An Introduction to "The Rock and the Hard Place"

This discussion introduces the efforts of two seemingly quite different people to come together and help missions sort out the many issues involved in caring for people and the legal environment.

An Introduction to This Blog on Law, Human Resources, Psychology, Member Care, and the Theology of Missions (from Brent)

“The Rock and the Hard Place” introduces the efforts of two seemingly quite different people to come together and help missions sort out the many issues involved in caring for people and the legal environment.

On the one hand is me, Brent Lindquist, a psychologist, therapist, and president of Link Care Center. On the other hand is Theresa Lynn Sidebotham, an attorney in private practice with her firm, Telios Law.

Our work together began when I responded to an article that she had co-written about some of the legal issues involved in the growing sexual abuse scandal within the Roman Catholic Church and potential impacts on Protestant missions. I thanked her for the article and introduced myself to her. She reminded me that 15 or more years ago our paths had crossed in somewhat different circumstances when she was serving overseas. I remarked to her that I had been praying for an attorney for 10 years who was willing to step out and dialogue with mission organizations about some of the legal issues that they were facing, as well as work with me and interact about the many issues relative to personnel and member care and legal issues. We discovered that 10 years ago, the Lord provided her with a full scholarship to law school. Very interesting how the Lord uses our paths to bring us around to work with people for the greater good!

In this blog Theresa and I will be posting comments about various issues related to the intersection of law, human resources, theology of missions, and caring. In our increasingly complex cultures around the world, there are many opportunities for misunderstandings and conflicts and harm to escalate into extremely difficult and painful personal and legal scenarios. Our purpose here is to try to circumvent or prevent some of those issues from playing out.

We invite you to join in our discussions and enhance the learning of everyone!

A Binocular Perspective: Legal and Psychological Issues, and Building Up the Body (from Theresa)

An attorney and a psychologist — those are going to be different points of view. We hope that those different points of view will give you depth perception, the way two eyes, looking from a slightly different angle, help you see the whole picture.

Brent and I are committed to building up the body of Christ in missions organizations.

The word “telios,” the name of my law firm, means “mature” or “perfect.” In Romans 12:2, we’re told to discern the will of God, “what is good and acceptable and perfect.” The passage goes on to tell us not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, because we are all members of the body of Christ and individually members of one another. In Ephesians ch. 4, “mature” adulthood is defined by speaking the truth in love, to grow up into Christ, which makes the body grow and build up in love.

Attorneys who specifically practice religious law for churches and ministries are not common. I may be almost unique, in that I grew up on the mission field and attended practically every possible type of school and home school. I was a military wife in Panama and the U.S. before my husband Bruce and I served 7 years in Sumatra, where our youngest was born. Shortly after that, our family benefited greatly from six months at Link Care, where I first met Brent. We learned to better love each other and our children (four boys and a variety of special needs).

After I graduated from law school, I spent several years working for judges on the Colorado Court of Appeals and then several years in the religious institutions practice at a large law firm before starting Telios Law this year.

Brent and I plan to enjoy our discussion of different issues in the body, and we hope you’ll join in, to agree, disagree, or bring up new points.

Who Needs Attorneys? I Do! Why Organizations Need Lawyers (from Brent)

I became a leader last century – actually, in the closing decades of the last century! Back then, and earlier, there were already lots of lawsuits amongst Christians and churches, but I was blissfully ignorant. I operated from the assumptions that I just needed to try my best and nothing bad would happen. Be nice! Say you're sorry! All these are great ideas, but in our increasingly complex legal environment, I was woefully ignorant and unprepared.

In my career, I have retained corporate lawyers for personnel policy development and management disciplinary actions, insurance lawyers to make sure my insurance companies did what they promised, rental specialty lawyers to make sure I was a proper landlord with good tenants, professional practice lawyers, and trial lawyers, because I have been to court and through numerous mediations. I have to admit I was extremely embarrassed by what I presumed were egregious mistakes and lapses of judgment. However I discovered from other mission leaders, church leaders, Christian businessmen, etc. that I was not alone. In fact all of us have had to develop a much more realistic appraisal of life and the possibility of legal action against us.

I discovered I needed the wisdom and knowledge of these dear people who became my friends and encouragers. I've learned a lot from them. I've also struggled a lot with their advice, because their advice at times felt very much of an anathema to running a good Christian organization. Or so I thought! Sure there are times that I still get frustrated, but I know that the lessons I learned from the school of hard knocks have made me much more vigilant about doing the right things in the right way at the right times.

Here are three things I discovered in my process:

1. "Ignorance is not bliss, and it is not a defense in legal matters." In today's world, there is simply too much to know yourself about how to protect your people and your organization. Laws change, it seems like daily, and requirements change certainly on an annual basis. To not know of the changes in requirements is no defense in being punished or penalized for noncompliance. We NEED legal resources!
2. "Policies are our friends." In a small organization, it is easy to assume that you can keep everything straight, but memory is not flawless. People work better with structure and knowing what will happen as a result of their actions.
3. "Leader decisions must be balanced between the needs of the individual and the organization." One of the unforeseen consequences of the rise of a counseling-oriented member care function within the mission organization, is the idea that an organization’s default position is to support the individual. Sadly this cannot always be the case. There are many responsibilities that leaders have to the organization that sometimes are or might be in conflict with the needs of a particular individual. We’ll discuss these potential conflicts in later blogs.

I hope you join us in navigating through many of these issues over the future. Thanks for being involved!

_________________________________________

Theresa Lynn Sidebotham, Esq.

Dr. Brent Lindquist

Disclaimer: not official legal or psychological advice or opinion