On Sunday, March 14, delegates logged onto their computers to virtually attend the Potomac Conference third quinquennial constituency session.
What might have appeared—to some—to be a standard session of rubber stamping new officers and approving Constitution and Bylaws changes ended with a new Conference President and a battle over proposed constitutional word changes. These word changes were caricatured by Potomac Conference officers as non-material changes, but many constituents knew better. These changes had the potential to dramatically alter the relationship of the Potomac Conference to the world Seventh-day Adventist Church.
The debate began when motion number four was proposed by Elder Jose Vazquez at (2:07 of the session recording). The motion included among other things, the move to pass all constitutional items without discussion. They were trying to sneak it through.
A pastor delegate went to the microphone and stated that the majority of the proposed changes to the Potomac constitution had not been explained by the Constitution and Bylaws committee. He pointed out that there were particularly substantive revisions embedded in articles 6 and 20 that had the potential to make dramatic changes to Potomac‘s relationship to the worldwide brotherhood of churches.
The point was made that the delegates needed to be able to discuss all changes. The motion to allow discussion on the Constitution and Bylaws changes passed by a 72% vote. Then President William Miller stated it was unnecessary for any more comments regarding the bylaws because we were going to have that discussion later. Later, Miller again stated that the process that we will be following—based on the previous vote… is that we will have full discussion in regard to each of the items (4:50).
Columbia Union President David Weigley then chaired the portion of the meeting that dealt with officer nominations. William Miller was replaced by Charles Tapp. Vice president for Finance David Vandeveer was requested to chair the remainder of the meeting.
The Big Issue
As chairman, Elder Vandeveer chose to change the order of the agenda moving remaining bylaws votes to the end of the session. As promised, discussion was held on the changes.
However, Motion 26 which was originally skipped (7:55) moved that all change is deemed non-material by an unknown entity and included previously mentioned changes to article 6 and 20 (highlighted at 9:01 —9:07). These were all lumped together for approval.
After the motion was proposed, a request was made to separate the motion so that the discussion could be had on articles 6 and 20.
Although the procedure to separate elements of a motion had already been established by the parliamentarian during an earlier motion, the chair took a seven minute recess to consult with parliamentarian Walter Carson. After the recess, Motion 26 was voted. It was rescinded by a 77% vote the first time. What followed was a point of order plea for transparency, motivated by statements from several delegates that they had not been allowed to make their own points of order. One delegate was even in the midst of his amendment and had time remaining when he was removed from the queue following a request by the chair for recess. Another vote ensued—it then failed by an 83% margin the second time.
After some discussion, the move to separate motion 26 was made. Before that motion was voted on, a motion was passed to refer motion 26 back to the Constitution and Bylaws Committee. The chairman clarified that this meant that any changes would not go into effect until the next quinquennial session.
By this vote, changes specifically in article 6 and 20—which had raised concerns that they would allow Potomac Conference to make constitutional changes that were not in compliance with the world church, were sent back to the committee and cannot be implemented until voted upon at the next constituency session in five years (2026).
Lessons Learned
Following this constituency session, a delegate stated that she learned at least three valuable lessons from the meeting:
It is vitally important for the health of the church that members keep themselves informed on actions that are taking place at all levels of the church.
No matter how small and powerless members may feel when challenging the proposals of large powerful conferences in the United States, we should never give up.
When motion 26 had been voted and prayer seemed like the only hope for protecting the church, prayer prevailed, and we saw miracles happen.
All glory to God!
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“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Colossians 3:17).