Pushing Back Darkness
How the Lord Has Shaped and Refined Me Through My Wife’s Tragic Death
Care & Counseling
Care & Counseling gathers Christian Standard articles that offer biblical hope and practical guidance for seasons of pain, confusion, and personal struggle. Here you’ll find resources on grief and loss, anxiety and depression, trauma, addiction, relationships, forgiveness, and spiritual burnout—along with pastoral wisdom for walking with others who are hurting. These articles aim to encourage healing, strengthen resilience, and help individuals and churches provide compassionate, Christ-centered care.
November 14, 2022
Thanksgiving in All Circumstances
This time of year is always festive. Spirits seem a little brighter and thanksgiving flows freely in our hearts. Or does it?
November 1, 2022
Christmas Is Good for Mental Health
By Wes Beavis The incarnation of Jesus Christ, God’s rescue plan for humanity, contributes to the mental health of the believer more than anything else. At Christmas we celebrate the advent of salvation through Christ our Lord. But people who celebrate Christ’s birth also typically experience three additional factors that have positive impacts on mental health. Collective Effervescence In 1912, French sociologist Émile Durkheim coined the term “collective effervescence,” which describes the euphoric self-transcendence that individuals feel when they are unified in focusing on a single subject or effort. Take a competitive rowing team, for example. Eight individuals climb into
October 28, 2022
Beyond Ministry: Pastors Share Stress-Relieving Hobbies
After 55 years in ministry, Bob Kastens is convinced every pastor needs a hobby. Kastens' hobby is genealogy. Bob Sartoris (pictured) enjoys woodworking. We also spoke with John Caldwell, Lee Delbridge, and Joshua Persall. (Hobbies included biking, the St. Louis Cardinals, and Hot Wheels cars—not in that order.)
July 1, 2022
What Should the Church Do about the Mental Health Crisis
By Ben Cachiaras We have a problem. Emotional well-being is in serious decline. It’s a palpable crisis that was bad before the pandemic. The isolation, social upheaval, polarization, and massive changes with work, school, and life have exacerbated the crisis, creating an extended ambiguity and heightened stress that’s a perfect cocktail for burnout and emotional struggle. (I first heard it put that way by Paul Alexander, president of Hope International University.) No wonder the World Health Organization’s recent scientific brief states that the global prevalence of anxiety and depression has increased 25 percent since the pandemic’s arrival in early 2020.
May 26, 2022
A Response to the Southern Baptist Convention Report
As SBC Leaders release the results of an investigation of sexual abuse and cover-up, what can Independent Christian Church leaders learn?
March 1, 2022
Healing Our Emotions After Two Years of Trauma
By Tyler McKenzie A pressing need exists for the church to focus discipleship efforts on emotional health, which is something the church rarely touches. It’s been over two years since COVID-19 first shut down the United States. Since then, leading a church has felt similar to being a frontline worker. I won’t pretend that our challenges have rivaled those of an emergency room doctor or a COVID-unit nurse. Still, pastoring a church has felt like a heavyweight boxing match that never ends. There has been heavy pressure, many needs, and relentless controversies. We have felt constantly embattled in fights we
January 26, 2022
Charlie and Faith Russell Share Their COVID-19 Journey
Not long after Charlie and Faith Russell celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary, and only days before the birth of their first child, Charlie came down with COVID-19. That was in late July 2021. Charlie was hospitalized for weeks; he calls his recovery "a miracle."
January 26, 2022
Rusty Russell: Preaching the Gospel While Helping Care for an Ailing Son
Rusty Russell thought his son, Charlie, would recover quickly when his boy was hospitalized with COVID-19 in August. That wasn't the case. Rusty, who preaches in Florida, traveled back and forth to Tennessee weekly to help during Charlie's long ordeal.
January 12, 2022
Ohio Church’s Stephen Ministry Connecting Caregivers with Those in Need
Tri-Village Christian Church in Pataskala, Ohio, has started a Stephen Ministry in which 18 lay members of the congregation have been trained to provide basic one-on-one Christian care to people in need of support.
April 1, 2021
Open
I had always assumed suicide rates were higher in the winter months. Cold winds, icy streets, gray skies, and more time alone indoors were all things I equated with sadness and depression. This most recent winter brought an even colder chill—a storm in the form of a pandemic that shut down activities, closed stores, and stopped people from gathering. And with this storm came the gusty wind of political tension. People bundled themselves up with fear, worry, and a deep sadness in what had been lost over the past 12 months. Save.org—a website operated by Suicide Awareness Voices of Education—shares
March 30, 2021
‘An Antidote to Loneliness’ for Pastors
Loneliness is a perpetual problem among pastors, and it only has intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to two experts who specialize in care for pastors—Dr. Wes Beavis and Alan Ahlgrim. “There’s not a pastor out there who does not need authentic friendships,” Beavis said.
February 7, 2021
Strangers Start Path to Healing at Emotional Bible Study
By Dee Ann Billings On a recent night I got a glimmer of what a church would be like if Jesus were here in the flesh sitting amongst us. We often refer to Jesus as the giver of freedom—freedom from our sins and freedom from our pain. Unfortunately, the church oftentimes has become the opposite of that. That night was the first of a six-week Bible study called “In the Middle of the Mess.” We opened the class to the community, knowing there were hurting and struggling women who needed freedom from their pain. But we didn’t expect a roster
January 1, 2021
God’s Messenger in Seat 21C
Sometimes God shows up in strange places . . . like an afternoon United Airlines flight from Denver to Houston. At the time, my life was a wreck. My career was gone. My marriage in trouble. My dreams paused. My faith wearing thin. The Great Recession had left me unemployed and broke. I was depressed, skeptical, cynical, and angry. I survived through sporadic speaking and preaching but now wearied from the travel. I didn’t want to go to Houston. I was ready to quit the ministry, find a decent paying job, and live in peace. I despised ever accepting God’s
November 22, 2020
The Anxiety Antidote (A Study of Luke 2)
Two Announcements of Peace and How We Live In Between And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people” (Luke 2:8-10). What a sweet story. We can almost hear Linus recounting the entire passage in “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” We see images of sweet children in a
October 24, 2020
How to Find Real Peace
It’s ironic I’m writing an article instructing others on how to find peace. I have recently struggled with anxiety—a deep restlessness in my soul that sleep could not satisfy. I have been so tired. And the pandemic hasn’t helped at all. I was worrying about minor things too often—stuff I couldn’t change. It’s not that I don’t know how to find peace, I was simply not practicing what I preach. But all that changed one Wednesday morning. Here is what I learned about finding true peace. Step 1: Do not use Google to research health issues! It started one Saturday.
August 26, 2020
Police Chaplains Struggle Alongside Officers During Pandemic, Protests
By Chris Moon These are not easy days to be a police officer—or a police chaplain. The effects of COVID-19 and the racial tensions that have swept the country have made the jobs of those who try to keep the peace and those who minister to them difficult. “It has affected us quite a bit,” said Bob Heath, a chaplain with the Joplin (Mo.) Police Department. Heath has served as a police chaplain for 28 years. He also is the bookstore manager and purchasing agent at Ozark Christian College and the pastor of Diamond Grove Christian Church. He also serves
August 19, 2020
Professor Seeks to Provide ‘Ministry to Ministers’
By Jim Nieman Jody Owens says senior ministers are feeling “under the gun” because of the stress of leading during the coronavirus pandemic. The ministers are working hard to conduct ministry in a form and fashion for which they were not trained and are not accustomed, says Owens, professor of Bible and pastoral ministries with Johnson University. These ministers are making hard decisions and are dealing with other stressors, and—due to circumstances—they are “not getting the feedback and the positive comments they are used to receiving.” INTENSIVE LEARNING RETREATSOwens gleaned some of this information from ministers and church leaders—about 20
July 29, 2020
Bailey’s Dream of Military Chaplaincy Has Covered 16 Years
By Chris Moon Sometimes, a vision doesn’t immediately come to fruition. It can take years to develop. Such has been the case for Jamin Bailey. Sixteen years ago, while he was a preaching student at Johnson University in Knoxville, Tenn., he visited his brother at a military base. While there, he saw a couple of Marines getting “dressed down” by a sergeant for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. “In the midst of this uproar came a chaplain,” Bailey told Christian Standard. “I do not know who he was or how he knew to be there that
July 14, 2020
INTERVIEW: Two Ministers Discuss How COVID-19 Diagnoses Have Affected Their Ministries
By Jim Nieman The coronavirus has proven to be a complex issue for churches and church leaders. And it can be further complicated—and even turn emotional—when there are COVID-19 diagnoses in leadership. Johnson University professor Jody Owens recently interviewed two senior ministers, Matthew Sink and Greg Taylor, who have been personally affected by COVID-19 diagnoses. Sink, senior minister with Pinedale Christian Church, Winston-Salem, N.C., is doing well after he and his three children, along with his parents—who live next door—contracted the disease. He has completed a two-week quarantine. Taylor, lead minister with Second Church of Christ in Danville, Ill., didn’t
