Series: Columns

November 4, 2013

Christian Standard

Learning to Lead

By James Riley Estep,  Jr. It”s a complaint commonly heard in some churches: “We”re having trouble finding men to serve as elders,” or “Younger men aren”t stepping forward to serve as elders!” Leadership is oftentimes more caught than taught. Solomon wrote, “Iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another” (Proverbs 27:17). He understood what we now understand””leaders form other leaders.  Recruiting and equipping elders in the church is not just a matter of programming, and the solution is not as simple as starting a leadership class. Leaders are formed over a lifelong process of experience, training, nurturing, and intentional relationship

November 3, 2013

Michael C. Mack

Seven Ways Your Small Group Can Celebrate the Incarnation This Holiday Season

By Michael C. Mack Many groups struggle with meeting and studying over the holidays, and this can be detrimental to the health of your group. Not only that, but this is a prime time of the year to help your group members grow in their faith and invite new people. Perhaps your group will take a break from its normal schedule, but that”s no reason to stop meeting. Here are seven ideas for how your small group can get the most””and give the most””from Thanksgiving through New Year”s.   1. Experience Christmas. This is one of the most wonderful times

November 2, 2013

Christian Standard

Are They Wrong””or Are They Lost?

By Tim Harlow A friend and I were talking recently about the moral decline in the United States and the distinctly different reactions Christians are having toward the post-Christian era in which we live. When I was growing up, especially in the Bible Belt, people knew what was right and what was wrong. They didn”t always do the right things, but they knew the 10 Commandments and the Bible were the standards by which all things should be measured. But now the Supreme Court can”t even correctly define marriage. This leads some Christians to grab a soapbox and tell everyone

November 1, 2013

Christian Standard

Books I Enjoyed about Subjects I Don”t

By LeRoy Lawson   Fermat”s Last Theorem Simon Singh London: Fourth Estate, 2002 Evolution: The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory Edward J. Larson New York: The Modern Library, 2006  Massive: The Missing Particle that Sparked the Greatest Hunt in Science Ian Sample New York: Basic Books, 2010   Confession is good for the soul, the saying goes””and it is. Whether it is good for the column is quite another matter. Today”s books are held together by a common theme: things I don”t know. I am way, way out of my field here. But just as when driving you get lost

October 31, 2013

Christian Standard

Imperfect People””Perfect Plan

By Dyke McCord   Let me tell you about how my elders and I function together. While there will always be differences of opinion, the elders and ministry staff at my church demonstrate unity (Ephesians 4:11-13). Our support for one another privately and corporately leads to high levels of trust within the body. These are not yes-men, but rather men with strength of character and a level of support that demonstrates, “No matter what, we”re going to get through this together.” We all work to be genuine and transparent. Leadership credibility is the result.   Boundaries Our elders don”t protect

October 29, 2013

Mark A. Taylor

Self-Fed

By Mark A. Taylor Usually my wife and I grab something at a restaurant after church on Sunday morning, but a few weeks ago the church fed me lunch. It was an information meeting for small group leaders at our church, and the menu was box lunches from one of my favorite local cafes. I tried the chicken salad sandwich. Never had it before””it was great! There were extra meals on hand after the meeting, so each of us could take a couple home with us. My wife and I enjoyed ours the next day. So that means the church

October 26, 2013

Christian Standard

Rare Doctors, Rare Diseases, and the Church

By Brian Mavis Robert was born a perfectly healthy boy. But as his first birthday approached, his mom noticed he wasn”t progressing in his development like he had before. In fact, she was afraid he was regressing. Robert”s parents took him to see several doctors, but none of them knew what was happening to Robert. After a few more months, Robert had become completely limp, even to the point of not showing facial expressions. He became entirely unresponsive. Over the past 10 years, Robert”s parents have taken him to dozens of specialists at the best hospitals in the country. They

October 22, 2013

Mark A. Taylor

We”re Doing Well, but Not Well Enough

By Mark A. Taylor A generation ago, Dr. Steve Hancock made sure his graduate Christian education students understood the principles of Sunday school growth. One of the rules, which he learned at the Southern Baptist seminary he attended, went something like this: “New classes grow faster, win more people to Christ, and develop more workers than existing classes.” We don”t hear much about Sunday school growth nowadays. But church growth, especially growth through church planting, is on everyone”s radar. Ed Stetzer, president of LifeWay Research, is a Southern Baptist church growth advocate for today”s generation. And he says “any movement

October 20, 2013

Michael C. Mack

Restoring Life to Your Small Group

By Michael C. Mack QUESTION: Our small group started strong, but now it”s dead. We launched around an eight-week churchwide campaign. The first meeting had all the signs of a successful group, but by week five couples who had been so excited about being in a group started making excuses why they couldn”t stick with their commitment. One by one they began to drop out. To make the group more convenient, we began meeting every other week. The group dwindled even more. People lost track of when we were meeting and didn”t come. Finally we just decided to pronounce the

October 16, 2013

Christian Standard

Oakes Steps Down as President of Central Christian College of the Bible

Central Christian College of the Bible (Moberly, MO) announced Oct. 8 that Dr. Ronald Oakes had resigned as the school’s president in a regularly scheduled meeting of the Board of Directors Oct. 4. According to the school’s website, board chairman Gene McCoy met with college staff Oct. 7 and said, “We have commended Dr. Oakes for his faithful service and dedication to a responsibility he did not seek in 2005, when we, upon faculty recommendations and with the assistance of faculty representatives on the presidential search team, asked him to serve the college as its president. We are grateful to Dr.

October 16, 2013

Christian Standard

Lipscomb Working to Save ‘Contributor’

By Jennifer Johnson Alumni from Lipscomb University (Nashville, TN) helped create The Contributor, a “street newspaper” sold by the homeless in the city to provide a source of income for themselves and a source of information on homelessness to the public. Recently, Lipscomb alumni, administration, faculty, staff and students came together to save it. In September, The Contributor “announced that unless enough money could be raised in the next month, the September issue would be its last,”Â Lipscomb writes. The college community raised more than $5,000 and LU president Dr. Randy Lowry provided a matching gift, making the total donation over $11,000. “Contributor vendors sell about 50,000 newspapers each week,”

October 15, 2013

Mark A. Taylor

Bringing People Together

By Mark A. Taylor “The power of the gospel to bring people together is greater than I thought,” Kevin Haah said in the September 26 Beyond the Standard BlogTalkRadio program. Haah”s New City Christian Church reaches the homeless in the church”s Skid Row neighborhood of Los Angeles as well as upwardly mobile young professionals with six-figure incomes. This is possible, he believes, “because we make the gospel the centerpiece.” “We”re all more messed up than we think we are, but God loves us more than we can imagine,” he said. “The gospel is the story of God coming to save

October 8, 2013

Mark A. Taylor

Keeping Them Connected

By Mark A. Taylor Those concerned about millennials and their relationship to the church can be encouraged by research reported by the Barna Group in September. Although the news release, titled “Five Reasons Millennials Stay Connected to Church,” minced no words about “the harsh realities of Millennial Faith,” it also offered research to show why many 18- to 29-year-olds stay connected to God by being connected to a local church. But first the bad news: 59 percent of millennials raised in Christian churches eventually leave them. In the last decade, according to this research, the number of unchurched millennials has

October 7, 2013

Christian Standard

What Would Jabez Do?

By Jim Tune   “Let me not live,” quoth he, “After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses All but new things disdain; whose judgments are Mere fathers of their garments; whose constancies Expire before their fashions.” “”William Shakespeare, All”s Well That Ends Well   In business marketing, companies are very interested in reaching the elusive consumer known as the early adopter. I suppose I fit into that category. My guess is a large majority of church planters are early adopters, or perhaps even innovators. It wouldn”t surprise me if someone discovered the

October 5, 2013

Christian Standard

Educating Ministers as They Serve

By Jennifer Johnson “Old methods of seminary training assume an outdated model that”s primarily baptizing, marrying, and burying,” says Mark Love, dean of the School of Theology and Ministry at Rochester College (Rochester Hills, MI). “But we don”t live in that world anymore. We need to be teaching students how to read a culture and relate to it as missionaries.” To this end, Love created the Master of Religious Education in Missional Leadership, a two-year, 36-hour program designed to educate students while they serve in a local ministry. “Their ministry context is their primary classroom,” Love says. “So we combine

October 4, 2013

Christian Standard

Extra Time, Attention a Step in Right Direction

By Jennifer Johnson Raise your hand if you”ve ever felt guilty because you don”t want to be a foster parent. I firmly believe Christians should be leading the way in fostering the needy kids in our communities. In fact, one of the moments I knew I wanted to marry Matt was when he initiated a conversation, during a road trip a few months before our actual engagement, about being foster parents someday. But fostering is not for everyone, and it”s certainly not for everyone at every time. Matt and I just wrapped up a successful first year of a new

October 4, 2013

Christian Standard

CIY”s ‘Sons and Daughters’ Focuses on Fatherlessness

By Jennifer Johnson Christ In Youth exists to “amplify Christ”s call,” challenging students to live their faith boldly. So why is this ministry making movies? Over the last several years, CIY has made short films about the AIDS crisis in Africa, sex trafficking in Cambodia, and the need for fresh water in Zambia. Love Costs Everything featured persecuted Christians around the world, and now Becoming Sons and Daughters tackles the issue of fatherlessness in America. “We”ve seen today”s students become a screen generation,” says Chris Jefferson, vice president of organizational advancement at CIY. “So each of these films was developed

September 28, 2013

Michael C. Mack

How Your Small Group Can Carry Out the Great Commission

By Michael C. Mack The mere mention of “small group multiplication” makes some group members squirm. “I finally found a great group of friends,” they protest, “and now you want to split us up?” In last month”s issue, I dared to bring up the subject. I pointed out a “secret” to small group multiplication: healthy groups reproduce naturally. In fact, group multiplication happens best and more often, I”ve found, when it isn”t forced. To carry out the Great Commission, we must continually develop new groups, new churches, and new ministries. But where do we find leaders? I think the best

September 27, 2013

Christian Standard

Images of Colorado Flooding

LifeBridge Christian Church staff member Drew Depler, who is coordinating disaster relief efforts for the Longmont, Colorado, church, provided CHRISTIAN STANDARD with a number of photos of flooding near the church, and recovery efforts in and around the church. The photos were taken in the days after the flooding started. A slow-moving cold front that stalled over the state clashed with warm, humid air from the south, producing heavy rain starting September 9, 2013, and ultimately catastrophic flooding. Disasters have been declared in more than a dozen Colorado counties.

September 26, 2013

Christian Standard

Five “˜Must-Read” Books for Ministry

By LeRoy Lawson Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth Richard J. Foster New York: HarperOne, originally published in 1978 In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership Henri J. M. Nouwen New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1989 Communicating for a Change Andy Stanley and Lane Jones Colorado Springs: Multnomah Books, 2006 Deep and Wide: Creating Churches Unchurched People Love to Attend Andy Stanley Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012 Simple Church: Returning to God”s Process for Making Disciples Thom S. Rainer and Eric Geiger Nashville: Broadman and Holman Publishers, 2006   Recently Milligan College and Christian Standard asked

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