Projects, approvals and conflict

You don't run the congregation alone. Big building work, calling a leader, and leaving the denomination (or whatever wider body your tradition has) all need the approval of whoever your tradition says decides, and some changes, above all taking out cherished pews, start a fight. This chapter explains who decides in each tradition, how they make up their minds, and how to get your way without losing people.

What needs approval

Once the building is open, building work of $25,000 or more in one go needs approval. Work of $25,000 or more is a renovation; work of $150,000 or more is new construction. A single item, however dear (an organ, a steeple, a dome, a gopuram, a Torah scroll), counts as a renovation. Where the leader decides renovations alone, without anyone's advice, renovations simply go ahead.

A congregation that starts on an empty lot, as a sandbox does, needs no approval until it first passes the building check. Buying more land always does.

Three other things wait as proposals too: calling a leader, where your congregation calls its own (see Staff and volunteers); leaving the wider body (see Faiths and traditions); and adopting a designation such as Open and Affirming (see Faiths and traditions).

The building preview tells you before you commit, for example: "Needs the members' vote (in 4 weeks); paid for only if approved." Until it's decided, the work waits as a proposal, unpaid, and can be withdrawn from Church → Projects. If by the time it's decided the work can't be done as proposed, or the candidate you called has gone, it lapses.

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Who decides

Where a second approver must consent, it decides after the first has said yes, taking its own time on top: a members' vote with the presbytery's consent takes four weeks and then six more.

Boards

• By remit. A project goes to the board whose work covers it: building to the trustees or property committee, a call to the elders or deacons. Failing that, it goes to a board over everything (the church council, the session, the vestry, a synagogue's board of trustees, a gurdwara's parbandhak committee, a Jain center's executive committee), or to any board that decides.
• Who sits on it. The board is the seven longest-serving of the members who may hold office and whom the tradition makes eligible. Some say more: men only where women may not govern (or where it's left to the congregation and it doesn't ordain women), married men (the elders of a Church of Christ), tithers where office requires the tithe (a household counts if it pledges at least half of what it could give), or those who've signed the confession (Christian Reformed officebearers, after two years). Where nobody qualifies, the board is drawn from everyone who may hold office.
• Boards that only advise. Where the board advises (a Catholic parish's finance council; a Chabad house's advisory board, the W. Deen Mohammed masjid's Shura board, a Vietnamese temple's committee, an ISKCON temple board, a Tenrikyo church's officers, a Yiguandao hall committee), the leader decides with its advice, and turns the work down if most of the board is against it.
• A leader who doesn't govern (a Friends United Meeting pastor, a Church of Christ minister, Christian Science Readers; the imam of a Sunni, Shia, or Ahmadi center, a Reconstructionist rabbi, most Buddhist temples' teachers, a Hindu temple's head priest, an Arya Samaj's acharya, a Vedanta Society's swami, a gurdwara's granthi, Jain Vishva Bharati's samanis, a shrine's chief priest, who serve a board) leaves to the board or the members what a leader would decide elsewhere.
• Members who don't vote. Where no kind of belonging votes (a Catholic or Ukrainian Catholic parish, the Coptic Orthodox, Latter-day Saints, Witnesses, the Salvation Army, Churches of Christ, the nondenominational church, Calvary Chapel, Vineyard, ARC, a contemporary Christian church, Chabad, the Nation of Islam, the Vietnamese temple, BAPS, ISKCON, Chinmaya Mission, SRF, Tenrikyo, the Daoist temple, Yiguandao, the Chinese Buddhist temple), what would go to the members goes to the board.

Thresholds, consensus, and advice

• Majority carries most votes. Some need more: two thirds to call a pastor in the Assemblies of God, ELCA, Nazarene, and Pentecostal Holiness churches, and for Unitarian Universalist and Greek Orthodox new construction; 60% for Assemblies of God new construction; 90% to call a Unitarian Universalist minister. A vote that falls short says so: "voted for it, 52 to 38, short of the 67% it needed".
• Consensus (the Friends; the elders of a Church of Christ; a Sathya Sai center's officers) carries only if no more than a tenth stand against it.
• A strong leader's view sways the members or board where the leader's authority is strong (the Assemblies of God, AME, Episcopal, National Baptist, Pentecostal Holiness, United Pentecostal, Vineyard, ARC, and nondenominational churches; a Conservative or Modern Orthodox synagogue's rabbi; the W. Deen Mohammed community's imam; the Indo-Caribbean mandir's pandit; a Konko minister), or where the leader is consulted (a Hindu temple's head priest, a Theravada abbot, a shrine's chief priest): a skilled leader adds up to 0.2 to each voter's support for building work, a weak one takes it away.
• A consulted board's mood sways a vote it doesn't take itself: a contented board (above 0.6 on average) lifts support, an unhappy one lowers it, by up to about 0.1.

Calls

Where your congregation calls its own leader, Call on the Staff screen sends the candidate to whoever calls, and the button's tooltip says who. Voters back a call the more skilled the candidate, the happier they are, and the less the salary is against a year's income. A strong candidate at a modest salary, put to a content congregation, rarely fails. Where the wider body must consent (the ELCA's synod, a presbytery, a classis, an Episcopal diocese, a Nazarene district; FPMT, for a Tibetan center's teacher), it reviews the call as it reviews a building.

The traditions

"Then the diocese" means the wider body consents after the first vote. While the wider body has a congregation under its supervision (see Faiths and traditions), it decides every project and the leader itself. A congregation whose status changes (an Assemblies of God church that becomes district-affiliated, an Episcopal parish reduced to a mission) decides as its new status says.

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Getting a yes

• Members and boards vote yes more the happier they are, and much less if the work costs more than the congregation can put toward it: its cash plus its campaign fund. The endowment doesn't count. So run a campaign before a big vote, and propose when people are content.
• Restoring their own building (repairing damage, as in the fire scenario) wins members over readily: a bonus to their vote.
• A leader deciding alone turns down what the congregation can't pay for, and, where a board advises, what most of the board is against.
• Consensus needs nine in ten. Propose only what nearly everyone wants.
• A wider body approves if the congregation can pay and its regard for it is at least 0.7, and never while the congregation is behind on an obligation that costs it its voice. Keep up what you owe (see Faiths and traditions).
• Don't propose what will plainly fail. A rejected project wastes weeks. Split big work into phases you can afford, and propose again once you can afford what was turned down.
• Complaining neighbours get new construction refused planning permission, even after approval (see The congregation in its community).

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Cherished pews and conflict

Pews (and box pews) that have stood a year, or that came with the building, are cherished. Taking them out starts a conflict. Prayer carpet, cushions, floor sheets, and chairs aren't: a mosque, a zendo, a gurdwara, or a Hindu temple can rearrange its floor freely.

• People who have come longest oppose it most: 5% of newcomers, up to 90% of those who've come 21 years or more. The more pews go, the stronger the opposition.
• Until it's settled, opponents grumble: −0.06 after every service.
• Where the members decide renovations (the Baptists, the Assemblies of God, the Adventists, the Friends, most synagogues, a Japanese, Zen, or Tibetan temple, a Konko church, and the others in the table where the members decide), it goes to a members' vote in two weeks. If it carries, the pews go, opponents lose 0.1, and one opposing household in ten leaves. If it fails, nothing changes.
• Where clergy or a board decide (a Catholic priest, a vestry, a Shia center's executive committee, a Vedanta Society's trustees, a shrine's board), the pews go at once. Four weeks later the opponents, never asked, lose 0.15, and one opposing household in four leaves.

Changing the seating without losing people

1. Consult first. Hold listening sessions (Church → Worship, once per conflict) takes 40% off everyone's opposition.
2. Do it in one go. Take out everything you mean to at once, so it's one fight, not several.
3. Or don't take them out. Add chairs in new space instead.
4. Change your mind. Putting everything back before it comes to a head ends the conflict.

Pews you placed yourself less than a year ago go quietly.

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