Other stuff

Supreme Court agrees religious protections apply to Christian schools

In a huge ruling today, the Supremes agreed that religious schools may hire and fire ministers of the gospel without being subject to court review of their decisions.

Specifically, a terminated employee who is a ‘minister’ role can not sue such an employer for discrimination.

UPDATE:  After reading a few articles, it looks like this was a much more serious case than I thought. By the time the SCOTUS looked at the case, it may have developed into a general attack on all churches who have any pastors.

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Jim Ulvog

How I make corrections and updates to posts

This would be a good time to explain how I make changes on posts. The etiquette in the blogging world seems to be that changes and corrections should be clearly identified.  That’s a great idea.

Here’s my protocol:

The original comments will be left in the post.

Corrections and deletions will be marked through with strikeout.

Update comments will be identified Update: with the word update and italicized comment.

Small updates will be italicized right after a strikeout. For illustration example.

Minor typos will be corrected without a special notation, unless it has significance to the article.

With two different series of posts I’m working on now, I’m making a number of corrections, so thought it worthwhile to mention this.

Jim Ulvog

Myths about church dropouts – research from Barna Group

Barna Group has released new research about young people who drop out of church. Their book is called, You Lost Me: Why Young Christians are Leaving Church…and Rethinking Faith.

They have posted an executive summary of the research on their blog: Five Myths about Young Adult Church Dropouts.

The myths: (more…)

Jim Ulvog

Do the cribs in your church nursery need to be replaced?

Richard Hammar calls attention to new regulations of the Consumer Product Safety Commission affecting cribs in the September/October 2011 edition of Church Law & Tax Report.  The newsletter is not available online so I will not quote it. Since government statistics & regulations aren’t copyrightable, I will summarize a few key pieces of information from the CPSC.

By the way if you are in leadership of a church, I heartily recommend you subscribe to Church Law & Tax Report.  At $69 for six issues a year, it is the most reasonable, pertinent legal information you’ll find.  E-mail contact:  CLTReditor@christianitytoday.com.  On the net at www.ChurchLawandTaxReport.com.

Why are cribs a problem getting government attention?  Here’s the data CPSC collected in a 2 ½ year time span: (more…)

Jim Ulvog

New blog!

Why am I starting a new blog, Outrun Change?  You can find it at www.outrunchange.com.  (Update – the blog name and address have been changed from what was set up at first.  Sorry for the confusion.)

The amount of change taking place today is staggering.  The rate of change is going to increase.  That change is making our knowledge and skills obsolete.  To keep up, we need to be learning and stretching to keep ahead of the radical change taking place around us.

At the Christian Leadership Conference in April 2011, Dr. Richard Swenson said that there will be 1,000 times more change in the next century than in the 20th century.  There was more change in the 20th century than the previous 5,000 years.  That is staggering.

My focus in the new blog will be on: (more…)

Jim Ulvog

Happy birthday to Nonprofit Update

It has been one year since I launched Nonprofit Update. On August 29, 2010 I started this blog to talk about issues affecting the nonprofit community. On October 14, 2010 I started moving topics of more interest to CPAs to a new blog, Attestation Update.

Many thanks to all who have stopped by to read!  This has been fun and I look forward to many more years of blogging.

Here are some stats from the first year for those who are interested in such things.

Number of posts: (more…)

Jim Ulvog

Private sector rocket launches will resupply space station

SpaceX will launch it’s first space shot on a resupply flight to the space station in late November.  NASA gave technical approval to the launch.

Why is this discussion in a blog about nonprofit issues? Three reasons.

First, is a superb illustration of stretching our brains. In the nonprofit sector we need to be intentionally thinking about the future. See my discussions here, here, here, here, here, and here.  Just the idea of private space flights will stretch our brain.

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Jim Ulvog

Refueling the Thunderbirds flight demonstration team as an illustration of how much it takes to get something done

I’m developing a post on the functional allocation issue.  Particularly how expensive it is to conduct ministry in the American cultural context. Part of that discussion will be analogies to the “overhead” it takes the US military to accomplish its mission.

As a lead-in to that idea, consider the following blog post by Jasmine Lee, a photographer who went on a KC-10 flight to refuel some C-17s and the Thunderbird flight demonstration team.

U.S. Air Force Media Flight – Travis Air Force Base… Part I

Some really cool pictures.  A good photographer, decent equipment, flight of F-16s, a tanker to put you 100 feet from said flight, and awe-inspiring skill of the USAF crews combined to produce fabulous photos.

Also an amazing 37 second video of an F-16 sliding into position to draw fuel.

As you look at the pix, consider the amount of effort that is behind the scenes.

(more…)

Jim Ulvog

You can get an Employer Identification Number (EIN) for free, direct from the IRS

A colleague of mine needed an employer identification number for a new entity. Did a Google search and went to the first source listed. Wasn’t until the process was almost done that the website asked for a credit card. At that point my colleague realized there was something wrong and did not pay $150.  My colleague backed out of that place, went to the IRS website and got an EIN for free.

There are websites out there that will charge you for what you can do for free.

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Jim Ulvog

Hints for better e-mail (and maybe staying out of trouble)

Seth Godin reposted his tips on how to make e-mail less painful for recipients, and you. He did this

 in the naive hope that it would eliminate (or perhaps merely reduce) the ridiculous CC-to-all emails about the carpool, the fake-charity forwards, the ALL CAPS yelling and the stupid PR spam.

See his 36 tips here.

My favorite:

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Jim Ulvog

Extension of deadline for California firms whose first Peer Review report is due July 1, 2011

(cross-post from my other blog, Attestation Update)

Extensions available!!!

Just a reminder, California now has mandatory peer review.  First deadline is rapidly approaching for firms whose first peer review is due July 1, 2011.  This would be CPAs whose licenses end in 01 through 33. 

The Cal Society has a memo on their website allowing extensions.

See announcement here.

To get an extension, a firm must: (more…)

Jim Ulvog