Sample Safe Church Policies

As a supplement to the Safe Church Policy Toolkit, we are providing these sample policies as examples of what other churches use as their abuse prevention policies. The policies listed here are samples only and are not officially endorsed by Safe Church Ministry in any way. In addition, these samples may not reflect the church's most current policy.

A few comments about policy that are also stated in our policy toolkit:

• We discourage copying/pasting another church's policy - each church must develop policies that fit their own unique context, and create buy-in from the congregation so that policies are properly integrated. 
• Further, policies should always be reviewed by a legal professional.
• Lastly, consider posting your policy publicly on your church website, and have visible copies of it in accessible spaces in your building. This will let people know that you care about maintaining an abuse-free environment for everyone and will remind your congregation to be aware of your safe church/abuse prevention practices.

The below sample policies are from Christian Reformed Churches that have allowed their policies to be posted. Please note that the names of the churches who created these policies have been removed to protect their identity.  The area in which the churches are located are also noted below:

• Sample Policy from Grand Rapids Michigan
• Sample Policy from Central Michigan
• Sample Policy from Minnesota
• Sample Policy from Ontario Canada

Please email [email protected] for questions or if you would like these samples in a different format.