Christians in Cuffs: Pastors and Churches Avoiding Legal Problems
May 20, 2025
Host: Dr. Jamie Mitchell
Co-host: Brad Dacus
Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 5/20/25. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.
Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.
Jamie Mitchell:
Well welcome friends to another Stand in the Gap today. I am your host, Jamie Mitchell, the director of church culture at the American Pastors Network. All I can say to you today as we begin is buckle up and hold tight. It’s going to be a fast paced and information loaded hour. Also, let me suggest to you that you need to either call, text, or email your pastor right now. He needs to hear what we’re about to discuss. It could literally save his ministry and spare your church a whole bunch of heartache. One of the noticeable outcomes or byproducts of President Trump’s victory this past fall is the more fable disposition towards people of faith and especially Christians. Just a few weeks ago, we were greatly encouraged with the presidential proclamation about Easter and the clear explanation of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ Put that in contrast to a year prior when Good Friday and Easter were exchanged for transgender Day of visibility.
Then came National Day of Prayer and the establishment of a religious liberty commission. And even though there’s been major wind change at the White House concerning Christianity and faith, many capitals, city hall courthouses and probably throughout the deep state, there is this animus towards believers in churches. One of the sinister and concerning ways that attacks occur is through the legal system, the way laws and regulation government procedures have been written, open clergy and congregations to all kinds of litigation. We must understand the reality of the pending legal problems that we could encounter and position ourselves to either avoid them or respond properly. I’ve entitled today’s program Christians in Cuffs, pastors and Clergy, avoiding legal problems, and to bring his expertise to bear on this topic is our good friend and the founder and president of the Pacific Justice Institute. Brad Dacus. Brad, as always, welcome back to Stand In the Gap. You certainly are one of my favorite guests.
Brad Dacus:
Oh, thank you. It’s a pleasure to be on your program and I appreciate your willingness to cover such a timely issue that we’re going to be talking about today, dealing with our freedoms and liberties and the growing hostility to people of faith and particularly Christians in the United States today.
Jamie Mitchell:
Well, Brad, with that in mind, I want to get the conversation going with your overall sense. Is there really an anti-Christian sediment in this country and is the legal profession open and anxious to pursue any kind of litigation they can against us?
Brad Dacus:
The answer unfortunately is definitely yes, and yes, there is growing hostility in the United States against Christians and people of faith. When I was a boy, there were two groups of people. There were those that went to church and those would be no one. They should be going to church. But now we have a different world. We have a society where people are followers of Christ or seer in their faith, and then you have another group who despise and hate what Christians stand for, what the Bible teaches it. It is very obvious and even when you look at polls, there’s always still a core of 20 to 30% that no matter what the issue is in terms of its obvious logic and reason in terms of supporting parents’ rights, biblical values, whatever it may be, common sense, there’s just that core that are just against it and it’s that same core that have a real hostility and hate towards Christians and people who follow Christ.
Jamie Mitchell:
Brad, this may come up as we have our discussion today on these legal issues facing believers, and I have this conversation with believers about these types of things. We automatically say things like this that we should never sue anybody. We should never engage in any kind of legal defense. And I’ve even heard well-intentioned Christians say things like that, that, well, Jesus never defended himself, so we shouldn’t either. Is this a wrong perspective for Christians to have in regards to defending themselves and should we take steps to fight back legally?
Brad Dacus:
Yeah, definitely we should take steps to fight back legally. When you look at the Apostle Paul for example, he was someone who made usage of his rights lay claim to his rights as a Roman citizen. He did not look at it as an incidental. He looked at it as a part of what God had given him to be faithful for the day and the hour that he was facing. And in fact, in Acts chapter 22, he’s preaching the gospel, giving his story, his testimony, and then in verse 25 it says, when they tied Paul down to lash him, Paul said, the centurion staining there, is it legal for you to whip a Roman citizen who hasn’t even been tried? And then when the officer heard this, he went to the commander and asked, what are you doing? This man is Roman citizens. So the commander went and asked Paul, tell me, are you a Roman citizen?
He goes, yes, I certainly am. Paul replied, Paul Lee claimed to his rights of due process un the law clearly here, and he did it in a very Christian way using the form of a question to lay claim to his rights. But his goal was not just to be a martyr, his goal was to further God’s kingdom. And sometimes that means we lay down our rights, but sometimes that means we lay claim to our rights. And that’s what we at Pacific Justices to do so well is to empower people to do just that. We have now over 270 cases in active litigation coast to coast, and we’re defending religious freedom and parents’ rights over their kids thank you of life. That’s because people are standing up and if they don’t stand up, we lose our freedom. We lose our freedom, we lose our ability to fully live the gospel and have the opportunities to live the gospel the way God wants us to.
Jamie Mitchell:
Brad, we have about 30 seconds, but if we don’t fight and some of these things are lost in court, they become precedent and make it harder for us to deal with them later on. Isn’t that the case?
Brad Dacus:
Oh, it is still the case, and that’s why I’m glad last year God bless us, was a more than 90% success rate in victories in our litigation last year alone. It makes a huge difference and we’re seeing more and more doors of opportunity opening up for the gospel for people to live their faith. But one shopping malls in California is just one example, and it’s completely changed things so that people can live and share their faith in common areas and shopping malls and people are coming to Christ. It’s just one of many, many examples.
Jamie Mitchell:
Well, there you have it, friends, the table has been set. The fact of the matter is that even though we might have a president who is favorable to Christians, and there seems to be a lot of Christians involved in this administration and the winds of change have shifted, the fact of the matter is there are still those who dislike Christians don’t want churches to have any active ministry and impact their culture, and so they are going to use legal means to stop us. Now. Listen, when we come back, we’re going to talk about some specific issues that churches and pastors need to be aware of. Today is all about raising up the red flag so that we are fully aware of what could come our way. We’re talking about the law and Christians here at Stand in the Gap today. Well, thanks for staying with us. Brad Dockess from the Pacific Justice Institute is my guest, and we’re talking about potential legal dilemmas. Pastors and churches could find themselves in Brad when someone comes to a pastor or maybe even a lay worker in a church and share that they are experiencing abuse of some kind. A lot of times we’re just not sure what to do. We want to comfort the person, we want to stop the abuse, but we also want to restore what’s broken. Yet there are some legal expectations. What must we know about reporting abuse?
Brad Dacus:
Yeah, that’s a very important question. And oftentimes pastors are really just unaware of what they’re supposed to do. There’s varying laws among the different states, so I’ve got to be a little careful here, and I would encourage any pastor in that situation actually to contact Pacific Justice Institute. We do all our work without charge. We handle thousands of requests all without charge every year. Now, that said, generally speaking, I would say the first thing is they need to assess whether or not there is indeed a reasonable suspicion of actual abuse or neglect. So let’s say you have a 13-year-old girl who talks to the pastor and she’s just real upset and says, my dad, they don’t understand me. They raise their voice at me and I feel so abused, I feel so torn. I want to jump off her bridge, dah, dah, dah, just, well, actually a 13-year-old girl that’s, or boys 13, 14, they have these emotional roller coasters and those feelings could quickly be gone and over and just a matter of hours, days or minutes.
So they need to actually find out what the substance of what actually happened, what actually took place, or is this just an adolescent or emotional hormonal flare up, if you will. And also they need to, if you have a Sunday school teacher or someone like that or a teacher in a private Christian school, I know the situation. The teachers just quickly called CPS thinking, oh, this is my duty. Instead of talking to the pastor and letting the pastor and the church investigate first to determine whether or not there was real suspicion. But what happened is CPS social workers came right on in, took the child, the parents never saw the kid again, and it actually wasn’t abuse and neglect. This was irresponsible by this teacher, this private Christian school teacher to do what she did. And so procedure needs to set up, be established in place.
If anything is like this happen, the principal needs to be notified immediately so that they can investigate and make the determination with additional facts because the stakes are so high, people lose their children permanently, and it’s not just a few cases, we’re talking thousands and thousands across the country. That’s one reason why I encourage parents out there to take advantage of our free resource call 12 Steps to Protect Your Children from CPS. Every family in America should have it. If you wait until a social worker calls or knocks on your door, it’s too late. So it’s really, really important everyone has that because there are certain things parents need to do to greatly limit the risk of losing their children. It can happen to anyone.
Jamie Mitchell:
And from the clergy side of things though, Brad, if there is legitimate abuse, if there is suspicion, they can’t just kind of work this out on their own. Again, every state is different. They do need to notify authorities if it goes to that level of seriousness. Is that right?
Brad Dacus:
Yeah. So let’s say that it’s real substance abuse or real abuse. So let’s say for example, the girl has a bruise on the left side of her face and says, my dad plugged me there. We got an argument and has a problem with his anger, and this time he just slammed me and hit me in the face. And this, he’s done this before, but that’s an obvious case. You call and report that. Another one is any sexual abuse that’s taken place against the child, it doesn’t have to even be the parents could be a sibling that involves this. The parents, if it was a sibling, I’d let the parents know about it immediately as well. So the parents can take definite protective measures to get the child the assistance that they need and preemptively prevent their children from being taken from them by showing their own initiative and bringing in a psychiatrist, et cetera.
That’s one reason why if parents are in the dark about something that’s happened, they need to be notified immediately so they can get a psychiatrist or psychologist to do to quickly examine the children pediatrician, and that will put them in a good standing to not lose all their children at the same time be responsible. But yeah, when there’s something that’s actual, a reasonable person would say, yeah, this is clearly abuse. There’s a responsibility that the pastor has to report that to social workers, but they want to let parents be aware of it as well if the parents are not the cult, the person who’s actually doing the act.
Jamie Mitchell:
Here’s another situation. I know churches are grappling with Brad marriage ceremonies and who the clergy will and can marry. I heard of situations where pastors and congregations are sued for not allowing certain marriages to happen or outright refusing to perform the ceremony. What rights does a church have in either denying or doing a wedding and what do they need to consider?
Brad Dacus:
Yeah, churches have a right to conduct marriage ceremonies in accordance with their own beliefs and convictions. But here’s the key is they need to spell out those religious beliefs and convictions. They can’t just say if they’re sued, tell the judge, well, we’re a Bible believing church. This is what the Bible says, pastor, the judge is going to say, look, I’m not a theologian. I can’t interpret the Bible and what you believe and what someone else may believe differently. Maybe a Methodist or Episcopal over here who thinks it’s this kind of a perverted marriage is just fine. What churches need to do. Bible believing churches, Christian churches, truly Christian churches, they to spell out in writing what they believe on this issue. What is their doctrine on this issue? And they maybe even have that in their bylaws. We can help them do that. We have Pacific Justice assist churches without charge all across the nation to help them do that, to protect themselves, but they don’t have to compromise their faith and convictions and do a wedding that is violative of their strong beliefs. As a Christian and a believer in the Bible
Jamie Mitchell:
And included in that, Brad, they should have some kind of policy, not just who they’ll marry, but who can use their facility and for what purposes. That would be encouraged as well.
Brad Dacus:
Oh yeah, absolutely. And that’s all along. It’s a part of it because yeah, you have the pastor who has, if you want to protect the pastor from having these ceremonies somewhere else, that violates his beliefs and conviction. At the same time, the same principle applies to usage of the facility itself. So that’s very, very important. Now, some people, they have a little like a barn on their property that they use for weddings and wedding ceremonies. If they need to be, if they’re in a situation, anyone out there listed this program, they should probably contact us. There’s some certain things they can do to protect themselves even though they’re not a church, by making sure that they not only have it written down their policy and beliefs, but that also they’re actively engaged as a matter of procedure in the ceremony, putting up the ceremony, getting things done, getting things ready or organizing. But that’s sort of a separate issue for those who have a private business dealing with weddings.
Jamie Mitchell:
Here’s one more big issue, Brad. Some fellowships in their desire to fulfill the scriptures and create biblical community may practice what’s known as church discipline of its members. And even though the member knew upfront, if they got tripped up in sin and they even were unrepentant, they might have to face discipline from the church. What cautions should churches take to be able to conduct this biblical practice but also not get themselves in a legal bind?
Brad Dacus:
Yeah, that’s a great question. The general rule right up front is if someone is a part of a church, they’re a member of a church, then they are under the procedures, the practices of that church. That includes discipline. The pastor needs to have a procedure in line. This is what we do. You can’t say, well, you do Matthew 18, and that’s when we, well, they need to spell it out. This is the procedure we take when someone in the church, a member of the church is engaging in these activities and they need to carry it out and they need to be to do it consistently the same way, including to the pastor’s nephew. They need to have the same procedure for him that they do for others. Consistent enforcement clearly laid out as to how the procedure is done biblically and of course, with love and grace for those who have a repentant heart.
And that’s really, really important. The scripture is really clear on that too. Now, let’s say someone is caught doing something, they’re not repentant and they leave the church. There’s a case dealing with this where the pastor the next Sunday said, so-and-so did this sin and they need to leave the church and they don’t have anything to do with them and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. Well, no, they had already left the church. And so the pastor cannot engage in those activities of discipline activities if the person has left the church, and in fact they’re opening themselves up for liable slander if it can be shown that in any way what they said was incorrect. I’ve seen that happen too with churches. So pastors have to be very careful what they tell their church congregation to make sure it’s absolutely correct. And as the person has left the church, then they’re no longer protected under that protection that they have to carry out all that they might normally do. So it’s a real key difference between someone who’s staying in the church and versus someone who’s done something and has left the church for liability reasons.
Jamie Mitchell:
Well, it is clear that as churches and leaders, we walk a tight rope of following God’s word, but also staying clear of legal troubles. Now, when we come back, some very specific issues related to pastors, again, this may be a great time to call your pastor and tell them, Hey, turn on Stand in the Gap today. Brad DCUs is our guest. Come back and join us in just a few moments here at Stand In the Gap. Well, we’re discussing potential legal issues that churches could face and steps to avoid them, or at least to prepare to face them in a positive way. Brad Dacus is here with us. And Brad, I want you to help some ministers who be listening today and also some church boards in regards to the operations of the church. Here’s a topic that I am hearing more and more, and that’s the issue of hiring staff. When a church hires someone, they establish an employee employer relationship, and the employer is expected to do certain things. Yet I’m hearing of staff members suing churches for a litany of matters when hiring staff, what must we be ever so aware of in regards to this church and hiring relationship?
Brad Dacus:
Yeah, well, churches first, they need to do a criminal background check. They need to do all the safety measures that a normal secular person would do in hiring, and they can’t say, well, we’re all Christians, so we don’t really need to. They’re such a nice person. And no, you need to do your background checks because if they don’t, they’re opening selves up for liability issues to that employee. Engage in a behavior that the employer could have known about and could have taken reasonable measures to protect the other employees with in the event that they hired that person. So they also though should do of course, an intensive spiritual background for the person to check out their resume. Did they really go to the seminary? Did they really go to that Bible college? Did they need to talk to their former clergy and pastors, ministers make sure that the number they gave is the actual number for that church, an actual pastor that’s not just a relative or someone pretending to be.
And one of the reasons this is so important is because it’s so easy to have people become a part of a church and then they can actually create lots of problems. I talked to a pastor once who had someone he hired for HR, and this person sort of worked their way up and it was just they were a nice person, just seemed like they were a Christian and just sort of assumed they wanted to work there. And well, it turns out they found out this lady was shacking up with a guy out of marriage that’s fornication out of marriage. And I talked to the pastor who was going to fire this person. I found out this person was sending emails, and I had read the emails, and I said, she’s getting ready to sue you. She’s setting the church up for a major lawsuit. And I told the pastor how to deal with it, require bible studies, prayer time every morning for that employee and the other employees in their area, and either one, she’ll repent or number two, she’ll leave, and it turns out she left. So these are very real, and I can see more and more people trying to sabotage churches by coming in with false pretext of being a Christian and committed follower of Christ.
Jamie Mitchell:
Brad. One of the things as I talk with pastors about this, and this is coming up more and more, as I said, is put things in writing, job descriptions, even a policy for people who are coming on. And I know it’s hard because sometimes small churches only have a pastor, maybe assistant pastor or a secretary of janitor. It’s not, they have this vast staff, but once you engage in this kind of relationship with an employee, there are some things that we as leaders, as a board, as a pastor, needs to be ever so aware of and putting things in writing really make a difference. With that in mind, here’s something else that needs to be put into writing, and Brad, this is going to be a hard one. The question is simply this. Who owns the pastor’s sermons? Some say the pastor is paid to produce them, so the sermon is a quote work product, but others say that you’re hiring him. His abilities, his gifts, his talents, his creativity to bear, one being the message. And so it belongs to him. And from what I have researched, it hasn’t been tested in the courts yet. Is there some definitive answers or better, what should pastors and boards do to handle this?
Brad Dacus:
Well, that’s a great question. And what they need to do right up front is they need to have it in writing whether or not the pastor or the church owns the sermon product and what the pastor does. So you need to have a clear description of their responsibilities, but it also needs to deal with ownership of work product, and that needs to be laid out very clearly. Now, let’s say a church doesn’t do that and there’s a split and they say, pastor, we don’t like the direction you’re going. You’re, you’re gone. The elders say you’re gone. Say they have a radio show of the church where they’ve been airing his sermons and they want to continue to air them. And in that situation, the general rule is if I was a judge, I would lean toward the side of the church because if the pastor is paid to give a sermon, that’s his job to preach on Sunday mornings and he’s preaching, and that work product was prepared, that sermon was prepared for that work product or Sunday morning service, I would lean towards the church owning it based on just there being nothing in writing per se, but it could go either way.
I know of a big case involving this. Won’t get into the details on the air, but it turned out with a settlement after several years of litigation, which we don’t ever want to see that happen. It’s a waste of resources for the kingdom. So I would encourage churches, every church, no matter who they are, where they are, to have that in writing, and if they want help with that, they can contact us@ourwebsitepj.org.
Jamie Mitchell:
And the thing is this, though, Brad, is you can understand the awkwardness of this. A guy comes on, he’s hired as the pastor, and at the first elder or deacon board meeting, he says to him, okay, guys, by the way, I have this form. I would like one of you to sign. That basically says that every sermon that I prepare or preach for you here, I own that sermon. That’s just going to set up a relational tension amongst that leadership. But at the same time, I have watched churches hurt and even hold pastor’s captive by saying, we own these sermons. If you would like these sermons, this is what you must do. So word to the wise to churches, have this conversation and deal with it. Well, let’s move on to the last one, and this is really going to get sticky. I’ve heard that some churches do not believe that they are subject to paying taxes or think that when it says they are tax exempt, it’s more than just a benefit for receding gifts. Do churches need to pay taxes? And what mistakes do churches make with dealing with the IRS or even the State Board of taxation?
Brad Dacus:
Yeah, generally speaking, churches, they’re understood usually 5 0 1 C3 organizations and there’s another route they can take, but that’s generally how it’s done, and they are tax exempt in terms of the revenue that comes in. They can, those who give they claim to for making a tax deduction on their own taxes. Property taxes are not levied against churches as a general rule, however, there are some problems that can happen. So first, let’s say a church, they build their church, but they only have using it say one fourth of their land for their church. The rest of it’s all just sort of pasture land. Well, they can be levied attacks on the property that’s not being used after it’s usually one or two years of non usage that can happen. Now, we helped a Christian college. They were only using one fourth of their property, and we advised them and said, look, you need to use that other part of your property because you’re paying such a high amount of property taxes.
They said, we don’t have the money to build buildings on that property. He says, you don’t have to have a building. You can have a prayer path. You can have a soccer field, which are very cheap to put up. Just buy the two goals and keep the lawn mowed. So there’s just give a usage to it, a gardening ministry, just a usage, and we can help churches do that. We’ve helped lots of churches eliminate their property taxes. The other is if they sell something, so some churches have a little cafe, a little coffee cafe, and you go in and you pay a dollar, $2, whatever for your coffee. That is actually a commercial transaction and that part of the church that does that, the area of land can be levied a property tax. They may even try to levy against the whole church. Well, we encourage two things.
Either one, limit that space with a little entering and exiting kind of a little rope if you will. So the coffee bar space is just like five feet by five feet. So that’s the area that’s actually selling or put on the menu, suggested donation of, and then under each item, say $1 or suggest donation of $2. If it’s suggested donation, then you’re not selling, but then people can choose not to pay, but hopefully your church congregation is more reasonable and generous. So that’s how two ways of avoiding some common action of churches that can set them up for having to pay property taxes.
Jamie Mitchell:
One of the things that churches get themselves in problems with too, Brad, is this whole issue, and I always warn pastors, be very careful in charging for usage of your building with outside groups, because once you start doing that, you are no longer seen as a tax exempt organization. And boy, they can get themselves in a mess of problems. Listen, friends, we don’t want to hear about a pastor being perp walked across the church’s front lawn because of some foolish and unavoidable mistake. Take what’s being said, guard yourself now when we finish up, we want to consider buildings and rentals, some of these other issues and another track that we can fall into. Well, the clock, again, has flown by and we’ve come to our final segment. Brad DCUs of the Pacific Justice Institute has been our legal expert this hour as we’ve handled some of the tough issues that churches and pastors face. Brad, you’ve mentioned a number of times of the different ways that PJI can be a help to churches and you have a whole bunch of resources. Where can they find you and find out about the Pacific Justice Institute? What’s a good website? And maybe just take 30 seconds and give us a little update on things that you’re doing.
Brad Dacus:
You bet. Our website is pj.org. People can sign up to get our free eNewsletter called the Legal Insider, and it’s P for Pacific, J for Justice i for institute.org, pj.org. We’re involved in, we have over 270 cases in active litigation. They said before we have 36 offices coast to coast all over the country, and we do all our work without charge. We’re taking on cases, dealing with pronouns and people being losing their jobs. Because of that, we’re taking on school districts that are lying and hiding things from parents. We’re actively engaged in protecting churches that are having ministries shut down like in the city of Fairfield, or a pastor who was being criminally prosecuted for praying outside an abortion clinic and was about to be sentenced, and we defended him. Unfortunately, he was one of the pastors who were pardoned by President Trump after he was elected, but the former administration wanted to putting them behind bars for 11 years, 11 years. So we’re actively engaged and we’re working also on the legislative front with legislation pending in 20 states across the country right now. I’m actually in Washington DC right now for the purpose of looking at some national policies that could help further religious freedom and parents’ rights and the sanity of life.
Jamie Mitchell:
Wow, Brad, thank you. What you do, you’re a gift to the body of Christ, and we love what PJI is doing, but we have a little bit more program left. I got two questions. Here’s the first one. A lot of churches don’t have their own building. They’ve got to go to a public school or some other venue, and I want you to address this issue about renting property specific public schools and what they need to know and what roadblocks could be in the way that they could avoid.
Brad Dacus:
Yeah, public schools need to be careful not to discriminate against religious institutions wishing to rent their facilities. Some say, well, separation of church and state. Well, no, that’s not constitutional. They can’t differentiate nonprofits based on religious versus non-religious for rental purposes. Some of them, like I’ve seen before where they say, well, if you’re a non-religious nonprofit, then you just pay $10 per usage. Oh, if you’re religious, then you have to pay full market value. You have to pay 300 or $500 per usage. They can’t do that. We’ve confronted school districts on this and they’ve backed down, and that’s a real common issue that we’ve had to deal with
Jamie Mitchell:
Along with that same venue of buildings and protections and those kinds of things. Every church that I know now has some kind of security team, and most of them, Brad, are untrained volunteers. I see this as a potential problem. I’m a son of an insurance man, and so I grew up always thinking risk management. Are there potential legal issues that a church could stumble into if they’re not careful about their security team?
Brad Dacus:
Absolutely, yes. Definite problems that could come up. One thing right off the bat they need to do is they have a security team, and I support security teams. We need to protect our members in our church that some crazy person comes in or radical who wants to kill Christians, that they’re addressed or taken out as quickly as possible. But the people who do it, they need to be trained and the church needs to make an effort, a bon of effort to train them sufficiently so that they can’t later be sued. If something happens to someone who is a person gets the bullet while they’re shooting this person with a gun machine gun coming in, they can be sued if they can be shown. This person in church defense group was not trained, did not go through proper training. Also, I encourage the best people from a liability perspective are involved in protecting the church are those who are or former law enforcement officers or served or serving in the military. They are much easier, much easier to defend a church when you have those kinds of people because there’s an understanding that they are trained already and they have a competency that is assumed if you have a trial situation, a civil trial situation with regarding damages.
Jamie Mitchell:
Brad, last thing in our last few minutes together, and I think I know what you’re going to answer, but I want to ask in any way just so you can have a chance to address it. Let’s say a church, a pastor, a board member, gets a phone call from a government entity, from the police, from a district attorney, from the FBI, from the IRS. Our natural position as Christians is to be cooperative and respectful and to respect authority. I preach it and I believe it. What word do you have for us having lived in this world? How do we become gentle lambs, but wises serpents when we get that phone call?
Brad Dacus:
Yeah, well, you need to first off, not come across as hostile or hyper defensive, but yes, they’d be more than happy to cooperate. Same thing with dealing with social workers, investigating your family perhaps, but you also though need to bring in the proper support, and that often includes an attorney at least to call an attorney. If it’s the IRS, you want to talk to a guy Phil Liberatory in Southern California, he’s an expert, CPA, he deals with entities being confronted by the IRS. So I think that that’s whether it’s CPA or an attorney or depending on what the issue is, I think that’s very appropriate. It could be because the church could, they may say, oh, it’s just someone in your church and say, oh, okay, well, but you still want to get counsel because there still may be an issue or a liability that could be in play in the church, and you may want to make sure you don’t open the church up for either criminal actions against other members of the church staff or liabilities that the church may open itself up to, depending on how they answer. And they can’t assume that the FBI is in a benevolent and wants fairness. We’ve seen the tyranny, frankly, but especially the higher end part of the FBI, the Department of Justice. We saw tyranny from the former administration, outrageous injustice, but we need to be wise as serpents, generalist doves that applies to government.
Jamie Mitchell:
Well, Brad, this has been a great hour together. You have been just fantastic and friends, as you have listened today, your pastor, your board, they need to hear this broadcast. They need to start taking some notes. Let me just sum up four things for us. Number one, you need to check your constitution, your bylaws. They need to be up to date and they need to be litigious proof. You need to make sure that everything in your bylaws and constitution is written properly so that you don’t get yourself in trouble. You need to have policies in your church, have things in writing that always helps. Thirdly, you need to establish a relationship with a lawyer. Call PJI and find out if there’s a lawyer in the area. And then finally, just a word of wise every church audit to make sure their books are in line. We hope that this has helped you today until tomorrow. This is Jamie Mitchell, live and lead with courage.
Recent Comments