ChurchSafety.com provides expert guidance and risk management information on a broad range of safety topics. We’ve compiled the Top 10 most-downloaded resources from ChurchSafety.com during the past year. Find out what other church leaders have read and used to train staff and volunteers and to develop a safe environment for ministry:

10. Confronting Gun Violence at Church

While the number of incidents involving guns at churches remains small, information and preparation are still vital. Begin by assessing the current security of your church. This download gives helpful advice on how to plan for the unexpected, whether or not your church should hire a security guard, and how to deal with the media in the aftermath of violence.

9. Screening Underage Workers

Children are often the most vulnerable members of our congregations, and their presence also presents some of the most serious liability risks. Most churches use minors to assist in various children's or youth programs. Screening these workers will help prevent youth-peer sexual harassment. Institutions can be found guilty of negligence in these cases for not providing security against such abuse. Learn practical steps to properly screen underage workers and access helpful templates for references and interviews.

8. Creating a Safety Team

When crisis arises, are you prepared? Don’t be taken by surprise next time. Learn to respond appropriately to situations ranging from common medical emergencies to crisis involving gunfire. Every church can benefit from forming a safety team that is trained to respond appropriately to various emergencies. This download will discuss the importance of having a team that can handle situations requiring security intervention, medical response, or evacuation.

But before I do, a few observations about our past year:

1. Subject popularity appears diverse: 3 of the Top 10 posts fall under the Law Category, with 2 each under Finance and Safety, and 1 each under Staff and Office (the other post was a general one and didn't fall under one specific category);

2. Our highest traffic day came on February 23, on the heels of our post "Oregon Case Provides a Powerful Reminder to Churches," which reviews the implications of an appeals court's ruling that allowed a pastor's victory in a defamation lawsuit against his former church to stand.

3. The post garnering the most comments was "Where You Work Best," which discusses the pros and cons of worshipping at the church where you also work.

Without further delay, here are TheYourChurchBlog.com's Top 10 posts during its first year:

10. Legally Host a Super Bowl Party: If your church is hosting a Super Bowl party this year, you will need to abide by three simple guidelines to avoid violating copyright law ... read more

9. The Top 7 Resources to Combat Church Embezzlement: Earlier this month, we looked at two recent cases of church embezzlement, and the "zero tolerance" stance judges are starting to take against these crimes. Unfortunately, yet another big headline has since emerged ... read more

8. 10 Questions to Ask About Your Church's Communication: As you approach 2010, consider these 10 questions to discuss your church’s communication efforts ... read more

7. What Will the New Health Care Bill Mean for Churches?: Now that President Obama has signed the health care reform bill into law, many churches are wondering what the impact will be on staffing costs. ... read more

Get ready to tremble with me.

Leadership from both organizations described how he passed extensive criminal background checks. One group performs them periodically and requires annual youth protection training. The suspect worked there for seven years. A senior leader remarked that, unfortunately, no manual exists for them to see exactly what a pedophile looks like.

By now, you likely see the connection between this news story and your ministry. You perform criminal background checks (right?), you conduct child protection training (right?), and the potential still exists for the wrong people to make it into your ministry.

"Recent church assessments, such as Natural Church Development, Church Health Assessment Tool, Transforming Church Index, and REVEAL's Spiritual Life Survey, are very helpful—if your church has the time, money, and motivation to hire a consultant and/or get people to take surveys," Kevin Miller recently wrote in Leadership. "Many pastors, though, need a measure that is free and simple, more complete than weekly attendance but just as easy to determine."

Miller, the former publisher of Your Church who now serves as assistant pastor for a church in Wheaton, Illinois, set out to do just that. Inspired by the story of Virginia Apgar, the anesthesiologist who developed a five-point check for newborns (which is now largely credited with radically reducing infant mortality rates in the United States), Miller developed two different "Apgar" scores that churches can use.

They're free, and provide instant results.

The first, based on Acts 2, can be taken here: http://bit.ly/cTKOB8

The second, based on Revelation 2, also can be taken here: http://bit.ly/cTKOB8

What's your church's Apgar? As church administrators, executive pastors, or pastors, do you find this way of assessing your church's vitality a helpful alternative to the "nickels and noses" (budgets and attendance) approach commonly used?

I’ll admit that I like to pull a Scarlett O’Hara when it comes to the less attractive side of church leadership, like getting the parking lot paved or turning in a budget. “Fiddle dee dee!” I shrug. “I can’t think about that now! I’ll think about that tomorrow…”

I think the business of church can be excruciating. What do you get when you take a room full of over-committed volunteers, mix in some underpaid staff workers, and toss in hundreds (or thousands) of church-goer expectations? How about business leaders who are used to managing corporate dollars combined with under-resourced and over-ambitious “kingdom” plans? Welcome to church business.

Continue reading this post at GiftedForLeadership.com.

I have friends who make sure that they are on top of each time someone is talking about them on the Internet. I'm not so vigilant. I usually run into stuff by accident, and recently there has been some rather strange things popping up. A "heresy hunter" has been trolling my information. He finds it offensive that I am a woman minister, so he writes unflattering portrayals of my work, peppered with name-calling. The site looks legitimate, and the blogger maintains that he is the pastor of a church, but when you try to look up the congregation, it's actually a Chinese restaurant. As a writer, I shrug and think, Any publicity is good publicity. But as a pastor, I'm not so sure. As church leaders, what we do hinges on our reputation.

This experience has made me wonder: what happens if someone on a search committee Googles the name of a candidate who has been attacked by a vicious blogger? How much will that weigh on the committee's decision? We can usually control what sort of information we put on the Internet about ourselves, but we cannot control what people say about us. We also have very little legal recourse in these situations (to dig deeper, see Daniel Solove).

How do we lead religious institutions in the Google generation? There are a few possibilities:

Continue reading "Search Committees and Google," at Off the Agenda, our sister blog. This article originally appeared in Faith & Leadership (reprinted by permission).

Bring out the food, and the fellowship is close behind. Church dinners offer an excellent opportunity to bring the community together. Poor food preparation can spoil a good time, though, so use the following precautions before your next church potluck.

Food Preparation

Look for warning signs. Don't purchase or use canned goods that are damaged or rusted. These signs indicate the food may not be safe regardless of how you prepare it.

Separate quarters. Keep raw seafood, poultry, and meat away from other foods. Use separate cutting boards and make sure any juices are contained.

From time to time, I suspect a staff member is malfunctioning. This hardly constitutes evidence for firing, although it may eventually lead to it. What are the steps to take before that drastic measure is called for?

* Quietly investigate. As soon as I suspect trouble, I put my ear to the ground. I ask questions of secretaries or other staff. I do so quietly and casually, asking, "What's going on with So-and-so? How are his groups doing? Anything new coming on line? What's happening in the department? How many people were in his last class?"

* Meet with staff. If two or three staff members suggest there are problems with the person in question, I call a meeting of the entire staff, not including the person in question. I ask how serious the problem is. Is it worth looking into, or should I just forget about it? That's usually when something comes out.

Parents desire confidence in nursery procedures when they’re visiting churches. One way your church will gain control of a critical piece of the childcare experience is by creating a well-managed check-in and check-out process. You’ll leave parents with a good impression of your church, knowing that their kids are safe.

Make a Good Impression
Set the stage. Parents will make key decisions—including where to attend church—based on the needs of their children. Set the stage for their experience at church with a friendly, but professional greeting process.

I’ve recently thought about the use of interns, which happens frequently today in many churches. I know why: it’s a win-win. The intern gets experience, churches get more hands and (let’s face it) cheap labor, and everybody benefits.

That is, except if we violate some of the most basic tenets of good people management.
In light of some things I’ve observed recently and over the years, here are five ways churches can commit to creating internships that work well for everybody:

1) Commit to mentoring them. When you accept an intern on your staff, don’t just use the person to accomplish a task. An intern is not a traditional employee. Your commitment must include mentoring and coaching. It’s a commitment to a process, not just a project. The goal is to shape this individual into a more effective, productive future employee, not just get something from him or her today. That happens through a relationship, which is what an internship is about.

2) Commit to a specific time period. Unless the intern is stealing, lying, or doing something else worthy of dismissal, stick with the person for the duration of the internship. Don’t let someone go halfway in because they’re not meeting your expectations. Coach the person toward your expectations. If it still doesn’t go well, chalk it up to experience. Refuse to offer a recommendation. But don’t cut the individual loose. That’s desertion, not good management.

Can church employees work at one church and worship at another? Off the Agenda recently explored this question on our sister site, BuildingChurchLeaders.com with mixed feelings. Blogger Tim Avery asked these follow-up questions in response:

• If the church can't meet all of your spiritual and relational needs, do you expect it to meet the needs of others?
• Does your role impede your ability to relate to the community because you are placing too much weight on your responsibilities?
• Can you really fulfill your role well without being fully involved in that community?
• Is your perception of the church as employer something that needs to be fixed or fled from?

While Avery ultimately objects to the idea of having two church homes—one for work, one for growing—there are some church administrative assistants who would advocate for this situation.

1) What connection exists between organizational theory and funding as it relates to churches?

In the for-profit world, money is the measuring stick of success. Increasing the bottom line by growing revenue is the driving factor behind business decisions, and they have developed sophisticated approaches for doing so, such as new products launches, market segmentation, customer retention initiatives, brand loyalty programs, and more. Businesses are also willing to look at strategic, long-term investments for the future, spending money today on something that might not pay off for two or more years.

For the church, financial resources are not the end but a means. The mistake that some churches make is to take a very simplistic approach to money as if it’s a dirty word. For example, we talk about discipleship strategies to move someone from a not-yet-believer to a fully devoted follower of Christ. We assume that their financial giving will grow as they mature, but perhaps we should have more explicit strategies in this regard. Or perhaps we should consider using cash reserves for an “investment” that is likely to bring in new members, people whose giving will “pay back” this investment in future years.

I am not suggesting that a congregation’s decisions should be run through the same financial filter as a business. There will be many decisions with no expectation of financial return, such as a low-income medical clinic or a ministry to college students. I am, however, suggesting that we could grow the resource base that is available for ministry if we learned from the corporate world.

"What we see is cautious optimism on the part of our church members. Donations seem to be trending upwards somewhat. Some of them are still down five to 10 percent compared to a year ago, but there is increasing optimism on the part of churches as we see some positive trends in the giving."

Dan Busby, president, Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, and an Editorial Advisor for Your Church

"The years of prosperity concealed underlying internal issues that are the real reason giving is down at some churches. During the time the economy was good and offerings were increasing, statistics say the offerings were not increasing on a per-giver basis. … They were growing their operating budgets by growing numbers of people. When the lean resource environment sets in, scarcity begins to clarify everything. For some of these churches, it clarifies that they haven't been healthy for a while, and the abundance of money was just covering it up."

Jim Sheppard, CEO, Generis

"Our church will not. In October 2008 there was a tsunami that hit Wall Street, and almost overnight there was crisis. That did not happen to churches. Churches do not experience tsunamis, but they are experiencing rising floodwaters of financial challenges. It isn't like bam, they all got slammed; it's like people aren't giving as much. Some of our people are out of work. There's not any one cataclysmic event, but rising floodwaters of economic difficulties that are more and more affecting churches."

Brian Kluth, founder, Maximum Generosity, and a Contributing Editor to Your Church

Read responses from Crown Financial Ministries' Chuck Bentley, The Financial Seminary's Gary Moore, Barna Group's David Kinnaman, Leadership Network's Chris Willard, LifeWay Research's Scott McConnell, and Generosity Monk's Gary Hoag at the full article here, then tell us what your church anticipates for its 2011 budget.

Only 23 percent of households saw their family’s income increase from the previous 12 months. Meanwhile, as the U.S. economic recession continued, 44 percent saw their income stay the same and 33 percent saw their income go down.

Challenges with income did not necessarily result in higher levels of debt, however. The primary debt obligation for 64 percent of respondents was a home mortgage, according to the survey; only 35 percent of households reported car payments, and 70 percent said they actively pay off their credit cards in full every month.

“It’s a sign that a growing number of people are learning to actively eliminate and avoid debt,” said Brian Kluth with Maximum Generosity.

The View from the Pew results are consistent with ones uncovered earlier this year through the second annual State of the Plate, another constituency survey conducted by Maximum Generosity and Christianity Today International.

Editor's Note: Richard Hammar reviews the 2,500-page health care reform legislation that President Obama signed into law in March 2010 in the feature article of the July/August issue of Church Law & Tax Report. Rich's health care reform analysis also is available for individual purchase in Health Care Reform: How the new laws will affect your church--Feature Report.

H.R. 4872, the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (Reconciliation Act, P.L. 111-152), is a massive overhaul of the U.S. health care system affecting nearly all taxpayers, many employers, and many elements of the health care industry. The Reconciliation Act modifies legislation signed into law on March 23, 2010 that contains the bulk of the health reform law, H.R. 3590, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Health Care Act, P.L. 111-148).

The federal health care reform law and other recent tax acts will have a substantial impact on churches and ministries. Here are the main issues you may wish to consider:

1. Which organizations are subject to the employer mandate to offer "minimum essential coverage" under a health plan? Only an "applicable large employer" (employing an average of at least 50 full-time employees during the preceding calendar year) is subject to the requirement to offer coverage beginning in 2014. Most small organizations, since they have fewer than 50 employees, are thus exempt from the employer requirement.