Planting a new church is an exciting project which comes with many joys and challenges. As you prayerfully step into the process of growing a new congregation, you will also be aware of the growing legal, operational and leadership responsibilities. How can a lawyer help?
Helping new churches set out with a firm legal foundation is one of our great joys at ECS. We worked with Emmanuel Baptist Church in Exeter to set them up as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO).
Emmanuel Exeter launched in September 2024 to meet the needs of a growing city. The leaders of the church shared with us some of their experiences of getting legal advice early in the planting process, and why this was so valuable to them.
Planning
The team at Emmanuel Exeter believe that “we have an obligation, whatever we do, to ‘work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men’ (Col 3:23). This includes the way we handled the start-up of Emmanuel Exeter.” After some research, they decided to set up as a CIO and asked ECS to work with them. They were aware that it was a project that would take time. As a result, they started the CIO process with ECS eight months before Emmanuel Exeter had its first service.
What issues were you concerned about?
Emmanuel Exeter told us: “there were two particular areas of concern for us when thinking through how to form a new church: firstly legal liability of the church generally and of the elders in particular, and secondly the practicalities of church administration such as opening a bank account, registering with HMRC for PAYE and gift aid, buying insurance etc.” The church was also in a position to buy a manse for their pastor, so how the property was going to be held was also a concern for them. “ECS helped us through that process and becoming a CIO was the obvious choice for us”.
How did ECS help you?
ECS worked with the church to provide them with a church constitution and get them registered as a CIO with the Charity Commission. “When dealing with the Government in this sort of project, it makes life so much easier if you use a firm of solicitors who have done it all before.” The church were able to use our template constitution, which we tailored to their ecclesiology and practice. For Emmanuel Exeter this made the process easier, “starting with a pre-approved template saved us a lot of time and allowed us to focus in on what were, for us, the important aspects of integrating our church life with our constitution”.
Building Christ’s church to the glory of God
At ECS we share in the gospel priorities of churches and we love to help new churches set off on a firm legal footing. For Emmanuel Exeter, the process of setting up a CIO was part of their mission as they work to grow God’s kingdom in their city. “It was a great blessing to us to have a Christian firm of solicitors providing us with legal advice, primarily because our solicitors’ interests were very much aligned with ours – to build Christ’s church to the glory of God. There was something very reassuring about using solicitors who totally understood where we were coming from with our questions and concerns and who had the same end goals as we did… We would not hesitate to recommend other church plants or start-ups to use ECS to guide them through the whole formation process.”
