In one JPUSA pastor’s words, the community is “not a democracy.”In this fashion, the denominational Model was crafted by the JPUSA pastors in 1989 to describe the community’s polity.The 500+ community members were not involved in the drafting, nor were they even made aware of the existence of the new document.

At most churches, the bylaws are passed out to each prospective member in a new members class.They are discussed and understood even amongst the newest members.They are the foundation of the church.

What the leaders crossed out….

The following document is the denominational Model compared with the JPUSA Constitution and Bylaws.In other words, you are able to see what the JPUSA leadership was given to work with, and what they crossed out.Many former members (measuring their service there in decades) read this document with a feeling of vindication: “The changes we were asking to discuss as a community were crossed out by the leaders over a decade ago!”Sadly, members found out the hard way since this document was kept from the community.Nobody, except the leaders, ever knew the original Model document was congregational to begin with.And few members even realized their own denomination was congregational.

It is regrettable (and embarrassing) to note that all the structural accountabilities in the JPUSA Constitution & Bylaws have been crossed out: terms of office, financial secretary, financial reports, pastoral records and written reports, congregational meetings, annual meetings, voting, and committees (not “stacked” with Council members and their spouses).Wherever a check or balance is found (such as mention of “members at the annual meeting” or “members at the congregational business meeting” or “committee” or “church”), it is crossed out and the word “Council” is inserted.The result, on paper and in practice, is a totalistic-system: a concentration of power that (at best) is unhealthy and (at worst) the very cause of the decades-long wake of wounded and disillusioned members exiting the community.

If this were an average church, it would be unfortunate to have a leadership with unlimited terms of office and no accountabilities to the congregation.JPUSA, however, is not only a church, but an intentional community.We lived and worked together there.Power is concentrated in such a way that one’s landlord, pastor, CEO, one-purse manager, community leader—even (for some) marital counselor—are found in the same 8 members.These leaders even hold the power of romance and marriage (since permission must be asked to date or begin any relationship with the opposite sex).

Financially, the community is represented to outsiders as living out of “one purse.”What is not mentioned is the reality that the purse-strings are held by those same eight leaders (who hold perpetual terms of office).What would have been an individual’s bank account, salary, pension, unemployment compensation, and the payments that would have been made into Social Security—as in any other para-church or missionary organization—are all combined into that purse.Leaders have no financial accountability to the members who earn the money that goes in to their purse.

A recipe for wounding and disillusioning:

Jean Vanier, in Community & Growth(Paulist Press, 1989) writes of the crucial foundation the Bylaws and Constitution provide for the health, life & growth of the community:

Structures call for mandates and accountability; they define how leaders are voted or nominated and for how long.They set out how major decisions are to be made and by whom.They define the limits of power and the areas of responsibility.They define also the relationship between the leader and the community council.Such structures can sometimes appear heavy, but they are necessaryfor a healthy community life.If each and every person is called to be responsible for the community, then all must know how decisions are made, even if not all can participate in the process of decision-making. (p. 222) [emphasis added].

Perhaps one reason members of the community have not seen their own Bylaws and Constitution is that it presents (on paper) a concentration of power that those in authority would rather not have seen.As Vanier notes, this type of document defines the “limits of power.”Sadly, the JPUSA version defines an unsettling imbalance of power.It is an irony that in a place that prides itself in the accountability and transparency of its members, its leaders have rejected the normal accountabilities found in church and para-church organizations and nonprofits.The leaders’ unquestioning faith in their “plurality of leadership” has made them accountable only to themselves.

Every church has its former members who left on bad terms.With the JPUSA community, however, this has been a sustained problem over the decades, due to its unhealthy polity.The JPUSA Bylaws and Constitution you are about to read is a recipe for wounding and disillusioning.