Church &amp; Ministry

Church & Ministry Church Planting

Every Church Is Now a Church Plant

Three Significant Considerations for Every Church in the Midst of and Post-COVID-19 By Trevor DeVage As every aspect of our daily lives is being reconsidered and refashioned by the pandemic, churches are rethinking their futures, too. Or at least they should be. But I’m afraid some are anticipating the days ahead only with a vision of the years behind. And I’m convinced this just won’t work. My thinking on this was influenced by the recent mentoring retreat I attended with Cal Jernigan, lead pastor with Central Christian Church in Arizona. I get together several times a year with Cal and

November 25, 2020

Church & Ministry Church Leadership Eldership

Device Helps Church Reach Prisoners (Plus News Briefs)

First Capital Christian Church, Corydon, Ind., is providing its Church Anywhere services to Branchville Correctional Facility via GTL tablets, a device specifically made for those who are incarcerated. The device allows prisoners to maintain contact with family, receive educational training, and participate in religious services. “Our ministry is based on building relationships,” Church Anywhere lead pastor Tyler Sansom told WBIW.com. “We use the technology to begin and foster those relationships with the people inside the walls. We also customize the video service for the incarcerated.” “Having a variety of religious programming available on the tablets allows us to provide spiritual

November 22, 2020

David Roadcup

Personal Obedience in the Life of an Elder

Among the many notable things about the Great Pyramid in Giza, Egypt, are the massive foundational stones that were carefully crafted and precisely positioned. The foundation for the Great Pyramid had to be formidable to support the weight that was to come. Foundations are key to the success or failure of a structure. As elders and church staff, it is critical we understand that the foundation for our leadership is our personal, growing relationship with Jesus. Our personal spiritual development forms the foundation for our service. This foundation is made up of several key “stones.” Paul mentions many of them

November 22, 2020

Rusty Russell

Church & Ministry Church Leadership

How to Lead a Peacekeeping Church

Practice These Three Crucial Habits to Live at Peace with Everyone and to Be an Example for Our Communities and Nation to Follow Never before has peacekeeping in the church been so difficult! This past summer in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis, I received two emails from people who were upset at how we were handling the situation. The first said she was leaving the church because we weren’t properly social distancing (although we thought we were) and we weren’t making people wear masks. The second said she was leaving the church because we were listening to the liberal

November 22, 2020

Erik Tryggestad

Rebuilding Hope from the Ashes

Lewis Street Church of Christ faced one obstacle after another; then, after the building was firebombed, people from across the country came together to help restore the building . . . and much more. Just weeks after he was named minister of the Lewis Street Church of Christ, Jameel Robinson delivered a message that shocked the congregation: Get out of the building. It wasn’t a “go into the community and serve” sermon, said Robinson, who had just moved from Mississippi to preach for the Little Rock, Arkansas, church. It wasn’t a sermon at all. The congregation literally could not be

November 22, 2020

Church & Ministry Church Leadership

The Year That Was Supposed to Be (and Nine Action Steps for 2021)

The year 2020 and the new decade seemed a perfect opportunity for preachers to capitalize on the “20/20 vision” metaphor. The fanfare and excitement quickly turned from bright and crisp to blurry and cautious, however, as the coronavirus forced churches to turn off their lights and close their doors for weeks or even months. In January, when I surveyed over 400 churches, among the questions I asked was, “What is your church most looking forward to in 2020?” I planned to use the responses to generate potential articles detailing the exciting plans and ideas churches of all sizes had for

October 24, 2020

David Roadcup

Church & Ministry Church Leadership Eldership

Giving Honor to Whom Honor Is Due

The chairman of the elders of our church called to invite me to join the elder team of our congregation. At the time, I was vice president for student services at Cincinnati Christian University and an active member at Mason Church of Christ (now Christ’s Church) in Mason, Ohio. I wound up accepting his invitation, which started an interesting chapter in my journey during which I was able to see the work of an elder from an altogether different viewpoint. For the previous 13 years, I had been in leadership ministry in the church or teaching at one of our

September 22, 2020

Church & Ministry Leadership Development

Creswell Cares

By Crystal Kupper The word grandma used to be very scary for Jayme Walker Hill’s foster daughter. “Any time I would talk about my grandma,” said Hill, her foster daughter would share from her own life experience, saying, ‘My grandma was mean.’” “We would try to avoid that word, but she would still cry and be very fearful around older women.” Hill and her husband soon learned that their new foster daughter had been abused by her former adoptive parents, an older couple. The girl, now 19, operates at about the mental level of an 8-year-old. But this isn’t a

September 22, 2020

Michael C. Mack

The Pandemic’s Leadership Lessons

By Michael C. Mack Great leaders have a blend of humility—they know that they don’t know everything—and a curiosity to discover answers. They are constantly learning from a variety of sources, beginning with God’s Word, but also through books, mentors, failures, crises, and personal struggles, to name just a few. Perhaps John F. Kennedy summarized it best: “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” The pandemic and all of its interconnected effects have provided a wellspring of important learning opportunities for us. In this issue, our writers highlight many of these. Here are four I believe are especially worth

September 22, 2020

Different Environments, Different Approaches (Ministering in the Midst of COVID-19)

Urban, Suburban, and Rural Church Leaders Share Their Experiences of Leading Through a Pandemic By Chris Moon No two churches are the same, even in how they have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. That said, the virus has left a mark on Restoration Movement congregations and pastors across the country. For some churches and pastors, especially in rural, conservative areas of the country, the pandemic seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. The major difficulty was figuring out how to get the internet to cooperate during a brief closure. “There’s a lot of things you face like that

September 22, 2020

Jim Estep

What COVID-19 Taught Rural Churches

By Jim Estep State by state, county by county, the COVID-19 pandemic led to limitations, shelter-in-place orders, and essentially a shutdown of “normal.” In rural congregations—which are often smaller, singular in focus (worship), and fairly stable in ministry programming—this became an impetus for reflection, reevaluation, renewal, and a reenvisioning of ministries across the country. Theology of the Church We all know the church is made up of people—it’s not the building or the worship service—but our everyday theology would say otherwise. Whether we like it or not, our default theology turns church into a place or time. (“We are going

September 22, 2020

Four Opportunities for Every Church in the New Reality

By Dave Ferguson On March 12, 2020, I made two different versions of a video, knowing only one of them would be sent to our entire church. In the first video, I said we would stick to our normal schedule with 26 services at 11 locations across Chicagoland. In the second video, I introduced a new reality by telling everyone our church facilities were closing and we were moving everything online. After I finished recording the videos, my wife and I headed to O’Hare International Airport to fly to Winston-Salem, North Carolina. We were planning to see our youngest son,

September 22, 2020

The Financial Impact of COVID-19 on Christian Churches

By Kent E. Fillinger As I write this in late June, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to morph daily as it impacts the world, economy, and church in innumerable ways. During the week of June 7, I conducted a COVID-19 Church Impact Survey to take a “snapshot” of how churches fared during the initial three months of quarantine (March to May) and what they anticipated would be happening over the next three months (June to August) as many started to regather for in-person worship services. A total of 334 church leaders from 39 states responded, providing a balanced cross-section of all-sized

September 22, 2020

Beyond the Pandemic: How the Church Can Respond to Three Urgent Needs in Their Communities

By Kent E. Fillinger The full impact of COVID-19 goes well beyond the number of confirmed cases, the death toll, and the unemployment rate that many are tracking. The pandemic has exacerbated several preexisting problems like anxiety, depression, suicide, child abuse, drug abuse, and others. These often overlooked “killers” are affecting scores of Americans today, and some experts say these conditions have reached epidemic proportions. Dr. Elinore McCance-Katz, assistant U.S. secretary for mental health and substance use, said in late May, “The increase in the number of suicides, fatal drug overdoses and instances of domestic abuse will be broad, deep

September 22, 2020

5 Big Shifts: What Will the Church Look Like Post-COVID-19?

By Randy Frazee Before I share my perspective on what the church will look like after the coronavirus, let me offer a couple of disclaimers. First, I missed the “Pastoring through Pandemics” class in seminary. Who would have thought we would ever need that? Second, I do not claim to be a prophet. (As a matter of fact, I lead a non-“prophet” organization.) And besides, if I were a prophet, I would have bought more toilet paper! The coronavirus has created the single greatest disruptive inflection point for American society in our lifetime. It has called us to a critical

September 22, 2020

Rebuilding from the Rubble

What Will We Do If God Doesn’t Restore His Church to ‘Bigger Is Better’? By Kim Harris As I sat on the back deck on one of the cooler evenings in July, I compulsively picked up my phone for my routine post-dinner scroll through Twitter, my only connection to the world outside my COVID-19 bubble. I assumed my timeline would again be filled with petty debates about the efficacy of different mask fabrics, some sort of hashtag challenge designed to drown out the contentiousness in the world, or a friend from high school selling skin-care products. I expected to sigh

September 22, 2020

The Challenge: What Do In-Person Services Look Like Upon Reopening?

By Justin Horey In Manhattan, Kansas—“The Little Apple”—a church of about 1,000 regular attendees has resumed in-person worship with no serious complications. Though the average Sunday attendance is lower than its pre-COVID-19 norm, Crestview Christian Church has found reopening to be a blessing. Elsewhere, three other churches found that resuming in-person worship wasn’t so simple. One church reopened successfully but the state forced it to “reclose,” another church opened partially, and the other reopened but then closed again after a church employee tested positive for the virus. These are their stories. _ _ _ Reopened and Staying Open: Crestview Christian

September 22, 2020