Jay Herndon

Recommended Bylaws for General Council Churches

Every church needs to update its bylaws every ten years or so. This is necesary because changes are taking place in legal and societal arenas, and the church needs to adjust for them--new threats to the church periodically emerge, and "best practices" on governance matters continue to evolve. Furthermore, the churches also change--growing or transforming, or altering how they do business or prefer to do business.

The District Presbytery of the Assemblies of God, Northern California and Nevada District Council periodically reviews the "recommended bylaws for local churches" and adjusts them for these issues. The following bylaws were ammended and approved by the Presbytery in January of 2009.

Const & Bylaws Recommended 109.pdf


We recommend that a church adopt the following procedure to update its bylaws:

1. Ask the Board or Congregation to pass a resolution to establish Bylaw Revision Committee.

2. Constitute the BRC (Bylaw Revision Committee) and review current bylaws against the recommended Bylaws. Depending on the degree of discrepency between the two, it may be easier to recommend individual amendments to the current document, or it may be easier to recommend that the current document be substituted entirely with a new document. The BRC needs to keep in mind that straying too far from the recommended document could put the church out-of-compliance with General Council bylaws, and may result in the church no longer qualifying to remain a General Council affiliated Assembly. The following items must be included to remain in compliance:

  1. The church must have a voting membership.
  2. The membership must be able to select the Board and the Pastor.
  3. The church must affirm Assemblies of God doctrines.
  4. The Church must require the Pastor to be credentialed with the Assemblies of God. 
  5. An acceptable dissolution clause must be included. (This is required by law.)

3. Hold an informational meeting to present the new bylaws to the membership. Answer questions and get feedback. It is important that the members be allowed ample time to review the proposed document, and to comment on it.

4. BRC should decide whether or not to adjust the proposed bylaws based on the membership feedback.

5. Schedule an official business meeting to consider adopting new bylaws. Mail out copies of the final proposed bylaws along with the notice of the official business meeting.

6. Convene the official business meeting and vote on the amendments or on the substitute document.

7. Mail a copy of the new bylaws to the District Office to be placed in the church's file.

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