Minimum standards for member congregations

So, what do you have to have to apply for congregational membership? There can be other requirements like corporate status, acknowleging jurisdiction, a financial contribution and a provision for dissolution, but those are standard and one-off.

This was in my to-blog list, but the UUWorld article, “Emerging, alternative groups at UUA’s growing edge” (Donald E. Skinner) brought it to the fore. Perhaps it’s time for a larger/smaller standard for congregations again?

Current standards

Australian and New Zealand Unitarian Association. Membership “shall be made in accordance with the procedure decided by a meeting of the Association voting on a recommendation of the Executive.” (PDF)

Canadian Unitarian Council. No stated minimum membership or number of services, for “member societies” to join, though the Council could make rule, per the By-laws.

General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches.

“A congregation must have at least 12 subscribing members over the age of 18 years, and must have existed for regular worship for not less than one year.” (Bylaw 2.1.2) (PDF)

“Meetings for a religious purpose must be held at least once a month.” (Bylaw 2.1.5)

“Small congregations” without a General Assembly vote “…shall be given recognition provided that they shall have been meeting regularly for 6 months. They shall be admitted on the recommendation of the district association if they comply with the above conditions for Congregations except that the number of subscribing adults shall be reduced to 8 and the requirement for meeting shall be amended from ‘at least once a month’ to read ‘at least bi-monthly’” (Bylaw 2.2)

Unitarian Universalist Association.

“A new congregation, to be recognized as a member of the Association, must have thirty (30) of its adult members be members solely of the new congregation.” (Rule 3.3.3)

“For purposes of determining compliance with Section C-3.5 of the Bylaws, a member congregation shall be deemed to have conducted ‘regular religious services’ if it has held at least 10 services during the fiscal year.” (Rule 3.5.1)

 

Historic standards

Unitarian Fellowships and Churches (1954, 1955)

“A Fellowship may be recognized when it has ten resident adult members and meets the other qualifications for membership in the Association.”

“A church may be recognized when there is a charter membership roll representing sixty-five or more resident, contributing families and when the regional and continental officers concerned are convinced that the community is large enough to assure very substantial future growth…”

“A church may be recognized when it does not seek financial assistance[,] whenever it has 65 resident member families, … when it can support a full-time resident minister at a salary comparable to other new churches and meets other qualifications for membership in the Association.”

“General Policy of the Admission of New Churches and Fellowships” (February 9, 1955)

Universalist Fellowships (1957)

N.B. As distinguished from parishes and churches, but dirffering more in degree than kind; indeed, a fellowship could also be a parish. But I suspect the distinction was to give a parallel structure to the far more numerous Unitarian fellowships in the years leading to the then-all-but-certain consolidation.

“ten or more who come together for public meetings of a religious nature…” (Article XIII, 7, Bylaws)

Fellowship (the status) could be withdrawn from a fellowship (the organization)  “for having less than ten persons of 21 years of age or older, resident and contributing to the support of the fellowship” and “for failing to support no less than eight public worship services annually.” (Article IV, 1, iii, Laws of Fellowship)

By Scott Wells

Scott Wells, 46, is a Universalist Christian minister doing Universalist theology and church administration hacks in Washington, D.C.

2 comments

  1. I wonder if that phrase in the current language refers “solely” to the new congregation and other UU congregations? Surely they have no qualms about members being also members of other than UUA congregations? I am thinking too that in the new cultural climate i can see eliminating even the solely single uua congregation restriction, or that perhaps a majority are solely with one, as more varieties emerge.

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