The End of the Handshake Agreement: Why Every Church Needs a Facilities Use Policy
Opening church facilities to outside groups can create significant liability exposures that are often overlooked when arrangements are made informally. This article explains why a documented facilities-use process—including written agreements, insurance verification, and additional insured requirements—can help churches welcome their communities while better protecting their property and ministry.
For generations, churches operated on trust. A scout troop met in the fellowship hall because the pastor knew the troop leader. A community group used the gym because "that's just what churches do." A wedding, a 12-step meeting, a youth sports league — all welcomed in, often with nothing more than a nod and a handshake. That era is over.
Today, when a church opens its doors to an outside group — a sports league, a support group, a community class, a wedding party, a scouting or youth organization — it takes on real, measurable risk. If someone is injured on the property, or worse, if a child is harmed while an outside group is using the facility, the church can be named in a lawsuit even when no staff member was directly involved. Courts and plaintiffs' attorneys have made clear that control of the property carries responsibility for who is allowed to use it and how.
This is true no matter your church's size, location, or denomination. A small rural congregation that lets the community center borrow its parking lot faces the same category of exposure as a large multi-site church running a full activities calendar. The determining factor isn't how big your ministry is — it's whether you have a process in place to manage who uses your facilities and under what terms.
Why This Matters More Than Ever
Insurance underwriters have taken notice. As claims tied to third-party facilities use have grown in both frequency and severity, carriers are asking harder questions before they'll offer — or renew — coverage:
Who else uses your building, and how often?
Do outside users carry their own liability insurance?
Does your church require certificates of insurance naming the church as an additional insured?
Is there a written agreement in place — one with clear indemnification language — for every group that uses your space?
Churches that can't answer these questions with documentation, not just assurances, are increasingly finding themselves facing higher premiums, coverage restrictions, or denial of coverage altogether.
What a Good Process Looks Like
Protecting your church doesn't mean closing your doors to the community. It means being intentional:
Know who's using your facility. Many church leaders are surprised to learn how many groups have quietly become regular users over the years.
Put it in writing. A Facilities Use Agreement should spell out expectations, fees, insurance requirements, and — critically — a hold-harmless and indemnification provision that puts the outside group's coverage in front of yours.
Verify insurance, don't just ask for it. A certificate of insurance naming your church as an additional insured is far stronger protection than a verbal assurance that "we're covered."
Revisit it regularly. Facility use arrangements made years ago on a handshake deserve a fresh look under today's standards.
We Understand the Exposure — and We're Here to Help
Every church is different, and there is no one-size-fits-all answer to facilities use. But every church shares the same underlying reality: informal arrangements that once felt like good neighboring now carry liability that most congregations aren't equipped to absorb on their own.
At Ministry America, we work exclusively with churches and ministries, and we understand this exposure from the inside out. If you're not sure whether your current agreements — or lack of them — leave your church exposed, we're here to help you find out, and to help you build a process that lets you keep being generous with your facilities without putting your ministry at risk.