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1. YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF THIS AGREEMENT

This is an agreement between you and the New Apostolic Church USA, and governs your use of the Minister Companion website, its content, and any other services provided through the website. Each time you use the Minister Companion website you signify your acceptance and agreement, and the acceptance and agreement of any person you purport to represent (and for purposes of this Agreement, "person" includes any type of incorporated or unincorporated entity), without limitation or qualification, to be bound by this Agreement, and you represent and warrant that you have the legal authority to agree to and accept this Agreement on behalf of yourself and any person you purport to represent. If you do not agree with each provision of this Agreement, or you are not authorized to agree to and accept this Agreement, or you do not have the legal authority to agree to and accept this Agreement, you may not use the Minister Companion website.

2. USE OF SITE. PERSONAL AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE LIMITATION

Unless otherwise specified, the Minister Companion Website is for your personal and noncommercial use. You may display and, subject to any expressly stated restrictions or limitations relating to specific material, electronically copy, download and print hard copy portions of the material from the different areas of the Site solely for your own non-commercial use. Any other use of materials on this Site, including but not limited to the modification, reproduction, distribution, republication, display, posting to another website, or transmission of the content of this Site, without prior written permission of the New Apostolic Church is strictly prohibited. Impersonation of registered users of this Site is prohibited. You may not upload to, distribute, or otherwise publish through the Site any content which is libelous, defamatory, obscene, threatening, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, abusive, illegal, or otherwise objectionable, or which may constitute or encourage a criminal offense, violate the rights of any party or otherwise give rise to liability or violate any law.

3. PERMITTED USERS AND ACCESS

The Minister Companion website may be used only by persons who have reached the age of majority or legal age in their jurisdictions and who can form legally binding contracts under applicable law. The Website may not be used by persons in jurisdictions where access to or use of the Website or any part of it may be illegal or prohibited. It is solely your responsibility to determine whether your use of the Website is lawful, and you must comply with all applicable laws.

4. LOGIN NAMES AND PASSWORDS

Minister Companion website accounts may be accessed only by use of a unique login name and password. The use of a password does not restrict access by NAC-USA to the password-protected information. Login names and passwords may not be shared. For security reasons, you must keep your login name and password confidential and not disclose them to any person or permit any other person to use them, except an authorized NAC-USA representative. Also, passwords must be non-obvious, hard-to-guess, confidential, and changed on a regular basis, and you must log-out at the end of each session. While the website will prevent some obvious passwords, please use care in choosing good passwords. If you have concern and would like further assistance, please email Esta dirección de correo electrónico está siendo protegida contra los robots de spam. Necesita tener JavaScript habilitado para poder verlo..

You are solely responsible and liable for any use and misuse of your login name and password and for all activities that occur under your login name and password. You must ensure that all uses of your login name and password comply with this Agreement.

You must immediately notify NAC-USA of any unauthorized use of your login name or password, or if you know or suspect that your login name or password has been lost or stolen, has become known to any other person, or has been otherwise compromised. Please email Esta dirección de correo electrónico está siendo protegida contra los robots de spam. Necesita tener JavaScript habilitado para poder verlo. to report the incident or receive guidance.

All login names and passwords remain the property of NAC-USA, and may be cancelled or suspended at any time by NAC-USA without any notice or liability to you or any other person. NAC-USA is not under any obligation to verify the actual identity or authority of the user of any login name or password.

You must respond promptly to all email and other correspondence from NAC-USA, including without limitation email and correspondence concerning complaints or concerns regarding your use of your login name or password or your use of the Minister Companion website.

5. LINKS TO OTHER WEBSITES

NAC USA makes no representation whatsoever regarding the content of any other websites which you may access from this site. When you access a non NAC USA website, please understand that it is independent from NAC USA and that NAC USA has no control over the content on that website. A link to a non NAC USA website does not mean that NAC USA endorses or accepts any responsibility for the content or use of such website.

6. INSTRUCTIONS TO OBLIGATION OF CONFIDENTIALITY [Chief Apostle's Instructions, as published by NACI]

Preliminary Remarks

The confidence of our Brothers and Sisters-in-faith in their ministers is the basic condition for the pastoral care. The bearer of a ministry must make every effort to consolidate this confidence and never misuse it. To that end, confidentiality has first priority. From a legal aspect, the obligation of confidentiality proceeds from the right to live one's own life.

Who is subject to obligation of confidentiality and for how long?

In the first place, the ministers, but also all persons in charge of Church matters and pastoral tasks are subject to obligation of confidentiality. It is not limited by time and continues to be effective also after termination of an occupation.

What lies within the scope of obligation of confidentiality?

Church matters:

  • Finances, e.g. congregational offerings
  • Information out of discussions of ministries
  • Confidential information out of Church circulars
  • Information subject to data protection, i.e. person-related data

Pastoral matters:

  • Personal conditions, e.g. marital, family, health or economic affairs
  • Information about conduct, faith condition and faith problems

To whom shall the obligation of confidentiality be exercised?

The obligation of confidentiality must be exercised with regard to everybody.

In which cases is an obligation of confidentiality not effective?

Information subject to obligation of confidentiality may be passed on if an express consent of the concerned is available. Information may be passed on to a higher office bearer without prior consent of the concerned if there exists an imperative requirement for it.

This applies in particular if

  • considerable damage for the Church might occur (e.g. if the conduct, the ministerial behavior, or the performance of the tasks of a minister are in flagrant contradiction to the principles of the Church doctrine; in case of a behavior doing harm to the Church and giving it a bad name),
  • the intention to commit a serious criminal act, or
  • a menacing self-endangering (e.g. the intention of committing suicide, misuse of drugs) becomes known.

In particularly serious cases (e.g. in case of committed crimes) such information shall only be passed on to the Apostle.

Ministers have the right to refusal to give evidence with regard to outsiders (e.g. authorities such as youth welfare office, police, courts). In such cases, the minister shall counsel his District Apostle beforehand.

Practical instructions regarding use of obligation of confidentiality

Obligation of confidentiality means not to discuss confidential - i.e. not public and well-known - matters with third parties and to keep away confidential information from third parties. Within a marriage and family as well as in the circle of the ministers it must be observed that discussions about confidential matters relating to Brothers and Sisters-in-faith are not taking place.

Even experiences of our Brothers and Sisters-in-faith are subject to obligation of confidentiality. It shall not be reported on them publicly, or instances in a divine service, if conclusions regarding the person concerned are possible; the mentioning of names can obviously not be allowed in such cases either.

If Brothers and Sisters-in-faith forbid to pass on any information to superior office bearers, this shall be accepted. We shall continue to take care of such Brothers and Sisters-in-faith without reservation. If ministers feel burdened by such information, they may describe the situation to a higher minister by safeguarding absolute anonymity and ask him for advice.

Should additional questions arise in the practice, information may be obtained from the Apostle.

7. TERMINATION OF THIS AGREEMENT AND THE WEBSITE

If you breach any provision of this Agreement, you may no longer use the Website.

If this Agreement or your permission to use the Minister Companion website is terminated by you or NAC-USA for any reason, this Agreement will nevertheless continue to apply and be binding upon you in respect of your prior use of the Minister Companion website and your purchases of goods and services through the Website and anything connected with, relating to or arising from those matters.

8. OWNERSHIP AND PERMITTED USE OF THE WEBSITE

Minister Companion website and all information (in text, graphical, video and audio forms, images, icons, software, design, applications and other elements available on or through the Website are the property of NAC-USA and are protected by US and international copyright, trade-mark, and other laws . Your use of the Minister Companion website does not transfer to you any ownership or other rights in the Minister Companion website or its content. You may only use the Minister Companion website in the manner described specifically in this Agreement.

The Minister Companion website is made available to you for your lawful use only. You may access and browse the Website using commercially available, SSL-capable Web browser software. You may print or download the pages of the Website for your personal use provided that you do not modify any of the Website pages or other content and you do not remove or alter any visible or non-visible identification, marks, notices, or disclaimers.