First Parish Church is a self-governed Unitarian Universalist congregation operating under congregational polity.* It operates under a set of bylaws drafted and approved by the church membership. Occasionally, the bylaws are revised as the need arises.
Below, you will find the final draft version of the bylaws, as passed on 2006-05-21 by the Annual Meeting of the church membership.
Please note — this is not yet the final copy, which when posted will not say “version 14b” and will have some revision history and some bad column breaks removed.
Also available is the two-page handout from the annual meeting calling out the changes from version 14a to 14b.
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Final May 21, 2006 draft (PDF) |
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Final May 21, 2006 draft (Microsoft Word) |
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Changes, version 14a-14b (PDF) |
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Changes, version 14a-14b (Microsoft Word) |
* Here is a definition of congregational polity by Earl Holt, writing in Redeeming Time: Endowing Your Church With the Power of Covenant, edited by Walter P. Herz: Skinner House Books, UUA, Boston. 1999.
“Congregational polity is the form of church government in which each congregation is an autonomous, self-governing, covenanted body.
“In this tradition there are no bishops by any name, no synod, no presbytery, no episcopate; no organized body or individual outside the congregation can dictate or direct the decisions and activities that go on within it. The individual church owns its own properties, elects its own ministers and other church officers, and conducts all its own affairs.”
The following elaboration is reprinted, with permission, from a published sermon on the Web site of the Follen Church Society, Lexington, MA.
“In other words, congregational polity is democratic in
operation, nonhierarchical in structure, and accountable at the local
congregational level for the following things: setting its own goals,
writing its own covenant and by-laws, and anticipating and assuming
responsibility for all its major needs, expenditures, and
decisions.”
