Day 8 of our how to build an atheist church series, has been published on Day 9, because, on Day 8, I rested (putting in an extra day than God by the way). Let’s talk governance. Right now, you’re probably thinking, “It’s all well and good giving out guidelines and rules to help people start their own Sunday Assemblies, but what stops you from changing them half-way through and forcing everyone to wear Crocs, watch Sex and the City 2 and offer up their first born to work for the Sunday Assembly on a one thousand year contract?”

Good question. The first thing we’ll do is make sure that we have a representative of the Sunday Assembly Everywhere Network on the board of the Sunday Assembly body in each country. This will allow the issues and concerns of the local organizers to be aired and put forward (though we’re pretty sure it will mostly be obsequious praise for our far-sighted, benevolent policies and incredible hair (at least it better be (sometimes I think I should be more serious when writing about governance))).

It seems it would also make sense to have some form of committee where all the local teams could discuss things (mostly our hair). We’re not yet sure how we will do this but it seems logical. Also, please don’t be put off by our ignorance, there are lots of things about this we don’t know. That is why we are having pilot Assemblies, testing rules and changing them.

One thing we do know is that whichever Sunday Assembly Everywhere framework a new Assembly starts under, they should be allowed to keep. That way there will be no surprises that are foisted on them (“Argh! The Crocs!”). We could change the rules for new applicants, but it seems fair that people know what they’re signing up for at the start. Hopefully any new ideas we come up with are so good that everyone will want to adopt them anyway.

And we will be improving the guidelines as we go, whether adding extra pointers, getting rid of extraneous regulations or adopting an innovation from Sunday Assembly Punxsutawney. This will allow our work continue in an AGILE manner. BTW in this case, AGILE doesn't just mean someone who can dance out of the way when a drink is spilled or a bill arrives. No, it is a software development that allows for iterative development and testing, so that we can learn as we go, and gradually get better and better.

Now, we've got all the governance out the way, let’s get excited by talking about The Advantages of Starting a Sunday Assembly.