I thought about starting a new thread to pose my questions, but based on the number and content of responses to this one, I doubt I'd get the answers I wanted, which is about bylaws, constitution, deacon authority, pastor authority, whatever they want to put in a governing document. Mainly, does ANYTHING exist in writing? Are there deacons? Elders? Listed anywhere? Who hires and fires? Can anyone start a church and call it "Calvary Chapel?" Are pastors of new locations always going to come from the staffs of other churches when they're willing to re-locate? Is 'governance' the same in all of them? Is there a central authority like the SBC that can discipline a member church for violating rules?
I just know of one church that was embroiled in controversy due to the fact that the board, who decided everything, was not entirely made up of attendees of that local church, but instead, lived out-of-state. It reminded me of a non-profit that consists of the founders and separate board members...the board members being friends of the founders, who will always be willing to vote a pay raise for the founders as long as the organization is bringing in more money. In other words, the locals can't fire you if only your non-local friends have a say in who gets hired and fired, at least at the head pastor level.
The lack of accountability limits how much money I donate. I figure I can at least try to guesstimate and cover what I figure is my share of utilities as long as I'm showing up and benefitting from the cost of electricity. (How do you guesstimate total square footage, divided by the number of people showing up to figure my share? You can't.) Someone has to pay those bills whether staff is volunteer or not, and whether or not salaries are arbitrarily set by the pastor or voted on by deacons or elders.
