Bryan Baughman describes a number of things you as a ministry leader should make clear with all of your staff. In his post, Is Your Church Exposed, he suggests you should:
- make very clear the organization is a religious employer
- explain everyone is expected to follow a specified code of conduct
- describe who owns intellectual property
- outline confidentiality expectations
There are lots of other things that should be covered with your staff. Read the article for a primer on things you may not have thought about.
He suggests those items should be covered in an employment agreement with each employee. Other alternatives would be separate written policies for each item or perhaps address all of them in a comprehensive staff manual. I think that either separate policies or a staff manual might be more flexible and easier to work with.
Regardless of how you make clear the ministry’s expectations, the important point is to make sure they are spelled out in detail, and then explained to everyone.