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Dear ,
In June 2020, a team of our former LAC church chairs, commissioned by the Ministry Council, initiated a process of reviewing the Lake Avenue Church Bylaws, with the goal of improving the overall governance of Lake Avenue Church. This included integrating and addressing comments received over the years by many of our former senior pastors and lay leaders who believed changes to our Bylaws would yield opportunities to better carry out the ministry and mission of our church.
That work has progressed steadily, including several rounds of reporting and feedback sessions with elected leaders, members of the Congregation who participated in open forums, and key leaders of the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference. With others who assisted in the writing, the team prepared a fresh new proposed Bylaw document, “The Congregational Leadership Covenant of Lake Avenue Church: How We Have Agreed to Follow Jesus Together.” After the Ministry Council received the draft from the team, it was discussed in detail by each of our four Ministry Divisions at their January meetings and reviewed by legal counsel. In response to many helpful comments, the Ministry Council made several revisions and then approved a draft of the covenant for the Congregation's consideration and review.
The Ministry Council greatly desires input from the Congregation on this revision. We want everyone to review and carefully consider the proposed Bylaws and the supporting explanatory documents. These have been placed online at www.lakeave.org/bylaws, and we have developed a process for written input. In addition, a series of open houses will be held to provide opportunities for you to ask questions, to dialogue with the authors of the documents, and to offer feedback which will be used to discern the next steps. These open houses will be conducted both in-person on campus and online via Zoom.
We are thankful for our former church chairs and for others who have been instrumental in preparing these draft documents, including many who have served on the various Bylaw revision teams during the past two years. Throughout this process, we have been blessed by their talents, abilities, and dedication to the mission and service of Lake Avenue Church.
Thank you in advance for your prayerful consideration of these documents as we seek to prepare Lake Avenue Church for the season ahead.
Blessings,
Dan Crichton
Church Chair
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