Series: Columns

March 1, 2023

Tyler McKenzie

How Do We Talk About Grace with a Generation That Feels No Guilt?

How Do We Talk About Grace with a Generation That Feels No Guilt?

By Tyler McKenzie  As generations of young people emerge who are more different than ever imagined, how should our presentation of God’s grace change? Millennials (those born 1981–96) are assuming leadership. Gen Z (born 1997–2012) is entering the workforce. The youngest of those from Generation Alpha (about 2013–25) are upon the age of accountability. They are the new mission field.  From Guilt to Shame  One of my hypotheses is that evangelists of the future will shift from presenting grace through a guilt framework to a shame framework. Guilt is, “I did something bad.” Shame is, “I am bad.” While guilt

March 1, 2023

Michael C. Mack

Where Grace Can Be Found

Where Grace Can Be Found

By Michael C. Mack  One of my favorite classes in seminary was Doctrine of Grace, taught by Jack Cottrell. It was an introduction for me in my relatively newfound faith to the nature of God, the essence of salvation, and the call of the Christian life. Thirty-five years later, I’m still learning about grace. I see it everywhere, as God’s Spirit opens my eyes and heart to it.   It’s found, for example, in Paul’s instructions to husbands on how to love their wives “just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25). Paul then described

March 1, 2023

Laura McKillip Wood

A Life of Cross-Cultural Relationships

A Life of Cross-Cultural Relationships

By Laura McKillip Wood  As a child in the 1950s and ’60s, Harry Douglass sat in the pew at Mountain View Church of Christ in Phoenix every Sunday morning and Sunday night. He loved church, and he loved listening to his pastor, Don Mitchel, passionately preach interesting sermons. What he really loved, though, was listening to visiting missionaries who stopped in for Sunday night services. They showed slides of the people they worked with and told stories about their lives in faraway places. They not only told of their work but of the need for more people to follow their

March 1, 2023

Jerry Harris

The Gift I Need the Most

The Gift I Need the Most

By Jerry Harris  It was October 21, 1999, my 40th birthday. That’s the birthday when many people start thinking they’re heading over the hill and begin contemplating their own mortality. Well, I was definitely contemplating mortality . . . just not my own. That was the day we buried my father.   We headed to the same spot where we had buried my mom five years earlier. The family had picked out an oak casket for my dad, and it was heavy for the pallbearers. I was officiating and walking in front of the casket when I saw my brother buckle

March 1, 2023

Rudy Hagood

Good + Grace = Great (Marriages)

Good + Grace = Great (Marriages)

By Rudy and Osharye Hagood  There is something wonderful about a perfect gift. When God created vegetation, day and night, wild animals, crawling things, he declared each of those things to be “good.” Yet God outdid himself when he gave us a spouse. God even got an “amen” from Adam, who said, “Now this is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23). In his own image, male and female, God created them, giving them dominion (care and management of, concern for, and rule over the earth), and God declared it “very good.”  Husbands and wives are

March 1, 2023

Megan Rawlings

Reprioritize God's Word

Reprioritize God’s Word

By Megan Rawlings   Question: What is black and white and re(a)d all over? Answer: Not the Bible. This may seem like a trivial schoolyard joke, but I wanted to get your attention.   The American Bible Society (ABS) reported alarming statistics in its 2022 State of the Bible survey. Based on their findings, I fear Christians are moving away from the Bible in the hopes of finding something that makes them feel better. I have seen an influx of “do what’s best for you,” “what you put out into the world will come back to you,” and other well-intentioned pieces of

March 1, 2023

Kent E. Fillinger

The Resurrection and the Afterlife: What Do We Believe?

The Resurrection and the Afterlife: What Do We Believe?

By Kent E. Fillinger  In Bible college, I encountered this simple but powerful two-question outline to discuss the resurrection of Jesus: What proves the resurrection? And what does the resurrection prove?  I don’t have the space to unpack the answers to these questions, but I do want to explore what people believe about the resurrection of Jesus to help you consider the array of beliefs you might encounter in your church (and with your family) this Easter. I also want to examine current beliefs regarding the afterlife—heaven, hell, and reincarnation.  Views on the Resurrection  The 2020 Lifeway Research State of

March 1, 2023

Christian Standard

Grace Is Amazing

Grace Is Amazing

By James Estep  “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.” Penned in 1772 by John Newton, the message of “Amazing Grace” resounds into the 21st century. The tune as originally written is a favorite of many believers. In 2007 Christian musician Chris Tomlin updated the words to say, “my chains are gone, I’ve been set free” . . . but the message remained the same. Grace is amazing! My home church for a while described itself as “An Amazing Grace Place,” which represented them well. But why is grace so amazing? Paul explained why in

January 1, 2023

Christian Standard

The Story That Changes Lives

By Megan Rawlings   “I don’t feel like God can effectively use me because I don’t have an amazing testimony.”   I remember saying this like it was yesterday. I was in Bible college, and the number of stories people told of how they came to meet Jesus despite extenuating circumstances left me feeling “less than.”   I was born and raised in the church and, frankly, I felt my story was boring compared to others. Those who were freed from addiction were able to minister to addicts in a way I could not. Those born into situations without clean water or adequate

January 1, 2023

Christian Standard

The Power in Preaching

By Chris Philbeck  In 2001, when I came to my current church, I had to adjust to having a Saturday night service. I had been a pastor for over 20 years, but the weekend service had always been exclusive to Sunday morning, and it took a while to feel comfortable preaching on Saturday night for various reasons. We didn’t have a particularly large crowd, and the people would be pretty spread out in a worship center that could seat around 1,400. The energy level was different on Saturday night, and the service just felt different.   More often than I like

January 1, 2023

Tyler McKenzie

A Cheeky Article on Travel Baseball

By Tyler McKenzie   I have three young children, ages 7, 4, and 2. With each passing milestone, my desire to see them grow in Christ deepens. As the pastor of a church made up largely of young families, I’ve found this to be a desire many parents share. At our church, we call it being an “intentional parent.” However, I have also found these same parents feel just as strongly that they are doing a bad job at it. When I ask what the problem is, their answers are the same, “Tyler, I just don’t know how.”   I ain’t buying

January 1, 2023

Christian Standard

Speaking the Truth in Love

By Ken Idleman  The title of this article is one of the most difficult implicit commands in Scripture: “[S]peaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ” (Ephesians 4:15). It is difficult to obey because it links in a single imperative the three most difficult aspects of life for human beings to consistently control: speech, truth, and love.   Our speech often betrays our secret thoughts and our untamable tongues. Jesus said, “The things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them” (Matthew

January 1, 2023

Christian Standard

Are You a Truth-Teller?

By Kent E. Fillinger   A January 2021 Lifeway Research survey found 49 percent of U.S. Protestant pastors say they frequently hear members of their congregation repeating conspiracy theories about something happening in our country. Around 1 in 8 pastors (13 percent) strongly agree their congregants are sharing conspiracy theories.   WHAT THE RESEARCH SHOWS  An October 2020 research report found that Facebook users engage with misinformation 70 million times per month on average. Though far fewer than the 2016 peak of 200 million monthly fake news engagements, it still is no small figure. On Twitter, people share false content 4 million

January 1, 2023

Christian Standard

Marriage Beings and Humans Being

By Osharye Hagood   When it comes to marriage, the truth is we are humans being. (Yes, you read that correctly.) And when we get married, we become “marriage beings.”   While our marriages are intended to be divine expressions of God’s perfect love, and while we may at times feel the goosebumps of love and the perfection of our loving commitment—please hear me—all marriages are unions between human beings, and all humans sin. So, our mistakes and missteps should be seen as, well, expected. Blunders are as natural as breathing, and errors are as common as ears. Why? Because we are

January 1, 2023

Jerry Harris

Is There Still a Standard to Be Raised?

By Jerry Harris   This issue marks the completion of six years since Christian Standard was faced with its consignment to history. In December 2016, Doug Crozier, CEO of The Solomon Foundation, received a phone call informing him of the impending shuttering of the magazine. First published in the spring of 1866, Christian Standard quickly became the voice of the fastest-growing religious movement of the 19th century; the publication was desperately needed after the ravages of the Civil War. It persevered through division, liberalism, two world wars, and the Great Depression.   In 2006, Wicks Group, a private equity firm, purchased Standard

January 1, 2023

Laura McKillip Wood

Remember the Children Cares for Orphans in Romania and Beyond

Remember the Children initially raised funds to help orphans and took medicines to orphanages, Andy Baker says. Later the ministry began focusing on finding Romanian families for orphans. Soon that work expanded to helping at-risk children living in extreme poverty. Eventually, RTC saw the need for communities of faith in places where the gospel was not having an impact and began planting churches . . .

November 1, 2022

Wes Beavis

Christmas Is Good for Mental Health

Christmas Is Good for Mental Health

By Wes Beavis  The incarnation of Jesus Christ, God’s rescue plan for humanity, contributes to the mental health of the believer more than anything else. At Christmas we celebrate the advent of salvation through Christ our Lord. But people who celebrate Christ’s birth also typically experience three additional factors that have positive impacts on mental health.   Collective Effervescence   In 1912, French sociologist Émile Durkheim coined the term “collective effervescence,” which describes the euphoric self-transcendence that individuals feel when they are unified in focusing on a single subject or effort. Take a competitive rowing team, for example. Eight individuals climb into

November 1, 2022

Rudy Hagood

God's Love Language in Our Unions

God’s Love Language in Our Unions

By Rudy Hagood  Have you ever considered how unthinkable it is that we have intimacy with the Spirit of God within our marital unions? The prophet Malachi asked this simple rhetorical question: “Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union?” (Malachi 2:15, English Standard Version).   Your marriage is not simply between two people, but three, since it includes the third person of the godhead. For this reason, I want to talk about the health of our marriages by talking about how we engage God.   Since our marital unions consist of three people, knowing

November 1, 2022

Kent E. Fillinger

A Macro View on Generosity

A Macro View on Generosity

By Kent E. Fillinger  Giving USA 2022: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for 2021 reported charitable giving rose for its fourth consecutive year, reaching its highest level in history, $484.8 billion. Total giving increased 4 percent in current dollars but decreased 0.7 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars.   About two-thirds (67 percent) of total giving came from individuals, the fourth straight year individual giving totaled less than 70 percent. The wealthiest 1.4 percent of the country accounted for 86 percent of charitable donations, according to the Philanthropy Roundtable. Giving is highest among those in their 60s and 70s.     Charitable giving since World

November 1, 2022

Laura McKillip Wood

Missionary Uses Trauma Healing in Ministry

Missionary Uses Trauma Healing in Ministry

By Laura McKillip Wood  Renee Flory had already taken a mission trip to Eastern Europe when she heard Glen Elliott (a missionary to Ukraine for five years in the 1990s and later lead pastor of Pantano Christian Church in Tucson, Arizona, for more than 20 years) speak to her church about Tavriski Christian Institute (TCI), a Christian seminary in Ukraine.   During her previous trip, she had felt drawn to the people of that nation but believed God was telling her to wait. She returned to teaching kindergarten in California. But then in 2000, when she met Glen, she told him

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