The 10 Legal Commandments
- Honor Christ by following his example of attraction over compulsion. "Evangelize and when you must, use words"
Legal Principle: You do not have freedom to practice your religion at work. Your right is to be free of religious discrimination, and in rare instances, to be accomodated in your work schedule because of religious requirements. Your duty to your employer includes the duty not to discriminate against or harass other employees because they do not share your religious beliefs. In regard, the standard is not what you believe to be harassment, but what a reasonable person in the position of the other employee would consider harassment. That is, your intention is not the test, but the perception of the other person.
- Honor Christ by honoring your employer's work schedule and devote yourself to that schedule exclusively during work hours. (Honor your employer's time).
Legal Principle: Your employment implicity requires you to give your best efforts and your exclusive attention to your employer's interest during work hours. In effect, your employer has bought your time and energy for its exclusive use during the hours you are paid. (Of course, your attitude and behavior while during work can be one of the excellent worship and active prayer.)
- Let your "yes" be "yes" and your "no" be "no", that is, honor people's boundaries if the decline an invitation to join you Saddleback Workplace small group.
Legal Principle: Repeated solicitations in the face of consistent refusals will eventually become "harassment" and will likely draw a complaint of discrimination.
- Honor your Employer's "No", and do not threaten or attack your employer if your request for a Saddleback Workplace small group time/place is restricted or denied.
Legal Principle: The employer is permitted by law to deny employees the use of its premise for anything other than work related activities. If the employer does make the premise or work time available for religious meetings or purposes, it must do so indiscriminately, allowing persons of other persuasions to meet on equal terms and with equal opportunity. Therefore, an employer is entitled to decline a meeting opportunity proposal, or to set limits on such meeting opportunities if granted.
- Examine the plank in your own eye before attempting to remove the speck in your co-worker's eye. Avoid using scripture as a club to bater homosexuals, advocates of "same sex" marriage, "household" partners, athiests, Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, new age cultists, Buddhists, Hindus, and Islamists.
Legal Principle: "In your face" efforts to convert resistant or indifferent people at work are not just offensive, but will expose the employers to charges of discrimination if the employer does not intervene to stop the behavior. Using scripture to point out how people are "living in sin" will also be viewed as offensive and possible harrassing in violation of law.
- Be in the workplace, but not of the workplace. The Employer is to disclaim that the Saddleback Workplace small group is mandated, expected, or even necessarily represents the Employer's view.
Legal Principle: To avoid charges of dicrimination, the employer must be nuetral and impartial toward all employees, including those who disagree with Christian doctrine and practice. Avoid any suggestion to anyone that work
conditions will be easier or better for persons attending your small group.
- In all things, including a Saddleback Workplace small group, strive for harmony with all people of all religions or non-religious views, insofar as it is possible for you and do not exclude non-believers from your Saddleblack Workplace small group, or seek to silence them if they express non-Christian or anti-Christian views.
Legal Principle: Your small group is not a church in the sense that it can define its membership and select its participants according to membership criteria. Any employee should be permitter to participate, or choose not to participate, as he or she may decide, in order to avoid charges of discrimination.
- Do not form cliques or demonstrate preferences to the exclusion of non-believers during regular work hours, especially if you are a supervisor or manager.
Legal Principle: Although it may be nuetral to be more helpful to people we like or know better, a manager who spends more time training, visiting, assisting, socializing, or complimenting people in her "small group" risks being perceived as favoring those persons because of their religion.
- Do not press for special indulgences to pursue religious purposes unless there is no other possible way to practice a doctrinally mandated religious practice.
Legal Principle: Court decisions have given employers broad discretion to deny requests for time off to pursue religious objectives. The test is whether the accomodation produces "undue hardship" ont he employer's business operations to allow a person off to attend religious worship services. Almost any inconvenience in scheduling will be deemed "undue hardship". Therefore, do not demand adjustments in your employer's work scheduling to allow your small group to meet.
- Do not "steal" your employer's time or resources for Saddleback Workplace small group purposes.
Legal Principle: An employer's "assets" include virtually everything within its work premises or electronic networl. Your work time is an "asset", as are the computers, software, internet, email, telephone system, storage systems, network, photocopy machines, and intangibles such as product and service information not generally known to the public. You cannot use these assets for your personal purposes, including the purpose of religious meetings at work, without the employer's express consent, That means you are not you use your employer's email or time to distribute notices of the next meeting. You are not to use the company's photocopy machine or paper to reproduce information to be used by your "small group". You are not to use your company's word processor to draft an outline of meeting topics for the "small group". You certainly are not to use your company's storage system (including laptop) to download or store materials you intend to use in your "small group". You are not to research a topic for your small group on the company's internet , even after hours.
These are only some examples. In sum, the definition of your employer's "property" is much broader than you probably thought, and using that property without consent is a form of "misuse" that could result in discipline