Intentionally provocative Alban founder and former president Loren Meads dynamic work sets out dramatic and compelling challenges for todays churches. Mead chose the word meltdowna strong term indeedvery carefully and consciously. His clarion call urges congregations to direct attention to their dwindling financial resources and their unreliable fiscal practices and to take major action nowor face disaster in the future. Mead addresses changing church giving patterns the inconsistent ways congregations keep financial records the lack of coordinated short and longrange planning the need for knowledge of sound financial techniques such as accounting for inflation an overreliance on restructuring to fix problems and lack of defensive planning for operational costs.