§ 126.013.Change in Trustees

A saving clause in one sentence, and it answers the obvious worry about the register.

This chapter does not affect a religious congregation’s right to change, appoint, or elect its trustees.

The concern it removes is that recording trustees with the state might fix them in place. A public register of officeholders can look like an authority that must be satisfied before the officeholders change.

This section says it is not. The register records; it does not govern.

All three verbs are covered — change, appoint, elect — which spans the different ways traditions choose their trustees, from congregational election to appointment by a hierarchy.

The section also keeps the chapter clear of internal governance. How a congregation selects trustees is a question of its own polity, and civil courts have long avoided deciding such questions.

Read with the definition section, the chapter’s reticence is consistent. That section keeps denominations outside the receivership provisions; this one keeps the chapter out of who holds office.

What the chapter does affect is narrow by comparison. It provides a receivership where a congregation has stopped functioning for a year, and a register a court can consult before appointing one.

A congregation that changes its trustees should still update the register, since a stale record is what a court will find.