COGIC
Civil Legal Aid Services
"If you do away
with the yoke of oppression... and satisfy the needs of the
oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your
night will become like the noonday.... Isaiah
58:9-10
A
FALLEN WORLD
"Cursed is the ground
because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all
the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles
for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By
the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return
to the ground, since from it you were taken' for dust you are
and to dust you will return." Genesis 3:17-19
The Facts: the
African American family's annual median income is about $28,000
or just 60% of the $46,000 annual median family income for whites.
The minority family is not only disproportionately poor but
further disadvantaged by higher incarceration, suicide, death,
disease, divorce, dropout, illiteracy, and teen pregnancy rates,
and lower home ownership, employment, business-ownership, savings,
and investment rates. True, all of humanity is the fallen.
In Michigan alone, there are 1.2 million people at or below
the national poverty level. But on almost every measure
of social health, we of the minority community somehow seem
to have fallen a little further.
THE
KINGDOM EFFECT
"The way of peace
they do not know; there is no justice in their paths.
They have turned them into crooked roads; no one who walks in
them will know peace." Isaiah
59:8
The spiritual effect
of these conditions on the minority community in general and
in particular on the Church of God in Christ are staggering.
Within any one period of just a few months, a single pastor
will counsel church members about unpaid child support, job
firings, unpaid paychecks, bad checks, bad credit, bankruptcy,
child custody, pre-nuptial agreements, divorce, the purchase
of a business, business finance, disability and Social Security,
wills and estates, home foreclosures, traffic tickets, medical
malpractice, landlord disputes, investment scams, involuntary
commitment, motor vehicle accidents, back taxes, licensing,
school expulsions, and a host of other things of this world
rather than of the Kingdom. These matters can have huge
spiritual implications to the church and the individual, and
they often require a pastor's spiritual counseling, but yet
their origin is not in spiritual but in economic, financial,
and legal conditions.
THE
SPIRITUAL CHALLENGE
'For I was hungry
and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave
me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,
I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked
after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me." Matthew 25:35-36.
Yes, the poor will
always be with us. But our spiritual challenge is to follow
a God whose perfect compassion was reflected i the life, death,
and resurrection of his Son. While loving our God, we
must also give adequate attention to those of us who are in
need. Without help, our saints will not only unnecessarily
lose their homes to dishonest financing schemes, their jobs
to discrimination, their pensions to dishonest managers, and
the support of their children to dead beat dads. Not only
will they maintain homes and start and run businesses.
But we, too, by our inattention to our brothers and sisters
in Christ, will lose our souls on Christ's admonition that he
never knew us.
THE
OPPORTUNITY
"Is not this the
kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and
break every yoke?" Isaiah 58:6
The hard data shows
that we are missing a great opportunity. Minority and
low income individuals have little or no real access to civil
justice. There is one lawyer for about every 300 people
in the country -- plenty to go around, so long as you can find
the legal help and then be able to pay for it. But there
is only one civil legal aid lawyer for every 10,000 low
income individuals. Now who is going to get justice: the
one in 300, or the one in 10,000? While vigorously attending
to the spiritual health of our congregations, we often fail
to see and address through effective civil justice the basic
social needs which would allow us to fully participate in the
life of the Spirit.
THE ACTION
"The Lord looked
and was displeased that there was no justice. He saw that
there was no one, he was appalled that there was no one to intervene."
Isaiah 59:15.
Civil justice requires
legal aid -- ready access to a lawyer. Just as when you
are sick you go to a doctor, not a plumber, so too when there
is a justice issue (a home about to be lost, property to be
recovered, a job to be saved) you go to a lawyer. That
we should provide legal aid to our members is right in the Official
Manual of the Church of God in Christ: "A Legal Aid Service
should exist within our churches where parishioners can obtain
legal information about contracts and their legal or civil rights."
This mandate is, unfortunately, largely overlooked. How
many local churches of the Church of God in Christ have a legal
aid service within the church? Very few, we suspect.
Certainly too few, when the need arises.
THE
TIMING
"Who then is the
faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge
of the servants in his household to give them their food at
the proper time? It will be good for that servant whose
master finds him doing so when he returns." Matthew
24:45-46.
But the time is right.
Government and charitable providers of social services have
realized that "faith-based initiatives," meaning the churches,
are the right place through which to provide social services.
Why? Because welfare, whether its food stamps, housing
vouchers, or free legal advice, is not enough when the one to
whom these social services are given is spending the money on
drugs, alcohol, and gambling, is beating the spouse and children,
or is otherwise not responsible, resourceful, and mature enough
to live life right. It only works with the moral, ethical,
spiritual, and social support provided nowhere better than in
the church.
THE
MODEL
"I am sending you
out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as
snakes and as innocent as doves." Matthew 10:16
For every local COGIC
church of suitable size and stability, we should form a non-profit
social services corporation whose board members are members
of the local church and which is physically located within the
church offices, have that non-profit obtain an IRS 501 (c)(3)
determination letter, and then have that non-profit plan and
establish the civil legal aid service and such other social
services as need determines. Now, why not just have the
church directly provide legal aid and other social services,
without forming a non-profit corporation? The answer is
simple: funding. In general, government funds are not
available to the church because of the constitutional separation
of church and state. Even corporate donors and private
community foundations tend not to want to make direct contributions
to a church. Non-profit corporations, even those located
within and controlled by a church, have largely avoided those
funding issues. Donors will require an IRS 501(c)(3) determination
letter to ensure that donations are tax deductible. And
so let us be shrewd in our dealings with the world.
THE
PILOT
"While the harpist
was playing, the hand of the Lord came upon Elisha and he said,
"This is what the Lord says: You will see neither wind nor rain,
yet this valley will be filled with water, and you, your cattle
and your other animals will drink." 2
Kings 3:15-17.
It will work, because
it has already been done. The COGIC Center, Inc. is the
non-profit social services organization established by Holy
Trinity Church of God in Christ in Muskegon, Michigan.
For the past 18 years, the COGIC Center has been providing transportation,
day care, food, clothing, and other social services to the local
community. In 1999 the COGIC Center began offering civil
legal aid services. In five months of operation, the COGIC
Center's civil legal aid service handled 200 individual matters
without any funding, with the volunteer services of a single
lawyer working at the COGIC Center two afternoons per week.
What happened? Four new businesses were received a long
overdue pension. A single mother received back everything
she had paid over two years for a lemon car. Five wills
were made. Three estates were handled. Two families
avoided falling far deeper into debt over bad home refinance
schemes. Three began budget programs that would get them
out of debt. A young woman had her credit restored.
Seven tax returns were prepared. And on and on.
These are the kinds of burdens lawyers are trained to carry
and resolve. It is hard to measure the cumulative positive
effect of these the local community, but ask Holy Trinity's
pastor and COGIC Center president Bishop Nathaniel Wells Jr.
THE
START-UP
"Jonah went out
and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made
himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would
happen to the city. Then the Lord God provided a vine
and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to
ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the vine."
Jonah 4:5-6.
Non-profit corporations
are formed by filling articles with the state and adopting bylaws.
The filing fee for the articles depends on the state.
In Michigan, the fee is $25. The IRS requires a filing
fee with an application for a 501(c)(3) determination letter.
The fee is either $100 or $600 depending on the income the non-profit
corporation expects. Thus required fees are fairly small.
The cost of having a lawyer prepare these papers could be substantial
(anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand dollars), but
the Church of God in Christ can reduce or entirely eliminate
these start up costs except for the filing fees) by providing
a packet containing model articles, bylaws, application forms,
and instructions. The material for these packets has already
been developed and could be mailed to interested churches.
Churches with skilled staff could follow the start-up packet
instructions and complete the packet information without further
assistance. Churches without skilled staff would require
start-up assistance. The Church of God in Christ can sponsor
seminars at annual meetings or other and places to explain start-up
requirements. The Church could also fund and coordinate
on-site assistance for start-up.
THE
STAFFING
"Carry each other's
burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ."
Galatians 6:2.
A civil legal aid service
for a moderate-to-large size local church will need about six
to eight hours of a lawyer's time per week. Once the local
church has formed the non-profit corporation and planned and
established the legal aid service, how does it find a lawyer
to give six to eight hours of service? Some congregations
will have a lawyer in their midst who may be willing to serve.
Beyond that, many bar associations actively encourage lawyers
to provide free service. Many lawyers do so. Lawyers
will recognize the personal and professional benefits of providing
the local county or state bar association, then one should be
hired once funding is obtained. Many lawyers supplement
their fee-based income with contracts to provide service.
A modest annual stipend will be sufficient to hire six to eight
hours per week of a lawyer's time. Grant funding for this
staff cost is available in many states through the state bar
association, but there are many other funding sources including
corporate partnerships and local community foundations.
Grant writing assistance is available. The physical space
within the church for the civil legal aid service need only
be a private office or conference room loaned to the staff attorney
for the required six to eight hours per week. The office
can be used for other uses at other times during the week and
need not be dedicated to the civil legal aid service.
The COGIC Center Legal Aid Service has helped hundreds of people over the past 5 years with free legal advice and consultation once a week at the Center. People in need of legal representation on family matters, employment issues, wills, trusts, and other legal matters has been offered by professional attorney. Other work such as forming LLC's, Non-Profit Organizations and other business needs has been a large part of the service. The COGIC Center continues to strive and be blessed by people who so generously donate their time and effort to make the Total Man Ministry complete.
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