Risk Management

James F. Cobble, Jr. and Richard R. Hammar, Risk Management Handbook for Churches and Schools (St. Matthews, North Carolina: Christian Ministry Resources, 2001). This book provides comprehensive guidelines for preventing accidents, protecting the physical property and assets of a Christian organization, and minimizing potential litigation. It covers such matters as the handling of money, defamation, counseling, fire, crime, and vandalism, contracts, sexual misconduct and child abuse, and employment discrimination. It is a real "eye-opener" with many practical and well-considered suggestions, making it a "must read" for Christian organizations operating in the ever-increasingly hyper-litigious Western world.

Critique of Current Evangelical Modus Operandi

For a thought-provoking, stimulating, and convicting assessment of many practices and and procedures (as well as their underlying presuppositons) that are being undertaken within the compass of Conservative Evangelicalism, particuarly those which are observed by the media and the general public, see Power Religion: The Selling out of the Evangelical Church?, ed. Michael Scott Horton (Chicago: Moody Press, 1992). The book contains highly readable and well-written articles by such Evangelical thinkers as Charles Colson, J. I. Packer, R. C. Sproul, and Alister McGrath.

In order to lead a meeting or to advise the leader of a meeting (whether secular or ecclesiastical) properly, the magnum opus source book and authority is Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised. 10th ed. revised. Edited by Sarah Corbin Robert, Henry M. Robert, III, William J. Evans, Daniel H. Honemann, Thomas J. Balch. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books Group, 2000.

For a less technical, but highly accurate, and useful summary of RRO see Nancy Sylvester (a registered and professional parliamentarian). The Complete Idiot's Guide to Robert's Rules. Indianapolis: Alpha Books, 2004.

For more helpful sources on parliamentary procedure see the web site (and the online bookstore) of the National Association of Parliamentarians (http://parliamentarians.org).