Understanding
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 Internal Revenue Code never defines the word "church." That is deliberate: the government is not supposed to be in the business of deciding what religion looks like. But because churches are treated differently from other organizations, courts and the IRS have had to decide, case by case, what counts.
The fourteen factors
Since 1979 the IRS has used a list of fourteen characteristics as a guide. No single one is required, and no court has treated the list as a checklist, but together they describe what a church has usually looked like:
- A distinct legal existence
- A recognized creed and form of worship
- A definite and distinct ecclesiastical government
- A formal code of doctrine and discipline
- A distinct religious history
- A membership not associated with any other church or denomination
- An organization of ordained ministers
- Ordained ministers selected after completing prescribed courses of study
- A literature of its own
- Established places of worship
- Regular congregations
- Regular religious services
- Sunday schools or other religious instruction of the young
- Schools for the preparation of its ministers
The associational test
The courts have settled on something simpler and more demanding. A church is a body of believers who assemble regularly for worship, and for whom assembling is the principal way they practice their religion. In Foundation of Human Understanding v. United States (2010), a well-known radio and internet ministry with sincere followers and real religious content lost its status as a church because it could not show a regular congregation meeting in regular services. Broadcasting is not gathering.
What this means for us
Spiritual Results is a church because its members gather. Not because of a document, a filing, or a certificate, but because on a published schedule, in a known place, people who share this faith come together to worship, learn, and care for one another. Our Constitution requires it, our Bylaws require the Clerk to record it, and if we ever stopped gathering we would stop being a church whatever our papers said.
Everything else on the list we do on purpose. We have a creed (the Statement of Faith), a government (the Council of Elders), a code of discipline (the Bylaws and Covenant), ministers set apart after study, a literature (this site), and rites. Small does not matter. Real does.