Spiritual Results

If you spend an hour searching for how to start a church you will meet a cottage industry selling "508(c)(1)(A) Faith-Based Organizations" that are supposedly "not under 501(c)(3)," free of its rules, and able to do what other churches cannot. We looked hard at this before founding Spiritual Results, and we want to say plainly what we found.

What the section actually says

Section 508(a) of the Internal Revenue Code says a new organization must notify the IRS (by filing Form 1023) before it will be treated as exempt under Section 501(c)(3). Section 508(c)(1)(A) carves out an exception: churches, their integrated auxiliaries, and conventions or associations of churches do not have to file that notice. A separate section, 6033(a)(3)(A)(i), excuses churches from the annual Form 990.

That is the whole of it. A church is exempt under Section 501(c)(3), automatically, if it meets that section's requirements. Section 508(c)(1)(A) just means it does not have to ask first. The IRS's own guide for churches, Publication 1828, says so in as many words.

What that means in practice

Because a church is a 501(c)(3) organization, all of 501(c)(3)'s conditions apply to it:

No private inurement. No part of the church's money may benefit an insider beyond reasonable pay for real work.
No substantial lobbying.
No campaign intervention. The church may not endorse or oppose candidates. This rule (the "Johnson Amendment") is still in force; a 2025 lawsuit that would have loosened it for two named churches was dismissed in March 2026 before its settlement took effect.
No illegal purpose, and no purpose contrary to established public policy.

A church that ignores these because it is "a 508 church" is simply a church violating 501(c)(3), and it will be treated as one.

Why the myth is dangerous, not just wrong

The promoters' documents typically include language declaring the organization outside the tax code, outside 501(c)(3), or immune from various laws. Written into a church's founding documents, that language does two things. It fails, because no court has ever accepted it. And it documents an unlawful purpose, which under Bob Jones University v. United States (1983) is itself grounds for denying exemption. The paper sold as protection is evidence for the prosecution.

What we did instead

Spiritual Results is organized as a church described in Sections 170(b)(1)(A)(i), 501(c)(3), and 508(c)(1)(A). Our Constitution says so, adopts the 501(c)(3) limitations in full, and dedicates our property irrevocably to religious purposes. We did not file Form 1023, because we do not have to. We may file it one day for a determination letter, because banks and county assessors keep asking for one. Either way, our exemption rests on being a real church and keeping our house in order, which is the only thing it has ever rested on.