Series: Columns

October 6, 2015

Mark A. Taylor

About Face

By Mark A. Taylor Yesterday we posted the first in a series of posts this month about integrity. We believe each one will challenge readers to grow deeper, to actually become in greater measure what they seem to be and what they say they want to be. But one aspect needs fuller discussion. None of our other posts specifically addresses how our prayer lives are a measure of our integrity. Yesterday’s post by Randy Gariss touches the issue with his list of four disciplines to achieve integrity. Correctly, he begins with worship, and certainly he includes prayer as a part of that. We posted Gariss”s essay first

October 2, 2015

Christian Standard

Tour of Duties

By Jennifer Johnson Recently, two older ladies in our church began taking Communion to members in the hospital. While this is far from the 24-hour, professionally trained chaplaincy program organized by First Christian Church in Decatur (see related article), for Miss Marilyn and Miss Pat it was a Bigfoot-sized step out of their comfort zones. “I was scared to death,” Pat said the Sunday after her first hospital visit. But she did it, gathering up the portable Communion set and her car keys and setting out on a faith adventure. Now she and Marilyn are old pros, sometimes scheduling their

October 2, 2015

Christian Standard

A Backstage Pass to Volunteerism

By Jennifer Johnson Like many churches, Compass Christian Church in Colleyville, TX, has a new members class””theirs is called “Discover Compass”””to share information about the church, its mission, and its ministries. Unlike most churches, Compass follows this up with a behind-the-scenes tour to help each person find a way to serve. “We hold the Discover Compass class one week and invite people to come back the following week for Serve Tour,” says Rich Green, serve pastor at Compass. “We begin with a short overview of the importance of serving and why it”s part of the Christian life; then we walk through

October 1, 2015

Christian Standard

First Christian Steps in to Fill Hospital Chaplaincy

By Jennifer Johnson When the chaplain of Decatur (IL) Memorial Hospital retired after 25 years of service, Wayne Kent, lead pastor at First Christian Church in Decatur, got an idea. “I approached the hospital leadership because this kind of hire is different from what they normally do,” he says. “I told them we could help with the process””or they could just ask us to do it.” With that, Kent began a series of conversations with the hospital administration that resulted in First Christian “just doing it”””evaluating applicants for the chaplaincy position, hiring the chaplain, and expanding the program to provide

September 30, 2015

Christian Standard

Pebbles, Rocks, and Water

By Jim Tune Most readers will be familiar with Stephen Covey”s prioritizing system. He urges us to differentiate the truly important from the merely urgent; the essential thing from the merely marginal. Frequently referred to as the “big rocks” illustration, Covey produces a bucket (which symbolizes our life), a few big rocks (which symbolize our most essential priorities), and a bunch of small pebbles (which symbolize the tasks that seem urgent, but ultimately aren”t essential). Covey pours the pebbles into the bucket, and then invites a seminar participant to try to add all of the big rocks. This proves impossible,

September 29, 2015

Mark A. Taylor

Annual Panic

By Mark A. Taylor Every August and September, I was gripped by panic. As part-time education minister with a smaller church (now it”s mega), I was responsible to recruit Sunday school workers for every age level and to staff a fully graded program on Wednesday nights. When kids choirs took a break on Sunday evenings (we had Sunday-night church back in those days), my job was to create and find workers for kids” classes then too. In a church of a few hundred, that was a lot of volunteers, and we never seemed to have quite enough. We encouraged people

September 25, 2015

Christian Standard

The Best Sermon I’ve Ever Heard (3)

By Arron Chambers Christian leaders, some of them preachers themselves, tell us about a sermon they can”t forget””and maybe you won”t either. Interestingly, this month”s submissions include two sermons delivered at the same church but by different speakers, and two sermons by fathers of the contributors. Enjoy! Jennifer Farber Jennifer is executive director of the KORE Foundation. She works with the Small Holder Poultry Project in Haiti and oversees stateside operations. Jennifer”s Best Sermon: The best sermon on reaching, serving, and helping people to live better lives by Dennis Bratton (Jennifer”s father). This sermon was delivered at Journey Christian Church

September 24, 2015

Christian Standard

Is Religion the Problem?

By LeRoy Lawson Can We Be Good Without God? Biology, Behavior, and the Need to Believe Robert Beckman Amherst: Prometheus Books, 2002 Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence Karen Armstrong New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014 Home Sweet Anywhere: How We Sold Our House, Created a New Life, and Saw the World Lynne Martin Naperville: Sourcebooks, 2014 I bought Can We Be Good Without God? because I wanted to know the answer. It”s not unusual for someone going through a medical, familial, or other kind of crisis to ask, “How does one who doesn”t believe in God get through something

September 23, 2015

Christian Standard

Taming the Sermon

By Jim Tune When it comes to discussions about the teachings of Jesus, especially his “hard” teachings, I”ve grown tired of the tendency to tame any revolutionary teaching that seems just too radical or too naïve or idealistic. The conversation too often goes like this: “I know that”s what Jesus said, but what he really meant was. . . .” For example, when Jesus tells us not to store up riches on earth, we repurpose it to say, “Do not get too attached to the riches that you have, in fact, stored up on earth.” We read the Sermon on

September 21, 2015

Christian Standard

Rethinking What I”m Doing

By Jennifer Johnson I don”t know what it”s like to grow from boyhood to manhood or, for that matter, to spend four days wandering through Angeles National Forest. However, one part of my conversation with Dane Johnson about Christ”s Church of the Valley“s new Leadership USA program did resonate with me. (Read the related article.) “The guys explore whether they are a doer, a thinker, or a feeler,” he told me, “and they learn that each one is valuable. If you don”t fill your role, the team suffers.” I agree with the idea that each type is important, but after

September 21, 2015

Christian Standard

CCV Growing Boys into Leaders

By Jennifer Johnson For more than 30 years, a group in Australia has led a three-stage program to help teenage boys transition from boyhood to adulthood. Last year Christ”s Church of the Valley (San Dimas, CA) launched the program for its own young men. Leadership USA is designed in one-week stages spread out over three years, with boys starting stage one at age 15 and completing stage three at 17. “THIS IS NOT SUMMER CAMP” the church”s webpage explains; instead, it is an intense and challenging experience designed to help the participants grow spiritually, physically, mentally, and socially. “When I

September 20, 2015

Christian Standard

Discovering Your Potential for Missions

By Jennifer Johnson Christian Missionary Fellowship plants international churches, trains national leaders, coordinates a child sponsorship program, develops campus ministries in key cities around the world, teaches Community Health Evangelism, drills wells for clean water, manages a microloan program, and more. But much of this work depends on consistently recruiting new people to serve””as interns, exchange students, and short- and long-term missionaries. Recently CMF developed a new “Is Missions for Me?” seminar designed to discover more potential recruits for its programs while resourcing and supporting local church efforts. The event is hosted by a church (although several churches can partner

September 19, 2015

Christian Standard

Why Are We So Nasty on Social Media?

By Joe Boyd The world has changed. We have the entire canon of human knowledge at our fingertips inside the tiny computers we carry. We call them phones, but rarely use them for such an antiquated concept as talking to someone. They are our portal to anyone and anything at anytime. We use them to be “social,” but rarely civil. I”m not a social media hater. I like it. I”ve been blogging for more than 12 years. I was an early adopter of both Facebook and Twitter. But I must admit I am weary of how hateful the general tone

September 16, 2015

Christian Standard

Just Breathe

  By Jim Tune Breathe on me, Breath of God, Until my heart is pure, Until with Thee I will one will, To do and to endure. “”Edwin Hatch, from the hymn “Breathe on Me, Breath of God” Job reaches the limits of his ability to endure. He plunks himself down, ruined, infected, septic. He has lost everything: his children, livestock, livelihood, house, and now his health. He is abandoned on the ash heap, scraping his wounds with the sharp-edged fragments of clay pots. Job is dying: physically, emotionally, and spiritually. In the valley of the shadow of death, but

September 15, 2015

Mark A. Taylor

Volunteers: They”re Vital!

By Mark A. Taylor Not long after I left ministry in the local church to come to the nine-to-five office environment at Standard Publishing, I had an epiphany. I had taken for granted the volunteers who had helped me at the church. When I needed them to come to a meeting, they came. When I asked them to teach a class, they taught. When I recruited them to give up time to keep my latest notion from failing, they were there. Meanwhile, I counted everything I did for the church as part of the job they were paying me for.

September 9, 2015

Christian Standard

Paralysis, Condescension, or Love?

By Jim Tune How do you view the world? Too often I think our churches tend to see the world only as a mess””caught up in mindless trivialization, bereft of moral values, anti-church, and anti-Christian. Indeed, it is common today for many churches to see the world as the enemy. Unfortunately, rather than feeling heartbroken about it, we feel smug and righteous as we gleefully witness its downfall. Godlessness is its own punishment! The world is only getting what it deserves! That”s what it gets for not listening to us! In this, our attitude is the antithesis of Jesus” attitude

September 8, 2015

Mark A. Taylor

Parenting Predictable, Not Perfect

By Mark A. Taylor Which of these videos reminds you of an awkward moment at your house? Did you ever lose a hamster? Did you ever make yourself sick making your kids happy? Did parenting ever take you out of your comfort zone? Well, take heart. “You don”t have to be perfect to be a perfect parent.” It”s a message as encouraging for biological parents as it is for those who would adopt. And it”s exactly what Jack Holland told us in our August 20 episode of Beyond the Standard. In fact, he says professional literature on successful families uses

September 3, 2015

Christian Standard

Working for the Glory of God

Book review by Bob Mink Work: A Kingdom Perspective on Labor Ben Witherington III Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2011 Ben Witherington doesn”t merely suggest that modern American Christians know little of what the Bible says about work, and that theologians have seldom addressed the topic. In Work: A Kingdom Perspective on Labor, he offers solutions to both deficiencies. And in the course of his short book (166 pages), this professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary relays quite a bit of what the Bible says about work. Foundational to a biblical and Christian view of work is that

September 3, 2015

Christian Standard

Work: A Part of God”s Plan

Book Review by Bert Crabbe Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God”s Work Timothy Keller Dutton (Penguin Group USA), 2012 Tim Keller, lead pastor of New York City”s Redeemer Presbyterian Church, possesses a unique ability to cause his readers to see things from a perspective not their own. Opening up Every Good Endeavor, I thought I had a pretty good bead on the place of work in the life of a Christian. Keller, as he so often does, led me to another level of theological thought. Work is sometimes considered a result of the fall of man, a punitive addition

September 2, 2015

Christian Standard

Emotional Stinginess

By Jim Tune The joke was funny. My sermon was good. But two rows of people, mostly from the same family, were unmoved. They were, in their own minds, punishing me for an unpopular decision. The method of punishment? Withholding encouragement. Withholding praise. Withholding kindness. Arms folded across their chests, their eyes betrayed what they were thinking: You will receive no love from us this day. Praise has never been my motivation for preaching. You can”t please everyone anyway. But most preachers can relate to the “deliberate withholding” scene I just described. Thomas Aquinas once submitted that to withhold a

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