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December 2016

Good churches need good manuals

All churches need policies. Some churches make policies in reaction to an event. That is backwards thinking. Churches must be proactive in their policies so that staff and members know what is expected and what lines cannot be crossed.
 
Every church needs a personnel manual and a finance manual to establish the legal and ethical boundaries within which the staff and members will operate. Violation of these policies often violates legal, ethical, or moral boundaries. Breaking a policy will always result in a conversation and sometimes in the termination of a staff member.
 
Some churches need guide manuals (not policy manuals) to establish the parameters for their budget, endowment, or internal operations. These manuals determine the boundaries within which the staff and committees will function. Straying outside those limits may be permitted but only after a conversation about why and how.
 
This site provides churches with templates they can use to create their own manuals. There is no need to “re-invent the wheel.” These manuals were developed by an administrator with over 25 years of experience in half a dozen churches. These policies comply with all current laws and are the best practices of healthy churches.
 
The manuals available are:
  • Budget
  • Finance
  • Finance Office
  • Endowment
  • Personnel
  • Financial Statements
  • Financial Planning for Ministers
  • Generosity Strategy
  • Written Communications
 
Visit www.churchbestpractices.org to get good and useful manuals.
 

Good churches need good manuals – Free Documents (yes, really)

12/18/2016

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​Church finance offices have a myriad of Word docs and Excel spreadsheets which they create and use regularly. Many of the documents churches create are similar to the docs that other churches create. This is a loss of productivity since churches are “re-inventing the wheel” over and over again.
 
Over the 30-plus years I’ve worked in churches and non-profit organizations, I’ve created most of the documents that churches need repeatedly (and quite a few that are used just one time). www.churchbestpractices.org has a LOT of free documents which can be downloaded and altered to meet your church’s needs.
 
Here is are a few of them:
  • Revenue Forecast: spreadsheet which uses historical and partial data from the current year to predict final revenues for the current year
  • Sex Offender Covenant
  • Endowment Agreement Template
  • Personnel Budget Spreadsheet
  • Gift Acceptance Policy
  • Employee Evaluation Form
  • Employee Orientation Checklist
  • Employee Termination Checklist
  • Employee Action Form (for new hires and changes in current employee status)
If you need a form which isn’t in this file, please let me know. I’ve probably created it and haven’t loaded on this site. I’ve got several that I still need to load (just trying to find time, you know how that goes).
 
I want to share these resources for free. That said, I do hope you’ll buy some of the manuals on this site (so that my family and I can eat and live indoors). So, if you like what you’re seeing, please make a purchase or two. If you don’t like what you see or want more, please let me know. My goal is to help churches – that’s what my boss (aka, God) asks me to do.
 
And tell your friends about this site, please.
 
Thanks and Merry Christmas
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    Steve Law

    Steve has an MBA and an MDiv. He has worked in church administration and finances for over 30 years.

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