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The resources on this website provide a believer and a church with the information needed to establish a common law or Bible trust. However, most pastors and others do not have the time needed to study, establish, and maintain a proper trust and the church under Christ status of the church once the trust is established. This ministry is here to help those who realize their need for help. The best part is that this ministry is a faith ministry which charges nothing. See Policies, Procedures, and Guidelines of this Churches under Christ Ministry.

If you need help, e-mail or call the ministry. When it is settled that you want help and that this ministry may be able to provide that help, the ministry will send you:

An Initial Mailing which includes:

  1. A Letter
  2. Policies, Procedures, and Guidelines of the Churches Under Christ Ministry 
  3. Questionnaire 1

Once you return the completed Questionnaire 1 , the ministry will give you a call and discuss matters of concern, if any. 

Once the completed Questionnaire 1 is returned to this ministry, we review and set up a time to discuss any questions raised by the Questionnaire.

After the ministry determines that you are ready to go forward from that point, the ministry will mail to you Questionnaire 2. The purpose of that Questionnaire is to determine whether you have a basic understanding of important matters.

If you and the ministry agree that you are ready to proceed with establishing a common law trust, the last step is the drafting and execution of documents. See Documents Which Establish a Church under Christ Alone.

I continue to help you as you execute documents, open a bank account (if you wish to do so), and with other matters.

May the Lord richly bless you and your church family as you seek to glorify him. This ministry is here to help you in carrying out your responsibility to keep the church you are a member of completely under Him according to New Testament Bible principles.

Important things to remember

Even after the execution of documents, you must always remember that you should do nothing without consulting the ministry. For example, two trustees opened trust bank accounts recently without consulting this ministry. They made mistakes which will take some time to correct. Again, even though you may understand the documents which you have executed, you will not understand all the ins and outs of how to proceed from there regarding opening a bank account with either a social security number or an EIN, purchasing property for a meeting house and proper drafting of the deed, obtaining liability insurance on a meeting house bought or leased by the trust (not by the church),  obtaining property tax exemption on that property, etc.

This ministry receives many inquiries from pastors and other believers requesting help with setting up a common law or “Bible” trust relationship with property.

The common law is not a charitable trust, business trust, or other type of legal entity. It is a non-legal entity that implements a Bible concept recognized and honored in American law. When properly implemented and maintained it corresponds with Bible principles. It allows a church who is careful not to act legally in any way to remain a spiritual entity under the Lord Jesus Christ only without persecution.

A church who implements the common law “Bible” trust is not organizing as a trust. She is establishing a fiduciary relationship with property (which includes money) whereby a trustee has a duty to  manage the property held in trust, not for his or the church’s benfit, but for the benefit of the true owner of the property, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Not everyone can apply the concept properly. First, one must know how to establish the trust relationship. Then, the trustee of the trust must know how to apply the concept without misstep as he opens a trust bank account, purchases vehicles to be held by the trust, purchases trust property to be used by the church for a meetinghouse, gets liability insurance on that property, sells trust property, or takes some other action with regard to the trust or trust property.

For His Glory,
Jerald Finney

JERALD C. FINNEY
BAB, HB, BBA, JD
801 Elgin St.
Amarillo, TX 79118
Phone : (512) 785-8445 
E-MAIL: jerald.finney@sbcglobal.net

Churches under Christ Ministry Website: Understanding and Applying God's Principles for Church Headship "Would to God ye could bear with me a little in my folly: and indeed bear with me. For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ" (2 Corinthians 11:1-3). ————————————This Ministry is under the authority of Charity Baptist Tabernacle of Amarillo, Texas. Jerald Finney, a Christian Lawyer and member of Charity Baptist Tabernacle, having received this ministry in the Lord, explains how a church in America can remain under the Lord Jesus Christ and Him only. "As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen" (1 Peter 4:10-11; See also, Ephesians 4::1-16 and 1 Corinthians 12:1-25). "Take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the Lord, that thou fulfil it" (Colossians 4:17). "And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church" (Ephesians 1.22; See also, e.g. Colossians 1:18).

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