Understanding
Starting a church, honestly.
Before we founded Spiritual Results we read the law, the cases, and the sales pitches. This is what we found, written for anyone else on the same road.
What makes a church a church
The law does not define "church." Courts and the IRS look at whether people actually gather. Here is the test we hold ourselves to.
The truth about 508(c)(1)(A)
A "508 church" is a 501(c)(3) church. The section is a filing exception, not a separate status, and the people selling it as one are selling you a problem.
A private religious society
Spiritual Results is a private membership association in the oldest sense: a church with members. What that protects, and what it does not.
Trusts, corporation sole, and other containers
A trust is a fine way to hold property. It is never a way to erase tax. Here is how we hold ours and what we refused.
Independence the legal way
What a church may actually opt out of, and why the loud version of "sovereignty" forfeits the quiet one.
Why we are unincorporated, and a lesson from the Universal Life Church
Our founding minister was ordained by the ULC. Its history is the clearest map ever drawn of how a small church loses everything, and we built ours to avoid every mark on it.
These articles describe our own understanding and our own choices. They are not legal advice. If you are founding a church, have a lawyer who knows church law read your documents once.