you know kind of exactly what i'm talking about you've been around the church for a while for some of you you're like what does he mean by that bylaws what is that seems kind of official well it flows right out of this verse 40 where paul says that we need to do things orderly and we need to do things the right way so the first question i want to answer is what are bylaws well bylaws is a set of documents that a that a church agrees to that basically says this is our this is what we believe this is our convictions uh it's also a set of documents that kind of give structure to the church of course a church is not a business but there are things within the church that have to be handled that the government requires us to do as a non-profit uh that our members the membership of our high part baptist church transparency and accountability and how money is being handled how leaders are selected how a pastor is selected all of those things need to be written down and understood and that's what the bylaws are the bylaws are just a set of documents that provides rules of order it also includes your vision and mission so i can look at a set of bylaws from a church and i can tell you what a church of values i can tell you what a church what a church's mission is even if they don't state it clearly i can tell based on how the structure of the church is put together now we are a congregational church and what that means is that the church body is is where the authority of the church kind of lies as far as decision making now the authority for the new testament church is the bible and of course jesus the head of the church but what i mean is is decision making how are decisions made well that power is vested in the congregation and of course it's led by a group of elders pastors who cast vision and shepherd church so i want to give you five reasons five reasons why bylaws are important okay number one to promote efficiency to promote efficiency what that means is that we all understand what expectations are we understand what hyde park is here to do those are all kind of listed out in the bylaws and not only that not not only what we're going to do but how we're going to do that so with bylaws what it does is it helps us to be efficient what it helps us do is say yes to some things but also say no to some things that there are some things that hyde park baptist church as its mission and vision is really not going to be engaged in because it's not our role or what god has called us to do so the first thing is it promotes efficiency to be efficient with our resources number two it provides direction so it articulates a church's mission uh doctrinal convictions uh and also how to accomplish those those missions and those things that god has called us to do so in those bylaws it'll talk about you know small groups and how leaders are selected for those small groups how a finance team operates uh how you know your deacons what the ministry of the deacons are that's all going to be listed out so that everyone knows so that we're all moving in the same direction number three here's another reason why bylaws are important to preserve the unity and testimony of the church so jesus in john 17 is one of his final prayers before he was crucified one major part of that prayer in john 17 is he he prays that the church his his organization on earth is going to continue his ministry through the through the power of the holy spirit he he prays that we would be one just as the godhead trinity as one so unity is very very important and the bylaws help us to understand first of all what is unity and second of all what's my individual responsibility as a church member in that movement or goal of unity also that the church is to have a strong testimony in the community so when you become a member of hyde park what does it mean to be a member of this church well the bylaws help lay all of that out it sets patterns to follow what does it mean to be a member well here's some patterns of what it looks like to be a faithful member of the local church and also it sets forth what requirements for church membership looks like that's all part of the bylaws and that all helps to produce promote unity and protect the testimony of the church fourth and finally a good set of bylaws will protect the church from reliability okay so again promote efficiency provide direction preserve unity and testimony and protect from liability you may be shocked to hear this you may already know this but churches today are getting sued more than they ever have in the past for all kinds of different things so to have a good set of bylaws by which the church is operating very very closely to those bylaws protects this body from any lawsuits that may come in the future and i feel pretty strongly that as we continue to move towards a more secular community that more and more attacks are going to come towards the church and that is the reason that we took on this task over a year and a half ago to make sure that our bylaws are clear concise and that we're operating exact as closely as we can with those bylaws so here's some things you need to know okay here's some things that are very very important so i want you to lean in and listen this thursday this coming thursday at noon our brand new bylaws are going to be posted on our website you'll get some notifications in flock note uh where you can go link and go to those and download them if you want to read them when you come here sunday for worship they will be available out in the welcome center for you to pick up we'll have them in a lot of different locations so whether you watch us online or whether you come on campus you'll have access to these bylaws to be able to read them and understand them so again thursday this thursday at noon there will be a post going onto our website of these new documents and you can download them there and you can print them you can read them electronically or sunday you can pick them up here while you're in the building and you will get a flock note notification on those bylows being posted and how you can find them something else that you need to know as as part of this process of course the church has to approve these bylaws okay so we will have three sessions of question and answer and this is very very important i want as many people to come out for this as possible because we will be voting on these dubai laws sometime in june we've not set the date for that yet because we want to give apple time for our congregation to ask questions about some of the changes that are in those bylaws and there are changes in there from the way this church has operated in the past so there are three different dates i want you to want you to make sure you write down and get may 23rd that's a sunday sunday evening at 6 30 may 23rd wednesday evening may 26th at 6 30 and sunday evening june 6 at 6 30. so we have a sunday a wednesday and a sunday that is the may 23rd may 26th and june 6th all three of them at 6 30. you don't have to come to all of them of course you can if you want to but we want you to come to at least one of them and we want you to engage now if you're online and you're still not comfortable coming out on campus then that's okay we're going to be streaming live every one of those sessions and there is an opportunity a way that you can engage with questions and we will answer those questions live during those sessions so whether you you stay at home or whether you come on campus if you are a member of hyde park baptist church you must absolutely must engage in at least one of these sessions because it is vitally important that you understand and know exactly what we're putting before you so that you can support that now i think i've made a pretty good case for why it's important i think i've made a pretty good case for why you need to be part of this but let me close with this i am very excited about what god is doing at hyde park baptist church so you may think well what's the bylaws got to do with let's just preach the bible and let's just tell people about jesus absolutely i agree with you but as paul has stated that we need to do things orderly we need to do it in the right way and we need to do it with with decency and with order these bylaws are not going to be something that takes away from our mission in fact these bylaws is what's going to help us focus on our mission and focus on what god has called us to do so they are very very important i'm very excited about not only these bylaws and all the work that has went into these it there's been a year and a half of work just on this document uh so that just shows you how much importance our leadership has put into this but it's very important for you to read them understand them ask any question you want there are no questions out of bounds if you can't ask a question during the live session or if you read them between now and our first session you want to email me and ask a question by all means do that my email is jeff jeff hydepark.church and i'm here to serve you but i'm excited about the future i'm excited about what god's doing and i think these bylaws is one more piece of the puzzle that's just going to accelerate us into the mission of making disciples of all nations [Music]

Channel: Hyde Park Baptist Church

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Length: 10min 40sec (640 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 27 2021