Questions

The same question asked of every body at once. These pages are the point of the site — a profile tells you how one denomination works, but the comparison is what shows you that the arrangement you grew up inside was a choice.

• Who owns the building?

  Whose name is on the deed, and whether anything above the congregation encumbers it. The single most consequential structural difference between these bodies, and the one least visible from the pew.

• How does a church get its pastor?

  Whether a congregation chooses its pastor, receives one, or something in between — and who can end the arrangement.

• Who is the pastor's employer?

  The test here is who hires and who can dismiss, not who runs payroll. The two come apart: a congregation can carry every burden of employment — salary, benefits, reporting, liability — while holding none of the power, and the payroll answer alone would make opposite arrangements look identical.

• What money leaves the congregation?

  The basis of upward payments — assessed, expected at a rate, freely given, or owed under contract. A body with no upward flow is not a failure to report; it is the fact.

• Who oversees the congregation?

  Not who appoints the pastor, but who the appointer is — whether oversight rests in a person or a council, how that office is obtained, for how long, and who can end it. A bishop with life tenure, a bishop facing re-election every six years, and a bishop appointed by an authority outside the country are three different arrangements that the word 'bishop' conceals.

• Who owns the church's name?

  Trademark and brand control — the quietest lever, and the one that does most of the work in newer networks.

• How does a congregation leave?

  The exit path the governing documents actually provide, and what the congregation takes with it.