Faithfully Forward:

Redesigning FCC’s Governance for Greater Impact

2025 Bylaws Proposal

Goals of Governance Change

Simplify the structure to the necessary elected governance roles, processes, and guidelines in order to reduce complexity, allow greater flexibility, and free up even more energy for mission and vision.

Clarify roles, responsibilities, and accountability for leaders and members of the church in order to eliminate confusion, reduce overlap, and increase efficiency.

Empower more people to serve on ministry teams, reducing barriers to service and reserving nominations, elections, and term limits only for governing roles.

Key Challenges of Current Governance

Alignment with Best Practices: our 2006 bylaws are rooted in a church governance model from the 1940s. Our existing structure does not align with our Covenant denomination's recommended model of governance, which is used by nearly all of our sister Covenant churches.

Sustainability: our current structure requires sixty-seven (67) elected positions, more than 20% of our current membership. Keeping these positions filled year after year is incredibly time-consuming and has become unsustainable.

Capacity: service on a ministry board often requires sacrificing participation in mission-focused activities.

Efficiency: seven ministry boards report to the Church Board. Overlapping responsibility and authority, as well as varying meeting schedules, slows down decision-making and action.

Women in Ministry: our current governance divides Deacon and Deaconess roles and responsibilities by gender rather than giftedness. Our current bylaws also use exclusively male pronouns in reference to the lead pastor, despite our denomination's egalitarian stance on female pastors.

Flexibility: our current structure limits our ability to adapt to meet the ever-changing needs of our congregation, community, and world.

Read the committee's full Rationale Statement.

Key Features of Proposed Structure

Simplified Annual Elections: from sixty-seven elected governing positions to a maximum of fifteen.

All Church Board members are directly elected by congregation

Continuity of Ministry, Discipleship, and Care through Ministry Teams.

Flexibility to add, change, or discontinue ministry teams according to the needs of the church.

Emphasis on ministry through service with fewer limitations or barriers to serving.

Stronger accountability for church staff and lay leaders.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is church governance?

Church governance can be described as the structural and procedural guidelines for the membership, leadership, business, and fiduciary affairs of the church.

Most Christian churches use one of three types of church governance: Episcopalian, with a priest or bishop as the highest governing authority; Presbyterian, with a group of elders as the highest governing authority; and Congregational, with the members of the congregation holding the highest governing authority.

FCC is a congregational church and would remain a congregational church under the proposed changes.

What are the Church Constitution and Church Bylaws and why do we need these documents?

Each non-profit 501(c)3 organization is required to maintain governing documents, which define who the organization is and how it will govern itself.

FCC’s Constitution spells out the church’s name, purpose, statement of faith, affiliations, membership, board, annual meetings, claim to assets, and processes for amending the constitution. The Bylaws Committee is not recommending any amendments to FCC’s constitution at this time.

FCC’s Bylaws are a set of articles that further define how the church is to govern itself, structure its leadership and conduct its business. These include further instructions for membership, the church board, the lead pastor, church staff, committees, nominations, elections, meetings, and bylaw amendments.

How can the church change its Bylaws?

FCC's current bylaws outline the process for amending our bylaws. The congregation may amend its bylaws at a congregational meeting by a two-thirds supermajority vote of members present and voting. Bylaw amendments must not conflict with the Church Constitution and must be submitted in writing at a congregational business meeting a minimum of sixty days prior to the vote.

If approved, when would these changes take effect?

If approved in January 2026, the Bylaws Committee envisions the following timeline for implementation. A Transition Team appointed by the Church Board will begin developing the policies and procedures outlined in the amended bylaws shortly after the January meeting. The current Nominating Committee will begin the process of recruiting candidates for new elected roles through February and March. Elections to fill the roles established by the new structure would take place at the Annual Meeting in May. Finally, our elected leaders would officially take office in September to align with our fiscal year.