Our constitution votes

By Pastor Manda
Over the past year of 2019 our congregation has tackled a huge project: updating our governing documents after 10 years of no change (other than the continuing resolutions). I’m going to be honest because I think that I’m not the only one who feels this way – this hasn’t really been fun. 

It hasn’t been fun mostly because so much had piled up on us. Like not cleaning out your garage or balancing your accounts – the longer you leave it the bigger of a headache it becomes until you just have to sit down and slog through it. 

But here’s the good news. We’re almost done. Just one more time. 

On Sunday the 26th we’ll VOTE TO RATIFY all of the votes we passed in September and November to change articles in the constitution (see handout). We’ll need 2/3 of the people at the meeting to vote yes for these to be ratified and take effect.  

We’ll also vote on NEW AMENDMENTS: all the updates from the 2019 Churchwide Assembly that have been recommended to every congregation in the ELCA. If 51% of the people at the meeting vote yes on them as written, we’ll be able to adopt them with just one vote.

After this we don’t have to have these long confusing conversations about documents that most of us don’t read and voting processes that most of us can’t follow. Instead, we can do a little bit at each congregational meeting and keep it from backing up again. 

Hopefully. 

I’m grateful to those who stayed at the congregational meetings each time, waiting patiently for discussion to end and votes to happen. Without you voting we would have just been kicking the can down the road and make the pile bigger. I’m grateful to council members who took the time to actually read the governing documents, consider multiple options and think of what would be best for the future of our congregation. 

But mostly, I’m grateful to be the pastor of a congregation who knows that saying “we love Jesus” is only the beginning and that we show our love when we put it in to action by how we treat one another. Our governing documents are a reflection of that and I can rest easy knowing that we’re authentically living our faith at CGS.