It’s trendy these days for megachurches to provide all sorts of special services for their members. One of the most popular of such services is marriage counseling, which this NY Times article reports placed a Texas church squarely in the crosshairs of a defamation lawsuit when the minister providing the service went and blabbed confidential information about one of the church members to the church elders.
The leaders of the churches providing these services better recognize that such lawsuits are part of the risk of providing such a service and that it is not at all clear that the traditional separation between church and state is going to insulate the church from liability. Pastors who are leading their churches down this course need to ask themselves how their flocks will react when the church must raise money to pay a damages award from such a lawsuit or even just to pay the considerable cost of defending one. That’s not the type of sacrificial atonement that Christ had in mind.
Speaking of risks for megachurches, Victoria Osteen — wife of Lakewood Church’s Joel Osteen — has resolved her little Christmas season snit with the FAA, but that apparently is not the end of the story:

The Federal Aviation Administration has fined Victoria Osteen, wife of Lakewood pastor Joel Osteen, $3,000 after determining she had interfered with a Continental Airlines crew member aboard a flight late last year.
And this week, a flight attendant filed suit claiming she was assaulted by Victoria Osteen during that flight to Vail, Colo., for the Christmas holidays.
Osteen has paid the penalty, which is not an admission of guilt

Mrs. Osteen is well-represented by none other than the ubiquitous Rusty Hardin.