There was a time in America when ministry leaders could focus all their energies on doing what they were called to do and they had little to fear from forces outside their church. Their minds were free to focus on building people and having an impact upon their communities. The government rightfully stayed out of church business and ministries received a good bit of deference from local and national officials. The bureaucrats steered clear of the church because society would not tolerate anything less.

Today we live in a different environment. The landscape has radically changed over the past few years and churches are now the focus of new laws and bureaucratic regulations. As distasteful as it may seem, today's Christian leader must focus a great deal of their time and energies ensuring that their ministries are in strict compliance with current rules and regulations.

President Bush recently put Christian leaders on notice that the new laws passed primarily to curtail corporate fraud would also be applied to non-profit organizations. He said the government has given nonprofit organizations twenty years to clean up their act and they have failed to do so. True to his character, he was not making idle threats.

Primarily, churches have two new threats to deal with as a result of new legislation and government regulations. First, the Internal Revenue Service is stepping up its enforcement of existing regulations. They have increased the number of auditors by one third for the sole purpose of auditing churches and other nonprofit organizations.

The main focus of their audits will be compensation of employees. Many of the things that were once acceptable are against the law unless you have created the right kind of church policies to govern them. Church reimbursement policies, vehicle usage policies, use of church property policies, inventories, credit card documentation, W-9 form collection and retention, and a whole host of other items can now threaten the existence of your ministry. Something as small as providing cell phones to staff member can now garner large fines to the officers and leaders in the church.

The area scrutinized the closest is the pastoral housing allowance. There are rigid conditions and duties a person must perform routinely to be allowed a housing allowance. The person getting the allowance must be ordained, baptize, marry, bury, preach, administer the Lord's Supper, conduct the business of the church, and a list of other things. What you call the employee means nothing. All they look at is what are their duties and do they meet most of the sacrosanct duties.

Any violations of the new laws can now result in a 225% excise tax. And by the way, the church is not allowed to pay the fine. The fine can be imposed upon every person who is authorized to sign checks, is an officer of the church, and particularly the treasurer, financial secretary, and the pastor.

Secondly, minimum wage laws are now radically different than prior to August of 2004. Whereas employees once could be considered salaried employees unless they met certain criteria, the new law completely reverses the process. Now, all employees are considered hourly and under the minimum wage provisions unless they perform all the sacrosanct duties required for receiving housing allowance. Explicitly excluded from being considered salaried are supervisors and monitors who teach in your Christian school.

You must keep permanent record of all hourly employees documenting what time they started work and what time they quit for the day, plus several other pieces of information. Failure to keep accurate records makes you criminally liable for violation of the federal minimum wage laws.

For more information go online and visit www.christianlaw.org. There are other good organizations, but these folks are legal missionaries and provide their services absolutely free. They also sell excellent material to educate you on almost any legal challenge. Additionally, they have "boilerplates" for many of the documents and programs you need.

Jeff Wade, DBS
BibleLeader.com