Series: Columns

September 6, 2014

Christian Standard

Why Would You Be the President of the NACC?

By Tim Harlow I made a joke the final day of the North American Christian Convention when I appointed my friend Mike Baker as next year”s president. I knighted him with a sword (because Mike and I are weird that way), and then I said, “But I”m keeping the sword””because you might be tempted to fall on it sometime this year.” In case you are wondering, there is no pay involved in being the president. Actually it”s the opposite; your church or organization will likely have to spend money on it, and it will cost you in many ways. Is

September 5, 2014

Christian Standard

A Seven-Day Cycle for Shoes

By Jennifer Johnson A British man living in Dubai rode his bike across the Alps this summer to raise funds for a Missions of Hope International school, part of Christian Missionary Fellowship”s ministry in the Mathare slums of Nairobi, Kenya. Tim Hooker, his American wife, Fiona Petrocelli, and their son, Quinlan, became acquainted with the work of MOHI when they were planning a luxurious safari holiday in the Masaai Mara in 2011. Fiona wanted to add a different perspective to the trip by spending a day doing some type of service for local people. “Some friends of ours put us

September 4, 2014

Christian Standard

Thinking Big

By Jennifer Johnson I looked forward to speaking with Robert Bess because of the similarities between his church and ours. (See Related Article.)  Like Robert”s church in Tennessee, Levittown (PA) Christian Church, where my husband, Matt, serves as pastor, has grown from just a few families to about 100 people. And like Robert, Matt is not content for LCC to stay so small when so many thousands in our community still need Jesus. He spent much of this summer meeting with other local pastors, casting vision with the influencers and leaders in our own congregation, and reading widely to see

September 4, 2014

Christian Standard

Love Repurposed

By Jennifer Johnson When Robert Bess began serving as senior minister at Love Chapel Christian Church (Erwin, TN) in 2008, average attendance had dwindled down to just a few dozen people. Earlier this year, the church averaged 90 people on a weekend. But as we go to press, Love Chapel is seeing almost 150 people each weekend and is getting ready to welcome many more. The church achieved this amazing growth in just four weeks by repurposing a building on its property that usually sat empty, turning it into “The Love Chapel Connection Café.” Lots of churches have coffee shops,

September 2, 2014

Mark A. Taylor

This Week”s Decisions about How I”ll Use the Internet

By Mark A. Taylor Among the many (too many!) Internet posts I”ve skimmed in the last week, a few have led me to some decisions about my own behavior on the worried World Wide Web. The Internet is good for much; I”m not saying we should learn to live without it. But I”m concerned about the way we Christians sometimes decide to use it. What I”ve decided: 1. We can”t relate to each other via the Internet alone. If my opinion about another Christian isn”t based on an out-of-web relationship, then I”ll think twice about discussing him or her on

August 29, 2014

Christian Standard

How Are Things at Home?

By Eddie Lowen Why are you serving on that board or with that mission? How do you decide when it”s better to say no? Have you ever heard the wife of a construction contractor brag about all the work her husband does around the house? Neither have I. Normally, Mrs. Contractor complains, “My husband does amazing improvements on other people”s houses, but it”s like pulling teeth to get him to work on our home.” Some churches have a similar dynamic. Here”s how it develops: a capable minister does good work and establishes a positive reputation. He is asked by parachurch

August 28, 2014

Christian Standard

Despots, Presidents, and a Readable Grammarian

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China Jung Chang New York: Anchor Books (Doubleday); originally published by Simon and Schuster, 1991 The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism Doris Kearns Goodwin New York: Simon and Schuster, 2013 For Who the Bell Tolls: One Man”s Quest for Grammatical Perfection David Marsh London: Guardian Books, 2013 Wild Swans sat around our house for too long. My wife, Joy, picked it up a couple of years ago while traveling with our daughter in Vietnam. In the face of other pressures, it sat on the back shelf until

August 27, 2014

Christian Standard

The Thread that Leads to God

By Jim Tune In Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Carl Jung wrote these penetrating words: “About a third of my cases are suffering from no clinically definable neurosis, but from the senselessness and the emptiness in their lives. This can be described as the general neurosis of our time.” The late philosopher and author Francis Schaeffer said, “The damnation of this generation is that it doesn’t know that it has any meaning at all.” Solomon put it this way: “Everything is meaningless. . . . I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all

August 26, 2014

Mark A. Taylor

God Is Working, God Will Work!

By Mark A. Taylor Several facts are clear as we look at reports from colleges and campus ministries posted at this site this month: “¢ These are tough times for Christian colleges. As more than one writer mentions, a perfect storm of difficult situations””sluggish economy, a smaller population of new high school graduates, higher expectations among students and parents, and greater competition, to name the most mentioned””have caused much navel-gazing and budget cutting among college administrators everywhere. Small secular colleges are facing many of the same pressures, and this is some consolation, but not enough. If the economic or cultural

August 19, 2014

Mark A. Taylor

Lead On, Lead Up, Lead Now

By Mark A. Taylor No group will understand or fulfill its mission without a leader sounding the charge and setting the example. Eddie Lowen and I talked about this during my Beyond the Standard interview with him July 31. Churches need to be led, he said, and led by leaders with high integrity. We could say the same for school boards, corporations, or the government of any nation. But our experience with bad leadership in all of those environments may be one reason some are suspicious of leaders in the church. Can we find a leader more interested in his

August 13, 2014

Christian Standard

Real Hope

By Jim Tune Last spring I taught a course on apologetics. We devoted considerable attention to the resurrection. I wanted students to sink deep roots in the ground of real hope””not optimism, not wishful thinking, but hope! I remember a story about a painful time in the life of a young missionary woman. This woman had married a Rwandan pastor, a Tutsi, and they had established a home together in that country. She was visiting Kenya on a mission trip when the dreadful Rwandan tragedy erupted. Hutu militia moved in, butchering men, women, and children wherever they went. The ensuing

August 12, 2014

Mark A. Taylor

Four T”s for Recruiting and Keeping Volunteers

By Mark A. Taylor In many places, the first day of the new school year is on the horizon, if it hasn”t occurred already. And the local church”s Bible-teaching program is ready to gear-up too. A new season of classes, youth groups, children”s choirs, and small groups usually brings a flurry of worker recruitment. Some churches, unfortunately and ineffectively, will post “help-wanted” ads in church newsletters or make impassioned pleas from the pulpit for nursery workers and children”s teachers. But while support from the preacher can be a vital ingredient in worker recruitment, asking everyone is never as effective as

August 6, 2014

Christian Standard

Racehorses, Plodders, and Mules

By Jim Tune The words of James Denney ring true to me: “No man can give at once the impression that he himself is clever, and that Christ is mighty to save.” You can impress people with your cleverness or you can impress them with Jesus, but you can”t do both. It”s a common practice in church planting circles to search for a particular “type” of church planter. Competence, calling, giftedness””these characteristics matter when it comes to selecting a lead planter. The organization I lead uses a thorough assessment process to screen candidates for attributes that are useful in predicting

August 5, 2014

Mark A. Taylor

Ready to Heal

By Mark A. Taylor Nobody forced Atlanta”s Emory University Hospital last week to accept two patients stricken with the deadly Ebola virus. Instead, Dr. Bruce Ribner, head of the Emory unit treating the sick Americans, welcomed the chance to admit them. Emory, according to Ribner, is one of only four U.S. facilities uniquely equipped to treat such a contagious disease. He told CNN, “We are not going to miss this opportunity.” Hospital staff members congratulated him for accepting the patients, he said. When he explained his decision to his wife, she responded, “Great, that”s what you”ve been dreaming of for

August 3, 2014

Christian Standard

Gut Feelings

By Jennifer Johnson Scientists have told us for years there is a strong link between our feelings and the state of our stomach. The “enteric nervous system,” or ENS, in our digestive system has sometimes been called the “second brain,” and a 2013 study found that introducing different bacteria to the stomach can cause changes to our emotions. Chalk one more up for the ancient Greeks; long before today”s research, they”d coined the word splagna, which roughly translates to “compassion” but literally means one”s guts. They knew that when we feel empathy in our hearts, we can also feel it

August 2, 2014

Christian Standard

Planting Where Sin Abounds

By Jennifer Johnson When Vince Antonucci prepared to plant a church called Verve in Las Vegas, he thought, Of course we”ll be on the Strip. But when he began researching that area, he discovered there were no other churches there. “I wondered if that was unique to Las Vegas,” he says. “I began looking at the most “˜sinful” neighborhoods and streets in the world””places like the Red Light District in Amsterdam, Bourbon Street in New Orleans, The Sunset Strip in L.A. There are no churches there. But Jesus went to the most sinful places and the most sinful people. He

August 1, 2014

Christian Standard

Real Issues, Real Talk

By Jennifer Johnson After Real Life Christian Church (Clermont, FL) began broadcasting its weekend services on a local TV station, it started brainstorming ideas for a second show. “So much Christian TV is so lame, and we didn”t want to create something like that,” says Marc Naugler, creative video director, and Chris Gingrasso, communications pastor at Real Life. “Our church name reflects who we are””real people talking about real issues in a real way and helping people find real faith. Real Talk extends those values in a new format to a new audience.” Justin Miller, Real Life”s lead pastor, hosts

July 31, 2014

Christian Standard

Memoir of an Atheist, Biography of a Genius, Advice for Travelers

By LeRoy Lawson   Joseph Anton: A Memoir Salman Rushdie New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2013 Jim Henson: The Biography Brian Jay Jones New York: Ballantine Books, 2013 Foreign to Familiar: A Guide to Understanding Hot- and Cold-Climate Cultures Sarah A. Lanier Hagerstown: McDougal Publishing, 2000 When Salman Rushdie published his infamous The Satanic Verses in 1988, the Muslim world went crazy. Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of Iran”s revolution””the one that drove the Shah from the Peacock Throne and into exile””outraged by what he perceived to be Rushdie”s attack on religion in general and Islam in particular, pronounced a fatwa

July 30, 2014

Christian Standard

Celebrate Who?

By Jim Tune Most popular treatments of faith say it doesn”t matter what you believe. Just believe something“”whatever you want””and you”ll find the sheer act of believing will propel you to greatness. The parades and musical numbers at Walt Disney”s Magic Kingdom encourage visitors to believe in themselves and celebrate their dreams, whatever they are. As I left the theme park after a recent visit, the loudspeakers played a positively giddy song with the chorus, “In everything you do, celebrate you!” But life”s not an amusement park, and this endlessly narcissistic message will eat you alive if you attempt to

July 29, 2014

Mark A. Taylor

Speaking the Truth, Showing the Truth

By Mark A. Taylor Today I”m remembering insights about faith-sharing in last month”s Beyond the Standard online interview. Plan to tune-in to this month”s discussion, “Ministry Today” with CHRISTIAN STANDARD columnist Eddie Lowen, this Thursday, July 31, 11 a.m. Eastern. My eye fell on a small tract, propped against the mirror on the shelf above the sink in the public restroom I was using. “Where Will You Spend Eternity?” the leaflet asked. And I remembered my own tract-distributing phase many decades ago. On one occasion, with fevered prayers, I had slipped a salvation tract into the magazine pocket behind the

Be Seen, Be Heard - A Live Online Workshop to Increase Online Visibility for Local Churches
(Tap the Flyer Below for Details)

be seen be heard online visibility workshop for churches by christian standard

Learn how to make the Sermon Content you’re already producing draw people into your local church.

For preachers, church media and website teams, and anyone who’d like to learn how to increase the visibility of their local church online.

 


GET EVENT DETAILS & RESERVE YOUR SPOT

No, thank you.
Transactions are 100% secure.
Help Keep Christian Standard Free & Accessible with a Tax Deductible Donation

We can do more together!

Every gift makes a difference!

No, thank you.
100% secure transactions - receipts provided.
Does Your Church Want to Support Christian Standard?

Would your church consider including support for Christian Standard in its annual missions budget? Your support would help us not only continue the 160-year legacy of this unifying ministry, but also expand the free resources, cooperative opportunities, and practical guidance we provide to strengthen churches in the U.S. and around the world.

We can do more together!

Every gift makes a difference!

No, thank you.
100% secure transactions - receipts provided.
Secret Link