This document is illustrative only. It is not legal advice and must not be adopted by any incorporated body without independent review by qualified legal counsel familiar with Victorian incorporation law, ACNC requirements, and the specific circumstances of the body adopting it. The author does not warrant the legal sufficiency, accuracy, or current applicability of any provision in this document. Use at your own discretion and at your own legal risk.
A note on jurisdiction (Australian context). This worked example is built on Australian — specifically Victorian — law: the Associations Incorporation Reform Act 2012 (Vic), the ACNC, and Consumer Affairs Victoria. Churches in other States or Territories will find different Acts and regulators; churches outside Australia will find an entirely different legal framework. If you are elsewhere, read this document for the structure and the principles — how a spiritual body and a legal entity fit together — and then have the constitution drafted or reviewed under the incorporation and charity law of your own jurisdiction by a qualified local adviser. For a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction orientation, see the companion notes for the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada in Document 13.
Why so strong a disclaimer at the front of a worked example?
Because a constitution is the most consequential governance document a body adopts. It controls what the body can do, who decides, how disputes are resolved, what happens when things go wrong, and what happens to the body’s property if it ever dissolves. Getting the wording wrong — even by accident, even with the best of intentions — can cost the body money, time, reputation, and (in extreme cases) the work the Lord has entrusted to it.
This document offers a worked example that takes the Victorian Model Rules and the framework set out in the Sonrise Revival Series, and combines them into a coherent church constitution. It is offered as a starting point — a strong starting point — but a starting point only. Before this constitution (in either Approach A or Approach B) is submitted to Consumer Affairs Victoria, ratified by a body, or adopted as the governing instrument of any actual church, it must be reviewed and adjusted by a lawyer who knows both the Associations Incorporation Reform Act 2012 (Vic) and the specific facts of the body adopting it.
With that in mind, this document is offered in good faith for the use of church planters, elderships, and the legal advisers who walk alongside them. May it save them time and prompt good conversations. May it not be the last document the lawyer sees.