Boundaries and Accountability Ministers must be able to articulate boundaries between themselves and their congregants and staff to support comfortable interactions. Consider congregants or committee members insisting on meeting with the minister on a minister's day off. Consider staff members redefining their job descriptions to include tasks they want to work on and eliminating or ignoring tasks they don't want to address. Think of ministers becoming so engaged in a committee's work that the minister begins to take over the meeting. Ministers must be prepared to work with a congregation to define boundaries and accountability of the minister, the members and the staff.
Covenants explain accountability.
Personally, if I were a minister, I'd covenant with my new congregation during my first year of ministry. I'd explain to new members that ours is a community of covenanted relationship and as members they will be part of that covenant. I'd revisit the covenant with the congregation at the beginning of each church year, to recovenant or to revise the covenant and then adopt it. This is a complex agreement with minister and congregations. Ministers need the freedom to speak to issues that are important to them.