RUC

Dear Church Members,

At the Special General Meeting in November 2019, it was communicated to the members that the Council is in the process of reviewing the existing governance structure of the Church. This review is the result of a number of challenges that have been experienced with the current governance, including:

• The Council has been too large (between 20 and 25 members) to effectively operate as the key decision-making body in the Church resulting in ineffective decision making;
• Lack of alignment between the Council and the staff team;
• Lack of shepherding of church members (micro-shepherding) by Elders due to excessive requirements of governance and oversight (macro-shepherding);
• Insufficient clarity with respect to the decisions that should be made at the staff level and those that should be made at the Council level;
• Significant energy and time spent by staff and ministry leaders to get decisions approved by the current governance structure; and
• Overlap of responsibility between Elders, Deacons and Council creating a lack of clarity.

At this SGM, the members “agreed to give approval to the council to investigate structure changes” (per the minutes of this meeting).

In response to these challenges, we as the Council have formulated the below principles to guide the development of a new governance structure. Whilst there may still be some changes to these during this process, these principles provide a good overview of the direction that we envisage the structure review taking. We anticipate presenting a proposal to the members at the AGM on 18 March 2020, which will provide more detail in respect of the new governance structure. The proposed changes to the governance structure will need to be approved by the members and until such time as they are, the current governance structure will continue to operate as per usual.

1. Matters which the church members currently have authority over (i.e. for which approval from church members is required) will principally remain unchanged, with only minor consequential changes necessitated by the proposed governance structure.
2. A larger group of elders will be appointed, with the primary role of shepherding God’s flock (micro-shepherding). These will be known as Shepherding Elders.
3. All pastors of the church will be appointed as Shepherding Elders.
4. From within the group of Shepherding Elders, an Elder Governing Board (“EGB”) will be appointed whose primary role will be governance and oversight of the church as a whole (macro-shepherding).
   • The EGB will be made up of 7 members, being the Senior Pastor and 6 other members.
   • Appointments to the EGB will be for a period of 3 years (except in respect of the Senior Pastor), with members being required to take a minimum break of 1 year thereafter before being eligible for re-election to the Consideration is being given to whether two terms of 3 years should be allowed before the EGB member is required to take a break of 1 year.
   • New appointments to the EGB will be made as follows:
     • The existing EGB will be required to nominate persons who are existing Shepherding Elders to stand for appointment to the EGB. Shepherding Elders, Deacons and church members may make suggestions to the EGB in respect of potential candidates to be nominated.
     • New appointments to the EGB will require approval from the Shepherding Elders.
     • The proposed EGB will then be presented to the church members for approval.
   • The terms of EGB members will be staggered such that every year, between 1 and 2 members retire from the EGB with replacements being appointed.
   • The EGB will effectively take over the governance role of the current church council, with the EGB having the authority to approve matters that are currently approved by the church council.
5. The Shepherding Elders will not primarily be a decision-making body, with the only matters requiring approval from the Shepherding Elders being:
   • Matters that will need to go to the church members for approval.
   • Matters relating to the appointment of the pastors.
   • Appointment of members to the EGB.
6. The role of Deacons will be changed such that Deacons will oversee the running of key ministries at the church (as such, there will be both Deacons who are employed by the church and Deacons who are volunteers of the church). In determining which ministry roles are required to be filled by Deacons and which of those roles may require part-time or full-time compensation, the following factors will be taken into account:
   • The centrality of the ministry to the church’s mission;
   • The influence of the ministry within the church’s context; and
   • The extent and nature of the responsibility required in the ministry role.
7. The Deacons will be accountable to the pastors, who in turn will be accountable to the senior pastor. The senior pastor will be accountable to the EGB.
8. A Finance Committee and an HR Committee will be appointed.
   • Members of these committees, whilst not being formally appointed as Deacons, will be required to meet the same qualifications required of Deacons.
   • These committees will report to and be accountable to the EGB.
   • A member of the EGB will chair Finance Committee meetings and will be appointed as the Treasurer.
   • A member of the EGB will chair the HR Committee.
   • These committees will be appointed by the EGB.
   • The HR Committee will take over, amongst others, the functions currently performed by the Renumeration Committee.
9. The appointment of Shepherding Elders and the EGB will require final approval from members of the church.
10. Upon implementation of this new governance structure, all existing elders and deacons will resign. New appointments will then be made (and approved by the church members) for the Shepherding Elder, EGB and Deacon roles.