There’s a set of people for whom things like rules, constitutions, and by-laws are endlessly fascinating, people who salivate at the prospect of being asked to revise or—even better!—write from scratch a set of procedural rules for an organization. There is a set of people like that. And then there are normal people! For most of us, constitutions and by-laws are far from fascinating; they’re legal documents, necessary administrative evils at best, and at worst, a kind of desiccated straitjacket that hinders the Spirit and turns what should be Spirit-led churches into hide-bound bureaucratic behemoths.
In my experience, though, the people who are most likely to have that sort of low opinion of rules, constitutions, and the like are people who are about to lead something, not people who have actually led. They’re people who are going to plant a church or take a pastorate but haven’t yet found themselves having to make real decisions in real time in a real congregation. But once you’re in a leadership position, it becomes clear pretty fast that solid rules aren’t a necessary evil at all; they’re an indispensable weapon for safeguarding the unity
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