By Shawn McMullen
While I enjoy the work our team does with each issue of Christian Standard, I take a special delight in the time and effort we invest in the final issue of the year. Our November/December issue incorporates two of my favorite holidays. The opportunity to focus on Thanksgiving and Christmas at the same time is a true joy.
As you read this issue, you’ll find that we’ve taken great care to focus on three unique events that take place in the months of November and December. As we’ve developed this focus, we’ve taken our major theme, Gratitude, and added three subthemes to support it.
- Missions: An expression of gratitude to God for our salvation.
- Thanksgiving: An expression of gratitude to God for our material and spiritual blessings.
- Christmas: An expression of gratitude to God for Jesus Christ and the hope he brings.
Missions
Our Missions subtheme honors one of the great annual gatherings of Christian Churches and Churches of Christ, the International Conference on Missions (www.theicom.org). For more than three quarters of a century (since 1948) ICOM has been bringing together thousands of faithful disciples who are passionate about global evangelism. If you’ve never attended and happen to live in the Midwest, this year would be the perfect year for you to participate in this great gathering. It will be held November 14-16 at the Central Bank Center and Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky.
We’ve asked James Thompson to help us develop our missions theme by writing, “Selecting and Sending: Best Practices for Raising Up, Sending Out, and Supporting Missionaries.” James contacted several churches that have developed solid processes for their missions ministries and shares their practices with us.
Dan Crum ads his voice of experience to our missions theme in, “Missionary Care: Ministering to Those Who Go.” Based on his personal experience on the mission field and his vocational work in providing care to missionaries around the world, Dan offers helpful guidelines to local churches who want to do more for the missionaries they send.
Forty-four years ago, a young missionary named Doug Priest wrote an article for Christian Standard looking to the future of mission work among Restoration Movement churches. We asked Doug to revisit that article, reflect on his projections, and help us think about the next decades of mission work. His article, “The Future of Missions,” helps us understand where we are today and how we can move effectively into the future of global evangelism.
Thanksgiving
As you might imagine, our second subtheme, focusing on Thanksgiving, encourages us to recognize God’s blessing in our lives and thank him for his goodness and mercy. And who better to help us think through this important topic than Wally Rendel, one of the most highly respected and well-loved preachers among our churches? His article, “Putting the Giving in Thanksgiving,” offers a biblical perspective on the importance of gratitude, how gratitude naturally leads us to generosity, and how that generosity can be expressed in our daily living.
Chris Moon wrote “Novel Generosity: Individuals and Churches Who Creatively Share Their Blessings with Others,” to highlight some of the unique ways churches and para-church ministries display generosity toward others. Our hope is that many local congregations will be encouraged by this article to be creatively generous in their own spheres of influence.
In “Well Received: The Importance of Receiving Well the Generosity and Love of Others,” Jerry Harris reflects on Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well in John 4. Jerry helps us grasp the importance of being good receivers as well as givers, accepting with grace and gratitude the blessings others extend to us.
Christmas
Our Christmas subtheme draws attention to the love and mercy of God in sending his Son to save us. In “The Wonder of the Incarnation,” John Mitchell brings into focus the meaning and significance of Christ’s birth and challenges us to make Christmas a season of joy and worship.
Realizing that Christmas is celebrated around the world, how can we expand our understanding and appreciation of the global impact of Christ’s birth? In “Cross-Cultural Christmas,” Jeff Coon shows us how the birth of Christ evokes gratitude, joy, and worship in our hearts and challenges us to do all we can to help others around the world embrace it and respond to it.
Paul’s doxology in I Timothy 3:16 (New Living Translation) brings together all the components of this issue: our gratitude to God for our salvation, our gratitude to God for our blessings, and or gratitude to God for our Savior.
Without question, this is the great mystery of our faith:
Christ was revealed in a human body
and vindicated by the Spirit.
He was seen by angels
and announced to the nations.
He was believed in throughout the world
and taken to heaven in glory.
His heart filled with gratitude, the apostle Paul wrote about “the great mystery of our faith,” drawing attention to what was previously hidden and now made known. Jesus Christ came to earth in human form, a tiny infant in a lowly manger. As he grew, the Spirit of God empowered him and confirmed his ministry. Angels ministered to him. He suffered death, conquered it, and ascended to heaven to rule and reign at the Father’s right hand, promising one day to return to earth and take us home to live with him forever. And as it was then, so it is today: the good news of the gospel continues to be proclaimed to the nations.
So many reasons to be grateful to our heavenly Father!
Let’s honor God in this season as we give thanks for our blessings, as we celebrate our salvation, and as we take the gospel to the world.
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