How To Write A Church Resolution

The Structure Nobody Warns You About

A church resolution is basically a formal statement that a congregation or its governing body (usually the deacon board, elder council, or session) adopts to record an official position on something. It's not just a newsletter blurb. It carries weight because it's entered into the minutes and becomes part of the institution's recorded history. I've seen people treat these like they're writing a press release. That's the quickest way to get them rejected at the next business meeting. The actual format follows what's called the whereas/resolve structure. You've probably seen it in corporate boardrooms or municipal meetings. The first part lists the factual or theological basis. The second part states the action or position. Here's what a basic one looks like before you fill in your details:

WHEREAS [statement of fact or biblical principle], therefore be it RESOLVED that [the specific action or stance taken].

That's it. The whole document is usually two to four pages. Anything longer and people stop reading it before the vote happens. I learned that the hard way back in 2019 when our senior pastor drafted a 12-page resolution about our new community outreach partnership. We spent forty-five minutes reading it aloud at the business meeting. Half the congregation had left by minute thirty. We ended up passing a one-paragraph version the next week. The detailed language just moved into the supporting committee report instead.

How To Write A Church Resolution That Actually Gets Passed

Start with the action first. Most people draft the WHEREAS clauses and then fumble through to figure out what they're actually resolving. You should know what you want to happen before you write a single whereof. Ask yourself: what exactly are we recording here? Are we expressing sympathy? Authorizing a expenditure? Stating a doctrinal position? Taking a stance on a cultural issue? The scope determines everything else. Once you know the action, work backward. The WHEREAS clauses are your evidence. They answer the question "why are we doing this?" Each clause should stand alone as a complete factual or scriptural statement. Don't stack multiple ideas into one whereof. One concept per clause. It makes the voting process cleaner and the record clearer for whoever reads this fifty years from now. Here's a concrete example from my own experience. Our church needed a resolution about using giving funds for a new sound system rather than expanding the building. The draft I wrote had six WHEREAS clauses covering biblical stewardship, congregational needs, financial responsibility, current equipment limitations, the pastor's recommendation, and the finance committee's review. The RESOLVE clause authorized the finance committee to proceed with procurement up to a specified amount. It took three minutes to read. The motion passed on the first vote. There's a common mistake people make with the resolution language itself. They write it in a way that requires future follow-up without specifying who does what. Something like "WHEREAS we feel led to help the community, RESOLVED that we should consider various outreach options." That's not a resolution. That's a wish. A proper resolution names the responsible party and sets boundaries. "RESOLVED that the diaconate is authorized to allocate up to five thousand dollars from the benevolence fund for community outreach programs during the 2025 fiscal year." See the difference? One creates accountability. The other creates ambiguity. The procedural side matters just as much as the wording. Before you bring a resolution to the floor, it generally needs a mover and a seconder. Some churches require it to be submitted in writing at least forty-eight hours before the meeting so people can read it beforehand. Check your bylaws. I've watched resolutions get tabled because someone stood up and said "I move we adopt this" without having handed a copy to the clerk first. It sounds trivial. It isn't. Another thing that bites people: mixing informational items with action items in the same document. If you want the congregation to know something AND to take action on it, write two separate resolutions. One to inform. One to act. When you bundle them together, people vote no on the action part and accidentally kill the informational part too. I've seen a perfectly good mission trip funding resolution die because someone objected to the history lesson about the destination that was attached to it in the same document. The language itself should be plain. Avoid theological jargon in the WHEREAS clauses unless it's a direct scripture reference. "WHEREAS the Scriptures teach us to care for the widow and the orphan" works. "WHEREAS the missional paradigm necessitates ecclesial engagement with the marginalized" gets you laughed out of the room. This isn't an academic paper. It's a legal-adjacent document for a community of regular people. One edge case that nobody prepares you for: resolutions that reference external events. Say you're writing a resolution about a natural disaster or a political event. The facts change. The situation evolves. A resolution that says "WHEREAS hurricane damage has devastated our sister church" is fine if it's adopted on Monday. By Friday, that language might need updating if the situation has progressed. Always include a sunset clause or a review date if the resolution deals with something time-sensitive. Ours had one that automatically expired after ninety days unless the session voted to renew it. Saved us from having a stale resolution sitting in the records that someone could cite years later as if it were still current policy. Here's the counter-intuitive part that most churches miss: the most important resolution you'll ever write is the one about how resolutions are handled. Your bylaws or a standing resolution should specify the process itself — who can propose one, how many signatures are needed, whether it goes to a committee first, what the voting threshold is. Without that meta-framework, you'll spend more time arguing about procedure than actually conducting business. We had a three-month disagreement about whether a member could bring a resolution directly to the floor or whether it had to go through the elder council first. We resolved it by writing a resolution about resolution procedure. The irony wasn't lost on anyone. You also need to think about the record-keeping side. The church clerk or administrative assistant should enter the adopted resolution into the official minutes verbatim. That means the exact wording, not a summary. Future leaders need to read what was actually decided, not what someone thought was decided. I once spent six weeks trying to figure out whether our church had officially committed to a partnership because the minutes only said "a motion was made regarding partnership" instead of quoting the actual resolution. The original document existed in a filing cabinet somewhere but nobody had cross-referenced it. If you're looking for a template to start from, most denominational websites have ones available. The Presbyterian Church (USA) has a solid sample. So does the United Methodist Church. If you're nondenominational, the corporate governance templates from your state's secretary of state website actually translate pretty well — church resolutions follow the same basic parliamentary logic. The whole process from draft to adoption usually takes about twenty to forty minutes in a standard business meeting if everyone knows what they're doing. The drafting itself — writing the actual words — might take an hour or two if it's a substantive resolution. Simple ones, like expressing condolence to a family, can be done in ten minutes. The bottleneck is almost always the procedural dispute, not the writing. Get your bylaws in order and most of the friction disappears.