Series: Blogs

Family & Relationships

Let”s Build Families

By Mark A. Taylor Any college teacher, particularly one who is a Christian, will tell you this: Many, maybe a majority, of college students today come from troubled families. Chris DeWelt, an Ozark Christian College professor, described the students he knows: “Most . . . bring with them much more than just computers, clothes, and small fridges. They often bring baggage that is not so easily identified or addressed.” It”s true on secular campuses too. In his interview this month, longtime campus minister Gary Hawes says, “The largest percentage of students we are involved with today come from either dysfunctional

July 29, 2015

Culture & Public Square Politics & Government

Plausible Deniability

By Jim Tune In the United Kingdom, members of Parliament have long been allowed to bill taxpayers for the expense of maintaining a second home because they are required to spend time in both London and their home districts. The office responsible for deciding what was reasonable approved nearly every request. Consequently British members of Parliament (MPs) treated it like a big blank check. And because their expenses were hidden from the public, MPs thought they had it made, until a newspaper printed a leaked copy of those expense claims in 2009. Not surprisingly, the MPs had behaved abominably. Many

July 28, 2015

Calm in the Chaos

By Mark A. Taylor How shall we react in times that seem to become more unsettled every week? In a society besieged by gun violence, in a culture increasingly fragmented by political division, in a world where peace seems impossible and conflict far away breeds pain and destruction close to home, what should be the Christian”s outlook? When the media celebrates and the government certifies rights we believe God forbids, and when Christian leaders struggle to find middle ground between the extremes of permissiveness and legalism, where will we take our stand? In blog posts and coffee shop conversations all

July 22, 2015

Care & Counseling Grief & Suffering

Sweet Sorrow

By Jim Tune One of my favorite books (and I like the movie, too) is the classic The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Czech writer Milan Kundera. In his book, the heroine, Teresa, struggles to be at peace with life when it”s not heavy, when it”s too much lightness, sunshine, and seemingly carefree””when it”s devoid of the anxieties that hint at darkness and mortality. She feels the constant need for gravitas, for some heaviness that says life is more than simply the present flourishing of health and comfort. For her, lightness equals superficiality. Most of us prefer sunshine over shadow,

July 21, 2015

Church Leadership

The Leaders We Follow

By Mark A. Taylor Where would you be without the leaders in your life? How would you have faltered or failed? Where would you have wandered? What do you know and value that wouldn”t be in your heart and mind without the ones who have influenced you most? Without those leaders, there would have been others. Someone influences each of us. None of us blazes his path alone without some sort of guide showing the way. And none of us makes a turn in the path””a life-altering decision for good or bad””without some stimulus outside ourselves. Testimonies from 35 leaders

July 15, 2015

On Being Slow to Speak

By Jim Tune In her book Letter to My Daughter, Maya Angelou writes about a dinner party hosted in the home of a very rich and sophisticated friend during the author”s first trip to Senegal. As Angelou explored the ostentatious home and observed the elegant guests, she noted they were all carefully stepping around the beautiful, expensive rug in the middle of the floor to avoid dirtying it. She became outraged and appalled that her hostess would be so shallow as to value her things above her guest”s comfort. Finally Angelou decided to act; she stepped onto the rug and

July 14, 2015

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 14, 2015

Church Leadership

Follow the Leader

July 8, 2015

Baptism Theology & Bible

God Tastes Like Fire

By Jim Tune German Anabaptist teacher Hans Hut endured the heat of persecution when he refused to have his child baptized. He was arrested in 1527 during a meeting with other Anabaptist leaders in Augsburg, Germany. Hut was tortured horribly, and died of asphyxiation during a fire that consumed the Augsburg prison on December 6, 1527. The next day, the authorities sentenced his dead body to death and burned him. A man of deep convictions and reverence for God, Hut described the holiness of God: “God tastes like fire.” God appears as flame frequently in Scripture, consuming at one moment,

July 7, 2015

Church Leadership

Still Painful

By Mark A. Taylor All the news about conservative churches and their response to those with same-sex attraction reminded me of a post I wrote three years ago. That week I challengedÂ the church to demonstrate both grace and truth as we discuss this difficult issue and reach out to those celebrating and seeking gay marriage. Follow the links in the below post to even older posts, and you’ll see a constant message urging us to find ways to show gays that Jesus loves them. More than once in recent years, CHRISTIAN STANDARD has advocated for compassion toward homosexuals. We

July 1, 2015

Holy Spirit Theology & Bible

You Will Receive Power

By Jim Tune Luke ends his Gospel with the promise of power from on high (Luke 24:49)””a promise quickly fulfilled with an exclamation mark in the book of Acts, as the Spirit descends on Jesus” disciples at Pentecost. Mark”s Gospel, at least in its longer form, ends with a dramatic promise of signs, of poison swallowed without harm, of snake handling and tongue speaking. So you could be forgiven for harboring expectations of dramatic spiritual ecstasies when the resurrected Christ, invested with all heavenly and earthly authority, promises his presence to the end of the age. Yet the charge Jesus

June 30, 2015

Miscellaneous

The Time to Refine Our Focus

By Mark A. Taylor The Internet is buzzing with reactions to last week”s Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage. Advocates are adding the #LoveWins hashtag to every tweet, and Christian leaders are urging the church not to be discouraged in the face of what many view as a terrible loss. Amid all the chatter, Caleb Kaltenbach”s perspective offers a voice as refreshing as it is calm. “Some say this is the defining issue of the day,” he said when I interviewed him last week at the North American Christian Convention. “But I believe the church is getting it wrong.” We

June 24, 2015

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 23, 2015

Miscellaneous

Decide by Walking Around

By Mark A. Taylor Here”s another reason the North American Christian Convention is such a productive gathering. At the NACC we do a lot of walking! And, according to a new study by researchers at Stanford University, that”s good! A summary from Stanford News puts it this way: “Creative thinking improves while a person is walking and shortly thereafter.” That means we can generate a MOUNTAIN of creativity at the NACC. Granted, the Cincinnati convention center and downtown are more compact than what we”ve found in some cities. But even at its best, the convention requires blocks of walking between

June 17, 2015

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 16, 2015

Church & Ministry Church Growth

Three Reasons Evangelical Churches Are Growing When Others Are Not

By Mark A. Taylor Why are Evangelicals the only growing Christian group in America? The fact of dramatic decline among mainline Protestants and Catholic churches in the U.S. is certain, documented by a Pew research report released last month. But answers have varied among those seeking to explain why Evangelicals are holding their own. I asked about that when I spoke with three ministers of growing churches in last month”s episode of our monthly online interview program, Beyond the Standard. These fellows””Brian Kruckenberg, lead pastor with New City Church in Phoenix, Arizona; Bo Chancey, senior pastor with Manchester (NH) Christian

June 10, 2015

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,

June 9, 2015

Culture & Public Square Reconciliation

Truth in Labeling

By Mark A. Taylor If you”re buying fashion, you look for the right label. But when you”re relating to people in a polarized world, labels can be as damaging as they are discouraging. I, for one, am tired of the expectation that I”ll believe and behave according to the label someone else places on me. Must I, for example, echo the rhetoric of either the blue state or red state where I live? Must I agree with every statement and every position of the presidential candidate I vote for? Must I commit to either a conservative or liberal position in

June 3, 2015