Professional Resources Books

Good service, book in excellent condition. Received in a timely mannner. Thanks.

I bought this book expecting to get a couple new ideas...boy was I surp rised. I got dozens of new tips that I'd never seen anywhere else. This guy knows his stuff related to flip charts!I'd highly recommend it to new and seasoned trainers and presenters.

As an instructor I look for many products that will assist myself and participants of my train-the-trainer workshops. Although I've purchased and used other flip chart reference information, I found the BIG BOOK of FLIP CHARTS to me informative, well illustrated and to the point. I puchased 5 copies and would recommend it to anyone in the training field that uses flip charts. The cover was also very colorful and gave great insight on what was inside.

Don't even consider any other flip chart book, they don't come close. This one has it all.. designing flip charts, arranging them, writing them, making them visually interesting. Tons of useful and helpful information.

This book, together with Picture's Worth 1,000 Words: A Workbook for Visual Communications by Jean Westcott and Jennifer Hammond Landau are all you need to become an effective visual communicator, even if you can't draw anything! If you think you're just not good with flip charts, buy these two and prepare to amaze yourself with the transformation!

Perhaps I didn't get this correctly but this book didn't really live up to my expectations.

I did learn some stuff from it and have used some of it since, but I actually expected a little more from it.

Possibly I was expecting a little too much. If you are after something that will tell you some of the basics of working with flip charts, designs of flip charts and a little bit about the type of hardware then this is a good one.

If you are after something that will help you to create dynamic sessions, push the limits of visual aids, and drive people into more thoughtful training sessions then this book is only partly useful.

Extraordinary results. Who among us, as consultants or coaches, doesn't want our clients to achieve extraordinary results? I sure do. That's my first reason to have purchased this book. The second has to do with finding myself fielding quite reasonable and curious questions about coaching from those who are seeking extraordinary results. Coached to Lead is a book that offers practical tips to coaches, clients and potential clients. Take a look at these questions to see if they sound familiar to you.

" How can a coach help me obtain business results?
" What exactly can a coach do for me?
" If I did hire a coach, how would I go about finding the right one for me?
" What really goes on in a coaching relationship anyway?
" How much does it cost, how long will it last, and will the results last?
If you too want to see extraordinary results and have ever wondered how best to answer such questions, you'll appreciate the solid ground Dr. Susan Battley provides to her audience. Drawing from her rich experience with leaders over the past twenty years, across a vast array of businesses in as many sectors, she provides the first consumer's guide to executive coaching.

Battley framed Coached to Lead on two guiding beliefs: 1) Executive coaching has staying power as a value-added service and, 2) Not only is executive coaching not going away, she predicts that the demand for quality coaching will increase in the coming years due to the 'plug and play' needs of managers today.. She anticipates that the latter will become more obvious as those industries traditionally less engaged in leadership development face the need to adapt quickly in the arena of interpersonal skills in order to perform in an increasingly competitive and global marketplace.

This engaging eleven-chapter, evidence-based guide takes the reader through a series of questions within each chapter designed to educate and provide a structure from which to reap the benefits of executive coaching, all the while avoiding costly mistakes. The reader can select various sections as urgency dictates or read the entire text, complete with usable forms, to guide the process and stay on task.

In the first chapter, Battley sets about dispelling the Ten Myths About Executive Coaching. For example, in Myth #1, "The Myth of the Individual" or 'Successful people don't need coaches,' she reminds us that peak performers in sports, the arts, and business all use coaches to enhance their already sterling performance. She cites a 2001 study by the Manchester Consulting that those receiving coaching exhibited an ROI of 5.7 times the initial investment or more than $100,000. Her Myth Buster: Professionals have coaches; amateurs do not.

Having dispelled the ten myths and leveled the ground in Chapter 1, in Chapter 2 she guides the saavy reader through a process of determining if Executive Coaching is Right for You by asking ten questions focused on one's awareness and commitment level to learning and producing business results.

Chapter 3, How to Pick Your Perfect Coach, outlines six steps to selection that focus on self-awareness in terms of goals and outcomes from coaching. The result? A personal profile for finding a compatible, or 'perfect,' coach for the reader. She highlights the characteristics of a great coach which includes experienced-based knowledge, education, ethics, and character and competency in coaching. Once chosen, chapter 4 centers on the rules of engagement for coaching, including sample agreements, and highlights the distinctions of private-pay vs. employer-funded coaching initiatives.

In chapter 5, Battley highlights the bedrock of this text, her Five Step Coaching Model, a broad brush approach with its focus on goals, assessment, an actionable plan and review, yet easy to customize. She further explicates each step of the model in Chapters 6-9. It is a written Powerhouse Action Plan, distinct from a standard coaching plan. It confronts obstacles and barriers providing the supercharged energy of this model to shift behavior and enhance performance. With Powerhouse Action Plan in hand, the coach becomes a catalyst to the client for personal growth in what she calls the ''knowing-doing' cycle of reflection and action and back again. This process creates momentum as goals are completed and reviewed in detail for level of satisfaction, learning, business results and return on investment as one is 'Coached to Lead.'

Chapters 10-11 provide a troubleshooting guide to addressing 'sticky' coaching situations and dealing with the concerns of third party sponsors of coaching initiatives.

Who among us wants extraordinary results for our clients? If you answered, 'I do,' this is a must read for you and all executive or leadership coaches, and for potential clients who want to face their own learning and performance head on. This practical, forthright read not only levels the ground, but elevates the ground of executive coaching to peak performance.

I want to let you know that I think you have published one of the best books written on educating the executive as to what to expect when hiring an executive coach. Your book is packed full of practical and very grounded information to help inform the executive on what to expect from a seasoned coach as well as a template for the experienced coach on how to stay on track and deliver extraordinary service.

If you ever considered hiring an executive coach, but wondered what to expect from the experience, wonder no more. Author Susan Battley has written a tightly focused book that will answer all your questions about this helpful executive perk. Her advice will enable you to determine whether you would benefit from coaching, how it might help you improve, what coaches do, how to select one and how much they charge. Battley writes clearly and provides useful examples from her own experience. However, the book would have gotten off to a faster start if she had begun by discussing what coaches do, rather than offering an overly detailed discussion of how to determine whether you can use coaching. We recommend this book to executives who want to learn how to take advantage of professional advice to develop their leadership capabilities quickly.

This book is unique compared to most other books on coaching in that Dr. Battley has written it for the coachee rather than the coach. I am a leadership coach and have been coached by others. Because it is an excellent reference for the coachee, it also becomes a valuable source for the coach.

I was impressed particularly with the straightforward Five Step Coaching Model. There is no "psycho-babble", or "new age" process here, just a sensible approach to getting the most out of your coaching experience. Persons contemplating a coaching relationship would do well to compare their coach's proposed approach to the basic components of the Five Step model.

The book also contains excellent reference material including sample coaching agreements, coach evaluations and excellent anecdotal examples.

This is the book I wished I had when my company assigned me an executive coach three years ago. Don't get me wrong, that was a good experience, but it could have been a GREAT experience if I'd known more about what to expect.
I recommend this book to first-timers to coaching, and to anyone who is footing the bill for some else's coaching at work. It's an easy read and not full of HR-speak.

This book is very helpful, with many options for group activities for different levels of groups.

Find Me: How Psychic Detectives from Around the World Have Banded Together to Find Missing People - Co-author of Find Me

This book had great exercises for new students, partners etc. I enjoyed using some of techniques in my classes.

Most of the exercises seem to be designed for adolescent groups. It would have been nice to know that before purchasing. However, many are adaptable to adult groups, and are quite useful.

I bought this book for use with adolescent groups. I am a licensed clinical social worker will years of experience running groups with this population. I find that this book encompasses some exercises that I already had from other books. I also found some of the suggested topics to be thin on content. Overall, I think that this book is more appropriate for use by paraprofessional staff, or those with limited experience running groups.

Just bought this book to use in groups and loaned it to a colleague of mine before I read it. He said that it was wonderful and that I should go ahead and find the time to read it. He was right, this book is going to be enormously useful to me.

This Uber Xena story is full of lively characters that jump right off the page. You won't be able to put this novel down.

I don't normally write reviews, but this text warrants praise. Not only was it a pleasure to read, but the arguments and background studies substantiating the arguments were well-referenced. The authors have done their homework. I would seriously recommend anyone affiliated with salary and benefits options and proposals to take the time to reacquaint themselves with the text and re-examine company compensation options. To the authors: Thank you for your efforts. Good work.

Milkovich and Newman's text is sets the standard for Compensation and Human Resources texts,period. From its strategic decisions framework it clearly illustrates that compensation policy can be a key to unlocking an organization's capabilities (and the ever elusive sustainable competitive advantage).

The strength of the book is that it extracts and builds on key research findings in a way that advances the body of compensation knowledge (in a way pleasing to academics) and is relevant to practitioners. Chapter 2 on Strategic Perspectives and Chapters 9 & 10 on Pay for Performance best exemplify the confluence of research relevance and tactical usefulness.

It is absolutely a must read for anyone who is a student of organizations or who attempts to manage one (not just compensation managers).

"Compensation" provides clear direction in understanding management and implementation of compensation strategies for Human Resources. It provides a good overview intoducing the reader to terminology and frameworks that assist in designing a plan, compliance with laws and regulations and integrating your plan with the business's goals. It was very helpful in providing a framework to write my papers and complete my MBA.

This is one of the worst books I have ever bought. I had to buy it for a college course and I am furious that my teacher used this one. It is totally unprofessional and too general. Not only myself but others have complained about the boringness and also but find it completely useless.
It reads like a high school essay project with unnecessary sarcasims, endless repetition and examples that are really very weak and inept in the explanations.
If you are seriously considering pursuing an interest in compensation and benefits, do not use this book.
Teachers: don't put any other students through the aggrivation and insult. We are professionals looking to advance our careers not waste what little time we already don't have.
It infuriates me that I had to pay so much for a book that isn't worth $13.00 never mind $103.00

By thinking of Rainmakers as separate from the organization, the firm severely limits its potential and actual benefits from the rainmaker's efforts. This book is valuable for training potential rainmakers, but probably more useful in helping the firm to understand what the rainmaker is doing, why and how they can help. By focusing the energy of the firm on rainmaking, a much more powerful force will be generated to serve existing clients and encourage new business. This book provides a good basis for creating this new synergy for the firm.

I am the author of the book Futures For Small Speculators and Single Stock Futures For Small Speculators as well as the president of Liverpoolgroup.com.

Our focus is in the futures, commodities, and option business. We trade oil, cattle, gold, currency etc. And each one of our employees is an "independent" contractor. The problem with that is the fact that often times this very independent entrepreneurial group has a hard time working together to develop client relationships.

Everyone is competing against everyone else. There is little to no synergy or teamwork.

This book showed me MANY examples of how to guide and direct the individuals of the group to be more cooperative with one another and how to help them make more money. I was astonished that I was doing somethings right, but the things that I was doing right were being negated by the actions I was doing wrong. Over and over again Mr.Harding says that rainmakers get in their own way when it comes to training other potential rainmakers and he is right! If I had not read this book I would have lost some valuable members of my team due defection.

This is a great book and was a joy to read. One reading is not enough. This book must be read three to four times with a highlighter and a notepad- so you can write down the numerous ideas that will occur to you as you read the book. Then keep this book as a reference that you can go back to time and time again.

I am a consultant in a company which does not have an organised rainmaker system (yet). As such, much of what I read in this book was new to me and I have discussed its contents with my boss. I think that this book will help us to improve our business. It is full of insightful ideas.

I used this book in the planning of a training program for business development activities at the engineering/surveying firm, Psomas and Associates. We needed a training program for every level of staff from principals to marketing support staff. This book was amazing! It made the job sooooooo much easier! The information in this book was nothing short of inspiring and the success we are having in the program is testimony to the quality of the ideas and programs described in the book. I recommend it very, very highly!

Of all the books available on business development in the professions, this is the best of the best. Concise, practical yet never simplistic, Ford Harding hits the strategic issues of business development, then ties the issues to solid implementable actions. As an advisor to CPA and law firms, I consider this book to be the "course textbook" for learning the subject matter quickly. Professionals don't have time for volumes of thick how-to manuals. Give it to them straight and quickly. This book does that. Every page unlocks another important concept in business development. When finished the reader not only knows the subject, but knows what to do next. Instead of throwing the book in a cabinet, it should be kept in a handy place, and as the professional becomes more experienced, it can take him/her to the next level of understanding, and to the highest reaches of successful rainmaking. A must read for any professional who wants to grow their practice.

One of the most diffult tasks for sales managers is screening sales talent. This book creates a replicable framework so sales managers can hire the right salespeople for their company. There are so many things to consider in the screening process and Joe hits them all!

Joe also reminds us that recruiting sales talent is much like a sales process. A dry candidate pipeline is just like a dry sales one. Listen to Joe as he tells you how to fill the pipeline with the right candidates.

Lee Salz is the author of Soar Despite Your Dodo Sales Manager

Hiring great sales people is tough because almost every sales role in every company requires a different mix of experience, skills and personality traits. On top of that, too many people pose as sales professionals and misrepresent the truth about themselves. It would take a series of books to effectively demystify this topic and the average hiring manager is not a professional interviewer so this is a useful summary of the aspects to consider when hunting for the right person and qualifying that they are in fact what you need. The book`s authors also have real experience and a take no prisoners attitude- I expect it would be fun to work with them.

Even though this book is written for management hiring salespeople, I find this book offers great tips for sales job interview. After reading this book, I learn how to outperform on my sales job interview. I highly recommend reading this book before a sales job interview.

In today's fast-paced, brutal business world any small company faces threats by major corporations and larger businesses. Salespeople are the key to help keeping the company alive and active. But you not only just need salespeople, you need GREAT salespeople! This book helps the reader (and the small business owner) to choose wisely in their sales candidates. I found this book to be extremely informative and highly valuable to learning how a small business owner (like myself) can weed out all the bad sales candidates and to only settle for the very best. It is a must read for small business owners!

Miller is really great at explainning the method for narrowing down and using some good tactics to hire the right slaes person for your company. HIs easy to read style keeps you entertained and the chapters are broken down step by step. More than anything I enjoyed learning about the various types of salespeople and how each can bring good results depending on their personality and environment.


Really, a must get for any business owner who wishes to keep the most important department of this business alive and thriving. The key to any business is sales and you shoudl invest in either improving it or building it fromt the ground up again. This book will help you.

I purchased this book at a book sale for $1 and it was well worth it. I like the style of Gribbin's writing. He basically took some heavy material and wrote it in laymen's terms, so that anyone can read it. Some of the physics is terribly out of date, the cosmological constant and the fate of the universe are the two biggest that come to mind. But I think that the book was published in the early nineties so that is forgivable.

I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone interested in these topics, it was a fun physics read.

But there's nothing wrong with history, is there? Most of the book covers the mathematical and physical explorations of thinkers from the Greek age through the 20th century, but only conceptually--not mathematically. For those who want an introduction to the myriad theories of how the universe was created, how it might be destroyed, and why there may be an infinite quantity of universes in existence, this is a good book to pick up. But for those of a more math-oriented disposition looking for something with immense detail and depth, you may want to look elsehwere. This one covers the basics, and covers them well.

I don't know how many books have been written on the subject of black holes, but this is a great one to start with. Gribbin is a great writer--he has an excellent command of writing science in a clear way that makes you want to keep reading to see what he'll say next. I found the abstract descriptions of spacetime in the later chapters a little hard to read, but otherwise I highly recommend the book.

***

Another good book on black holes is Kip S. Thorne, "Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy," but that one is much denser (no pun intended) and somewhat more technical.

This book really got my mind thinking of the possibilities of the future. It showed the evolution of thinking. Things that are possible now that only visionaries saw in the past.

the break down of Black Holes, White Holes, Wormholes, Space Time, Hyperspace and the ideas of warping time and space are truly interesting. The book illustrations helped to understand some of the text. This book also showed how Einstein was a generation ahead of his time. People are still proving and using his theories.

An excellent book, highly recommended for anyone interested in the universe or the posibility of time travel. The mathematical theories that prove the possibility of a time machine are interesting also. Give this a read, and decide for yourself. Is it possible? Will it be possible? Has it already been done? Fact based information is presented with no tilt toward the science fiction. A good read, even if I had to read some of it a second time to make sure I followed, Gribbin brought these theories to a level a person of average intelligence can understand as I am far from a genious.

As usual, John Gribbin tackles a complex subject in an easy-to-read style. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about this subject. =)

This is a great book! It reinforces the disciplines of study and organization! I have recommended this book to many people and have given it to fellow preachers as a gift.

If I were pastoring a church, I would definitely use the principles found in this book to improve my pulpit ministry!

I thoroughly enjoyed the format in which it was written, any one of us in full-time ministry can identify with any one portion of the emotions and experiences that the lead character went through during the "dry spell" in his life!

This is a great book! It reinforces the disciplines of study and organization! I have recommended this book to many people and have given it to fellow preachers as a gift.

If I were pastoring a church, I would definitely use the principles found in this book to improve my pulpit ministry!

I thoroughly enjoyed the format in which it was written, any one of us in full-time ministry can identify with any one portion of the emotions and experiences that the lead character went through during the "dry spell" in his life!

I am a Pastoral Intern for the summer and when the Pastor I am serving under gave me this book to read, I thought to myself, "great another book on preaching, as if I haven't read enough of these in 3 years on Homiletics." But I started reading it and I was enthrolled in it. I read it in three days, the fastest I have read a book in a long time, I just couldn't put it down. I read thru it and it reminded me of some things I had learned, some things I wish I would have learned and helped me explain some things I was suppose to learn in Hom Class.
Great book I would recommend it and think it would be applicable, whether yoy have been preaching 1 month or 50 years

God Bless,
Paul

Philemon 25

This book will change the way you preach and communicate. It is clear, well written, and effective. I read it once a year to brush up on some of the principles. At the same time, the novel story format leave a little to be desired. It doesn't detract anything from the principles but it isn't everyone's cup of tea.

I first read this book in Seminary which was almost 5 years ago. The truths presented in this book, if followed, will raise up a new generation of preachers that God will use powerfully. In a story format the author writes almost humorously the story of one defeated pastor's journey in discovering the importance of early preparation for sermon writing. I am still trying to follow the guidelines from this book. I haven't completely succeeded but am on my way!

I don't manage money for "outsiders", but I have a lot of paperwork to deal with just taking care of what I do for my "house accounts", and this book has given me great suggestions on how to minimize the paperwork while making it possible for me to actually find the receipts, contracts, account statements, and the like. It's a marvelous fount of information for the consumer of financial advice as well as for those who spend their day dispensing advice.

Dave Drucker and Joel Bruckenstein wrote a superb practical guide on running and growing a virtual office for financial planning practices. If you ever wondered about how to have more time for your family or personal life pursuits, asked how you could serve your clients better, or add increasingly higher profits in declining or flat markets, this practical guide, written by practicing financial advisors can do more for you than any professional designation after your name. For example, the ability of a virtual assistant a 1000 miles away to annote and populate a scanned document such as a brokerage application with only client specific information, obtain signatures, electronically copy and deliver forms to a brokerage within a few days saves financial planners like me time, money and frustration in dealing with paper document management. With the SEC stamp of approval, there is simply no better way to track and manage docuements. It is like moving from the automobile to the airplane. Leave the traffic jams behind and take your practice to a whole new level with this must-read guidebook.

This book is an excellent resource for anyone starting up a financial planning office or seeking to make an existing office run more smoothly and efficiently. A survey of current systems, processes and technology to save a planner time and money. Dave and Joel know what they're talking about.

Are you stuck in the rut of working more and enjoying it less? Have you found your profits dropping while overhead skyrockets? Looking for a way to live your life the way you want to live? If so, buy this book today. In today's difficult investment climate many of us financial advisors have been trapped into doing more service duties, administrative functions and are making less. The authors are living our dream of enjoying the lifestyle we deserve. They show and demonstrate step-by-step complete with specific recommendations of software, hardware and technologies to improve your practice and help you make more money. This well written and extremely interesting book will give you hope and vision to make changes in your practice to enhance your quality of life. I bought this book because I am planning to spend more time in my condo in Colorado and needed ideas on how to do it. The authors delivered exactly what I need to know. As an extra bonus, Joel has been terrific about responding to my questions and emails. Thanks gentlemen; when's the next book coming out?

While I'm sure this book was great when it came out over 5-years ago. Now the book is very out of date and not very usefull. David Drucker should pull this book from the shelfs and give it a major update.

Elders in Congregational Life is a must read for any pastor or concerned lay person who is in a protestant church thinking about church government. Newton does a superb job of laying out the biblical position for a plurality of elders and then he gives practical insight into how one goes about the process! This is pure gold for a young pastor at an established church, or a more seasoned minister thinking through what the bible says about church polity. Buy multiple copies and give them away to people in your church!

An important look at the Biblical model of a plurility of elders within the contest of a congregational government. Often missed and seldom faithfully followed today. Complete with some practical how-to suggestions. Highly recommended.

Mr.Newton offers a scholarly defence of the agrgument for plurality of eldership in the church.His arguments are backed by strong Boblical cross references and historical as well as pragmatic evidence.

Mark Dever is a man of passion for the truth of Scripture. His book 9 MARKS OF A HEALTHY CHURCH is well worth reading for every disciple of Jesus. His website www.9marks.org is a great resource for churches that desire to be Spirit-led instead of market-driven as many churches in the United States are today. This book will aid in that search as well.

The book explores what the Bible says about leadership in the book of Acts and the New Testament epistles. Dever shows how the early church was elder led rather than the Western model of one single pastor (Senior Pastor, Lead Pastor, etc.) leading the Church. Dever shows how this model best fits into Scripture and further will better serve the Church and help safeguard the Church from becoming a one-man show.

The positives of this book are that Dever is passionate that every teaching be based on the Word of God (1 Timothy 4:16; Titus 2:1). He rightly believes that the Bible must guide us into how God wants His Church to be set up. He further stays true to the Bible in regard to the role of elders (1 Timothy 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-9). He correctly shows that the Apostles established the churches around the Lordship of Jesus as the Head of the Church (Colossians 1:15-20) and that the elders were to be simply one of the brethren and not over the brethren (1 Peter 5:1-5).

The only negative I have of the book is that while the book focused on the biblical role of elders, it failed to show that the modern pastorate has no basis in Scripture. Elders were the pastors (Acts 20:28; Eph. 4:11; 1 Peter 5:1-4). There was no division between the two roles that I see in the New Testament. Further, Dever should have built a strong case that the modern pastorate robs God of His glory with its titles and positions of power rather than biblical leadership that reflects servanthood and humility like our King (Matthew 20:20-28; John 13:1-17; Philippians 2:1-11).

Overall this is a solid book on church leadership and I highly recommend it.

Phil Newton, Pastor of South Woods Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee, has provided the church with an exceptional study on the biblical basis, historical background, and practical outworking of eldership in congregational church settings. Many books have been written on elders in recent years - Alexander Strauch's Biblical Eldership and Gene Getz' Elders and Leaders being among the best - but the unique contribution of Newton's book is its grounding in baptistic church polity. Newton explores the implementation of elders in Baptist churches, not Brethren or Bible churches (the respective denominational backgrounds of Strauch and Getz). For pastors in Baptist churches, this will make Elders in Congregational Life an excellent and especially helpful companion to these other two helpful studies.

Newton divides his book into three parts. Part one, "Why Elders?" begins by answering "Why Baptist Elders Is Not an Oxymoron" (chapter one). The author here explores elder plurality in both American and English Baptist history, with numerous brief quotations from historic Baptist confessions and church leaders. His conclusion is the same as John Piper's whom he quotes: "The least we can say from this historical survey of Baptist Confessions is that it is false to say that the eldership is unbaptistic. On the contrary, the eldership is more baptistic than its absence, and its disappearance is a modern phenomenon that parallels other developments in doctrine that make its disappearance questionable at best."

Chapter two, "Elders in the New Testament", covers ground that will be familiar to students of Scripture, especially those who have read other books on elders. The three biblical terms applied to elders (presbuteros, episkopos, poimen) are discussed in their Scriptural contexts. A case is made for the plurality of elders. And the duties and responsibilities of elders are described under the fourfold list of doctrine, discipline, direction, and distinction in modeling the Christian life.

The third chapter addresses "Character and Congregationalism," giving special emphasis to the biblical qualifications for elders, the need for both elders and deacons, and how a plural eldership should function within a congregational church.

Part two, "Three Key Biblical Texts", is more expository and sermonic in nature with three chapters which deal with Acts 20:17-31 (Chapter Four: "A Model for Our Times), Hebrews 13:17-19 (Chapter Five: "Elders and Congregation in Concert"), and 1 Peter 5:1-1-5 (Chapter Six: "Spiritual Leaders for God's Flock"). The chapters not only teach the biblical basis for eldership, but also apply biblical exhortations to both pastors/elders and congregations. A key paragraph from chapter six, which summarizes well the Baptist/congregational view of eldership presented in this book, reads: "We [the church Newton pastors] differ from our friends in the Presbyterian General Assembly and Bible Churches who put final authority in the hands of the local session of elders or submit to a presbytery outside of the local church. In contract, the final authority on matters of our church life resides in the congregation. But the functioning of a purely congregational system is both unwieldy and lacking biblical support. Instead, the establishment of a body of elders to serve in day-to-day leadership in spiritual matters, serving at the pleasure of the congregation, enables us to maintain both the traditional distinctive of congregational life and the clearly biblical structure of elders" (97).

Part three of the book, "From Theory to Practice," is especially valuable in providing practical and tangible steps for transitioning a more "traditional" church polity to eldership. Chapter seven, "Thinking About Transition to Eldership," begins the discussion with appropriate cautions about transitioning and then spotlights three churches as case studies in which this transition has been made: First Baptist Church of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, under the leadership of Jeff Noblit, Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington D. C., under the leadership of Mark Dever, and Newton's own church in Memphis.

Chapter eight then asks "Can it Be Done?" answering with a resounding yes - and then showing the way. The transitioning process is broken down into three phases: the evaluation phase, the presentation phase, and the implementation phase. Each of these phases is then broken down into smaller steps. During the evaluation phase, the pastor must assess (the current leadership and polity of the church), study (the Scriptures - with a leadership group), probe (give members of this team assignments, don't just spoon-feed), and summarize (the group's conclusions for the whole church). Then comes the presentation phase, which will involve exposition (of Scripture to the entire congregation, with careful and patient teaching on the biblical basis for eldership), discussion (with the members of the congregation, giving them ample opportunity to both comprehend and buy into the vision for change), and heavy emphasis on qualifications. Finally, the implementation phase is reached, involving prayer, screening of potential candidates, ordaining elders to service, involving those elders in leadership, and reviewing the biblical teaching on elders on an annual basis.

Finally, chapter nine, "Putting It All Together", addresses the nitty-gritty concerns of how the elders' authority works, what role the "senior pastor" has, the concept of "ruling" elders, the question of church staff members as elders, the relationship between elders and deacons, the conducting of elders' meetings and congregational meetings, and elders' terms of service and dismissal. The final pages of the book acknowledge that some readers will not be persuaded that the view of eldership presented in this book is correct. And a helpful exhortation is joined with that acknowledgement: "Whatever type of leadership structure you embrace, by all means determine to raise the standards for leaders to match the biblical requirements. Failure of leaders to meet those requirements is the greatest deficiency in church leadership!" (153) Adding to the book's usefulness is a foreword by Mark Dever, thorough notes and documentation of the sources used in the book, a two page bibliography for further reading on elders (with numerous links to on-line resources), a Scripture index, and a subject index.

As a pastor who is in the midst of leading a Baptist church through the transition to the kind of Baptistic and congregational eldership as described in this book, I found Newton's book helpful and encouraging. His exegesis of Scripture is solid, and much in line with some of the other resources already available. But especially valuable are his reflections on how to make the transition from a more traditional form to eldership. He is honest enough to acknowledge the challenges he and his own church faced, which give the book a flavor of realism often missing from books on church leadership that present neatly packaged plug-in-and-play models that are much easier to sell than implement. But best of all, Newton's presentation is really nothing more than clear biblical instruction.