A Parliamentary Guide for Church Leaders

C. Barry McCarty

• Publisher: B&H Books
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781433671500
• eBook ISBN: 9781433677373
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

Written by the chief parliamentarian of the Southern Baptist Convention, A Parliamentary Guide for Church Leaders has become a standard reference work in the field of church administration for ministers, seminary students, church leaders, convention officers and delegates/messengers. Dr. McCarty draws on over thirty years of experience as a pastor and a professional parliamentarian to make the essential rules of procedure understandable for ordinary people seeking to effectively participate in meetings of their church, denominational convention, or other business gatherings.For the past quarter century, twelve presidents of the Southern Baptist Convention have relied on the author's expertise to guide them through the annual sessions of the largest deliberative assembly in the world. Now, this silver anniversary edition brings users into the twenty-first century with additional notes on special considerations for multi-site churches and an entire chapter on conflict resolution.

1

Introduction

In 1863 a U.S. Army officer who was active in his church was assigned to construct defenses for the port of New Bedford, Massachusetts. While there the gentleman was asked, without warning, to preside over a business meeting of his church. Though he was an officer in the Corps of Engineers and had participated in church and civic affairs wherever he was stationed, he did not know how to preside at a meeting. Embarrassed, but feeling the worst thing he could do would be to decline, he plunged into the meeting hoping that the assembly would behave itself. It did not. The officer emerged from that turbulent meeting determined that he would never again attend another until he knew something about parliamentary law.

Though various parliamentary manuals were available, the gentleman learned that there was no generally accepted set of parliamentary rules for voluntary associations, such as churches and civic groups. So, he set out to write one. That man was Henry M. Robert, author of Robert’s Rules of Order, the famous manual that has dominated the field of parliamentary procedure for over a century.

I tell that story for two reasons. First, if you have picked up this book because you have been or will be put on the spot by having to preside or participate in a meeting and you are not sure exactly what to do, I wanted you to know that the man whose name is synonymous with parliamentary procedure was once in your shoes. Second, I wanted you to know that General Robert wrote his now familiar guide to help churches conduct their business more efficiently.

Then why can’t church leaders and members simply pick up a copy of Robert’s Rules and learn what they need to know to conduct their meetings? The problem is that Henry Robert’s pocket manual has grown larger and more complex with each new edition. When first published in 1876, the book was a modest 176 pages long. The latest edition of Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised runs over 700 pages.¹ The book’s comprehensiveness happens to be one of its strengths. Anything about parliamentary procedure that is not in Robert’s Rules, you probably do not need anyway. Still, to most novices the book appears as a tangled web of parliamentary technicalities.

The problem is not so much in the content or size of the book as in how it is used. Whatever it was in the beginning, Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised is not a textbook, but a reference manual. As a codification of rules, it reads very much like a legal document. In a sense, that is precisely what it is. But trying to learn how to preside or participate in a meeting just by reading Robert’s Rules is like trying to learn how to drive by reading your state’s traffic code.

My purpose for writing this book is to give church leaders and members a simplified, unintimidating, practical guide to the rules and customs that govern deliberative assemblies. It is a book about how to get things done in a meeting. I have pared the parliamentary code down to the fundamental rules you must know to be able to propose, oppose, or dispose of a motion, to serve on a committee, to speak in debate, or to conduct a church business meeting. The book should also equip you to influence decisions made by your professional association, civic club, political party, local government, or any other organization in which you have an interest.

Once you have mastered the basics from this book, you should find Robert’s Rules and other parliamentary codes less intimidating. You will have a basic framework in which to fit the advanced points of parliamentary procedure as you have need to learn them.

General Principles

Your study of specific rules can be easier from the start if you will first fix in your mind certain general principles on which the rules are based. Hundreds of rules and customs govern deliberative assemblies. Unless you are a professional parliamentarian, you do not need to learn them all. You will also occasionally find yourself in a parliamentary situation that the rules do not specifically address, but which would be covered by a general principle of parliamentary law. If you know these principles, you can figure out a lot of the rules.

1. Group Decisions Should Be Made in an Orderly Fashion.

Successful meetings are possible only when there is an orderly consideration of business. If an assembly had no rules to guide it, if each member could speak on any subject, as long and as many times as he pleased, if every member could speak at the same time, it would be impossible to reach a deliberate decision on any matter. The first object of parliamentary procedure, then, is to preserve order. The rules are aimed at providing an orderly forum in which an assembly can determine and express the will of its members on matters that come before them.

The two most fundamental rules of parliamentary procedure both have to do with preserving order. The first rule is that an assembly can consider only one thing at a time. When a subject is introduced by means of a main motion, that motion must be adopted, rejected, referred to a committee, postponed, or disposed of in some way before another subject can be introduced. Only one speaker may speak at a time, and he must confine his remarks to the immediately pending question. He cannot speak about anything other than the one subject before the group right then.

The second rule governs the use of the various kinds of motions. When any of the specialized motions are needed to help dispose of a main motion or to handle a procedural matter, these motions have a definite order of precedence, or rank, that determines when they can be introduced and considered.

The whole purpose of this system of motions and the one-thing-at-a-time rule is to facilitate the orderly transaction of business by an assembly.

2. The Majority Rules.

Speaking of the democratic process, Thomas Jefferson said that the first of all lessons in importance, but the last to be thoroughly learned, is “to consider the will of the society enounced by the majority of a single vote, as sacred as if unanimous.”² When you join a deliberative assembly, you enter into an agreement with the other members to allow the will of the majority to prevail on all questions that come before the group. Abiding by this understanding that the majority rules is a fundamental part of what it means to be a member of a collective decision-making body. It takes no strength of character to yield to the will of the majority when the majority is voting your way. In parliamentary matters, nobody qualifies for the good sportsmanship trophy until he demonstrates that he can abide by the will of the majority whether he voted with them or not.

3. The Minority Must Not Be Suppressed.

Though the majority rules, its power is not absolute. If every member of an assembly save one were of the same opinion, the assembly would be no more justified in silencing that one, than he, if he had the power, would be in silencing the assembly.

The majority can limit or stop debate on any issue. It can reject the minority’s position by voting against the issue. It can even prevent the consideration of a sensitive or objectionable issue with a two-thirds vote. But it must follow the rules that govern each of these procedures. For example, if a majority of two-thirds chooses to stop debate on an issue, debate stops for everybody. The majority cannot limit only the speeches of minority members. The majority also has no control over how an individual member casts his vote. It cannot make unanimous any vote that was not in fact unanimous. If a thousand members vote aye and a single member votes no, there is nothing the majority can do to keep that minority of one from voting as he chooses.

Under the rules of parliamentary procedure, a minority of even one member alone has the right to:

• Propose a motion, resolution, or amendment.
• Second a motion.
• Speak for or against any debatable question (unless some limitation on debate, which applies to all members, has been ordered).
• Vote as he pleases.
• Control the use of general consent and force a vote on any question.
• Demand a rising vote.
• Demand the Division of a Question when a series of motions is offered as a block.
• Insist upon the enforcement of the assembly’s rules by raising a Point of Order.
• Insist that the presiding officer and the assembly follow the agenda by a Call for the Orders of the Day.
• Prevent a unanimous vote.

Henry M. Robert summarized the balance between the rights of the majority and the minority this way:

The great lesson for democracies to learn is for the majority to give to the minority a full, free opportunity to present their side of the case, and then for the minority, having failed to win a majority to their views, gracefully to submit and to recognize the action as that of the entire organization, and cheerfully to assist in carrying it out, until they can secure its repeal.³

4. Every Member Has the Right to Be Heard and to Hear What Other Members Have to Say.

Debate is the essential feature of a deliberative assembly. The very word parliamentary comes from the French word parler (English parley), which means to talk or discuss. Members can make a collective decision only when they have the opportunity to hear what they collectively have to say.

This principle is the reason that motions to limit or close debate require a two-thirds vote. The rules allow a full and free discussion of any debatable question until an over-whelming majority decides that they have finished deliberating and are ready to vote.

Permitting members to express dissenting views is not just fair; it’s smart. You never know when the other side might be right! That is, you never know until they are allowed to speak. Only when all sides are freely heard can an assembly be sure it has made the best decision.

Our strongest opinions have no better safeguard to rest upon than a standing invitation to our opponents to prove them unfounded. If we are proven wrong in debate, we have the opportunity of exchanging error for truth. If we are proven right, the truth we contended for is more firmly established by prevailing over error.

5. All Members Have Equal Rights, Privileges, and Responsibilities.

Every member of an assembly has the right to participate in its proceedings. A member has the right to make motions, to speak in debate, to ask questions, and to vote. Unless the bylaws say otherwise, he has the right to nominate or to be nominated for office, to be named to a committee, or to exercise any other rights of membership. To deny to fellow members rights and privileges claimed for oneself is inequitable and unjust. He is a true gentleman, statesman, and Christian, who will fight as hard to preserve the rights of his most ardent opponent as he will his own. When he disagrees with other members, he may attack and rebut their ideas. But he must respect their right to speak and vote against his views as well.

The chairman e...

Table of contents

• Foreword
• 1. INTRODUCTION
• 2. BASIC PROCEDURE
• 3. MOTIONS
• 4. DEBATE
• 5. MEETINGS
• 6. COMMITTEES
• 7. BYLAWS
• A Prayer for the Home Church of Each Reader Who Picks Up This Book
• Glossary
• Notes
• Relational Commitments from Peacemaker Ministries