Governance

=**Our New ByLaws**= The Community Church ByLaws: click here to access the bylaws approved by the Congregation on June 3rd, 2012.

=**Our New Policies**= Celebrate! After a year's trial run with our new governance by policy system the Board has completed and adopted the new policy book. It is available for your viewing at If you would like to provide feedback on these policies, please send your comments to Governance@c3huu.com.

=History of Changing Our Governance System= Several years ago church leaders realized that our governance system wasn't working well and that we needed to find a better way to organize the church. In January 2008, Annette Marquis, TJD District Executive, did a Governance workshop for the board and church leaders. Inspired by this, several of us volunteered to form the Governance Task Force to study governance models, select one or a create a combination, recommend it to the board, and implement it. We (Barb Chapman, Susan McDaniel, Maggie Scarborough, Susan Spalt, and Cecilia Warshaw) studied what was out there, what other churches were doing, read books such as "Shared Ministry" and "Simple Church", and were trying to cobble something together when Frankie Price-Stern told us about Dan Hotchkiss' new book, "Governance and Ministry: Rethinking Board Leadership". This book gave us what we'd been looking for: a map and a light.

We decided to use Dan's book as a guide to creating our new governance system. We gave a copy to each of the board members and asked them to read it. We used chapters as the basis for board learning sessions at board meetings, spoke about it at a council meeting, and we began writing proposed policies based on his model. We have a set of definitions of our governance and policy related terms.

We met with Dan via Skype approximately once a month over a period of six months. Maj-Britt suggested we do this to help us with the governance change process, and it has been extremely helpful.

=**Our Philosophy of Governance**= Our congregation elects a board of directors to serve as its governing body and calls a minister to serve as its spiritual and administrative leader. The board focuses on serving the church's mission and on ensuring the well-being of the congregation. The board governs by
 * Discerning and articulating the congregations mission and vision of ministry
 * Setting goals and making strategy choices
 * Creating written policies to guide the congregation's ministry
 * Monitoring and evaluating the congregation's leadership, including itself
 * Promoting transparency, collaboration, and inclusiveness in all areas of church leadership
 * Delegating responsibility and authority as appropriate

=Outline of the Board Policy Book= This diagram, page 218 from "Governance and Ministry: Rethinking Board Leadership", shows Dan's outline of the Board Policy Book.

=Communicating with Us (Governance Task Force)= In addition to talking with any member of GTF, you can send your questions and comments to Governance@c3huu.org or drop your response in the Governance/GTF mail slot in the office.