Should My Church Be Affiliated with the UPCI?

David K. Bernard clarifies what it means for a local church to be affiliated with the United Pentecostal Church International. Does affiliation give the UPCI control over a church's pastor or property? What about voting membership and adherence to the UPCI Articles of Faith? Hear the answers to these important questions and learn about the benefits and process of becoming an affiliated UPCI church.

Check out the following resources for more on this topic:

• The Apostolic Church in the Twenty-First Century by Dr. David K. Bernard
•  The official UPCI position paper "Church Government"

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:06

Welcome back to Apostolic Life in the 21st Century, a podcast that is dedicated to helping modern-day believers live out the teachings of the first century church. With us again today is Dr. David K. Bernard. He's going to help us. Today we're actually going to address a question that has to do with the United Pentecostal Church International. Dr. Bernard is the general superintendent of the United Pentecostal Church International, so there literally is not a better person to help us answer this question. Dr. Bernard, here in the United Pentecostal church, we have something that is known as affiliated churches. Now, based on my limited experience, I think there might be some misunderstanding about what that term means and how affiliation actually works. So can you start today by just telling us what is church affiliation?

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Yes, well, to I'd like to use this for a more broader view and then we'll focus on that question. So the UPCI is a fellowship of ministers and churches. It's a fellowship of ministers and churches. So if you look at the constitution of the UPCI, technically and officially, all members are credential ministers and missionaries and members of affiliated local churches. So we're going to come back to that. So actually, every local member of an affiliated church we consider to be a UPCI member. Now, as far as voting rights, local church members have voting rights in their local church. Credential ministers, certain categories, have voting rights in their section based on their jobs. But then all credential ministers have voting rights at the district level at the general level. So there are different kinds of ministers membership that have different types of voting rights. But in our theory, we consider not only preachers, but also church members to be members of the UPCI. So we're not just a fellowship of ministers, we're a fellowship of ministers and churches.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

As you mentioned, I think that's probably going to come as a surprise to some people.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Yes. Now, the reason why you have this thought is because we are uh the UPCI is basically congregational, which means each local church is self-governing. Many people don't understand this, but you have three basic types of government. Uh, you have hierarchical, which is exemplified by the Roman Catholic Church. They they own the church buildings, they assign the pastors, they remove the pastors through the hierarchy. The local congregation does not control these things. Then you have an intermediate form, the Presbyterian form of government, where you have ministers, ordained ministers, but you all also have ordained elders or lay leaders. And the the those ministers and lay elders in an area, they help determine the decision. So it's not just the local church that can make all of its own decisions. But then the third form, which is what we have, is congregational. Each local church owns its own property, it has its own bylaws, it decides its own membership, it elects its own pastor. If there's a major issue with a pastor, it can call for a vote of confidence on the pastor. And so, in every meaningful way, the local church is in control of its own affairs. The UPCI headquarters or district cannot walk into a church, remove a pastor, put in a pastor, tell somebody what to do, remove a member or anything like that. It's self-governing. So that's very important to understand.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

I think that is because uh forgive me for interrupting, but we have people that sometimes will write to us and say, you know, I know so and so uh in such and such a local church, why can't you reprimand that person? Well, uh, we here at UPCI World Headquarters, we don't have that kind of power.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

So when it comes to a lay member, we say you have to go to the local church. We literally do not have any authority. Uh if it's a minister, we have some authority to discipline, but you know, we're a voluntary association, so people can join us or they can leave us. We don't have the right to investigate them unless they allow it. So we're not like the government, we can't, you know, prosecute somebody for wrongdoing. But if they violated our ministerial standards, we can investigate and issue a discipline, which could include removal, but only to the extent they consent, which when they join us, we have what's called a judicial procedure. So they consent to that process. But let's say we're in the middle of that process and they resign their credentials. We have no more jurisdiction. They're a private citizen, they have a right to privacy. We can't follow through because they no longer give consent. Or if we don't follow our own procedure, then we're jeopardizing ourselves because they've only given consent for us to investigate them according to the certain guidelines. So that's easily lost when that somebody feels like wrong is taking place. And that's why we say if there's an allegation of criminal wrongdoing, such as child abuse, you need to go to the proper legal authorities because we we literally can't really do everything that might need to be done. So don't blame us for not taking care of something if we don't have the power. You know, we can handle it as far as church uh ministerial credentials, and the local church can handle church involvement and membership, but the whole range of legal options as far as investigation and discipline, you have to go to the proper legal authorities, which God has placed government in our lives for that purpose. Now, so let's go a little bit further. Uh, but we do think organization is very important for missions, for accountability, for minister credentials. We believe it fulfills biblical principles. So while the exact form of a local church's government, or even the exact form of the UPCI's national, general, international government, is left up to us, the principles are in the New Testament. Uh so I would like to refer you to my book, The Apostolic Church in the 21st Century, will discuss these principles in detail. And also the position paper Church Government of the UPCI, which is found at UPCI.org forward slash statements hyphen archive. So if you go to the statements archive, you can actually read how we explain our church government. So now let's focus on this. So we do believe strongly in organized effort, accountability, common doctrine, working together for missions, being uh cooperative and mutually submissive to the people we elect as leaders. You know, so all that we believe is scriptural. But when it comes to the operations of the local church, we believe the local church is the best one to be in control. So uh a local church has two ways to be in fellowship with the UPCI. So this is our general term, churches in fellowship. The one thing, what might be a church simply elects a UPCI credential minister as a pastor. They're automatically in fellowship. We will list them in our directory, we'll put them on our church locator. Their only legal connection to us is the fact their pastor is a UPCI minister. So it's as simple as that. Now the district can, there could be special exceptions where the church doesn't really want that connection or the district doesn't want that connection. But typically, when a church elects a UPCI minister automatically, it's considered a UPCI church. That's in fellowship. However, you can see that's a very um limited connection because at any given time, if the pastor says, you know what, I'm turning in my credentials, suddenly, immediately, it's not a UPC church. Or let's say the pastor resigns and they elect someone else. Well, suddenly it's not a UPCI minister. Well, the church never even knew it, they never voted on it, they never talked about it. They could wake up the next morning and say, No, you're not in UPC fellowship with UPCI. So for that purpose, there's a second way a church can belong to UPCI, and that is they have a business meeting and they vote to affiliate. So this is a technical term. We as a church want to be affiliated with UPCI. Now, to do that, we have a sample church government that we recommend for their bylaws. However, they can have their own, they don't have to use that, but they do have to have certain things in there to be considered affiliated. So some of the things would be the local church elects its pastor, it's not appointed by some external hierarchy. So if you're going to be a UPCI church, we want to know that you're electing your pastor, not that some guy that we don't even know has the right to take away, to remove your pastor or put in your pastor. So there's some basic rights that we want you to have in your local church government. So assuming you have that, you vote by church vote, and the practical effect means this. We, you know, we want to follow UPCI doctrine, the articles of faith. We want to work in harmony with the UPCI general constitution. Our local church government will be compatible with the UPCI general constitution, and we will always have a UPCI pastor. So here's the real protection. Let's say the pastor dies, resigns, or unfortunately, let's say there's a ministerial discipline where he's removed from the UPCI. Well, the church has already stated we want a UPCI pastor. So they will call the district superintendent. He may call the presbyter, and they will say, okay, we'll help you find candidates. It's still going to be your choice. We'll have people preach for you. You will still decide who you want to be your pastor, but we'll make sure it's going to be UPCI, UPCI pastor. So that term affiliation, then it basically guarantees that it will always have a UPCI pastor. Now the church is still self-governing. None of that changes. So just because you're affiliated, and this is where there's a lot of misconception. Well, oh, if I'm affiliated, just going to come in and take over, remove the pastor, put in a new pastor, remove members, take over the building, or if the UPCI gets sued, they can take our church away from you. None of that is the case. Nothing changes as far as self-government, even to this extent. If the church says we don't want to be affiliated, all they have to do is have another business meeting and vote to disaffiliate, then they're back exactly as if they were not. So what is the value of the affiliation? Actually, it's it's fairly weak, but what it does is if you ever decide to change your status, at least you have to have a proper business meeting. At least you have to inform the people, and at least the district gets to send a representative to explain why they would like for you to stay UPCI. At least you actually get to vote. But if at the end of the day you vote, you still decide. So the difference is this if a church is not affiliated, the pastor is the only person who decides whether it will be in fellowship with the UPCI or not. At any moment he could change that without consulting the church. If you're affiliated, the church will always maintain a relationship with the UPCI, even as long as it wants to. So even if the pastor resigns from the church, or if the pastor resigns to the UPCI, that church knows we can still stay UPCI if we want to. Now, in practice, it's fairly weak because let's say a pastor wants to go another direction. He's usually in control, in leadership. He can keep preaching, teaching, talking to leaders, convincing them, and say, you know what, let's vote to leave the UPCI and succeed. But many times there's a case relatively unexpected where suddenly the pastor dies, or suddenly the pastor resigns, goes somewhere else, or suddenly, you know, rarely, but sometimes, let's say a pastor's caught in adultery, he resigns. Well, then it's a sudden shock. Well, if the church is affiliated, they know we'll still we'll still have another UPCI pastor. We we don't have to fight that battle. In some cases, that actually is the difference in helping the church stay UPCI or helping retain its property so it doesn't get sold without their knowledge, even though the UPCI does not own the property. If it's affiliated, then the church has a right to appeal to the superintendent, help us navigate the situation in the absence of our pastor. And so there are, I can give you stories of churches that maintain their identity because they were affiliated. I can give you stories of churches where they disaffiliated. Now, now many churches never were affiliated historically, and that's fine. But if a church is affiliated then suddenly disaffiliates, unfortunately, not always, but sometimes the next step is leave the UPC altogether, sell the building. And I personally had to deal with cases people couldn't be saying, but but we lost our building, the church closed down. Can't you do something? I say, no, you voted to disaffiliate. You voted to leave the UPC. So, you know, it's just like a Baptist church. I can't tell you what to do. Whereas if you're still affiliated, yes, I could hold a business menu with you and say, no, we're not going to sell the building. No, we're going to get a new pastor. But if you're not affiliated, then I can't even, you know, your church might be closed down without your voting on it. Your church might be sold without your voting on it. Because that's that's what happens when you're totally uh voted to cut ties. So for that reason, we very clearly say affiliation is optional, not mandatory. And there are many reasons why people have never gotten affiliated. However, I would say what 60 uh uh 60% to two-thirds now are affiliated because as time goes on, when new churches are started, if they want to get a UPCI funding, such as North American Missions, Christmas for Christ, or uh Move the Mission, then they must be affiliated. That's a simple procedural protection. So for that reason, most new churches uh affiliate. And so over time that happens. Now, when I started the church in Austin, I affiliated. Why? You might say, well, the pastor is giving up a slight bit of control. I felt any control I gave up would be so minor, but in case, now I thought I was going to pastor there until I died or got to the age of retirement, but still I thought, you know, when I'm gone, I can't 100% protect my legacy. But as much as possible, I want the church to be in control of its own destiny and not just one person down the road make that decision. And I want the district to be involved at least in advising and communicating. Therefore, I want to affiliate my church to try to protect my work when I'm no longer available. And then every daughter work we started, I said, if you want to become self-governing, I don't want to hold you forever. I believe in self-government of local churches, even churches that we started. I didn't want to keep them in a hierarchy their whole existence. I wanted at some point for them to grow to maturity, grow up, be self-governing, like we believe for every other church. But one condition is I want you to apply and get approved to be affiliated with the UPCI. So that way, even if I'm no longer in direct control, I want it the comfort of knowing the district will have some connection of involvement as much as possible that the money and the time, the energy, the people that we invest in that church, at least there is some procedural protection that makes it likely that it will stay in the UPCI and stay doctrinally in the apostolic faith. So I do recommend affiliation for legal and doctrinal protection, the identity of the church. Um it's not essential, and we recognize both uh both types of churches as part, as in fellowship with the UPCI.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

Thank you. And hopefully this has maybe helped clear up some understanding or misunderstandings, I should say, on the part of some folks. It was very helpful. So thank you for listening to this episode of Apostolic Life in the 21st Century. If you enjoy this podcast, please take a moment to give us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. If you're watching on YouTube, make sure you subscribe to Dr. Bernard's channel, like this video, and leave a comment. We also encourage you to check out Dr. Bernard's books. Visit Pentecostal Publishing.com and search for David Bernard to access a full list of titles. Don't forget to enter DKB10 at checkout to save 10% on your order. We look forward to seeing you again next week as we explore how modern day believers can live out the teachings of the first century church.