[alex_stoddard]

In my church experience part of the annual general meeting isn't imitating a corporation meeting - it _is_ a corporation meeting. This is because the church has wisely put its earthly assets (mostly the building and operating money) under a corporation.

My experience comes from presbyterian churches which have some highly analogous features to corporations deriving from theology and predating by thousands of years the modern corporation. Thus there is a annual "Congregation and Corporation meeting", which is really two meetings for convenience held at the same time but which are formally started and ended separately. Participation is almost identical save that the "Congregation" can have communicant members that are minors and therefore not legally voting members of the earthly corporation.