There are a good number of things that should be on our radar as church leaders that simply aren’t in the week-to-week of ministry. Law issues definitely fall in that category for most of us. However, this is an area we have to be proactive in rather than reactive.

For Episode 19, we’re grateful to be sharing a conversation with Steven Goodspeed from The Church Lawyers, a full-service law firm that looks to provide outstanding and practical legal services to churches, ministries, and nonprofits of all sizes. We’ve had the opportunity to get to know them over the past couple years and are so grateful for their heart for local churches.

Steven comes at this topic with such practicality and heart, and I hope it’s a great conversation-starter for many of our teams. It’s definitely worth a listen!

Here are some key takeaways from today’s conversation:

1. In this day and age, you simply have to have robust children’s policies and ongoing training. If the church was a bank, our children’s ministry would be our vault. We have to be extremely intentional about protecting the vulnerable among us.
   
   
2. Culture has changed, plain and simple. The world we live in is so different from when many of us started in ministry. The issues we have to intentionally address are new to a lot of us, but we simply can’t ignore them.
3. Your governing documents are really important. Your articles of incorporation and your bylaws matter a lot when it comes to issues of religious liberty. And for most of us, it’s probably time to revisit those…

Links to Resources Mentioned or Related

• The Church Lawyers

• 95Network Membership

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