Hi somegalfromcan,

An adherent is one who adheres to a congregation.

An adherent may or may not attend worship services faithfully.  An adherent may or may not support the mission of the congregation financially or even physically.  Usually, there is some connection of the three elements of worship attendance, financial support and mission support.

Based on the evidence that you provide, the members attend a worship (it doesn't have to be Sunday morning) and they are working at a congregational ministry I would think that they can reasonably be considered adherents of the congregation.

Grace and peace to you.

John

Sometimes they use Krazy Glue.

However, The Manual answers all. S.001, Definitions:

"Adherent"

means a person who is attached to a Congregation and who contributes regularly to its life and work while not being a member thereof.

In the church of 2012 and beyond we really need to come up with new descriptions of membership and adherent. If you read anything about how people define their life and their interests in our time, it is not about the kind of belonging that happens maybe in the early teens and lasts for a lifetime. 

We have more adherents than members at worship. Most of our "members" don't attend. A few of them still donate. 

It came up when we had a vote about our willingness to be an affirming ministry. A good proportion of members came to the meeting, but so did a lot of adherents. The vote passed overwhelmingly. *All* the adherents voted in favour - even though we could not officially count their votes. 

Don't we measure faith by action more than words? Why then are the words of the profession of faith so important? Shouldn't it be based on action - attending, participating (and yes!) even giving.

Membership should be more fluid and it should be possible to move easily in and out of membership.

Sigh...

these are adherents

there's even a monster in 1st edition AD&D called the Adherer who is like the tar baby -- things stick to it and then remain stuck

Adsorption is the process through which a religious adherent gets their faith from; constant exposure to the Literature, the meaning adhering to their very self over time...

why couldn't you count therie votes-see my thread in church life ove who can vote on this matter.

The ruling in your Conference by the Executive Secretary isn't binding anywhere else, Tabitha, and as you may recall in the other thread there were a number of us who said that the ruling you got from your ES was wrong.

To take it to the next level for something that would be binding across the church we'd need a ruling from the General Secretary of General Council or the Judicial Committee of General Council.

Hi pcchynoweth, welcome to WonderCafe.ca

When did profession cease to be action?

Grace and peace to you.

John

Thanks for all of your responses. I will take them into consideration as we discuss this more at our next meeting.

True enough, but hopefully my point was still made.

It seems to me that your store is a project of the church like other congregations support the foodbank. I would think that the project needs to be overseen by the council, but the work doesn't have to be done by members.

Could not the organizer of the store report to council directly?

This is where I find the structures of "church" as an institution are hindering it's mission.

Hi pcchynoweth,

Membership is, and should always be, a matter of desire more than anything else.

It shouldn't be primarily about money because that suggests only those with financial means are valuable to the Church.

It shouldn't be primarily about service because that also suggests the Church gives to only those it gets from.

It shouldn't be primarily about who shows up because that suggests those who are out of sight are always out of mind.

It shouldn't be primarily about who lines up closest doctrinally to what we perceive to be true because that suggests those who are different are unwelcome.

Healthy combinations of the four indicate that Church is a place where somebody wants to be.

If then we ask a person who gives strong indication that they want to belong if they want to belong and they say no.  Then why not honour that answer?

If you want the ability to shape a body then belong to it.  If belonging isn't a priority then understand your influence is limited.

Grace and peace to you.

John

You are right in your analysis of the shop being a project of the church, not unlike a church food bank. 

You are also correct in saying that it needs to be overseen by council, but the work can be done by non-members. Unfortunately the team does need to be headed up by someone who is either a member or an adherent - we're simply wondering how broadly the word "adherent" can be defined? I get the feeling that the folks on council (myself included) would like to be able to consider the volunteers of the Thrift Shop, regardless of whether they come regularly on Sunday mornings, as adherents (excluding, of course, those who are already full-fledged members).

That issue also came up at the last council meeting as we voted on whether to remove  3 names from the membership roll. One person was obvious - she passed away about a month ago - however the other two were a couple who simply stopped coming because of a medical issue. Numerous attempts had been made by our membership team to contact them, but they had not responded. After hearing from several council members that they had bumped into this couple and that the couple had spoken about how much they appreciated being a part of the church community, we decided to amend the motion and only remove the dead person's name from the list.

Your church uses motions to remove dead people from the membership rolls? I think death is sufficient reason to do that. No motion required!

LOL - I would have thought that too!

Oh you never know, there's always the chance that they might want to show up and vote on something.

Only after the Second Coming.

One of the things our secretary does as a matter of course is that when I sign off the funeral register, she removes the name from the Historic Roll.

I wonder - if the motion were defeated, would the person be resurrected?

Or would they be stuck in limbo?

Hmmm... maybe I should advocate defeating the motion next time it comes up - just to see what happens! LOL!!!

If you are baptized in the Catholic church, you will always be Cathlic (unless you get excommunicated, I suppose) no matter what church congregation you are attending.

If you are baptized United Church, you are... what? You become a member with confirmation? Or? No generalized membership in the United church with baptism, so you have to keep going to some United church on a regular basis to be able to say you are United? And then you can be "voted out" by a council, because you are sick and not showing up enough?

I really don't understand the UCAN's rules of belonging.

I wonder if anyone has offered to pick them up at home for Sunday service?

I hear this a lot from patients (all denominations)- once you get sick, maybe a bit depressed, don't want to ask, can't drive, people stop going to church. They don't want to bother people or they have pain and can't sit on those uncomfortable pews, or the washrroms are not accessible and and and. We are still far away from being radical inclusive. Part of this would also be making these people so comfortable that they dare to speak about their limitations.

Mrs Anteater, in this particular case, numerous attempts were made to contact the couple but all were unsuccessful. When you get no response from someone, it's obviously difficult to figure out what it is they might need from the community (rides, etc.). As I understand it, the husband is quite embarrassed by one of the symptoms of his illness and that's what is holding him back from coming. When we heard from other members of the council that they had seen and spoken to them recently, we took that into account and did not remove them from the register.

Basically, on a regular basis we attempt to contact members who are no longer attending. We want to know why it is they are not coming and whether or not they would like to continue to be members. Peoples names only come to council if they indicate that they wish to have their names removed from the membership roll or if multiple attempts have been made to contact them to no avail. Oh, and like I mentioned in my above post, peoples names come to us for removal if they are dead!

If you're "baptized United Church" you're acknowledged as being a beloved child of God and part of the church universal. Your "institutional" church membership in the denomination starts with confirmation, which is essentially a public profession of faith.

What do you find complicated about the membership rules? I've never known or even heard of someone being "voted out" because they were sick and not showing up enough. Most congregations have huge numbers of people on their membership rolls who rarely if ever come to church, and most congregations are quite reticent to remove a name from a membership list, and it's usually only done after repeated attempts are made to contact the person and either the person never responds, or they respond that they're no longer interested in membership.

I suppose my problem is the "institutional" part of it. I can't get it in line with the fact that "we are all workers in the same vineyard"- but then it gets institutionalized and suddenly there are "adherents" and "members" and people who have the say on who is in and who is out.

In my perspective, even the dead are still "in".