When you’re ready to hire your next employee, be sure to send a written church job offer letter along with the verbal offer. Beyond the standard things to include in the letter, there are several important things you can’t forget to stick in there.
By the time you get to offering them the job, you’ve interacted with the candidate almost a half dozen different times. Our memories play tricks on, us especially when adrenaline is high, so don’t rely on a verbal job offer – put it in writing.
There are the obvious things to include in a church job offer letter:
- Name of your church and the name of the candidate
- Job title & supervisor
- Start date
- Compensation & benefits
- Signature line
But there are 3 other major categories you can’t neglect:
1. Contingencies
There are a couple of things you will want to include as contingencies to your offer:
- Them providing proof of their eligibility to work in the US (completing the I9 form)
- Their signed acknowledgement of your most important policies, which may include:
- Confidentiality agreement
- Moral purity policy or code of conduct
- Child protection policy (against abuse/misconduct)
2. State-Specific Requirements
There may be a couple of specific requirements your State wants you to include. Unfortunately, researching what those are for all 50 states is beyond the scope of this post, so go do a little research on this one.
Here are some ideas:
- Check your state’s Chamber of Commerce site (like CA’s here)
- Check out the self-help legal sites like Legal Zoom, Nolo and Rocket Lawyer
- Ask around your network for a CPA, HR specialist and/or lawyer friend’s help
3. An At-Will Statement
I think this is the big one: a church job offer letter could easily be misconstrued as a contract. You do not want that, so be sure to include a statement that makes clear it isn’t a contract and that either the employee or the church can terminate employment for any reason.
Here are some sample At-Will Statements to reference:
- Church Mutual Insurance’s At-Will Employment Policy
- EmployersGroup.com’s Sample At-Will Statement
Another tip I found in this same vein is to express the salary in monthly or per-pay-period terms; including an annual salary could imply a contract.
Sample Church Job Offer Letter Template
My search on the interwebs for a sample church job offer letter provided scarce results that generally left these 3 categories (above) off. Here are a couple of sample job offer templates from the business world that need only a bit of tweaking for use in a church:
- Formal job offer letter sample [workable.com]
- Job Offer Letter Sample for Employers [thebalance.com]
Calling someone to join the staff of your church can be an exiting time. Be sure to put your job offer in writing to them and include these 3 important things.