I am writing this to you out of love for you, our Church and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  I have spent many hours in prayer as to whether to write this letter.  Thank you for all you do for the cause of Christ and count you as a friend and brother.  My hope is that you receive this in the right spirit keeping in mind 1 Cor. 16: 13-14 "Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong. 14. Do everything in love."  

I hope to bring some light and my research into the subject matter "Bellevue Baptist Church By-Laws."  It is my findings that the "by-laws" no matter how short or how long are “required records” under TN law.  As such they are subject to review and copy by any member upon at least 5-days advanced written notice.  No individual, body, committee or group has the authority to deny this entitlement to a member.  The responses given that the by-laws are very old, outdated, no longer applicable, etc. are all irrelevant to the right of a member to review and copy whatever exists.

FYI: According to the records of the Secretary of State, our Church incorporated on March 25, 1929.  That may explain why the by-laws are dated as of 1929.  Also, the Tennessee Nonprofit Corporation Act was not enacted in the State of Tennessee until 1987.  One of the characteristics of the Act is that it serves as “filler”.  By this, I mean that to whatever extent an organization’s governing documents are deficient, then provisions within the Act “fill-in” the void and govern the operations of the organization.  The result of this is that “all” nonprofit corporations in the State of Tennessee have by-laws.  The only question is whether each organization has a set which it wrote and adopted or it must rely upon the generic set created by the Legislature and codified in the Act.  Therefore, Bellevue Baptist Church has by-laws.  I would guess that the provisions of the Act have more application to our Church than most simply because our Church has not availed itself of the opportunity to write its own by-laws.  By default, it must abide by the by-laws contained in the Act.

With that in mind, I wrote to the Board Of Directors of Bellevue Baptist Church Sunday,  August 27,  2006 asking for a copy of our by-laws and the Directors meetings minutes for the last 12 months. As of this moment, I have not received a copy or been notified if I will be given or allowed to make a copy. 

Your friend and brother:

Richard Emerson