How to balance risk management with a welcoming church?
Churches should be welcoming and inviting. Children's
ministries and sports ministries especially. No church wants to
have a 10-page waiver form for kids to play on the playground.
There are real risks to manage, legal concepts to keep in mind, and
important steps to take to manage/reduce the risk while maintaining
a welcoming environment.
Risks. There are 5 approaches. Risks can be (1)
managed operationally, (2) insured against, (3) contracted
around/shifted, (4) avoided, and/or (5) accepted (either knowingly
or unknowingly). Most often, any given risk category involves a
combination of the above.
For example, thinking about a church playground. If your church
accident insurance limit is $1M, you "accept" the risk of
damages incurred above that amount. You could raise the limit and
"insure" the risk above $1M. You could also manage risk
with trained volunteers to supervise kids on the playground and
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