Series: Blogs

March 16, 2016

Christian Standard

Don”t Worry about Wealth

By Jim Tune Back in 1966 the folk-rock duo Simon and Garfunkel released an album called Sounds of Silence. The album was a best-selling collection of reflective songs with contemplative lyrics. It has been preserved by the Library of Congress as a “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” work of art. For that album, Paul Simon penned the words to a song about a much-admired philanthropist who was envied by all. “Richard Cory,” a poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson, was adapted by Simon into a song that ends with the startling news of the philanthropist committing suicide. My grandmother used to

March 15, 2016

Mark A. Taylor

Missing God

By Mark A. Taylor Being a soldier can be boring. Especially when you”re far from home, in a dry, dirty, dusty place. When the assignment is to keep order among a stubborn people who resent you and all you stand for, the duty is all the more distasteful. And so, when a strange peasant called a king is assigned to your watch, who could blame you for having a little fun? Nothing about him looks like royalty, that”s for sure. So you find some thorns and make him a crown. Your buddy has a robe he took from some unlucky

March 9, 2016

Christian Standard

Soul Work Is Slow Work

By Jim Tune Paul Sparks, a cofounder of the Parish Collective, likes to refer to the reverse Prayer of Jabez. I find his twist on things refreshing: God, Shrink our territory, And narrow our boundaries That we might truly be a blessing to all. Yeah. Like that would be a best seller or catalyze a 40-day program for the typical Evangelical church. Most preachers and church planters struggle with impatience. We have goals to achieve, targets to hit. Wherever we are, it seems, we are itching to leave. Here and now is never enough. We want to get to some

March 8, 2016

Mark A. Taylor

Surgery and Other Sickness

By Mark A. Taylor “I have visited and prayed with many sick people,” Professor Sherwood Smith told my class at The Cincinnati Bible Seminary more than 40 years ago. “But never did I pray like I did when the patient was my wife.” For some reason that insight has stuck with me all these years, and now it comes into sharper focus as I anticipate my own surgery Thursday this week. “Lord, heal him,” the elders prayed in December, not long after my diagnosis of prostate cancer. “Lord, keep him in the palm of your hand,” the men in my

March 2, 2016

Christian Standard

What Are the Odds?

By Jim Tune As I write this, the Zika virus is just beginning to make headlines. Claudia and I are only 10 days away from embarking on our first-ever cruise. Our seven-day, Western-Caribbean cruise was a surprise I arranged for my wife to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. One of our ports of call is in a country for which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has already issued this midlevel travel alert: “Practice enhanced precautions.” Who knows what another 10 days will bring? This virus is spreading aggressively. The virus, which is spread mainly by mosquitoes, appears to

March 1, 2016

Mark A. Taylor

Living in the Spotlight

By Mark A. Taylor They were experienced reporters with the Boston Globe, accustomed to encountering shocking facts. And yet they had trouble believing the breadth of the priest pedophile problem in their city. As Spotlight (which Sunday won the Oscar for best picture) tells the story, they came to the truth slowly. From a single incident they found connections to more, from one priest to 13. And by the time they broke the priest child-sex-abuse scandal, almost 90 clerics had been implicated. Since then many hundreds of victims have come forward in Boston alone. And abusing priests have been punished

February 24, 2016

Christian Standard

Safety

By Jim Tune A word has been on my mind lately. I”ve been thinking about what it means for me personally, and as a preacher. The word: safety. I encountered the word in an excellent book, Crucial Conversations. “In order to speak honestly when honesty could easily offend others, we have to find a way to maintain safety,” the book says. “When it”s safe, you can say anything.” We often focus on the content of our conversations, but content isn”t usually what makes or breaks relationships. Safety is. Feeling safe allows us to talk about difficult things and to speak

February 23, 2016

Mark A. Taylor

Does Your Ministry Have a Right to Exist?

By Mark A. Taylor Tech expert Shelly Palmer, although sought-after about all things digital, would likely be lost at a church leadership conference. But he wrote something a couple of weeks ago to get any church leader thinking. He titled his blog post, “Does Yahoo Have a Right to Exist in 2016?” And then he proceeded, with two pages of well-researched facts and well-thought opinions, to support his hard answer: “No.” Whether you use the web portal Yahoo or not, his line of reasoning might get your attention. Should you ask his question about your own ministry, congregation, or parachurch?

February 17, 2016

Christian Standard

The Limits of Relevance

By Jim Tune Relevance is a good thing. Relevance is about trying to communicate the gospel in an understandable way to a particular culture. It”s absolutely essential if we are going to reach people who don”t know Jesus. But relevance has its limits. In his new book Disappearing Church, Mark Sayers describes three cultures. The first is pre-Christian. The second is a culture that”s shaped by Judeo-Christian values. The third is post-Christian. To communicate the gospel to the first culture (pre-Christian), we need to find relevant ways to speak the gospel. The same also applies when we speak into the

February 16, 2016

Mark A. Taylor

Creating the Integrity of the Church

By Mark A. Taylor Peggy Noonan wrote in Saturday”s Wall Street Journal about “the general decline of America”s faith in its institutions,” and you can guess the institutions she listed: “the professions, the presidency, the Supreme Court,” and the one she mentioned first, the church. I”m assuming Noonan, a Catholic, thinks first of the church she knows best, and statistics suggest the Catholic Church in America is in trouble. According to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), a national nonprofit research center affiliated with Georgetown University, attendance at Mass in the U.S. declined from 55 percent of the

February 10, 2016

Christian Standard

Welcome Home, Syrians

  By Jim Tune I”m not overly patriotic. Most Canadians aren”t. We have no equivalent to country singer Lee Greenwood”s song “God Bless the U.S.A.” with its nationalistic and stirring refrain, “I”m proud to be an American where at least I know I”m free.” All that said, a news flash popped up in my Twitter feed a few months ago that made me extraordinarily proud of my country. Originally tweeted by Neville Park, this message quickened this Canadian”s pulse: “MEANWHILE IN CANADA: Syrian refugees arriving. Airport is worried they will be overwhelmed by well-wishers.” Syrian refugees? Overwhelmed by well-wishers? Yes!

February 9, 2016

Mark A. Taylor

Passing the Tests

By Mark A. Taylor Years ago, when the wife of a popular minister suffered a stroke, a mutual friend said, “If the devil can”t get him any other way, he”ll go after his family.” This minister was widely known, a sought-after speaker, and the author of several books. Never has there been a hint of scandal or impropriety in his life or ministry. Thankfully, his wife recovered and, by all appearances, her illness never swayed him from service. I thought of that time this week when I sat across the table from an aging saint whose wife died in December.

February 3, 2016

Christian Standard

Grief: A Solitary Journey

By Jim Tune It was a gray, cold, miserable February day when my father died rather suddenly after a few days of hospitalization for respiratory problems. This month marks five years since his death on February 5, 2011. I miss him and still grieve his loss. It”s a different kind of grief now””not so raw or hard-edged. I miss him on holidays when we celebrated family traditions and rituals. And the February anniversary can still be difficult. It”s possible that the short, dark days of our Canadian winter contribute to my sense of melancholy. Nonetheless, arriving at the five-year mark

February 2, 2016

Mark A. Taylor

Our Continuing Ministry

By Mark A. Taylor CHRISTIAN STANDARD’s  contributing editors are a diverse group of men and women from across the country who serve from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives. They do not all see everything the same way, but all of them are leading significant ministry among the Christian churches and churches of Christ as they express a deep commitment to Jesus as Lord. Readers will regularly see most of them named as authors of articles and columns in the magazine. But that”s not the only way they contribute. Even more significant is the input they offer about writers and

January 27, 2016

Christian Standard

No One Recovers Alone

By Jim Tune On December 10, 1996, Jill Bolte Taylor, a 37-year-old Harvard-trained brain scientist, experienced a massive stroke. She sustained rapid debilitation of her brain as she lost the ability to walk, talk, write, or recall any part of her life. It would take her eight years to fully recover. Taylor documents her journey in her book My Stroke of Insight. In a chapter called “What I Needed Most,” she says recovery was a decision she had to make a million times a day. In a sense, we are all in recovery””recovery from dysfunctional families, recovery from abuse, recovery

January 26, 2016

Mark A. Taylor

No Snow Day for Mountain

By Mark A. Taylor A blizzard of historic proportions is coming your way on a Saturday; so what do you do on Friday? Most local churches in the path of Winter Storm Jonas last weekend decided to call off services. And who could blame them? Record snowfalls and gale-force winds wreaked havoc from Kentucky to Cape Cod. Interstates were shut down. Residents were told to stay home and stay off snow-covered roads waiting for overwhelmed plowing crews to clear them. Churchgoers couldn”t get to church buildings, and many local municipalities had issued orders not to drive. But we heard about

January 20, 2016

Christian Standard

Too Many Lawyers

By Jim Tune I found a terrific definition of legalism on Wikipedia. “Legalism . . . in Christian theology,” it says, “is the act of putting law above gospel by establishing requirements for salvation beyond repentance and faith in Jesus Christ and reducing the broad, inclusive and general precepts of the Bible to narrow and rigid moral codes.” The article states that legalism usually involves “superficiality, the neglect of mercy, and ignorance of the grace of God or emphasizing the letter of law at the expense of the spirit.” I know all about legalism. I am a recovering legalist. I

January 19, 2016

Mark A. Taylor

How Low Will You (Let It) Go?

By Mark A. Taylor “Let It Go” is more than the title of a worldwide pop hit song introduced in Disney”s blockbuster film Frozen three years ago. According to Glen Elliott, “let it go” also makes a good theme for every Christian leader, indeed for every Christian. He shared his heart on the subject of humility in a moment for Bible study and prayer at this year”s annual Christian Standard contributing editors retreat last week. He reminded us that both James and Peter admonish us: “God opposes the proud, but shows favor to the humble.” He quoted Proverbs 16:18 (“Pride

January 13, 2016

Christian Standard

The Burned Bits

By Jim Tune I love candles. That may seem like an unusual confession from a middle-aged, conservative, nonliturgical male. I like them at home and at church. I buy pure beeswax candles and love to light up our house with them during the dark winter months. They do nothing for my wife. Claudia just prays I don”t burn the house down. The flickering glow of a candle flame warms my heart. Unlike the electric lights in our home, candles protest the end of their life with a silent gasp of smoke when they are extinguished. Usually a remnant of melted

January 12, 2016

Mark A. Taylor

Should Musicians Plan Our Worship Services?

By Mark A. Taylor Here”s why a church should recruit excellent musicians to lead worship: The people we”re serving as well as those we hope to reach are hearing professionally produced music everywhere they go. Many of them love music, and they listen to “their music” in their car, at the gym, when they walk, and sometimes at work. But even nonmusical people encounter music every day. Music creates the emotion and signals the mood in everything from Star Wars to sitcoms. The most memorable TV and radio ads include music. (I heard an interview the other day with a

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