Author: Alyssa Lofggren

Under U. S. law, those who qualify as volunteers must be pure volunteers indeed! Suppose Jenna wants to volunteer as a teacher for the Christian school operated by her local church. Suppose she is willing to teach full-time and to receive no money whatsoever as wages. Under the law, that is allowed.

On the other hand, suppose that the Christian school principal, grateful for Jenna’s sacrificial work, offers to give her children free tuition to express gratitude for her volunteer spirit. Under the law, accepting free tuition is a form of being paid; and if Jenna does this, she is no longer a volunteer.

By accepting free tuition, Jenna’s status is changed from a volunteer to an employee. For this practice to be legal, she must be subject to all the procedures of a regular employee, including minimum wage and tax withholding requirements.

To be sure, the law is rather complicated in matters like these. If you want to keep your ministry legally protected, contact the Christian Law Association. Our attorneys are happy to walk you through all the information you need to consider to make legally sound decisions.

Many churches livestream their services, which can be a great help to people who are sick, shut in, or are for whatever reason unable to attend church in person. The copyright rules and regulations are a little strange. Essentially, churches may place a copyrighted song on the screen for their worship service; but this built-in permission does not extend to services that are livestreamed. If copyrighted music is livestreamed, permissions, in the form of a license, must be in place.

In order to comply, many churches hire a copyright company to provide a license for them. But holidays can be tricky. Some licenses that are available to churches essentially cover all songs; other licenses are limited to religious songs. During holiday seasons, there may be some church events where a secular song is sung. Whether or not a church has permission to livestream such a song is dependent on its license. During holiday seasons, you want to be sure that your church has the right kind of license to avoid a copyright lawsuit!

We recently became involved in a situation in the Deep South involving a high school instructor who worked in a local public school. This rather large school had a number of student-led clubs, including a chess club, an archery club, and a Bible club. This instructor was the staff supervisor for the Bible club, which met during lunch each Thursday.

Members of the Bible club noticed that announcements had been made over the school’s PA system to advertise meetings of the chess club and the archery club, but when the staff supervisor approached the school office staff about announcing the Bible club meeting, he was told it was not possible for such an announcement to be made.

At first, the Bible club supervisor thought there might have been a mistake, but the more he looked into it, the more he realized that the school was planning to allow the chess and archery clubs to announce their meetings, but not the Bible club. One of the school administrators had the opinion that making such an announcement might offend some non-Christian students and perhaps violate the notion of the separation of church and state. Frankly, this administrator simply did not want to deal with any negative consequences that might be associated with these Bible club announcements.

When the Bible club supervisor contacted the Christian Law Association, our attorneys were able to quickly discern that the school was practicing unlawful religious discrimination against the Bible club. The school could, of course, ban all clubs from operating on its premises. Alternatively, they could continue to allow all clubs to meet on school property, but ban all of these student-led organizations from making announcements over the school’s PA system. What was illegal, of course, was allowing one club to exercise a privilege that was denied another.

In this particular case, our attorneys provided the Bible club supervisor with the information he needed to have respectful, but factually accurate, discussions with his supervisors; and we sent a letter to the appropriate administrator, a letter that clearly explained how the law applied to this situation and what the consequences could potentially be for schools that did not follow the law. In a short amount of time, the situation was resolved, and it seemed to be resolved in a way that left all parties on friendly terms. The members of the Bible club were relieved that they were no longer being treated as second-class citizens, and the announcements that were made over the school PA system did not seem to cause any difficulties.

In many ways, our nation is experiencing turmoil. Some would go so far as to say that the America of fifty years ago is no longer recognizable. Regardless of the profound changes that affect the cultural fabric of our society, it is still the law of the land that religious discrimination may not be practiced at the public school. It is important for God’s people to understand the technicalities of the law and to have great wisdom as they work through these issues. When there are questions and difficult situations, the Christian Law Association is honored to stand with you to ensure that your legally protected religious rights here in the United States remain unhindered.

Churches, Christian schools, and other Christian ministries constantly transport people. Some provide bus transportation to church. Some provide van transportation to activities. Unless we are careful, we can easily let an important recordkeeping requirement slip.

Suppose an accident occurs involving a ministry vehicle. In many, or most, cases, a lawsuit will be filed. If this happens and it can be shown that a ministry did not take careful steps to ensure they were using safe, qualified drivers, a judge or jury could impose severe fines on the ministry.

To begin, every ministry should obtain a copy of the commercial driver’s license (CDL) of every driver who operates a vehicle that requires a CDL. They should also obtain a copy of the driver’s license for every driver that operates a ministry vehicle (even if that vehicle does not require a CDL), and they should obtain a copy of the driver’s license for every driver who uses his own vehicle in service of the ministry. In addition, ministries should obtain a seven-year driving record for each person who drives on behalf of the ministry.

When a ministry can demonstrate that all its drivers have up-to-date licenses and good driving records, that ministry is much less likely to be fined for negligence in the event of an accident. If you have questions specific to your situation, please call our attorneys for advice.

We are thankful to live in a nation that still allows us to share the Gospel message. Yet, we understand that there are reasonable limits to how we express ourselves. For example, no one would think it reasonable to proclaim a message on loudspeakers at three o’clock in the morning in a quiet residential neighborhood. It is important for Christians to understand the nuances of the law in this matter.

The most protected forum for witnessing is known as the public forum. Citizens have virtually guaranteed access to a traditional public forum, which includes public streets, sidewalks, parks, and other places where citizens traditionally gather to exchange ideas. The United States Supreme Court has ruled that “Such use of the streets and public places has, from ancient times, been a part of the privileges, immunities, rights, and liberties of citizens. The privilege of a citizen of the United States to use the streets and parks for communication of views…must not…be abridged or denied.”

While protecting free speech in public forums, the Supreme Court also ruled that free speech must work together with “peace and good order.” First Amendment free speech rights are not considered to be harmed if regulations about time, place, and manner are adopted by appropriate governmental agencies. For example, the Court allows municipalities to disallow public speech after 10:00 P.M., in the middle of a street, or above a certain decibel level.

Limitations on free speech become more difficult to understand when you consider places that are not part of the traditional public forum. For example, do owners of private property have the right to limit who speaks on their property? Can speakers have unlimited access to military bases? Are there restrictions for distributing Gospel tracts in shopping malls?

One faithful lady wanted to distribute tracts at a government-sponsored children’s event, but she was not sure if was permissible. As it turned out in this particular case, the event was sponsored by the government, but it was a public event that allowed all people to share ideas and distribute information.

If you have questions about your right to witness, you may want to read our resource titled Witnessing in Modern America, in which our attorneys spell out the details of the law. And always feel free to contact our offices if you need clarification about this detailed issue. The legal missionaries of the Christian Law Association are privileged to help you exercise your right to witness, and we will continue our work to ensure that the Gospel message can be circulated freely in this great land.

Finding and hiring the right employees is an important and difficult task. Once you have identified personnel that will work well with your ministry, be careful that you don’t miss these important requirements.

• Complete an I-9 form with each new employee. Form I-9 is available from the U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The form shows evidence of an employer’s efforts to inspect and verify documentation demonstrating that the new employee is legally permitted to work in the United States. The form does not have to be filed with the government, but the employer is required to keep the form and be able to produce it for inspection at any time. The form must be kept for three years after the date of hire or one year after termination of employment, whichever is later. The USCIS does make unannounced visits to inspect I-9 forms. Employers may be fined up to $1,000 for each employee whose I-9 form is not in order. 

• Have each employee subject to income tax withholding complete Form W-4. The employer retains the W-4 and does not submit it to the Internal Revenue Service unless an employee claims 10 or more withholding allowances or if the employee claims exemption from all withholding even though he is paid $200 or more per week. 

• Report the name, address, and social security number of all newly hired employees, and the name, address, and Federal Employer Identification Number of the employer to the State Directory of New Hires in the state where the employee works. This reporting requirement applies to any employee who is required to receive a W-2 form from the employer. There is no required form that must be completed. The employer may simply send a letter or create a form. The report must be made within twenty (20) days of the date of hire, unless a shorter time frame has been mandated by the State to which the report must be made. The “date of hire” is considered the first day services are performed for wages. The State may impose civil monetary and non-monetary penalties for an employer’s failure to report. Fines generally may not exceed $25 per newly hired employee, but if there is a conspiracy between the employer and the employee not to report, the penalty may be increased to $500 per newly-hired employee. 

There are, indeed, many other requirements for a payroll program to be set up in a legally appropriate way. The items listed above, however, are commonly overlooked. In order to ensure full legal compliance, many Christian ministries hire outside companies to help handle the details of the payroll.

If you have questions about ensuring that your payroll is legally compliant, please contact the Christian Law Association right away.

Most people understand that ordained members of the clergy may opt out of Social Security, and if they do so, they simply don’t have to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes. For many ministers, frankly, that is a significant savings. If a minister is considered self-employed, the Social Security tax alone would be 12.4% on up to $168,600 of net earnings.

Many ordained ministers think, “Great! I’ll opt out, and I’ll save lots of money.” And while opting out is an excellent choice in some situations, this is a decision that deserves careful attention before making that change.

To opt out of Social Security, ordained ministers must sign Form 4361 “Application for Exemption from Self-Employment Tax for Use by Ministers, Members of Religious Orders and Christian Science Practitioners.” The form does not say, “If you are a minister and prefer not to pay these taxes, sign here.” If you read the form carefully, it says that you are conscientiously opposed or opposed because of your religious principles to “the acceptance…of any public insurance that makes payments in the event of death, disability, old age, or retirement; or that makes payments toward the cost of, or provides services for, medicare” in exchange for services you perform as a minister. In other words, signing Form 4361 means that, as a minister, you oppose receiving Social Security or Medicare benefits for your ministerial work.

Of course, there are different beliefs among ordained ministers. Some truly do believe that serving as a pastor should not allow them to receive any Social Security benefits when they retire. Others believe differently. Whatever the case, we definitely recommend that ministers should understand the full legal picture before they make their decision.

In many cases, ministers make decisions like this when they are quite young, when they have a hard time even imagining retirement. And though the government has, on certain occasions, allowed ministers to opt back in to Social Security, you cannot count on this being allowed should you change your mind.

Because of the complexity of this issue, we highly recommend that you contact the Christian Law Association before finalizing any such decision. Our experienced legal team is extremely familiar with all of the issues pertaining to this, and we have seen firsthand how this works for ministers through the years. It would be our privilege to assist you.

In recent days, our attorneys have fielded several questions about IRS Publication 78. Many churches wonder if there is a legal requirement for their organization to appear on that list. Publication 78 is a formal list of organizations that have formally filed with the IRS and have received a determination letter which states they are, indeed, tax-exempt organizations.

There is no legal requirement for churches to formally register for 501(c)(3) status. If they never do so, they have not broken any law or missed any mandatory requirement. On the other hand, there are sometimes advantages to appearing in Publication 78. Some donors feel more comfortable financially supporting a church that has received a determination letter. And if your church has any interest in seeking foundation grants or participating in some kind of matching fund program offered by some corporations, these organizations almost always limit their scope of activity to churches that appear on Publication 78.

We know that churches want every child to have a good time at church and, hopefully, hear the Gospel and be saved. However, it is vitally important that churches never tolerate consistently excessive problematic behavior from any child, particularly if the behavior is violent.

  A Louisiana appellate court recently ruled that a lawsuit against a church could go forward. The charge? That the Christian school should be held responsible for a child’s injuries caused by another child with a history of violent behavior, such as hitting and kicking other students.

  This case moving forward is monumental. Churches and Christian schools need to understand that the potential exists for them to be held liable if they don’t observe and adequately address violent behavior in their minor attendees. This is just one more reason why we here at CLA strongly recommend that every church require adequate adult supervision in every child’s class. If staffing is inadequate, don’t offer the class. 

Every church should also routinely create documentation of every incident of bad behavior. Additionally, churches definitely have the option to ask parents to keep children with them in the adult services if problematic behavior continues. 

Please don’t neglect these simple preventive measures to protect your ministry. 

In modern times, there is a considerable amount of confusion about the idea that America has a “wall of separation between the church and the state.” Some people erroneously believe that the separation of church and state means that Christians should essentially never express their views in public, that only secular ideas have a place in the public square. Though modern secularists may prefer this interpretation, it has no foundation in American history.

More than 200 years ago, the Danbury Baptist Convention was concerned that the newly formed federal government might attempt to interfere with their freedom of worship, and they expressed their concerns to President Thomas Jefferson. After all, in the colonists’ home nation of England, the government often forced churches to reflect the religious preferences of the monarch. Jefferson wrote a letter to assure the Convention that the Constitution did not allow the federal government to intervene in church affairs, saying that a “wall of separation” had been erected between church and state.

Jefferson’s letter was written to say that the federal government could not force certain religious views on citizens, not to say that religious expression in the public sphere was prohibited. Any other interpretation of “separation of church and state” is erroneous.