Series: Featured

September 22, 2020

Christian Standard

Rebuilding from the Rubble

What Will We Do If God Doesn’t Restore His Church to ‘Bigger Is Better’? By Kim Harris As I sat on the back deck on one of the cooler evenings in July, I compulsively picked up my phone for my routine post-dinner scroll through Twitter, my only connection to the world outside my COVID-19 bubble. I assumed my timeline would again be filled with petty debates about the efficacy of different mask fabrics, some sort of hashtag challenge designed to drown out the contentiousness in the world, or a friend from high school selling skin-care products. I expected to sigh

September 22, 2020

Christian Standard

The Challenge: What Do In-Person Services Look Like Upon Reopening?

By Justin Horey In Manhattan, Kansas—“The Little Apple”—a church of about 1,000 regular attendees has resumed in-person worship with no serious complications. Though the average Sunday attendance is lower than its pre-COVID-19 norm, Crestview Christian Church has found reopening to be a blessing. Elsewhere, three other churches found that resuming in-person worship wasn’t so simple. One church reopened successfully but the state forced it to “reclose,” another church opened partially, and the other reopened but then closed again after a church employee tested positive for the virus. These are their stories. _ _ _ Reopened and Staying Open: Crestview Christian

September 22, 2020

Christian Standard

The Waiting Place: What Does Church Look Like When Your Doors Are Closed?

By Justin Horey Trying to summarize how churches are resuming in-person worship after the 2020 quarantine feels a bit like a tribute to Dr. Seuss: Some are meeting, some are not. Some are indoors, some are out. But while reopening plans vary across a wide spectrum, churches that have decided to postpone in-person worship, even as local municipalities began to lift restrictions, have much in common. Most of them are large, with attendance of 1,000 or more. Many of them minister in cities with left-leaning political ideologies. And all churches—regardless of their reopening plans—are eager to minister face-to-face again. Despite

August 17, 2020

Christian Standard

Kent E. Fillinger

2019 Annual Church Survey

This year we share not only average attendance numbers but also other vital stats such as the fastest-growing churches and top baptism ratios in each category. The churches in our survey saw many amazing kingdom accomplishments in 2019. For instance, one church had 4,371 baptisms, a record over the history of our surveys. Also, two churches, a new church and an emerging megachurch, grew by more than 100 percent in 2019!  A total of 439 churches filled out our survey this year (another record number!). We thank every church for participating; better participation makes for more accurate data. We celebrate

August 15, 2020

Christian Standard

God Provides in Times of Crisis

Generosity, Responsibility, Humility: The Church’s Threefold Response to COVID-19 By Gary Johnson and Jared Johnson “History repeats itself” is a familiar phrase because it’s true. In the opening pages of Scripture, Egypt was a world superpower. That nation experienced prosperity like no other realm had ever known. The years of unprecedented bounty, though, were followed by seven years of famine. Is something similar occurring in America? In recent years, the United States has enjoyed an era of prosperity—from record low unemployment to record high returns in the financial markets. However, an insidious and destructive virus circled the globe and within

August 15, 2020

Christian Standard

The Attitude that Makes the Difference

A Lesson from Stephen About Doing Church in a Time of Chaos By Caleb Kaltenbach UFOs . . . Harry and Meghan stepping away from the royal family . . . Carole Baskin . . . murder hornets . . . the Golden Gate Bridge making music . . . Zoom-using 95-year-olds . . . America, the land of homeschooling. . . . If you had asked me a year ago what all of these things would have in common, I never—in a million years—would have guessed 2020. Until this year, you probably didn’t say “in-person gatherings,” “flatten the curve,”

August 15, 2020

Christian Standard

Waiting Is Working

An Ancient Commentary on the Corona Quarantine from Joseph and the Famine By Mark E. Moore The most difficult thing about the coronavirus pandemic has been the quarantine. Call it “stay at home,” call it “shelter in place”—regardless what you call it, it is forced “waiting.” Waiting is hard work. It feels passive, stifling, a waste of time. However, the “waiting room” in God’s healthcare system is where much of the heart surgery takes place. Waiting is where our character is solidified so opportunities can be maximized. There is a pattern for waiting and then working that is as ancient

August 15, 2020

Christian Standard

Finally Moving Forward

5 Strategic Ministry Shifts During the Pandemic Changed Our Perspective By Matt Summerswith Janice Summers Just as the Israelites wandered in the wilderness wondering when they might go back to Egypt, we have found ourselves wondering when we might go back to the way things were just a few months ago. Our wilderness is Joliet, Illinois, in the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic. Joliet is the third-largest city in Illinois, home to 150,000 residents. Some think Joliet is a suburb of Chicago, nestled just outside the sprawling metropolis, but she is her own community. Both cities were founded in

August 15, 2020

Christian Standard

Unstoppable

What Acts Teaches Us About Persecution as a Catalyst for Spreading the Gospel By John Whittaker In a great stone room, the apostles stood surrounded by the entire council and senate of Israel—12 ordinary men enveloped by the nation’s most powerful leadership body. “We must obey God rather than men,” Peter and the apostles declared. And the ruling body became like a lynch mob until a single member intervened. “If their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail,” Gamaliel said, “but if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will

August 15, 2020

Christian Standard

‘I Will Bring You Back’

Lessons from the Babylonian Captivity for Modern-Day ‘Exiles’ By Arron Chambers During this pandemic, quarantine, and sheltering at-home orders, I’ve found myself drawn to Bible stories of liberation and freedom from captivity. We were created to be free—not isolated, alienated, held in captivity, or exiled indefinitely. Even so, such things happen, and it happened to the people of God during a period of 70 years we call the Babylonian captivity. They’d been warned. Warning In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, President Trump and a team of doctors gave daily briefings. Day after day they presented numbers and charts

August 15, 2020

Christian Standard

A New Pandemic

The Coronavirus Crisis Provided the Church with New Opportunities and Approaches . . . Will We Take Them? By Trevor DeVagewith Mark A. Taylor Ask the typical Bible study group, “How are Christians like us persecuted today?” and you usually get blank stares. Some might remember being bullied at school or ignored by the party crowd at college. Maybe one will tell about being disowned by her family when she decided to get baptized. You might even come across someone who got fired because he wouldn’t lie for his boss. But more often Christians in America apply Bible passages about

August 15, 2020

Christian Standard

‘The God Who Provides’

What Israel’s Wilderness Wandering Reveals . . . Especially During Challenging Times By Kevin Dooley Oh, to have been numbered among the more than 2 million Israelites delivered from captivity in Egypt once the final plague broke Pharaoh’s resolve. What a thrill to have passed on dry ground between the columns of the Red Sea, and then to have witnessed the end of Pharaoh’s might as the waters closed in on his armies (Exodus 15:1-21). The spectacle that was Israel’s deliverance from Egypt and the ensuing 40 years of wandering in the wilderness surely was “breaking news” across every culture

August 15, 2020

Christian Standard

Moving from Crisis to Renewal

What Leaders Do When Their Plans Are Reduced to Rubble By Austin Gohn I was 30 days into my “first 90 days” plan when I closed our church building indefinitely. After working at the church for seven years and completing a six-month interview process, I stepped into the role of lead pastor at the end of February—barely a month before something called the coronavirus went from a fringe news report to dominating the headlines (and my Twitter feed). I had read The First 90 Days, a Harvard Business Review book, and created a plan that involved dozens of trust-building conversations,

August 15, 2020

Christian Standard

Wandering through the Coronavirus Wilderness

How the Church Can Serve the Most Vulnerable in Our Spiritual Families By Tom Ellsworth Thirty-five years ago, Indiana issued a license plate with the slogan, “Wander Indiana.” I understood the invitation to casually tour the state for all it has to offer, but the wording felt more like an invitation to lazy futility. Can you fathom what it was like for the Israelites to spend 40 years plodding through a barren land on a journey that could have been accomplished in a matter of weeks? And many of them knew they would never set foot in Canaan, which only

July 15, 2020

Christian Standard

Remembering Marshall Leggett

We asked several Christian leaders to share their memories of Marshall Leggett, a Christian minister and college administrator who served as president of Milligan College in Tennessee from 1982 to 1997. He died March 2 at the age of 90. _ _ _ In 1965 the elders of Southeast Christian approached Marshall about becoming the preacher of their new church in Louisville. They had narrowed their preference down to two men: Bob Shannon and Marshall Leggett, the two best young preachers in our brotherhood. Both men saw the potential in the new church but at the last minute both decided

July 15, 2020

Gene Wigginton

Marshall Leggett: Faithful Minister in God’s Service

By Gene Wigginton Marshall Leggett will be remembered by all who knew him as a man whose ambition in life was to be a faithful minister in God’s service. That ambition was never compromised. As a preacher and Christian college administrator, he honored God and touched countless lives with the truth of God’s Word. Marshall Leggett died March 2, 2020, at age 90. Faithful in the Churches He Served I had the privilege of meeting Marshall in the early years of his ministry. While traveling on behalf of a Christian college, I visited Marshall and his wife, Jean, in their

July 15, 2020

Shawn McMullen

How Will They Hear?

8 Suggestions for Finding and Equipping More Future Preachers How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? (Romans 10:14, New American Standard Bible). “How will they hear without a preacher?” The apostle Paul asked that about his own people, the Jewish nation. But in a general sense, it applies to all who have never heard or understood the good news of the gospel of Christ. We need preachers of the gospel today. Desperately. But do we

July 15, 2020

Chris Moon

An Online Revolution of Necessity

Is online church really church? That question has bounced around church circles for years as more of American life takes place over the internet. Churches and pastors have been all over the spectrum—from all-in to logged out. The conversation persisted right up to the COVID-19 pandemic. A couple of Christian magazine covers from March 2020 help tell the story. The central theme of Christian Standard’s March print edition featured a robust discussion about the benefits of online church. The cover featured Rusty George of Real Life Church in Valencia, California, who said, “Church is engagement . . . with the

July 15, 2020

Matt Proctor

Is There a Future for Our Colleges? (And Is There Even a Need?)

A few years ago, Christian college presidents were invited to our movement’s annual megachurch ministers’ get-together. We gathered in San Antonio, Texas, to talk about greater partnership, and one preacher stood to share his view. “To be honest, do we really need these colleges?” he asked. “So many are small and struggling, and I hire most of my people from within. Maybe it’s time to let them die.” That kinda hurt my feelings. Actually it didn’t. He asked a great question—one I’ve asked myself. After 14 years as president of Ozark Christian College, I understand why management guru Peter Drucker

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