Running Congregational Meetings Online Using Zoom: A Sample Procedure Manual

First Unitarian Church of Toronto, looking up at the front stained glass window with sunburst peeking from behind the building

So… You’ve run some Zoom meetings where a few folks chatted away, enjoying each other’s video and audio. Perhaps you’ve ventured into larger scale production and are conducting Sunday Services via Zoom. But what if you’re called on to stage a full congregational meeting, with formal debate on motions followed by auditable voting?

Kalvin Drake of the First Unitarian Congregation of Toronto created a robust instruction manual or running congregational meetings via Zoom (link below) and has made it available to other congregations. See below for the contents.

For reference, the above document refers to a companion document:


Running Congregational Meetings with Zoom

Purpose of this Document 3

Planning Considerations 4

The Meeting Process 7

Meeting Roles, Responsibilities & Tips 15

Notes on Features 23

Configuring Zoom to Support your Meeting 24

The purpose of this document is to help you:

  • Plan and prepare for the meeting
  • Identify the various roles and responsibilities to be fulfilled in order to ensure a successful meeting; and
  • Configure Zoom to best support the meeting process.