Conference votes to restructure

While preparing the September issue of the Sabbath Recorder, it dawned on me that we had not written here about the biggest issue facing Conference delegates this year. What happened with the Ad Hoc Committee proposal to restructure? Here's what will appear in the September SR, thanks to Nick Kersten:

Conference Votes for
Denominational Restructuring

This year’s delegates to General Conference were asked to take action on the report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Denominational Restructuring. The report was circulated prior to Conference in the Sabbath Recorder (July/August issue, pages 9-11), the SDB Exec Blog through the General Conference website, as well as by the SDB E-mail Network.

After their presentation on Monday of Conference, the Committee’s report and its recommendations were referred to the Reference and Counsel Interest Committee. The five members of the Ad Hoc Committee then spent much of the week answering questions from Reference and Counsel and other interested Seventh Day Baptists.

In committee, concerns were raised and discussed, including the relatively short amount of time some had to consider the proposal. The report was sent to the Conference floor with a recommendation that it be adopted with its recommendations. Reference and Counsel also suggested that if any of the recommendations from the report passed, that the Ad Hoc Committee be requested to draft any necessary bylaw changes.

Both the report and the subsequent recommendation to refer the writing of bylaws back to the Ad Hoc Committee were adopted without discussion. We now await the proposed bylaws, which will be presented as a first reading at the 2011 General Conference session.