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

“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!

Theresa Lynn Sidebotham, Esq.

Dr. Brent Lindquist

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Disclaimer: not official legal or psychological advice or opinion