[tired&retired]

The violations affect the church’s Articles of Incorporation which, in turn, affects its 501c, or non-profit, tax status. That's complete BS as churches are automatically 501 c(3) tax exempt without IRS approval. The only way the IRS can challenge the tax exempt status of a church is to prove that they are not a church. The IRS couldn't even do that with Scientology...

[bjorn14]

Not neccesarily, a lot of ELCA churches get their 501(c)(3) stautus throught the larger church body. A lot of individual churches can’t/won’t/don’t spend the time or money to get their own tax status. So if that’s Clear Lake’s case then it could be threatened.