Compliance to your church's rules/standards/polity/etc.?

[steve-in-kville]

I was pondering this as of late. My workplace employee handbook has doubled in size since I started. Some stuff was done away with, as it was no longer pertinent. Some things have been further expounded on.

I think back to the various fellowships I was associated with over the years and the various written standards and polities I was to follow. Again, some things were enforced pretty hard, others not so much. In some settings your pedigree and economic status determined what rules applied, sadly.

In your own opinion, what percentage of your church's membership is in compliance with the standards? I realize this question is a can of worms, but do the best you can. Give examples if you like, tell stories, whatever.

[steve-in-kville]

Thought of this later...

I think the biggest area for lack of compliance was when the internet was a becoming popular and church's struggle to keep abreast of laying out a standard. Who should have access, filters, business only and so on. I know of situations where a church did not allow it for business or personal and people found a loophole or work around and had it anyway.

Twenty years later, most of those folks are walking around with the web in their pocket.

[Ken]

My own experience with workplace rules and procedures is that they primarily serve as the legal means for organizations to purge people that they want to get rid of anyway. HR is not your friend in any organization. It serves the organization, not you.

Most of the people I have seen fired in both government and education were people that the bosses wanted to be rid of anyway, and when they finally caught them doing something in violation of some printed procedure they were gone. These were all people who should have been fired anyway, mind you. But documenting technical violations of the rules were the way it was accomplished.

The very same rules that ordinary good employees also bend or break all the time but no one ever notices or cares. In those cases the bosses are actually happy that their employees are “cutting through the red tape” to get things done.

I tend to think the same exact thing happens in church settings to some extent. Rules are rarely ever generated and applied uniformly. And I’m not talking about just conservative churches, but all churches. The only difference between conservative and liberal churches is which rules and standards they choose to enforce or overlook.

[Soloist]

The more people who don’t do it, the more likely it will be done away with.
The few men who stand up for an agreement get removed for holding a line no one wants, yet everyone agreed to uphold.
Hypocrites.

[steve-in-kville]

The very same rules that ordinary good employees also bend or break all the time but no one ever notices or cares. In those cases the bosses are actually happy that their employees are “cutting through the red tape” to get things done.

My employer got lax over the pandemic due to not being able to hire. They left the dress code slip, attendance slip plus length of breaktimes and so on. Now they are cracking down on it and people are complaining they are being picked on.

[Josh]

The very same rules that ordinary good employees also bend or break all the time but no one ever notices or cares. In those cases the bosses are actually happy that their employees are “cutting through the red tape” to get things done.

My employer got lax over the pandemic due to not being able to hire. They left the dress code slip, attendance slip plus length of breaktimes and so on. Now they are cracking down on it and people are complaining they are being picked on.

Interesting how those things weren’t actually that important, isn’t it…

[Josh]

My own experience with workplace rules and procedures is that they primarily serve as the legal means for organizations to purge people that they want to get rid of anyway. HR is not your friend in any organization. It serves the organization, not you.

Most of the people I have seen fired in both government and education were people that the bosses wanted to be rid of anyway, and when they finally caught them doing something in violation of some printed procedure they were gone. These were all people who should have been fired anyway, mind you. But documenting technical violations of the rules were the way it was accomplished.

The very same rules that ordinary good employees also bend or break all the time but no one ever notices or cares. In those cases the bosses are actually happy that their employees are “cutting through the red tape” to get things done.

I tend to think the same exact thing happens in church settings to some extent. Rules are rarely ever generated and applied uniformly. And I’m not talking about just conservative churches, but all churches. The only difference between conservative and liberal churches is which rules and standards they choose to enforce or overlook.

There’s an interesting court case of where union employees decided to “work to rule”. That means they followed every rule both government regulation and employer mandated rules in employee handbooks and safety guidelines.

The employer sued, claimed it was an illegal industrial action (basically a strike). The union claimed the employees were just doing what the employer required them to do.

The court actually sided with the employer… they said that everyone knows some regulations and mandates are actually just to be ignored and thus obedience to them was actually going strike and disobedience to the employer.

(Needless to say, I disagree with that court ruling.)

[Neto]

The sad thing (to me) is when the guidelines are changed to match the practice, instead of grappling with the thoughts behind the guidelines when they were established.

Some years ago our congregation made a change toward more lax guidelines, except for one thing, which I disagree with based on Scripture. The problem I have with it is that they represented their opinion as backed by Scripture, and listed a bunch of references which have nothing at all to do with what they tied them to. I tried to get it changed to say that "I agree to do or not do so-and-so, due to the convictions of other members." I can agree to not do something that I think is OK, for the sake of peace, and to benefit from the fellowship I can have with the group. It was not changed, but I am still true to what I agreed to when I became a member, so I figure I'm "grandfathered in". (Except that I no longer wear a straight cut. But I actually never wear any kind of suit, because my wife doesn't want me to.)

[mike]

The sad thing (to me) is when the guidelines are changed to match the practice, instead of grappling with the thoughts behind the guidelines when they were established.

I feel like this is probably a common thing in conservative Anabaptist churches. There seems to be very little grappling with the thoughts behind rules at least among the regular membership. Rather, rules get changed to match the reality of what most people already think or do.

In my conference, there is currently (I think) a process going on called a discipline review. Members are invited to submit suggestions for change, and these changes are compiled and presented to the conference's ministers, deacons, and bishops, and then they vote as a group on whether to consider or adopt the changes. I'm sure grappling with the reasons for these rules happens, but it happens behind closed doors in these leadership meetings. The regular membership doesn't get to wrestle with the issues at all. They just get to submit ideas. I think this is an unfortunate way of doing things. However, I assume that it is this way because things could get messy, and the wrestling and grappling would happen in a more public and open space where there is less control of the discussion.

[steve-in-kville]

The very same rules that ordinary good employees also bend or break all the time but no one ever notices or cares. In those cases the bosses are actually happy that their employees are “cutting through the red tape” to get things done.

My employer got lax over the pandemic due to not being able to hire. They left the dress code slip, attendance slip plus length of breaktimes and so on. Now they are cracking down on it and people are complaining they are being picked on.

What bothers me is the fact that some good people have been reprimanded (and terminated) over this stuff in the past. Now management is cracking down on it again and the slackers complain they're being picked on.

I've said this before, 90% of any skilled labor job is showing up every day, on time, ready to work. Some people put more energy into trying to avoid work, than it would be just to do the work.

Sorry... that got a bit preachy.