Church & Ministry

Church & Ministry equips leaders and everyday believers to build healthy, gospel-centered congregations. Explore biblically grounded articles on church leadership, preaching and teaching, eldership, staff and volunteer development, discipleship systems, small groups, church planting, church growth, and ministry strategy. You’ll also find practical guidance for navigating transitions, cultivating congregational health, and serving your community with wisdom and compassion. Whether you’re a pastor, elder, ministry staff member, volunteer leader, or church member who wants to help your church thrive, this hub brings together resources to strengthen the local church and advance Christ’s mission.

August 15, 2020

Christian Standard

Moving from Crisis to Renewal

What Leaders Do When Their Plans Are Reduced to Rubble By Austin Gohn I was 30 days into my “first 90 days” plan when I closed our church building indefinitely. After working at the church for seven years and completing a six-month interview process, I stepped into the role of lead pastor at the end of February—barely a month before something called the coronavirus went from a fringe news report to dominating the headlines (and my Twitter feed). I had read The First 90 Days, a Harvard Business Review book, and created a plan that involved dozens of trust-building conversations,

August 15, 2020

Christian Standard

Wandering through the Coronavirus Wilderness

How the Church Can Serve the Most Vulnerable in Our Spiritual Families By Tom Ellsworth Thirty-five years ago, Indiana issued a license plate with the slogan, “Wander Indiana.” I understood the invitation to casually tour the state for all it has to offer, but the wording felt more like an invitation to lazy futility. Can you fathom what it was like for the Israelites to spend 40 years plodding through a barren land on a journey that could have been accomplished in a matter of weeks? And many of them knew they would never set foot in Canaan, which only

July 21, 2020

Christian Standard

Church Staff Steps Up During Preacher Search, Pandemic

By Chris Moon The COVID-19 pandemic has been a difficult one for church leaders and staff to navigate. But try doing it without a senior pastor in place. That’s the reality Richwoods Christian Church in Peoria, Ill., has been living during these days of the new coronavirus. Tom Butler, the church’s executive pastor, joked that he took a class in seminary about serving in a church through a major pandemic and a recession—and without a head shepherd in place. “That class has really come in handy,” Butler said. Then, in a serious tone, he said, “This has been unprecedented in

July 15, 2020

Megan Rawlings

Megan Rawlings

How to Become an Imperfect Mentor

By Megan Rawlings I was mentoring a new believer who was struggling to make good decisions and choices. As her mentor, I knew I had to personally address this issue with her. I thought the best approach to this uncomfortable conversation was to ask her to meet for lunch. When the day arrived, she sat across from me at the table, oblivious to the reason for my invitation. Our upcoming discussion had the potential to turn negative. But, through God’s grace and intervention, by the time lunch ended my mentee had a new outlook on Christlike living. Was it difficult?

July 15, 2020

Kent E. Fillinger

Kent E. Fillinger

Coaching Matters

By Kent Fillinger A lead minister serves as a sort of head coach of the church team and has a major influence on the church’s health and growth. There are many reasons for this influence, but surveys indicate much of it involves the minister’s communication skills and ability to explain Scripture. That said, a 2019 Lifeway survey found that more churchgoers say their minister preaches longer than they prefer (27 percent) than shorter than they prefer (13 percent). This article examines findings from our 2019 survey of 439 churches to explore several factors related to the lead minister’s impact on

July 15, 2020

Jerry Harris

10 Foundation Stones of the Church—No. 4: Preaching the Word

By Jerry Harris When I started this series of articles based on Acts 2:41-47 and titled it “Closed on Sunday,” I never imagined this phrase would also describe a new reality brought on by a pandemic. But with this new reality, and as we consider the future, the prescriptions in Acts 2 become all the more important. We began this series with baptism—just like the first-century church—and then proceeded into authority and the Word of God itself. This article will explore the God-designed and commissioned delivery system for his Word—preaching. Have you ever used Amazon? Perhaps you have Amazon Prime.

July 15, 2020

Ken Idleman

7 Practical Guidelines When Hiring a Young Leader

The late Donald McGavran, respected missiologist and founding dean of the School of World Mission at Fuller Theological Seminary, identified five kinds of leaders the church must have to thrive locally and have impact globally:  1. Volunteer leaders who focus inward: unpaid leaders who focus their gifts for service on the internal health and growth of the local church body. (Biblical examples: Priscilla and Aquila, Dorcas) 2. Volunteer leaders who focus outward: unpaid leaders who focus their evangelistic passion on the lost and unchurched in the larger unreached community. (Stephen, Philip) 3. Bivocational: leaders who are mostly or entirely self-supporting in order to launch or

May 27, 2020

Christian Standard

COVID-19 Causing Children’s Minister to ‘Rethink Everything’

By Chris Moon In her 20 years in children’s ministry at Fairview Christian Church in Carthage, Mo., Angie Fewin has never seen anything like COVID-19 and the effects it has had on the local church. “We’ve had to rethink everything,” she said. Just as senior pastors and church elders across the country have been working out how to reestablish in-person worship services as government stay-at-home orders are lifting, so children’s ministers are trying to figure out how to return their ministries to some semblance of normal—or at least to a new normal. And there’s no time to lose. Summer—the highlight

May 17, 2020

Laura McKillip Wood

Laura-McKillip-Wood

Churches and Businesses Partner to Reach Out

By Laura McKillip Wood Revo’s family had nothing when they arrived in the United States. They pinned their hopes on a new life in the West after fleeing dangerous political unrest in Southeast Asia. After a long and difficult process, they settled in Omaha, Nebraska,. Their apartment had only the bare minimum Revo, his wife, and their children needed for survival. Not only did they have few furnishings, their children had no beds. An organization named Sleep in Heavenly Peace heard about their situation—and the situation of many of their refugee neighbors—and sprang into action. Reaching Out Sleep in Heavenly

May 17, 2020

Brent Bramer

This Is Why We Plant Churches

By Brent Bramer Mike and Kelly were jolted out of bed by screams and the smell of smoke. They ran to their two kids and hurried out to the street. The backside of the home next door was engulfed in flames and a crowd was gathering. The elderly woman who lived in the home was screaming for her husband who had just run back into the house to search for their dog. She feared he’d been inside for too long, and there was no sign of him. Mike and Kelly, their children, and the neighbors watched in horror as flames

May 17, 2020

Jim Estep

The Tension: Theological Correctness or Cultural Relevance?

By Jim Estep In ministry, is it more important to be theologically correct or culturally relevant? Every congregation and Christian leader is confronted with this dilemma. Every theological tradition also is caught in the controversy. We all live in the tension between faithfulness to Scripture and relevance to the culture in which we minister . . . between being the church and doing the church’s mission. On one side we shout, “Theologically correct ministry!” As Christian leaders, we obviously need to side with being theologically correct and aligned with Scripture. If not, we fail to heed the warning of Anglican

May 17, 2020

Chris Hankins

Multiplying Through Multisites

By Chris Hankins Healthy things reproduce. This reality is true in nature and, I believe, in the church. The body of Christ is healthiest when it is reproducing at every level. At Point Church, where I serve, I often say that we want to reproduce disciples, leaders, groups, services, campuses, churches, and even church-planting networks. Therefore, when I was recently asked, “Are we really reproducing churches if multisites remain attached to the mother church?” my immediate answer was, “of course!” Just because a new location of a multisite church remains a part of a larger local church does not mean

May 17, 2020

Christian Standard

A Listing of Church-Planting Organizations

We have compiled a listing of Church Planting Organizations associated with Christian churches and churches of Christ. Note that organizations often partner on church plants. This list is not a comprehensive count of church plants from the past five years but is meant to demonstrate who is actively planting churches and where. For each church-planting organization, we have listed its location, leader, website and contact information, the region where it plants, and total number of churches planted in the past 5 years. We will update this list at a future time. If your organization should be listed, please provide us

May 1, 2020

Michael C. Mack

Who Makes the First Move?

By Michael C. Mack The churches in our movement are “devoted to the restoration of New Testament Christianity, its doctrine, its ordinances, and its fruits.” That is stated in the indicia of every issue of Christian Standard—but what about its processes? What can churches today learn from the start of the church on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2 about how to plant and grow the church? An Acts 2 church begins in community: “They were all together in one place” (v. 1). Biblical community is the context or environment in which God does his work. This simple act

May 1, 2020

Christian Standard

Children’s Ministry Reexamined

By Rick Willis “I can’t do that. . . . I’m oriented to leading adults.” The children’s ministry coordinator at Southern Heights Christian Church in Lebanon, Missouri, was recruiting volunteers for a new rotational program on Sunday mornings, and he had challenged me—a man in his 60s—to get involved with the 2- to 5-year-olds. The concept was new to us: one hour of continuous activity broken down into 15-minute segments (or stations), with kids rotating from a lesson, to crafts, to snacks, and to music. Two people would lead the children from room to room, with volunteers at each station

May 1, 2020

Christian Standard

Why We Invite All Our New Members to Our Home for Dinner (and How We Do It)

By Drew Sherman Over the last 13 years we have hosted more than 3,000 of our church family in our home. (That’s not a misprint!) During that time, our church attendance has grown from 1,500 to more than 6,000. God called my wife and me to Highland Meadows Christian Church near Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport in the summer of 2002. Four years later we changed our name to Compass Christian Church because we thought it better fit our plan for multisite ministry. We were excited about our rapid growth but concerned we were growing too busy to get to know

May 1, 2020

Christian Standard

The Opportunities Right Before Us

How We’ve Made an Impact in Our City in Ways We Never Envisioned By Chris Philbeck Several years ago at a megachurch pastors conference, I heard Ben Merold say something I’ll never forget: “Sometimes our opportunities become our vision.” Vision is a powerful thing, but vision in the local church can sometimes be more about advancing the plans of man than following the leading of God . . . and sometimes it is nothing more than trying to replicate existing models of success. There should be a level of uniqueness about our vision for the church God has called us

May 1, 2020

David Roadcup

Enough with the Four-Hour Elders Meetings!

The Key Elements to Making Your Time Together More Effective By David Roadcup Effective elders’ meetings are an important part of a healthy leadership culture. Our meetings should be organized times of fellowship, powerful prayer, communication, and decision-making. The focus of elders’ meetings should be on the shepherding of staff and the business matters of the congregation. Elders’ meetings can be extremely fruitful and enjoyable, or they can be hours of torment and wandering in the wilderness. It all depends on planning and on the leader of the meeting (the elder chairman) and lead minister working together for the best

April 28, 2020

Christian Standard

COVID-19: Guidelines for Closing and Reopening the Church

Editor’s Note: This article was written for and will appear in our July issue, which will deal with politics and the church. We’ve decided the article will most benefit our readers now, however. We hope it helps you wisely plan as you make significant decisions over the next several weeks and months. _ _ _ By Rusty Russell Should we have canceled church during the COVID-19 pandemic? What if churches reopen, the virus rebounds, and we are asked to cancel again? What if there’s a less serious pandemic in the future? Will we be asked to cancel the next time

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