Understanding Robert's Rules, Part 3: Fun and Games at Churchwide Assemblies

If you have been following along, we’ve covered the origins of Robert’s Rules (including why we have to follow them) and discussed the basic principles. For review, they are:

1. The majority has the right to make decisions (because you need to get things done).

2. The minority has the right to be heard (because you need to hear from your members).

We can argue about how well the rules actually work for any given organization, and that includes the ELCA and its Churchwide Assembly. And we can change the rules—we just have to use the rules we have in order to do that. But, for now, these are the rules, so we might as well make the best of them.

If you have made it this far (or if you have come directly to this post and have no intention of reading all the rest of that), though, you might enjoy the following game.

Churchwide Assembly Bingo: Parliamentary Procedure Edition Annotated

This is, in effect, a list of things to watch out for while watching the ELCA Churchwide Assembly, but we’re calling it Bingo, because that’s traditional. And it’s annotated, because hi, have we met? From the Google Docs version, you can print this is 5 different arrangements of the same 25 squares. Print one for you and four of your friends, and see who gets Bingo first! Or, you can just save the image onto your phone.

Churchwide Assembly Bingo: Parliamentary Procedure Edition (non-annotated)

In no particular order, here is what the various squares are intended to mean.

1. Consult the parliamentarian

It is the job of the chair to guide the whole group through using the rules the group agreed on in order to make the decisions the group needs to make. If the chair needs help with that, they can consult the parliamentarian, whose job is to either know the answer to that question, or failing that, know how to look things up the index of Robert’s Rules. There are some chairs that are qualified to be parliamentarian, but you can’t do both jobs at once. The jobs are too big!

You do actually get bonus points for being the one who causes the chair to consult the parliamentarian, but only in my heart. For the purposes of Bingo, consulting the parliamentarian for any reason counts.

2. Consult the parliamentarian again

You get credit for this space the second time the parliamentarian has to be consulted. This is practically the same as a free space.

3. Free space: Call the question

I’m so sure that someone will call the question at some point that I’ve made it the free space. (For more on calling the question, see part 2.) Sometimes we refer to this as “moving the previous question”.

 4. Someone is declared out of order because we’re talking about something else now

Under Robert’s Rules (and also common sense), you can only do one thing at a time. You can only have one proposed action (main motion) at a time. You can only have one topic of discussion at a time.

So, what happens is that you are waiting in line to speak. Before your turn comes up, something happens that changes the topic. But, you were thinking so hard about what you were going to say, that you miss the change. You are called on to speak, and you try to talk about…the wrong thing! The chair declares you out of order.

This happens a lot at any large meeting made up mostly of people who don’t do this stuff professionally. It is not a big deal. You don’t get demerits. You don’t even have to say the Lord’s Prayer ten times to make up for it.

5. Complaining about parliamentary procedure

Yes, this stuff can get complicated. Yes, we do have to use it, because we said so. Someone is going to complain about that. Use your best judgment to decide what counts.

6. Changing the PROPOSED rules

At the CWA, a slate of proposed special rules will be presented the assembly in the very, very beginning. Because they are proposed by a group, they are automatically moved and seconded, so discussion starts immediately.

Adopting the rules takes a 2/3 vote. This is usually easy to get, because it’s early and everyone is feeling very cooperative. Changing the rules later on at the assembly will also take a 2/3 vote, but this can be much harder to get, because it’s later and people get tired and cranky. But! Amending the proposed rules before they are adopted is just a regular basic amendment to a motion, because those aren’t rules yet. That only takes a simple majority vote!

Watch for this, because it can be really interesting. If someone moves to amend the proposed rules, they had to plan ahead to be able to do that, so even if it doesn’t seem that important to you, be curious about why they did that!

7. Trying to change the rules after they are adopted

One of the basic principles of Robert’s Rules is that the group has the right to make its own rules—and that includes the right to change them. However, you can’t be changing the rules every time you don’t like the way a vote goes, either, so it takes a 2/3 vote (rather than a simple majority).

8. Actually changing the rules after they are adopted

Not only is it a bit harder to get a 2/3 vote to change the rules, but also, as the meeting progresses, people tend to run out of patience. Individual people are kind and gracious and full of understanding, and definitely want to hear you out and help you get what you need. The assembly as a whole, though, will become increasingly tired and cranky and bored. They do not want to hear why messing around with the rules is necessary right now. They want to go home, or at least go to lunch.

So, actually getting the assembly to vote to change the rules gets harder and harder as the meeting progresses, and if anyone pulls it off, you get to mark this space on your Bingo card.

9. Amending an amendment

General Robert is proud of you, probably.

I believe that amending things (or at least trying to amend things) is a sign of a healthy assembly, because it shows that people are fully engaged with the work. If you’re just going to accept everything that is proposed without making any changes, you don’t need an assembly, you just need a rubber stamp.

Amending an amendment combines all this with the added fun of confusing people about what we are talking about right now, greatly increasing the chances of needing to consult the parliamentarian. Plus, it’s fun to say! AMEND ALL THE AMENDMENTS!!!

10. The difference between memorials and resolutions

Resolutions are a special type of fancy-sounding motion using formal language. They generally come from a group of people, which is handy, because it means they come with a second included!

In the ELCA, we use resolutions for some matters and memorials for others, depending on what we are doing and who is involved. Memorials look and act the same as resolutions, though, so you only need to understand the difference if you are writing one. That said, someone will probably try to explain the difference, and then you can mark this square.

11. Arguing about the WHEREAS clauses

There is an art to debating resolutions, and it is this: The “whereas” clauses do not matter.

Okay, fine, they matter to the people who wrote them. They may matter to people reading them, because they may help to convince people to support the proposed action. (They may also help to convince people not to support the proposed action.)

What you are actually going to vote on is what’s in the “resolved” clauses. Therefore, arguing about the whereas clauses…may not be a wise use of the assembly’s limited time.

12. RESOLVED clauses that don’t really DO anything

In theory, resolutions are for doing things, not for talking about things. But sometimes, perhaps caught up by all that fancy formal language, we end up with resolved clauses that sound more impressive than they actually are. Often this involves using “soft” language that can be interpreted in so many ways it’s not actually doing anything.

WHEREAS ice cream is good, therefore be it RESOLVED that everyone gets ice cream.

• For example, you can encourage your members to eat more ice cream, but you probably can’t make them actually do it, because you are not the boss of them.

• You can tell an employee to encourage your members to eat more ice cream. The employee can then stand up and say “okay, everyone remember to eat more ice cream”, and now they’ve done what you said. They don’t have to actually do anything else!

• Or, you can direct the employee to buy ice cream and serve it to everyone. Since you are the boss of them, you can probably make that actually happen (as long as it falls under their job description).

One of the things that is likely to happen at a Churchwide Assembly is that people will want to argue about resolved clauses that don’t really do anything. For example, the assembly can encourage congregations to buy a special freezer just to store ice cream, and congregations can just ignore that. Nobody in the ELCA can make congregations do anything!

13. Orders of the day

See the aside at the end of part 2, where I explain how “orders of the day”  works. At the Churchwide Assembly, people will be calling for the orders of the day. Do not count on getting some extra work done because nobody notices you are off schedule. Somebody is going to notice, and somebody is going to say something.

14. Someone refers to voting members as delegates

Before there was an ELCA, there were other church bodies, which sometimes called the people who vote at their meetings “delegates”. In the ELCA, though, the people who can vote are voting members. They have always been voting members. We have never had delegates!

Okay, fine, we could have chosen to keep calling them delegates. But that ship has sailed, and now, continuing to use the old term is just confusing. This matters because people should not have to know the words that were used decades ago (by a different church body) in order to participate fully in this church body today.

15. Sorry, the deadline for that has passed

No, you can’t submit a brand-new six-page resolution on the very last day of the assembly. There was a deadline for that, which you have missed. As we say in congregational ministry, it’s been in the bulletin for weeks.

Joking aside, there are a lot of deadlines and they are often earlier than you would think. Check them! Check them again! And don’t be too upset with people who missed them. (But, sorry, you did miss it.)

16. Wrong microphone (for or against)

Sure, it’s a microphone, but does it have the right color attached to it?

When there is a debate happening, the way it works is that you have to decide if you are speaking for or against the matter that is currently on the floor (usually for is green and against is red). Then, when she is calling on people to speak, the chair will alternate sides: one for, one against, one for, one against, and so on. Sometimes people get confused about what is on the floor right now, and try to speak to the wrong side.

17. Debate ends because 4 people spoke in a row

There is never enough time to do all the things at a Churchwide Assembly, because you can always think of something else to do. Therefore, to save time on unnecessary debates, there is a special rule that says that if four people in a row speak on the same side (for or against), the debate ends and you move directly to a vote.

There will be confusion the first time this happens.

18. Voting device failure

Electronic voting devices save a ton of time, a lot of which gets used up by dealing with technical problems caused by the voting devices. Remember, if you have a problem with your voting device, you need to say so as soon as possible. Do not wait until after the results of the vote are in!

19. Voting with red and green cards

Before we had voting devices, we often voted by holding up red and green cards. If it wasn’t obvious whether there were enough green cards for the vote to pass, you might have to hold up your card a really long time while people actually counted.

You get to mark this Bingo square if the cards actually get used. Otherwise, you can use them for craft projects.

20. Voice vote

Voting is fun! There are so many ways to do it! If the vote is really a formality, you might skip the voting devices and just do a voice vote.

21. Division of the house

Way back in the before times, we had no voting devices, but that didn’t mean we had to count every vote. Most of the time, it was just obvious to the chair that there were more than enough green cards. If you thought maybe the chair was wrong about that, you could call for “division of the house”, which is just a fancy way of saying you want an actual count.  

Everyone hopes this will not happen at a Churchwide Assembly, but it is still possible, so you can bet there’s a plan for it. (Please, don’t go calling division of the house on an electronic vote just so you can get Bingo. You can’t do division of the house for electronic votes, because they come pre-counted.)

22. Report of the Credentials Committee

Being on the Credentials Committee sounds boring even to me, a person who enjoys Robert’s Rules. Therefore, in honor of the fine people who keep track of how many voting members there are, you can mark this Bingo square.

23. Reminder that no applause is allowed after a vote

One of the standard rules is that you are not supposed to applaud after the results of a vote are announced. (You are also not supposed to start a dance party, spontaneously sing the Doxology in four-part harmony, or cast Satan out of the assembly space.)

This is partly a relic of a more contentious era, when people who were angry with the outcome might not be very safe to be around.  But mostly, nowadays, it’s because getting the room back under control after an impromptu celebration is not easy, and you could probably sort out a whole extra memorial in that time. It’s best to save the celebration for later, preferably somewhere with ice cream.

24. Reminder that deacons exist

We, in the ELCA, have deacons! And our deacons are clergy. Pastors are not the only clergy! However, this is still news to some people (including some pastors), so sometimes a reminder is needed.

This is related to parliamentary procedure because I was a voting member at the Churchwide Assembly in 2019 when we voted on deacons being clergy, so I take this personally. It’s been six years.

25. Deacon wearing a clergy collar

On a related subject, it’s healthy for all of us to see that since deacons are clergy, they can wear a clergy collar if the want to. Strangely, this does not go without saying.