Series: Columns

October 17, 2015

Christian Standard

Gut Check

By Eddie Lowen Pixar”s movie Inside Out is clever. It”s about an 11-year-old girl whose family moves from Minnesota to San Francisco. The genius of the film is its vivid and humorous portrayal of the memories, thoughts, and emotions that compete to control the girl”s behavior. If I had to select one word to capture all three of those elements””memory, thought, and emotion””I”d choose the word instinct. How good are your instincts? Let me guess: pretty good. As you read my question, you thought, I trust my gut. My instincts are above average. That”s the problem. Everyone thinks his or

October 14, 2015

Christian Standard

Sister Ships

By Jim Tune In Tomas Tranströmer”s poem “The Blue House,” the narrator is a man standing in the woods near his house. When he looks at his house from this vantage point, he observes that it”s as if he”d just died and he now “saw the house from a new angle.” It”s a haunting image””that just-dead man among the trees””and it”s an instructive one too. Sometimes something has to die before we can see from a new angle. This is the posture Tranströmer”s narrator assumes, at once able to see his life for what it”s been while also acknowledging the

October 13, 2015

Mark A. Taylor

Calculating the Right Answer

By Mark A. Taylor “You don”t own your possessions. Your possessions own you.” Not true for you, you say? Well, try this experiment. Think about your time: For one month keep a running diary of every minute you spend fueling your car, washing your car, or taking your car to the garage. Then add time spent cleaning the house, performing maintenance at the house, decorating, replacing broken appliances, or doing yard work To this log, add any time you”ve spent purchasing, repairing, or maintaining other favorite possessions: electronics, computers, smartphones, and the like. And then add time spent shopping for

October 10, 2015

Christian Standard

The Speed of Trust

By Jeff Faull Stephen M.R. Covey calls it “the one thing that changes everything.” When you have it, you can move forward quickly, confidently, and positively. When you don”t have it, your enterprise, organization, or endeavor is hindered and even paralyzed. According to Covey, trust is what changes everything. In fact his New York Times best seller on the subject is titled The Speed of Trust. Covey contends the commodity most overlooked and underrated in organizational health and efficiency is the trust factor. No, he isn”t longing for a return to the days of deals sealed with a simple handshake

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

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