Why Contracts are Like Pre-Marital Counseling
I will always remember a conversation I had with a long-time member of my old church, which was planted in 1989. He told me that in the early days (as with so many church plants), there had been a wave of weddings—followed by a wave of divorces. People had issues they weren’t aware of, or weren’t willing to deal with at the deep level they needed to be. He said he and his wife had survived, which he credited to years of marriage counseling early on. It was better to deal with the problems early, he told me, before it was too late.
This is why I believe in contracts, or at least putting things in writing, at the beginning of any working relationship. Is it awkward to tell the church you’re speaking at that they can’t use your slides without signing something? Yes. Is it better to address it now than to discover that your slides have been edited, your name taken off, and maybe even your core beliefs deleted? Yes.
A contract is especially important where intellectual property is involved. Christianity Today has written about the conundrum of who owns a sermon, the pastor or the church? The short answer is that, legally, it’s probably the church, if the pastor has been receiving paychecks to write and preach sermons every week. The long answer is that of course a pastor is going to consider his sermons his own, that he will continually create content over the course of a career that will probably span several churches, and it’s more like being an academic building a body of work than a songwriter writing a series of jingles for different clients. (P.S. If you have any ambitions to write, or want to protect or restrict your sermons somehow, address it as soon as you are hired by [or plant] a new church, and you’ll avoid a lot of difficult conversations later.)
What should “a contract” look like? There are some good templates from places like Legalzoom.com that don’t require an expensive lawyer. If you want something more user-friendly, just make sure you’ve clearly stated:
The full names and addresses of the parties involved.
What is the content/event/work in question? Who created it? Who owns it?
What is being done with it? How will it be published, and where? Will money be charged for it? Who receives it?
What is each party responsible to do? Include names, dates and details.
What is restricted or not allowed? Is there a date on which this agreement ends?
The more money or publicity involved, the more worthwhile drafting and signing a formal contract will be. But if it’s a small matter like a church event or a free resource, an email exchange explaining the details and showing that both parties agreed is enough.