Christian Living

Christian Living helps you follow Jesus in the everyday moments—at home, at work, and in your relationships. Here you’ll find practical, biblically grounded articles on spiritual growth, prayer, discipleship, character, and making wise decisions in a complicated world. Explore guidance for living with grace and truth, building healthy habits, navigating suffering and joy, and pursuing holiness without losing compassion. Whether you’re new to faith or have walked with Christ for years, these resources are designed to encourage you, challenge you, and equip you to live a life that reflects the gospel in real life.

July 14, 2015

Mark A. Taylor

Claiming the Right Identity

By Mark A. Taylor It is easy, too easy for me to make my identity all about me. Can you relate? For example, many of us take identity from our family relationships. (Whose son are you? Which child is yours?) Or we boost identity with what we can afford to buy or experience. (Is this your new car? You live in that neighborhood? Your cruise lasted how long?) We claim identity from the title behind our names. (Instructor or professor or dean? Manager or director or vice president?) But when life changes””and life always changes””when the job ends or the

July 10, 2015

Christian Standard

A Good Meal

By Daniel Schantz “For this reason many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep” (1 Corinthians 11:30). Church services are well underway in a smalltown church of a hundred souls, when a little girl of 10 meanders down the center aisle, looking for a seat. She looks confused, as if she has never been inside a church before and she doesn”t know where to sit. Her bony shoulders are draped with a rag of a dress and her hair is matted and greasy. Her fingers and arms are gray with ground-in dirt, and she looks starved. At last she

June 24, 2015

Christian Standard

Life on the Periphery

By Jim Tune It”s no longer 1910 or the age of men. And if there once was a Christian age, it has come and gone. As recently as 1967, one might have argued that Canada was a Christian country. July 1, 1967 marked Canada”s centennial birthday celebration. Thousands gathered in Ottawa, the nation”s capital, for the festivities. The celebration began with a prayer service, which was carried on national television and was a centerpiece of the day”s events. The crowd waited expectantly as dignitaries arrived for the service, including all the main political leaders of the day: the prime minister

June 21, 2015

Christian Standard

Open Table

By Sean Palmer Maxine was stunned when Jason and Kari Martin, along with their children, Aidan and Regan, stood outside her front door with expectant eyes. As far as Jason and Kari knew, they”d been invited to dinner at the home of our church”s matriarch. If there”s an unquestioned sage at The Vine Church, it”s Maxine. She and her late husband, Ron, served as medical missionaries in Africa, raised three children (one of whom is an elder at The Vine), and around our church, once Maxine says something, nothing else needs to be said. The reason the Martins were at

June 19, 2015

Christian Standard

Ordinary Sacredness

By Mandy Smith We know Jesus instituted the Lord”s Supper during the Passover feast, which Jews have celebrated for generations. Passover is an annual festival remembering God”s salvation of his people from slavery in Egypt. Like all celebrations of annual holidays, it takes much preparation and is a turning point of the calendar. So, as good Jews, Jesus and his disciples prepared and celebrated this feast together. But Jesus knew this Passover would be different from all he”d celebrated before, because he knew his death was imminent. The food is a central part of the Passover feast, but so are

June 17, 2015

Christian Standard

On Dancing Well

By Jim Tune Reflecting on her years in the grip of alcohol addiction, author Glennon Doyle Melton said that when she finally got sober, she dreaded weddings. She would try to look busy, reapply lip gloss, and make numerous unnecessary trips to the ladies” room in order to avoid the dance floor. The dance floor, sober, was a terrifying place to be avoided at all costs. During her drinking days, Melton was the first and last one on the dance floor. That changed during her first years of sobriety. In a post on her popular Momastery.com blog, she comments wryly,

June 10, 2015

Christian Standard

A Righteous Crowd?

By Jim Tune My father was a wise man. He was respected in the community, known for integrity, humor, and wisdom. I had the great fortune to be raised by a deeply principled man. Among the important things my dad taught me was this jewel of counterintuitive wisdom: “Beware of running with the crowd.” It was a warning to be suspicious of the crowd, not to trust the crowd, to resist falling in line with the majority too readily. In the Gospels the word crowd is frequently used pejoratively, so much so that nearly every time we see the word,

May 27, 2015

Christian Standard

Silence and Socializing

By Jim Tune Susan Cain, in her best-selling book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can”t Stop Talking, says at least one-third of the people we know are introverts. They are the ones who generally prefer listening to speaking, who innovate and create but dislike self-promoting, and who favor working on their own over working in teams. Cain argues that we undervalue introverts and shows how much we lose in doing so. There is a certain inner work we can do only by ourselves, alone, in silence. Meister Eckhart helps us understand that when he asserts, “Nothing

May 13, 2015

Christian Standard

Tables of Grace

By Jim Tune God has a thing for tables, and many of us can understand why. The Scriptures are full of stories of people meeting around tables and of relationships being formed and strengthened in that space. We resonate with these experiences. In my own life, the best moments with family have taken place around the kitchen table, visiting or enjoying a meal. The table is a place where we can be fully present with one another and develop deeper community. The psalmist connected God with the table in a familiar passage: “You prepare a table before me in the

May 5, 2015

Mark A. Taylor

Age-old

By Mark A. Taylor Let me tell you about my new best friend, Bob. Bob”s the guy from the other end of the office who paused last week beside my cubicle, festooned with “Happy Birthday” banners and a big, red “65” in the middle of the display. Bob said, “Hey, wait a minute!” I looked up from my desk and smiled. “This isn”t real, right? This is a joke, right?” He was completely sincere. This fine man couldn”t believe I was celebrating the welcome-to-Medicare birthday. I”m not sure his reaction is due principally to the fact that he doesn”t wear

April 29, 2015

Christian Standard

Human

By Jim Tune In C.S. Lewis”s book The Magician”s Nephew, readers meet an unsavory character named Uncle Andrew, who consistently displays an arrogance that causes him to distance himself from others, view them with contempt, and attempt to use them for his own purposes. Near the end of the book, when Uncle Andrew encounters things he can”t fathom or explain (like talking animals) he descends into insanity. Aslan and the other animals are speaking to him in plain English, but he can”t understand a word. All he hears are roars and growls, and he is terrified. Finally, he loses his

March 25, 2015

Christian Standard

I Can”t Change the World

By Jim Tune Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the needs of the world. I think the small part I play won”t make a difference. Mother Teresa nips this doubt in the bud, saying, “If you can”t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.” We can talk about love, preach sermons about love, quote Scriptures about love, and long to love. Still, I think the bottom line is something like this: The best way to learn the ways of love is to live it, try it, do it, and risk it””enter into another person”s life and let someone into ours.

March 11, 2015

Christian Standard

Let”s Meet for Dinner

By Jim Tune Let”s meet for dinner. I”d be willing to host. Jesus himself said, “The Son of Man came eating and drinking” (Luke 7:34). Eating and drinking a lot. New Testament scholar Robert Karris says, “In Luke”s Gospel, Jesus is either going to a meal, at a meal, or coming from a meal.” Interesting. What is the Son of Man doing when he comes to earth? The Jews expected him to come with a vengeance, defeating God”s enemies and vindicating his people. Instead he shares a meal. Meals are a powerful expression of welcome and friendship in every culture.

March 6, 2015

Christian Standard

March Madness

By David Ray It”s March, when college basketball takes center stage and provokes spirited debate about who will make it into tournament play. Team records wrangle for attention, brackets are set, and fierce competition begins. We get very passionate about who wins and loses. Winning brings bragging rights for fans, revenue for schools, and even professional signing opportunities for the greatest players. For a coach, however, losing badly can mean forfeiting an extended contract or finding a moving van parked in the driveway. Who wants to be last? The disciples of Jesus certainly didn”t! Once, after a long day, Jesus

February 4, 2015

Christian Standard

For Such a Time

By Jim Tune “I wish I had never seen the Ring! Why did it come to me? Why was I chosen?” laments Frodo, after discovering the power of the mysterious inheritance that has come into his possession. In response, Gandalf offers a sober appraisal: “Such questions cannot be answered. You may be sure that it was not for any merit that others do not possess. But you have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have.” In challenging Queen Esther to act on behalf of the Jews, Mordecai offers similar counsel. He

January 31, 2015

Christian Standard

Escape from Alcatraz

By Stephen Bond A long swim was made better because we were a team. Five years ago when I first heard about the Alcatraz swim, I put it on my bucket list. It sounded like a thrilling challenge . . . swimming 1.5 miles from the former penitentiary across the San Francisco Bay to the mainland. From the movies I had seen, no one had ever “escaped from Alcatraz,” and this would be my chance! However, when I heard the water was a brisk 55 degrees, I decided to wait until the year I turned 60 years old. I wanted to show

January 14, 2015

Christian Standard

Wild

By Jim Tune The Pacific Crest Trail is a 2,650-mile hiking trail that reaches from Mexico to Canada. Starting in desert chaparral near the Mexican border, the trail climbs along the backbone of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade ranges. It winds through Oregon forests and skirts along the shoulders of volcanoes like Mount Rainier in Washington. In the spring of 1995, a disillusioned 25-year-old Cheryl Strayed hit the trail to lose her problems. Strayed shared her story in her best-selling memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail. She had never been backpacking before setting out on

January 7, 2015

Christian Standard

No More Laters

By Jim Tune Sometimes I struggle with the tendency to live by the motto, “Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow.” Mark Twain took things a step further when he said, “Never put off till tomorrow what you can do day after tomorrow just as well.” There is both humor and truth in Twain”s axiom. On a more serious note, I think Dan Carruth captured the truth about procrastination when he wrote, “The biggest lie we tell ourselves in the area of action is, I”ll do it later.” The interesting thing about “later” is it can”t easily

December 22, 2014

Christian Standard

What to Give the Person Who Has Everything

By Daniel Schantz The stubborn conundrum of Christmas is, “What will I get for everyone on my list?” Males, for example, are oblivious of female needs. That explains why your husband got you a new chain saw and some radial tires for Christmas last year. Some people just give everyone the same thing, like a homemade fruitcake, but one has to wonder if there is not some symbolic meaning behind all those fruits and nuts. Without a doubt, the hardest person to buy for is the one who has everything, like your boss, who drives a Lamborghini and gave Super

December 9, 2014

Mark A. Taylor

Taking Time

By Mark A. Taylor Too many in the developed, Western world feel trapped in the treadmill of now. They work for companies whose investors demand profit growth this quarter, not next year. They go to doctors and expect a drug to cure their aches and pains today. They rush from work to meetings, sports events, or kids activities with hardly time to eat. So they grab fast food, quick take-out, or an instant dinner from the grocery store shelves full of them. And church leaders are not immune. We expect to see higher giving after a 12-week class, or more

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