As a corporate commercial lawyer, I have had the great privilege of drafting terms and conditions that nobody reads (at most you may be forced to scroll down all the way to the bottom to see our fine drafting before clicking accept).
Now I’m not advocating that you read every single set of terms and conditions you’re presented with and asked to click accept. By some estimates, it would take you seventy-six eight-hour days to read them all. But I am arguing that you, church member, should be in a local church with “terms and conditions,” meaning documents like statements of faith, by-laws, and policies, and you should read them thoughtfully and carefully.
To try and make my case, I’d like to give you three thoughts from a lawyer to a church member for you to think about regarding your church’s terms and conditions.
1. Our World is Complex, and so Church “Terms and Conditions” Are Necessary
You may be thinking this whole conversation is moot: we don’t need church statements of faith, by-laws, or policies. We just need the Bible. You may be right that these things are not commanded and therefore not strictly necessary. However, I’d argue that in the vast majority of cases, this would be at best technically correct but extremely unwise and imprudent. And I can guarantee that if your church doesn’t have written terms and conditions, you certainly still have unwritten ones. But written terms, like written creeds, are much easier to examine and evaluate.
The fact of the matter is that our age is a complex one—too complex for unwritten church documents. My point is not to comment on the inherent goodness or badness of complicated capital markets or the rise of the administrative state but to simply note this reality. An organization in twenty-first-century Canada, whether it’s a for-profit corporation, a not-for-profit charity, or your local church, needs to have certain documents. There are a variety of legal obligations and risks which practically, if not legally, make these documents necessary. Whether it’s a clear statement of faith to be able to show fairness when excluding or excommunicating false converts from membership, by-laws to protect church budgets and actions from legal challenge, or a privacy policy to best respond when a visitor is wearing smart glasses, these documents clearly set out the rules and expectations to promote transparency, fairness, and efficacy, and will be particularly helpful when challenges come.
No one thinks about whether there’s an insurance policy or what it says until there’s an issue. At that point, it becomes all-important. Make sure to have your terms and conditions in place before the storm arrives.
2. Don’t Reinvent the Wheel
I remember the shock my wife had when I told her about how I drafted terms and conditions for a tech client. I would read terms and conditions for similar products, find the one I liked the most, and then copy and paste it into a Word document and start modifying it to fit my purpose. Isn’t that plagiarizing?
Short answer: no. While it would be wrong to copy and paste a novel or a sermon and just tweak it, it’s not wrong when it’s terms and conditions (whether in the tech world or for your church). This is, in part, because of the distinction between creative works and functional texts. Terms and conditions are not protected by copyright the same way a novel is because they’re not creative works.
You don’t need to be (and you probably shouldn’t be) creative. You don’t need a new creative statement on the Trinity and incarnation: you can adopt the Nicene Creed without revision. History is filled with plenty of great confessions of faith, and many church associations have already gone through the difficult work of drafting statements of faith. Creativity is not a virtue here.
When drafting by-laws and policies, it’s almost always best practice to not reinvent the wheel but use a good precedent document. Beyond saving you time, it’s extremely difficult to “free draft”: you’ll almost always miss something someone who’s gone before you has caught. Take a look at a few wheels (documents other churches are using) and choose what works for you.
3. You Will Still Need to Customize and Update
Now don’t take the advice “don’t reinvent the wheel” to mean that your church can copy and paste a few documents and then you’re done. You’ll still need to choose and adjust what documents you have to fit your particular context (and make sure you have a professional look over it). A twenty-five-person rural church with seniors who are considering bequeathing funds to the church will have different priorities (and need different terms and conditions) than a 250-person urban renting church with dozens of toddlers.
As with biblical interpretation: context, context, context. There’s a reason why the Nicene Creed focuses on Christ—the Arian heresy at the time attacked Christ’s divinity. There’s a reason the Reformers emphasized sola scriptura and sola fide—the Roman Catholic Church challenged these truths. There’s also a reason neither the Nicene Creed nor the Reformers devoted significant attention to defining marriage, and you may want to. Context dictates much of what is necessary and prudent.
And because context changes, it’s also important to review and revise documents, particularly policies, regularly. The Trinity won’t change (although the heresies attacking it may), but where and how we watch over our church’s toddlers and funds likely will. We all want to prevent abuse and embezzlement, but on this side of eternity we have no guarantees, even within our churches. It’s horrific when these things happen. It’s even worse when it happens and there was no policy in place to try and prevent it. But it’s even worse than that when there was a policy in place but this policy was not followed. It is imperative that the church’s documents be reviewed regularly so they’re up to date.
Conclusion
You may have read the above and wholeheartedly agreed that this is all very important—for church leaders to do. You’re “just” a church member, so this is not your problem or responsibility.
It may be prudent for church leaders or certain members to take the lead on statements of faith, by-laws, and policies. But I submit that you, church member, still have a very important role to play. Your leaders may miss things that you would catch, and you may have very helpful ideas and contributions they wouldn’t think of. The church is a body with different members, and these different members each contribute a unique perspective that should be deployed to help the body as a whole. There’s a reason airports and other arenas have a “see something, say something” policy and don’t solely rely on professional security teams. We all have a role to play in protecting our churches’ doctrine, good order, and safety.
So, church member: read those terms and conditions!
