Chapter 11: Church Election ( page 153 to 160 )
The 59th GC Session has approved one change to the content of Chapter 11, but when published this information will be found in Chapter 9 on page 106 of the 18th Edition
In the section titled Nominating Committee, subsection, Work of the Nominating Committee the following has been added
The list of officers to be considered by the nominating committee may vary with size or membership. A larger church may determine it needs more officers. A smaller church may have fewer. The committee deals with all leadership positions except Sabbath School teachers, who are recommended by Sabbath School Council and approved by the board. See Notes page 171, 172 for a list of possible officers.
This has clarified the text published on page 156 in the 17th Edition which read as follows
The size of the church will naturally determine the number of church officers to be nominated. If the church is small, many of the assistant leaders may be omitted. In a large church all the officers and leaders named in the preceding list may be necessary.
Editors Note: It will be interesting to see how the published 18th Edition deals with the existing text. Does it replace it with the new text or just add the new text which creates the appearance of redundancy. I point out what was removed is the information about a large church where all the offices named in the preceding list may be necessary. This implies that the Nominating Committee was restrained from creating new positions and it could only fill the positions on the list found on page 155 and 156 (they would need to go to the church if they wanted to create a new position and fill it with a nominee).
The new text seems to cover this with, "A larger church may determine it needs more officers." Which is in harmony with the restriction that the Nominating Committee can not create a new position that is not on the list. However, this is not as clear in the new wording, and we may encounter situations in the future where a Nominating Committee is not clear on their role of filling positions from the list and put themselves in the place of the church. It is not unreasonable for a Nominating Committee to think, "we are a large church and we need to fill jobs that are not on the list. The Manual allows us to create a new position."
It is possible that the GC Session intended to allow the Nominating Committee to create new positions without the approval of the church, but my point is that if you are going to make a significant change, the wording of the change should make the change clear.
The new church manual is not as clear as the previous church manual on this point - and there is more potential for problems now than there were, when the wording that "In a large church all the officers and leaders named in the preceding list may be necessary." implied the Nominating Committee had no power to change the list. |
After the work of organizing the information found on the 76 page transcript has been finished DiggingForTruth.org will allow for comments and discussion of the changes.
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