Series: Featured

January 10, 2010

Christian Standard

Introducing Hero HeadQuarters: Standard Publishing’s 2010 Vacation Bible School

By Joni Sullivan Baker The boy with the five loaves and two fishes. Those shepherds abiding. An army officer asking for a servant to be healed. These are stories we know pretty well. But have you ever noticed something these stories have in common? We don”t know the names of any of these people. Their actions weren”t as heroic as David facing Goliath, but their obedience made a significant difference. And the story of their obedience has been passed down through millennia. They are heroes, but they are the approachable, “I-could-do-that” kind of heroes. And they are being celebrated in

January 10, 2010

Christian Standard

We Call It Kids Camp

By Dave Smith “I like you Mr. Dave.” I looked down at 6-year-old Max, son of Polish parents, and one of the children at Northshore Christian Church”s Kids” Camp, and replied, “I like you too, Max.” And after a week of shepherding some 15 second-graders, I decided I also liked kids” camp. Many of our new churches throughout the Northeast have a summer kid”s camp. In other places, we call them Vacation Bible Schools. This year I spent a week helping Northshore with its fifth kids” camp. Northshore Christian Church began in the fall of 2005 in Riverhead, New York,

January 10, 2010

Christian Standard

Stone-Campbell Dialogue Launches New Phase

By Staff Marking a decade of discussion, prayer, and fellowship centering on Christian unity, the Stone-Campbell Dialogue agreed at its recent meeting to shift its emphasis to a new phase of cultivating unity through mission and service among the three religious streams that trace their origins back to Barton W. Stone and Thomas and Alexander Campbell. The 21-person dialogue team met November 1-3 in Lexington, Kentucky. Among topics discussed were: the Great Communion Celebration of October 4, 2009; the possibility and potential of common mission/service projects as a focus for the next phase of conversation and engagement; getting youth and

January 3, 2010

Christian Standard

Provoking Change: A Review of Catalyst Atlanta

By Brandon Smith ________ Read the Sidebar: “Three Incentives for Joining the Movement” ________ When thousands of vehicles converge on a single four-lane road, movement is bound to slow. This was the case driving north on Sugarloaf Parkway outside Atlanta the first week of October. But the occupants of these vehicles were gathering for a conference, and, contrary to the traffic, the passengers were preparing for a great movement. The conference is called Catalyst. A catalyst, by definition, is a force that provokes or speeds up significant change or action. While I don”t remember a lot from my science classes

January 3, 2010

Christian Standard

Local Church Membership”“Who Needs It?

By John Castelein I am pleased with the turnout. Chatting in our living room are two elders from our local church, George and Henry, and four seminary students. Jim is an intelligent MDiv student with a noninstrumental background. He can be somewhat argumentative. Diane is a new counseling major. The other students do not know she is a divorced mother who faithfully attends her church without any support from her boyfriend, the father of her little girl. Cole is single and wonders whether he belongs in seminary. Larry wants to be a church planter and has a great passion to

December 20, 2009

Christian Standard

Living with Expectancy

  by Alan Ahlgrim There”s no doubt about it, this is my favorite celebration of the year. There”s just something special about Christmas for young and old alike. Ever since I was a little kid, Christmas Eve has been a night filled with anticipation and Christmas Day a grand celebration of light and love and joy. I can”t ever remember a crummy Christmas. When I was a kid I even got along with my sisters at Christmas. Somehow they seemed nicer. To me everything has always seemed better at Christmas. It has always seemed to me that the decorations are

December 20, 2009

Christian Standard

A Curious Gift

  by Daniel Schantz Christmas was a nail-biter at our house when I was growing up in the Happy Days. Around the first of December, my mother would hand us kids a Sears catalog. “Here, boys, I need some ideas of what you want for Christmas. Just mark your wishes with your initials.” We marked our favorites, and then the games began. It was an unspoken tradition that her job was to hide our presents and our job was to find them. At least that”s how we felt about it. It began when we went to town on Fridays. We

December 20, 2009

Christian Standard

Season of Love

  by Jennifer Taylor In this article, churches around the country share the unique ways they plan to “get their hands dirty” and serve their communities this Christmas. Last year our team discussed the huge amount of work we put into Christmas programs and decided to invest the energy in helping one of the missions our church supports. We wrote a drama about a local ministry that helps pregnant women choose life instead of abortion. It was not hard to make the connection between a young, unmarried college couple dealing with an unexpected pregnancy and the Joseph/Mary scenario. The local

December 20, 2009

Christian Standard

The Ironic Opportunity of Christmas

  by Ethan Magness For centuries, church leaders have been creatively using the cultural opportunities available to them to proclaim the gospel and the reign of the kingdom of God. Most of our current Christmas traditions developed in this way. Cultural practices (many pagan in origin) were adapted and redeveloped in the context of celebration of Christ”s birth. In fact, although the precise history is murky, it is likely the date of the celebration itself was chosen to co-opt the ancient celebration of the sun that occurred at the winter solstice. These opportunities to redeem the culture around us and

December 13, 2009

Christian Standard

Pastoral Care in the Midst of Crisis

By Ken Swatman The phone rang at 11:00 p.m. (never a good sign). It was the local police department, where I serve as a chaplain. A young single mother had just found her 4-month-old baby girl unconscious and not breathing. I grabbed my coat and ran out the door. When I arrived at the house I found the young mother sitting on the kitchen floor, devastated. As a pastor and chaplain I was being asked to bring some kind of comfort, care, and peace to an event that was tragic beyond words. When tragedy strikes our congregations and communities, we

December 13, 2009

Christian Standard

The Point of Christianity 4: Reconciling Male and Female

  by Douglas A. Foster The first article in this series began with a question: “What is the point of Christianity?” My one-word answer was reconciliation. From the first sin in Genesis to the throne scene in Revelation, reconciliation is at the heart of God”s dealings with humanity.   If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself,

December 6, 2009

Christian Standard

Reaching Unbelievers: How Effective Is Your Church?

  by Kent R. Hunter It was Tuesday morning and that meant the weekly ministry review at Starbucks. Jonathan and Jason are ministers with small churches south of Portland, Oregon. Today”s topic drifted toward Pathway, the megachurch in town. The conversation was similar to thousands occurring among ministers. Megachurches offer more programs, better worship music, slicker printed pieces, and specialty staff. People in our society seem to shop for everything, including church. The membership of small congregations””such as the two these men serve””is declining, while megachurches make headlines. Jason and Jonathan enjoyed their coffee, but had a bittersweet attitude about

December 6, 2009

Christian Standard

Lessons from the Fishin” Hole

by Marcus Bigelow Last night I stopped at The Fishin” Hole in Greenville, Missouri. Greenville is a long way from most everywhere. I was looking for a friend who supposedly was eating there. I was to join him for dinner. He wasn”t there, but I decided to eat anyway, following the maxim that a full parking lot usually indicates good food. This Yankee boy walked in to find the “friendliest place in town.” Almost every table was filled. The waitresses were at a dead run. “Take any ol” table,” the cashier told me, so I sat down at one of

December 6, 2009

Christian Standard

Mud, Sweat, and Tears: Recipe for Hope

by Sheila S. Hudson It wasn”t my intention to volunteer. Like so many things in the Christian walk, it just happened. My husband, Tim, and I were at the 11 am service at The Orchard Church, Loganville, Georgia, when we heard an announcement about a group from the church planning a Katrina relief trip to Biloxi, Mississippi. God tugged at our hearts, and before we left services we had volunteered to cook for the group. Thirteen in all, including us. Not a problem! Then the second shoe dropped. The number swelled when I learned we were to join a group

December 6, 2009

Christian Standard

Has Christianity Declined and Fallen (and Can”t Get Up)?

  by David A. Fiensy For its Easter edition in 1966, Time magazine”s cover asked, “Is God Dead?”1 We might wonder if similar motivations prompted Newsweek“s attention-grabbing Easter cover this year (April 13). It featured these words forming the shape of a cross: “The Decline and Fall of Christian America.” The occasion for this dire prophecy was the 2009 American Religious Identification Survey that found the number of Americans unaffiliated with any religious group rose from 8 percent to 15 percent since 1990.2 These figures even convinced some Christian leaders the sky was falling. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the

November 29, 2009

Christian Standard

Restoration Revolution

  by Russell Johnson More people are coming to Christ today than at any time since the resurrection. A sense of urgency has gripped the hearts of many leaders praying, “God give us your vision for this mission . . . “. Many astute observers of Christian history are convinced the Restoration Movement is on the threshold of a worldwide impact. National Missionary Convention Director Dave Empson and key leaders across America recently began a collaboration to share Jesus with all peoples. Beginning in 2010, “Restoration Revolution” is a 10-year kingdom venture that will focus on four arteries of mission

November 29, 2009

Christian Standard

INTO AFRICA: Ray and Effie Giles

  by Kathy Harless “We left a church in Ethiopia.” Ray Giles wrote in tears in late 1977, yet a quiet victory filled his heart. His family and other Christian Missionary Fellowship missionaries had been hastily evacuated in the spring with the advent of a strong Marxist government.  For nine years before that, Ray and Effie Giles worked alongside teammates in evangelizing, educating, and planting churches among the unreached Oromo and Gumuz peoples. Ray”s greatest concern was whether they had prepared the new and maturing Christians for the persecution that lay ahead. Yet, a church was being forged in Ethiopia

November 29, 2009

Christian Standard

INTO AFRICA: Dennis and Lucy Pruett

  by Joe Bliffen Over the past 51 years Dennis D. Pruett, MD, has been known as Chiremba (doctor) to the Africans who live in the bush country of Zimbabwe. In 1958, at age 34, Dr. Pruett, his wife, Lucy, and their four children traveled to what was then Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, Africa. Arriving in Cape Town, South Africa, the Pruett family, along with nurses Betty Iddings and Helen Doyle and secretary Betty Morgan, were met by the Max Ward Randall family, missionaries to South Africa. After a couple of days, they began the long and arduous journey from

November 29, 2009

Christian Standard

INTO AFRICA: Bob and Phyllis Mills

  by Bill Weber Had Bob and Phyllis Mills not enrolled at Lincoln Bible Institute1 in the 1940s, their incredible 47-year adventure in Africa would never have happened.2 Phyllis grew up as a missionary kid on the Tibetan border of China.3 Bob was a farm boy from southern Illinois. Phyllis”s cross-cultural childhood with her family and Bob”s traveling the world as a sailor in the Navy ignited in each of them a commitment to foreign mission service. This was a match made in Heaven. The Millses met, fell in love, married in 1950, raised four daughters, and spent their lifetime of ministry

November 29, 2009

Christian Standard

Fifty Years of Missiology: 1960″“2010

  by Doug Priest While missions began in biblical times, the academic discipline of missiology goes back only to the early 1800s. The definition of missiology we learned in college in the 1970s was, “the scientific study of missions.” I recall my missionary father cringing upon hearing this definition, fearing that others would assume the spiritual component in mission was being left out.  In seminary I learned a more technical definition: “The academic discipline or science which researches, records, and applies data relating to the biblical origin, the history, the anthropological principles and techniques and the theological basis of Christian

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