So, you've been elected as clerk or secretary of your church's board. In my case, as a Ruling Elder in a Presbyterian Church, as clerk of Session. 

You knew that means you are responsible for taking the minutes and recording the actions of the Session. Occasionally, you've observed that the person in the role before you might refer to the Book of Church Order, or to his "Robert's Rules Quick Study" whenever there's a question of procedure. 

But wait... there's more. 

The role of the Clerk or Secretary of a church board—like the Clerk of the Session in Presbyterian churches—is more than just documenting what happened in meetings. Here are some additional key duties that this role typically covers: 

• Record Keeper 
  • Maintains official records of church decisions, membership rolls, and historical documents. 
  • Archives past minutes, ensuring they’re accessible for reference and audit. 
  • Whether your church has staff that manage these tasks or not, it's your job to oversee that they are in order. 
• Agenda Preparation 
  • Collaborates with the Moderator or Chair to create and distribute meeting agendas in advance. 
  • Ensures topics align with the board’s goals and priorities. 
• Communication Hub 
  • Acts as the point of contact for communication between board members, staff, and sometimes the congregation. 
  • Circulates important updates, decisions, and actions to relevant parties. 
• Policy and Procedure Guardian 
  • Keeps the board informed on bylaws, policies, and denominational rules, ensuring meetings adhere to these. 
  • Provides guidance on parliamentary procedure (e.g., Roberts Rules) to maintain orderly and effective meetings. 
• Facilitator of Transparency 
  • Oversees the publication of meeting summaries or decisions as appropriate, fostering transparency. 
  • Ensures records are updated and accessible to the congregation or oversight bodies. 
• Member Records and Voting Oversight 
  • Maintains membership rolls, records membership changes, and tracks attendance. 
  • Manages official votes, tallies results, and records outcomes. 
• Annual Reporting and Compliance 
  • Prepares annual reports or submits required information to denominational authorities. 
  • Ensures compliance with church and state requirements for record-keeping and reporting. 
• Support for Special Meetings and Events 
  • Coordinates logistics for annual congregational meetings, retreats, or special board events. 
  • Prepares necessary documents, notifications, and follow-up for these gatherings. 
  • Coordinate with staff as appropriate. 

Depending on your governing documents and denominational and state requirements, certain tasks have specific due dates throughout the year. You should maintain a calendar to ensure that you maintain compliance with these requirements. 

As you can see, there's more to the job than just taking good notes! 

As the new year begins, it’s an excellent time for Clerks of Session to review their responsibilities, plan ahead, and establish good organizational habits. Here’s a guide to help you step into January with confidence and clarity.

1. Review and Update Membership Rolls

Maintaining accurate membership records is foundational to your role. Start the year by:

• Clarify roles and responsibilities: If you have delegated the responsibility for maintaining your membership rolls to staff, make sure that you and the appropriate staff are aligned on who is responsible for what.
• Verifying Membership Status: Review communicant and non-communicant rolls for accuracy. Ensure removals, transfers, and deaths are recorded.
• Confirming Baptismal Records: Check infant and adult baptism records are updated.
• Reaching Out to Inactive Members: Consider reaching out to inactive members to clarify their status. Determine who will be responsible for reach-outs and how your Session will shepherd inactive members.

Refer to the Clerk of Session Handbook for membership roll guidelines​.

2. Evaluate Session Records and Minutes

Session minutes are a historical record of God’s work in your congregation. Ensure your records are:

• Complete and Organized: Use proper templates for stated and called meetings​.
• Reviewed Annually: Make sure minutes have been reviewed and approved in previous meetings. Your Session should review and approve the minutes of each meeting either at the end of the same meeting, or at the beginning of its prior meeting.
• Motions: Consider keeping a list of all motions for easy reference.
• Prepared for Presbytery Review: Minutes must be submitted to the Presbytery for review. Make sure you know when your Presbytery's deadline is.

3. Prepare for Statistical Reports

January is a great time to compile church statistics for Presbytery and General Assembly reporting. Collect:

• Membership statistics (communicant and non-communicant).
• Baptisms, professions of faith, and transfers.
• Financial contributions and per capita giving (see the Five-Year Summary for trends​).
• A paper report template is sent to the church office.

4. Organize Historical Records

Historical preservation safeguards the legacy of your church. Be sure to:

• Archive important documents like ordination records, judicial cases, and church bulletins​.
• Maintain both print and digital backups for easy access.
• Consider submitting materials to the PCA Historical Center for safekeeping​.

5. Review Policies and Procedures

Familiarize yourself with recent changes to the Book of Church Order (BCO) and Rules of Assembly Operations (RAO).

You can find the Minutes and documents from the 51st General Assembly at the PCA Historical Center pcahistory.org/pca/ga/index.html#51

6. Schedule Key Meetings and Deadlines

Create a master calendar for the year that includes:

• Session Meetings: Ensure stated meetings are on the books.
• Congregational Meetings: Plan meetings for officer elections or budget approvals.
• Presbytery Deadlines: Note submission dates for minutes and statistical reports.
• General Assembly (June): Prepare for submission of materials well in advance.

7. Train and Equip Elders and Deacons

Set aside time to:

• Review officer duties and responsibilities.
• Provide training sessions or recommend reading materials such as the Clerk of Session Handbook​.
• Discuss doctrinal issues and polity updates for ongoing education.

8. Pray and Plan for Ministry

Finally, commit the year to the Lord’s guidance. Encourage the Session to pray regularly for the church’s mission and ministry.

Conclusion

Starting the year well sets the tone for order and faithfulness in ministry. Use this checklist to stay on track, and don’t hesitate to reach out to other Clerks, your Presbytery, or the Stated Clerk's office. May God bless your work as you serve His church!

For more resources, visit OrderlyMeetings.com.

Imagine this: You walk into your next church meeting, open up Orderly Meetings, and everything is already in place—your agenda is organized, your minutes are prepped, and you know exactly what needs to happen next. Sound too good to be true?  It’s not. 

Orderly Meetings was built specifically for church board and committee secretaries and clerks.

In fact, Orderly Meetings is designed by a church Session clerk, for clerks.

We know the unique challenges that come with being the glue that holds a meeting together. You’re expected to create agendas that cover all the right topics, track every decision, and ensure that nothing falls through the cracks. But let’s face it—there’s a lot of information to juggle and doing it all manually just doesn’t cut it anymore. 

For most secretaries and clerks - prep for next month starts as soon as the last meeting ends... You have a to do list:

• Send out the minutes to the attendees for review and corrections.
• Start the agenda for the next meeting, share with the chair or moderator. (are you still sending this back and forth via email, trying to keep track of what version is current?)
• Generate a "packet" for distribution.
• Distribute the agenda and attachments to the board, Session, Vestry, Trustees, Committee, and other attendees. (Then send an updated copy whenever there's an addition.) More email?
  
• Answer questions from board members who couldn't open the attachment or get into your Microsoft or Google cloud files.
• Convert the agenda to your template for minutes.
• Attach any reports or presentations to the minutes.
• Generate a packet for permanent records.
• Chase signatures.
• Make a list of motions and send them to whomever is assigned to actually do work of the motion.
• Submit to denominational review committees.
• And more...

All this on top of your day job and other shepherding duties.

With Orderly Meetings, you’ll be able to: 

Easily Create and Manage Agendas: Drag and drop items, set time limits, and even include notes or reference documents so your meetings stay on track. 

• Take Minutes Without the Stress: Use our simple interface to log decisions, actions, and votes as they happen, so you don’t have to worry about what you missed. 
• Track Actions and Follow-Ups: Automatically assign tasks to team members and track when they’re completed. No more “didn’t we decide on that already?” moments. 
• Keep Your Records Organized: Everything is stored securely in the cloud, meaning you can find last year’s minutes or next week’s agenda with a few clicks. 

For Denominational Review Committees: Reviewing church records across different congregations can feel like a never-ending stack of paperwork. 

Whether it’s making sure every church is in compliance, or pulling together records for a denominational audit, you’re often stuck managing a ton of data without a clear system.

Are you frustrated by:

• Chasing church Session or other board clerks and secretaries to turn in their records on time.
• Receiving records via email, mail, carrier pigeon?
• Switching from PDF to Word to a Google doc to paper to a picture depending on however the submitting clerk sent the records to you?

Orderly Meetings takes the chaos out of compliance. 

Here’s how we help you: 

Simplified Record Review: Instantly access meeting records, revie based on your checklists, and ensure that each congregation is meeting standards without hunting for details. 

• Standardized Documentation: No more guessing if a church is using the right format. With Orderly Meetings, everyone’s using the same system, so it’s easy to find what you need, when you need it. 
• Seamless Reporting: Generate reports that provide a clear snapshot of where each church stands in terms of compliance and documentation, without having to pull data from different sources. 
• Collaborate Effortlessly: Share notes and exceptions, ask for clarification, or flag issues directly within the platform, ensuring everyone on the committee is on the same page. 

Orderly Meetings isn’t some overcomplicated tool designed for corporate boardrooms. We’re for churches. We’re for secretaries and committees who need practical, reliable tools to get the job done—without a steep learning curve or extra hassle. We make it easy to do the work that matters, so you can spend less time worrying about processes and more time focusing on ministry. 

Church boards by any name (maybe your church or denomination uses a different word - Session, Vestry, Trustees, Committee, Commission, Team, or something else) and their secretaries (or clerks) all share some a similar challenge.

As a secretary or clerk, have you ever sat at the board room table after everyone left, reviewing your notes to make sure that you captured all the right information - not too much, not too little? Making a few reminders for yourself so that later, you can follow-up with those who are responsible to execute and deliver on the decisions of the meeting? If you're nodding along, you're not alone.

Church board meetings can feel like a whirlwind—especially if you’re the one responsible for making sure every vote, every discussion, and every task gets properly documented. As a church board secretary or clerk, you hold an essential role. 

The only problem is… it’s a lot of work. 

Without the right tools, managing meeting agendas and keeping track of minutes can turn into a maze of paper, emails, and missed details. And let’s be honest, it’s not just about the workload. It’s about accuracy. How many times have you asked yourself: 

• Did we actually vote on that motion? 
• Is this the final version of the minutes, or are we still revising them? 
• Where’s the record from last year’s annual meeting? 

Keeping everything straight can feel overwhelming, especially when you’re balancing your role as secretary with other responsibilities in your church or life. 

And for denominational review committees? It’s a whole other level of complexity. Reviewing records from different churches, ensuring compliance, and keeping everything organized without losing your mind? That’s a challenge no one should have to tackle manually. 

We get it. You’re not looking for more complicated processes—you’re looking for a solution that helps you streamline all this, without losing sight of the important stuff. 

Orderly Meetings is built to make this part of your role simpler, clearer, and less stressful. Whether you're a church secretary tasked with creating order out of meeting chaos, or part of a committee needing to ensure churches are meeting their compliance requirements, we’re building Orderly Meetings to help you do less admin and more ministry.

Sign up today and get started on the happy path to simplified, streamlined meeting management.

Meetings of Church boards, such as Trustees, Sessions, Vestries, Committees, and Commissions play a crucial role in guiding the vision, mission, and practical needs of the congregation. Yet, without a well-prepared agenda, these meetings can easily become unproductive, veering off track or running long without meaningful outcomes. A clear, purpose-driven agenda can transform a board meeting into a space of collaboration, clarity, and progress. Here’s how to prepare an effective meeting agenda that sets up your church board for success.

In the church where I serve as Clerk of Session, our stated meetings are monthly. In order to streamline my monthly preparations, I follow a consistent schedule to prepare the agenda.

1. I share the agenda template with the Moderator (pastor) and Executive Director 3 weeks before the scheduled meeting. 

Sharing the agenda template prior to the meeting allows all of us to add items to the agenda as they come up during the month. As I prepare the agenda, I review the minutes from the previous month and add any "old business" that needs to be carried forward to the new agenda. This acts as a subtle reminder to the Moderator and Executive Director of any actions that have not been closed from the last meeting that may need their attention.

I also add known "regularly scheduled" items, such as the membership report, other "clerk's correspondence" details, and requests from Members of the Session for addition and consideration by the Moderator.

2. Be clear about the goal outcome of each agenda item in the agenda.

Is the goal to provide a report of status to the board? To make a decision? Or to discuss and brainstorm options? 

Describing the goal outcome in the agenda can help keep the agenda on track and discussions on topic.

• If the objective of an agenda item is to make a decision on work from a committee, consider including the Motion from the committee in the agenda. 
• For reports - include a description of the item, that indicates the board will receive a report from the director or committee giving the report, followed by questions.
• For discussions and thought partnership agenda items - provide attachments and a description of the problem you are trying to solve and how you desire the group to assist in discussion. Consider setting aside a Called meeting for working discussions so that the meeting can be facilitated for that purpose.

3. Set a clear deadline for all agenda items to be submitted

I ask that anyone requesting and agenda make their request by 1 week prior to the meeting, so that I can finalize the agenda 4 days prior to the meeting. If they have attachments or reports, I ask that those be submitted by the Wednesday prior to a Monday meeting. 

As a volunteer officer, it helps me to establish a rhythm where I can schedule time to work on the agenda, without last minute requests "dribbling" in.

4. Once the agenda is set, distribute it to the board.

I like to send the agenda for a Monday meeting by the preceding Friday and am working on giving even more lead time. Our rules of operation require a 24-hour notice, but I believe that if I can give more notice, we will have a more informed and thus, more efficient meeting. 

I compile the agenda and all attachments into a single packet, so that members only have one document to review. 

Because board meetings often contain sensitive or confidential data, I don't send the packet out via email. I instead we send a notice that the packet is available in our online portal, which helps maintain security around the document because they aren't floating around in insecure emails.

Orderly Meetings is currently VERY close to fully supporting the ability for Secretaries and Clerks to manage this entire process securely and simply on the Orderly Meetings platform. Soon, you'll be able to:

Create and share your agenda with other leaders in the app quickly and easily. 

• Format your agenda with sections and items
• Attach files to your agenda
• Control which attachments to include in your packet(s) depending on where you are sending your packets and whether you want specific items or attachments to be included in the packet.
• Share the current, most up to date version of your agenda with Members of the board in a click.

We're working hard to further enhance functionality with a slew of other features. Sign up for our Waitlist and get information on demos and beta team opportunities below.