Purpose of This Appendix

The seven papers of this suite have argued that misalignment between language, structure, and practice in ministerial corporations produces predictable pastoral and institutional costs, and that disciplined alignment is the work of bringing the three into coherent relation. Several of the papers, particularly Papers 1 and 4, recommended structural transparency as one of the practical disciplines that supports alignment. Paper 7 included communication protocols, an alignment playbook, and sermon language templates as instruments for sustaining the framework in ordinary speech. What has not yet been provided is a working set of question-and-answer formulations that congregations can use, or that ministers can use with congregations, when the actual questions of governance and structure arise in conversation, in adult education settings, in new-member orientation, in pastoral counsel, or in periodic teaching that addresses these matters directly.

This appendix supplies such a set. The Q&A is written in the form of plain-language explanations that a thoughtful member of the assembly might receive when raising the corresponding question. The questions are real ones — the kind that members actually ask, in actual conversations, when they have begun to think carefully about how the assembly works and how their participation in it relates to its formal structures. The answers are written in a register that takes the questions seriously, gives substantive responses, and avoids both the dismissive shortness that some governance questions receive and the bureaucratic length that obscures more than it reveals. The answers reflect the framework the suite has developed, but they are written so that a member who has not read the suite can follow them and find them useful.

The appendix does not aim to be exhaustive. It aims to model the kind of substantive transparency that the framework requires, with enough range that an assembly adapting it to its own circumstances can see how the pattern extends to questions the appendix has not addressed directly. Particular assemblies will have particular features that require particular treatment, and the wording of the answers should be adapted accordingly. What the appendix offers is a working pattern, with sufficient examples to make the pattern usable.

Section 1: Questions About Belonging and Membership

Question 1.1: Am I a member of the church?

Yes, in the most important senses. If you have been baptized into Christ and are walking in faith, you are a member of the body of Christ; this is the membership the New Testament treats as primary, and it is the membership that matters most. You also belong to this local assembly in the relational sense: you are one of the brethren among us, you are addressed in our teaching as one of those for whom the work is done, and you participate in the assembly’s life as those who are part of it.

There is a third sense of “membership” that operates in the legal arrangements of our corporate body. In civil law, our assembly is constituted as a religious nonprofit corporation, and the corporation has legal members who hold particular legal responsibilities — voting on certain corporate matters, holding fiduciary responsibility for the legal entity, and so on. In our arrangement, legal membership in the corporation is held by our ordained ministers rather than by all who attend and participate in the assembly. This is a structural feature of how we are organized in legal terms, not a measure of how we are organized as the body of Christ.

The two senses of membership are distinct, and we want to be honest about the distinction. You are a member of the body of Christ; you are part of this assembly; and the legal membership of the corporation is a narrower category that exists for particular legal and administrative purposes. None of the three senses cancels or diminishes the others; they each describe different aspects of how the assembly’s life is organized.

Question 1.2: Why don’t all of us hold legal membership in the corporation?

The arrangement reflects practical considerations rather than a judgment about who is more important to the assembly’s life. Legal membership in a nonprofit corporation carries fiduciary responsibilities — duties of care, loyalty, and good faith in relation to the legal entity — and the laws of the jurisdictions in which we operate require those who hold those responsibilities to be identifiable and accountable in particular ways. Concentrating legal membership in our ordained ministers means that the persons who hold the legal duties are those who have been examined, ordained, and recognized for the work of teaching and pastoral care; it means that doctrinal questions in the legal-corporate sense are handled with the care of those set apart for that responsibility; it means that legal accountability is concentrated in those who have explicitly accepted it.

Other arrangements are possible — some religious bodies are organized congregationally, with all members holding legal membership; some are organized hierarchically, with legal membership concentrated at higher institutional levels; some have hybrid arrangements. Each arrangement has trade-offs. Our arrangement has the trade-offs we have judged appropriate for the kind of body we are, with the kind of stewardship our ministers exercise. The arrangement is a present administrative choice, not a claim about the eternal structure of the assembly. We are open to discussing why the arrangement is what it is, what alternatives have been considered, and what we have learned from the arrangement over time.

Question 1.3: What does it actually mean to “participate” in the assembly if I’m not a legal member?

It means a great deal, and the New Testament gives substantial content to what your participation involves. You are a member of the body of Christ in this assembly, and the body of Christ is described in Scripture as having every member necessary, with gifts distributed across the body that are exercised for the building up of the whole (1 Corinthians 12; Ephesians 4). Your participation includes the exercise of whatever gifts you have been given — teaching, helps, mercy, hospitality, encouragement, and so on. It includes the bearing of one another’s burdens, the worship of God in the assembly’s gathered life, the contribution of your prayers and your service, and the formation that comes from being part of the body over time.

It also includes specific responsibilities the New Testament places on the body. You are responsible to test what is taught against Scripture (Acts 17:11; 1 Thessalonians 5:21); this is not a privilege to be claimed but a responsibility to exercise. You are part of the body that participates in the recognition of those who serve, in the pattern of Acts 6 where the assembly was called to identify those qualified for particular responsibilities. You are part of the body that participates in discipline, in the pattern of 1 Corinthians 5 and Matthew 18:15–17. You have a voice in the assembly’s life, exercised through the channels that are part of how we operate.

What your participation does not include is the legal-corporate vote on matters reserved to the legal members of the corporation. This is a real limit, and we want to acknowledge it honestly rather than obscure it. The other forms of participation are not consolation prizes for the absence of corporate voting; they are what the New Testament actually describes as the participation of members in the body, and they constitute substantial participation in their own right.

Question 1.4: What if I want my voice to be heard about something specific?

We want to hear it, and we have channels for that. For matters of pastoral care or local concern, your local pastor is the first point of contact; he is responsible for the pastoral life of this assembly and is the person best positioned to address most matters that arise. For matters that involve teaching, doctrine, or the broader life of our fellowship of assemblies, the regional or wider administrative bodies have responsibility, and there are defined channels for raising concerns at those levels. For matters that you have raised at one level and have not received a substantive response on, an appeal to a wider body is available; the existence of this appeal is a structural acknowledgment that any single response can be wrong, and that the body has reason to provide for second consideration in matters of significance.

Several specific commitments accompany these channels. We commit to engaging the substance of concerns raised, not to characterizing the concerns or those raising them. We commit to responding within reasonable timeframes that we will tell you when you raise a concern. We commit to the protection of those who raise concerns from disadvantage in the ordinary life of the assembly; raising a concern is not, by itself, a reason for any negative consequence. And we commit to periodic review of whether these channels are functioning, with feedback from the membership on the channels themselves taken seriously.

The channels are real, and we ask that you use them when you have something to raise. We also acknowledge that channels can degrade over time, and if you find that your experience of using them does not match what we have described here, we want to hear about that too.

Section 2: Questions About Authority and Decision-Making

Question 2.1: Who actually makes decisions in this assembly?

Different decisions are made at different levels, and we want to describe the structure as honestly as we can. Pastoral decisions for the local assembly — questions of pastoral care, local teaching emphasis, local fellowship and service — are made by the local pastor, in consultation with whatever local elders or assistants serve alongside him. Doctrinal questions of broader scope, ministerial appointments and assignments, and policy matters that affect multiple assemblies are typically handled at regional or wider administrative levels, by the councils of recognized leaders that operate at those levels. Corporate decisions in the legal sense — significant financial commitments, property matters, governance changes, the formal recognition of ordained ministers — require action by the legal members of the ministerial corporation, in accordance with the corporation’s governing documents and applicable law.

We will provide, on request, a more detailed description of how decisions move through these levels and what kinds of decisions are made where. The basic shape is that decisions are made at the level of authority appropriate to their scope, with the levels above able to address matters that affect them and the levels below handling the ordinary life of the local body.

What this structure does not include is a single person who makes decisions of all kinds across the assembly’s life. Decisions are made within recognized roles, with the scope of each role defined by what the role is responsible for. Where an individual has decision-making authority, it is for the matters within that individual’s recognized scope; for matters outside that scope, the decision belongs to others.

Question 2.2: What is the basis of the ministry’s authority?

The basis of authority in the assembly is the authority of Christ as head of the body, exercised through Him by the gifts and offices the New Testament describes. Recognized ministers exercise authority not because they hold their position by their own warrant but because they have been called and recognized for stewardship of what Christ as head has entrusted to them. Their authority is real — the New Testament treats it as serious and to be honored — and it is mediated; it is the authority of stewards under the head whose authority they serve.

Several features of this authority are worth naming. It is pastoral in its character: the work is the care of souls, and the texture of the authority is that of a shepherd under the chief Shepherd, not that of an executive over staff. It is exemplary rather than coercive: the New Testament’s instruction is that elders are to be examples to the flock, not those who lord it over the flock (1 Peter 5:3; Matthew 20:25–28). It is plural and local: the New Testament’s pattern is multiple elders in a local assembly, distributed authority and peer accountability rather than authority concentrated in one person at any given level. And it is accountable: ministers are accountable to Christ for how they exercise the authority entrusted to them, and they are also accountable in the senses the texts authorize — the testing of teaching against Scripture, the visibility of significant decisions to the body, the participatory roles of the assembly in selection and discipline.

The basis of the ministry’s authority is therefore not the institution itself, the office considered apart from its substance, or the position of any particular individual. The basis is the headship of Christ exercised through recognized stewardship under Him, with the dual accountability the texts establish. We want to describe authority in these terms because describing it in any other way risks claiming for human office what belongs only to Christ, and we want to avoid that risk both for the sake of what is true and for the sake of the proper exercise of the ministry’s actual authority.

Question 2.3: What if I disagree with a decision the ministry has made?

Disagreement is not the same as rebellion, and we want to be clear about this. The New Testament addresses disagreement on matters where Scripture leaves room for different judgments (Romans 14 is the classic treatment), and it commends the testing of teaching against Scripture by ordinary members (Acts 17:11). Disagreement, voiced through proper channels and oriented toward resolution, is part of the ordinary life of the assembly, not a problem to be managed.

If you disagree with a decision, the appropriate path depends on what kind of decision it is. For a pastoral or local matter, raise the disagreement with your pastor; he will hear it on the merits, will engage the substance, and will give you a substantive response. The response may include further explanation of the reasoning, may acknowledge that the disagreement raises a real concern that should be considered, may indicate that the matter is being reconsidered, or may indicate that the decision stands and explain why. Whatever the response, it should be substantive — actual engagement with what you have raised — and you are entitled to expect that.

For a matter of broader scope — doctrine, policy, regional or wider decisions — the channels at the appropriate level are available. If you have raised a matter at one level and the response has not engaged the substance, you may bring the matter to a wider level; this is not an act of disloyalty but the structural acknowledgment that any decision can be wrong and that second consideration is sometimes appropriate.

What we ask is that disagreement be expressed through the channels that exist for it, rather than carried as private grievance or expressed only in informal conversations among members. Channels exist precisely to give disagreement a path toward resolution; using them is the way disagreement contributes to the assembly’s life rather than corroding it.

What we do not do — and what we will work to avoid — is treat disagreement as evidence of a problem with the disagreer rather than as a question about the substance disagreed with. Disagreement is not, by itself, rebellion. It is not, by itself, hardness of heart. It is not, by itself, disloyalty. It is the expression of a different judgment about a matter, and the appropriate response is engagement with the matter, not characterization of the disagreer.

Question 2.4: What if I think the ministry has gotten something wrong?

The first thing to say is that ministers can get things wrong. This is not a dramatic admission; it is a feature of how mediated authority operates. The New Testament treats present human authority as exercised within the conditions of this present age, including the possibility of error and the need for correction. The full clarity of the consummated kingdom is not yet available; the wisdom required for present judgments is granted to those who ask but is not granted in the form of guaranteed correctness in every decision.

If you think the ministry has gotten something wrong, your responsibility is to raise the concern through the channels that exist for such concerns. This is not a privilege we tolerate; it is a responsibility you have as a member of the body. The Bereans of Acts 17:11 are commended for testing what was preached against Scripture, and 1 Thessalonians 5:21 instructs the assembly to “prove all things; hold fast that which is good.” The exercise of this responsibility is part of how the assembly maintains its faithfulness over time.

Several things follow from this. The concern should be raised with the substance of what you think is wrong, with reasoning that those receiving it can engage. The channel should be the appropriate one for the matter — local pastor for local matters, wider channels for matters of broader scope. The expectation should be that the substance of the concern will be engaged, not that the concern will necessarily be agreed with; engagement and agreement are different, and a substantive response that disagrees with the concern is still a substantive response. And if the response at one level does not engage the substance, the matter can be brought to a wider level.

What we ask is that concerns be raised within the framework rather than acted on outside it. If you think a particular practice is wrong and the matter has not yet been engaged through the channels, the appropriate path is to raise it through the channels; the appropriate path is not to treat the matter as settled in your own judgment and to act on that settlement in ways that affect the assembly’s life. The channels exist to give concerns a fair hearing; using them is part of how the body’s responsibility for its own faithfulness is exercised.

What we commit to, on our side, is the substantive engagement that makes the channels worth using.

Section 3: Questions About Money and Resources

Question 3.1: Where does the money go?

The basic answer is that the contributions members give support the work of the ministry, the maintenance of the assembly’s facilities and operations, the support of those in pastoral and teaching service, and the various functions of the wider body of which we are part — including support for ministers serving elsewhere, materials and resources used across our assemblies, and whatever administrative functions are necessary for the work to be conducted.

We provide periodic financial reports that describe in more detail how resources are received and used. The reports are accessible to members and are presented in terms intended to give a clear picture of the assembly’s stewardship of what has been contributed. We follow the pattern of 2 Corinthians 8, where Paul takes pains that the handling of significant matters be honorable in the sight of men as well as the Lord; the visibility of how resources are used is part of that honorable handling.

If you have questions about specific aspects of how the assembly’s resources are used, we want to hear them. Some matters of detail involve confidentiality — for example, the specific compensation of individual ministers may not be disclosed in detail for reasons of personal privacy — but the general patterns of how resources are received and used should be understandable and engageable. If you find the level of detail in our reports inadequate, this is the kind of feedback we want.

Question 3.2: How are decisions about significant expenditures made?

Decisions about significant expenditures depend on what level of expenditure and what kind of matter. Routine operational matters at the local level are handled by the local pastor within whatever budget framework has been established. Larger expenditures, particularly those that involve property, capital projects, or commitments above defined thresholds, require action by the legal members of the corporation in accordance with the corporation’s governing documents.

For decisions of significant scope, we communicate to the membership what has been decided, the considerations that bore on the decision, and the reasoning by which the choice was made. The communication is not a request for ratification — these decisions are made by those with the authority to make them — but it is part of how we exercise the visibility that the apostolic pattern authorizes. Members who give to the assembly are entitled to a substantive account of how the resources are used, and we provide that account as a regular feature of how we operate.

If you have concerns about a particular expenditure or pattern of expenditure, the channels for raising concerns described earlier apply. The concern will be engaged on the merits; the response will include actual reasoning rather than dismissal; and if the response at the level you raise it does not engage the substance, the matter can be brought to a wider level.

Question 3.3: Why don’t members vote on the budget?

In our corporate arrangement, budget approval at the level requiring corporate action is held by the legal members of the corporation rather than by the broader membership. This is part of how the corporation is structured legally, and it concentrates fiduciary responsibility for the corporate entity in those who hold legal membership.

The arrangement is not a claim that members’ contributions don’t matter or that members’ views on financial priorities are unwelcome. The arrangement is that legal authority for corporate budget decisions is held in one place, and the means by which members’ views on financial priorities are heard and considered is through the channels that exist for member input rather than through corporate voting.

We acknowledge that this is a different arrangement than congregational polities use, and we want to be honest about the difference. Some members may have come from backgrounds where members vote on budgets, and our arrangement may seem to them a contraction of participation. The contraction is real in the corporate-voting sense; it is paired with other forms of participation that the New Testament authorizes — the visibility of significant decisions, the channels for member concern, the participatory roles of the body in discernment and discipline. We don’t claim that our arrangement is the only legitimate one, and we don’t claim it has no trade-offs. We do claim that it is the arrangement we operate under, and that we operate under it honestly.

Section 4: Questions About the Ministry

Question 4.1: How are ministers recognized and ordained?

The recognition and ordination of those who serve in the ministry follow patterns that combine the New Testament’s character qualifications with the practical requirements of the work. The qualifications given in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 — character qualifications that center on integrity, gentleness, sound teaching, household integrity, and freedom from the disqualifying patterns the texts name — are central to the recognition. Beyond the texts’ own criteria, candidates typically go through periods of preparation, observation by those already in service, and examination of their teaching, conduct, and gifts.

Ordination itself is the formal recognition by the body of those whom God has called and equipped for the work. The recognition is not the source of the calling; the calling comes from God, and the recognition is the body’s acknowledgment of what God has done. Ordination is conducted by recognized leaders, typically with the laying on of hands, and is the act by which the body formally extends to the candidate the responsibilities of the office.

If you have questions about the qualifications and process for those serving among us, we are happy to discuss them. If you have observations about the gifts and calling of particular individuals — including potential candidates whom you believe should be considered for service — these observations are appropriate to share with the existing ministry, in the pattern of Acts 6 where the assembly was called to identify those qualified for particular responsibilities.

Question 4.2: How are ministers evaluated, and what happens if a minister is not doing well?

Ministerial evaluation is conducted on dimensions that match what the work actually is: the pastoral care given to those entrusted to the minister, the teaching of the assembly with fidelity to Scripture and clarity of communication, the formation of members under the minister’s care over time, and the conduct of whatever outreach work the assembly’s understanding of mission endorses. The evaluation involves multiple sources of evidence — including the reports of those who have received the minister’s care, peer observation by fellow ministers, and direct conversation between the minister and those who oversee — and is conducted on schedules that allow patterns to be visible.

The criterion of evaluation is faithfulness to the work entrusted, not loyalty to the institution as such. We make this distinction explicitly because the two can come apart: a minister who is faithful to Scripture and to the work of the office is doing what the office requires, even if the faithfulness sometimes brings him into tension with current institutional emphasis; a minister who is loyal to current institutional emphasis but unfaithful in some respect is in a different position. The evaluation aims at faithfulness rather than at loyalty, and we work against the substitution of one for the other.

If a minister is not doing well, the response depends on what is at issue. Concerns about teaching, conduct, or pastoral care are addressed first through the ordinary work of evaluation and conversation between the minister and those who oversee. Where the concerns are persistent or grave, more formal review may be appropriate. Where the matters rise to the level of disciplinary concern, the patterns of biblical discipline (Matthew 18:15–17; 1 Corinthians 5; Galatians 6:1) apply with the seriousness they require, and the goal is restoration rather than mere institutional protection.

If you have observations or concerns about a particular minister’s work, the channels described earlier apply. The concern should be raised with the substance of what you have observed, with whatever reasoning supports your concern, and through the channel appropriate to the matter. The concern will be engaged; the response will include actual consideration of what you have raised; and the concern will not, by virtue of having been raised, place you at any disadvantage in the assembly’s ordinary life.

Question 4.3: What is the relationship between the local pastor and the wider ministry?

The local pastor serves the local assembly; the wider ministry serves the broader fellowship of assemblies of which we are part. The relationship is one of mutual responsibility within a recognized structure: the local pastor exercises pastoral oversight at the local level, with the wider ministry providing support, broader teaching coordination, and the kinds of decisions that affect multiple assemblies; the wider ministry exercises responsibility at the wider level, with the local pastor representing the local assembly’s life and bringing the local body’s concerns into the wider conversation.

This structure is post-apostolic in the sense that the New Testament does not specify trans-local administrative authority in the form we have. The apostles themselves exercised trans-local authority, but the apostolic office was constituted by direct commission from Jesus Christ and witness of His resurrection; the texts do not authorize the perpetuation of apostolic trans-local authority in the same form in non-apostolic offices. What we have, then, is a practical arrangement for the coordination of multiple assemblies, justified on grounds of stewardship and practical necessity rather than on direct continuity with apostolic prerogative. We acknowledge this distinction because it bears on how the wider ministry’s authority is to be understood: as recognized administrative arrangement among assemblies, not as direct continuation of the apostolic office.

The local pastor’s first responsibility is to the local assembly; the wider ministry’s first responsibility is to the broader fellowship. When questions arise that involve both — and many do — the pattern is consultation and cooperation between the levels, with each level honoring the responsibilities of the other and bringing its perspective to the matters that involve both.

Section 5: Questions About the Assembly’s Nature

Question 5.1: Is this assembly really the church of God? Are there other true churches?

This is a question we want to address with care, because the language of being “the church of God” can be used in ways that imply more or less than what we mean. We are an assembly of those who have responded in faith to the gospel, who are seeking to follow Christ in the way the Scriptures teach, and who gather together for worship, instruction, and the body’s life. We believe ourselves to be part of the body of Christ, which is the church in the most fundamental sense.

The body of Christ is constituted by Christ Himself; it is not constituted by any institutional arrangement. Membership in the body of Christ is a matter of one’s relation to Christ in faith, not a matter of institutional affiliation in itself. There are believers in many different assemblies and traditions; whether any particular individual is a member of the body of Christ is a question between that individual and the Lord who searches the heart, and we do not claim the standing to render that judgment for others.

We do hold particular convictions about doctrine and practice that we believe Scripture teaches and that distinguish us from some other Christian traditions. We hold these convictions with seriousness, and we teach them as what we understand Scripture to teach. We do not regard the holding of these convictions as making us the only true church in some exclusive sense; we regard the convictions as what we believe Scripture teaches, and we extend to other Christian believers the same respect we ask for ourselves: the respect of taking seriously what they understand Scripture to teach while distinguishing this from claims about who is or is not part of the body of Christ.

If you have questions about our particular doctrinal commitments and how they relate to those of other Christian traditions, we are happy to discuss them. The discussion should be substantive — engagement with what we teach and why we teach it — rather than reduced to claims about the standing of other believers before God, which is not ours to settle.

Question 5.2: What is the relationship between this assembly and the kingdom of God?

The kingdom of God is the rule of God exercised through Jesus Christ as head over all things to the church (Ephesians 1:20–23; Colossians 1:18). The kingdom has come near in Christ; it is in some sense present among His people; and its full instantiation belongs to the coming age, when Christ will return and the kingdom will be revealed in its consummation (1 Corinthians 15:24–28; Revelation 11:15).

Our assembly’s relation to the kingdom is the relation of the body of Christ to its head: we live under the headship of Christ, ordering our life together under His rule, and we await the consummation of His kingdom in the age to come. The assembly is not the kingdom; the assembly is the body of those who are under the kingdom’s head and who are being prepared for the kingdom that is coming. The Lord’s prayer instructs us to pray “Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10); the petition presupposes that the kingdom has not yet come in the form being prayed for, and we hold the eschatological reserve audibly in our prayers.

What this means practically is that we hold our present arrangements with appropriate humility. The structures by which we organize our life together are present means under our head, not the kingdom in its full form. Our leaders exercise authority under the head whose government is final, not in the place of His government. Mistakes are possible at every level of present authority and require structural acknowledgment; the correction that the texts authorize is part of how we sustain the relation between our present life and the kingdom that is coming. We work to keep this register clear in our teaching, our worship, and our self-description, because the conflation of the assembly with the kingdom in its full form would be a serious overclaiming, and we want to avoid the overclaiming both for what is true and for the proper exercise of our present life.

Question 5.3: What does it mean that we live under “the government of God”?

We use the phrase to refer to the rule of God over His people, exercised through Jesus Christ as head. The government of God is real, and we live under it; this is the foundation of our self-understanding as the body of Christ. We want to be careful about how we use the phrase, however, because it has sometimes been used in ways that conflate the rule of God with particular human arrangements in ways the texts do not authorize.

The government of God is centered in Christ as head, who has been seated at the right hand of God and given as head over all things to the church (Ephesians 1:20–23). No human office, however senior, occupies or shares His headship in any respect. The recognized leaders of the assembly serve as stewards under His head; their authority is real, and it is mediated under the head whose government they serve. The full instantiation of God’s government belongs to the coming age, when the kingdom will be revealed in its consummation; what we experience now is real participation in that government, but participation that is partial and proleptic rather than complete.

What this means practically is that “the government of God” is not, in our use, equivalent to any particular human office or institutional arrangement. We do not say that the government of God is equivalent to what our leaders decide, that opposition to a particular office is opposition to God’s government as such, or that our current arrangements embody the kingdom in its full form. We do say that we live under the rule of God exercised through Christ as head, that our recognized leaders serve as stewards under that head, and that we hold our present arrangements as the present means of organizing our life under His head while we await the consummation of His kingdom.

The phrase is therefore one we use with care. We want it to communicate the reality of God’s rule over His people without communicating the conflation of His rule with particular human structures. If you find the phrase being used in ways that seem to make this conflation, this is the kind of concern we want to hear; the discipline of using the phrase well is part of the framework we work to maintain.

Section 6: Questions That May Arise Less Frequently but Are Worth Addressing

Question 6.1: What if I’m asked to do something I believe is contrary to Scripture?

Your conscience before God is yours to keep, and we do not ask you to violate it. Romans 14 establishes that on matters of conscience, the body honors the conscience of those whose conscience is bound; the strong are not to despise the weak, and the weak are not to judge the strong. Where you believe in good conscience that something asked of you is contrary to Scripture, the appropriate path is to raise the matter through the channels that exist for such concerns, with the substance of why you understand Scripture as you do.

Several outcomes are possible from such a conversation. One outcome is that the conversation surfaces an aspect of Scripture or of the matter that you had not considered, and your understanding develops; this is one of the reasons the testing of teaching against Scripture is a body practice rather than a private one. Another outcome is that the conversation surfaces an aspect of the matter that those who oversee had not considered, and the practice changes; this happens, and it is one of the ways the body’s discernment contributes to the body’s faithfulness. A third outcome is that the matter remains a place of conscience-based difference, and the body honors the difference rather than requiring violation of conscience.

What we will not do — what we work against doing — is treat conscience-based objection as rebellion or as a problem to be managed through pressure rather than engaged through substance. The category of rebellion in the wilderness sense addresses sustained refusal of what God has clearly spoken; conscience-based objection that is grounded in careful reading of Scripture is, if anything, the opposite of that category. We want to engage your understanding of what Scripture teaches; we do not want to override it.

Question 6.2: What happens if I leave the assembly?

You are welcome here, and we do not want you to leave. If you are considering leaving, we want to have the conversation about what is leading you to consider it; sometimes such conversations identify matters that can be addressed, and sometimes they help both you and the assembly understand the situation more clearly even if the leaving still occurs.

If you do leave, several things are true. You remain a member of the body of Christ if you are walking in faith; this membership is not contingent on your relation to any particular local assembly. We retain whatever pastoral concern for you we have had; the relationship does not become hostile because you have left, and we do not treat departure as a moral failure. We do not have practices of shunning, social pressure, or punitive treatment of those who leave; departure is a serious matter and one we mourn when it happens, but we do not respond to it with the kinds of practices some other communities have used.

If you leave and later wish to return, the door is open. The conditions of return are the conditions of any member of the body — faith in Christ and the willingness to walk in fellowship with the body’s life. We do not impose punitive conditions, public confessions of failure, or other practices that some communities have used in connection with returns.

The honesty here is intended to be a support to the framework of mediated authority, not an undermining of it. Authority that members are free to leave, that does not punish those who leave, and that welcomes those who return is authority that operates within the texture of voluntary participation under Christ as head, which is the texture the New Testament describes for the body’s life.

Question 6.3: How do I raise a concern about something I think has been wrong over a long period?

The same channels apply, but the conversation may be longer and more substantive than for a single recent matter. A concern about a long-standing pattern requires the patient work of describing the pattern, the evidence for it, and the reasoning by which you have come to your judgment. We will engage the concern with the seriousness it requires.

Several things bear on how such conversations go. First, long-standing patterns are sometimes things those within them have not seen as patterns; the conversation may surface, for those who oversee, things they had not previously recognized. Second, long-standing patterns are sometimes the kinds of things that take time to address; even when the pattern is recognized, the work of changing it is not always quick. Third, long-standing patterns sometimes involve matters where reasonable judgment differs; the conversation may identify the pattern as a real one and may also identify it as one that the body has reason to continue.

Whatever the outcome, we commit to substantive engagement with concerns about long-standing patterns. We do not respond to such concerns by treating the raiser as a troublemaker, by characterizing the concern as itself a problem, or by deploying weighty rhetoric (rebellion, hardness, lack of faith) against the substantive matter raised. The discipline of substantive response is the same for long-standing concerns as for recent ones, and we will work to maintain that discipline.

Question 6.4: What if I notice that things in the assembly don’t match what is taught about how the assembly works?

This is the most important kind of concern you can raise, and we want to receive it with the seriousness it deserves. The framework we have described in these answers — the relation between language, structure, and practice; the disciplines that sustain the framework; the channels for member voice; the substantive engagement with concerns — has value only if it operates in our actual life rather than in our formal documents. If you observe that what is taught about how the assembly works does not match what you experience of how the assembly works, the discrepancy is a matter the assembly needs to know about.

The channel for raising such observations is the same as for other concerns: your local pastor for local matters, wider channels for matters of broader scope. The substance of the observation should include what you have observed, what aspect of the framework it seems to depart from, and your reasoning about why the observation matters. The response should engage the substance — should acknowledge whether the observation reflects something real, should explore why the discrepancy exists if it does, and should indicate what is being done about it.

We acknowledge that this kind of feedback is uncomfortable for those who receive it. It is also one of the most important kinds of feedback the assembly’s leadership can receive, and we work to receive it well. The framework’s integrity depends on the willingness to be told when it is not operating as described, and the willingness to do something about it when that is the case.

A Note on Adaptation and Use

The questions and answers in this appendix are illustrative. Particular assemblies operating under particular circumstances will have particular features that require particular treatment, and the wording of any answer will be adjusted to fit the assembly’s actual structure, history, and language. What the appendix offers is a working pattern: substantive engagement with the questions members actually have, in language that respects the questioner and gives the substance the questions deserve, within a framework that aligns what is said with what is the case.

The appendix can be used in several ways. It can serve as a reference for ministers preparing to address governance questions in adult education, new-member orientation, or pastoral counsel. It can be adapted and printed as a handout for members who want to understand the assembly’s structure with more clarity than ordinary conversation provides. It can serve as a template for an assembly developing its own materials on these matters, with the patterns and language modified to match the assembly’s particular circumstances. It can also serve as a diagnostic instrument: an assembly whose actual answers to these questions do not match what the appendix models, in either substance or texture, has identified an area where the framework’s disciplines may need attention.

The questions themselves are worth attending to. The questions members ask, and the questions they would ask if they thought the asking would be received well, reveal where the framework is operating clearly and where it is not. An assembly in which these questions can be asked openly, can be answered substantively, and can lead to substantive engagement with the matters they raise is an assembly in which the framework has working form. An assembly in which the questions cannot be asked, are deflected when asked, or receive non-substantive responses has identified, by that pattern, where the work of alignment remains to be done. The appendix is offered as a contribution to that work, with the recognition that the work itself is the responsibility of the assembly that takes it up.