Weeds in the Garden

It seems that there is not one week that goes by without hearing of another church or ministry being taken advantage of, or participating in fraudulent behavior. Occupational fraud just may be the newest serious threat to the church. Most business administrators are stretched for time as it is and cannot squeeze one more thing into their tightly packed schedules. Also, because the task is so immense, and the ways a church can be abused are so varied, most business administrators would not even know where to begin, even if they had the time; fraud protection is complicated. The purpose of this short book is to help break this logjam created by common reasons for not taking anti-fraud steps. As you make your way through its pages, please keep three things in mind. First, it was my intention to keep the book short. Creating a huge manual might scare off time-starved administrators. Second, the book can be the starting point of a church's fraud prevention measures; the basis on which to perform a fraud risk assessment. Third, it is organized in such a way as to take some of the complications out of the process. After two chapters which define and describe fraud, come ten chapters, each represented by a question every church should ask of itself. Each question represents an important aspect in fraud prevention. It is our hope that this book can serve as a guide to help churches prepare for to prevent fraud in their congregations.