Series: Mark A. Taylor

July 29, 2012

Christian Standard

Here”s What Monthly Means

By Mark A. Taylor As we announced earlier, Christian Standard, published weekly since 1866, will become a monthly publication in September. What does this change mean? Well, there are several things it does NOT mean. This change does NOT mean Christian Standard readers will get less than they received before. Instead of 16 pages 48 times a year, they”ll receive at least 64 pages (plus a four-page cover) every month. Meanwhile, Paul Williams and I will continue to write weekly””find our columns every week at ChristianStandard.com. The weekly Sunday school lesson will appear there too, along with weekly Communion meditations

July 24, 2012

Christian Standard

An Important Step Forward

By Mark A. Taylor This is one for the history books! After being published weekly since April 7, 1866, Christian Standard will become a monthly magazine in September this year. It will be in the mail mid-August, 68 pages of information, encouragement, news, and commentary””all of it by, for, and about our dynamic fellowship of Christian churches and churches of Christ. We”re looking forward to the change! Here”s why. The new monthly will be more appealing. Each month”s edition will provide several articles around important themes, and longer, more substantive articles when the subject warrants it. You”ll read and keep

July 18, 2012

Christian Standard

Their Questions, Your Answers with These Two New Titles

By Mark A. Taylor Questions are good. We can welcome questions when they come from a person with honest doubt. Most people we”ll meet with questions about our faith are not at peace with their uncertainty. They want answers. They want time to ponder our conclusions and the reasons we believe. But sometimes Christians are threatened when confronted by questions from folks who don”t believe in God, can”t accept the Bible, or consider Jesus as nothing more than a great teacher. Sometimes Christians take the questions as a personal attack. Sometimes we react with anger or derision because we don”t

July 11, 2012

Christian Standard

A Mission, Not Just a Mission Trip

By Mark A. Taylor Maybe the best line in the panel interview article posted this week comes close to the end of it. Luke Erickson, from Mountain Christian Church, in Joppa, Maryland, shared the question the church asks anyone interested in community service projects or mission trips overseas: “How are you engaged in your own neighborhood?” It”s a question born of genius. It prods the would-be servant to get out of himself and into the church”s mission. For example, I may feel good about “sacrificing” a couple hours to work in a food pantry; I may think I”ve given a

July 10, 2012

Christian Standard

Willing to Lead

By Mark A. Taylor   Several myths about leadership were exposed at the 2012 Leadercast sponsored by Chick-fil-A, May 4. About 125,000 viewers gathered for the satellite-uplinked daylong session in key sites across the United States, including several thousand who attended the event live in Atlanta. All of them could have found at least one take-away for the leadership roles they fill at home or on the job. One of the demolished myths is “I am not a leader.” Anyone listening to Tim Tebow might think of a hundred other professional athletes with no impact or only a negative example.

July 2, 2012

Christian Standard

Immigration: Our Position

By Mark A. Taylor What is Christian Standard”s position on immigration? Read carefully the articles, opinions, and interviews posted at our site this week before you decide the answer to that question. You”ll see that our writers don”t always agree with each other, so any one of them does not speak for all the rest””or for Christian Standard. That diversity of opinion among Bible-believing followers of Christ is one reason we”ve tackled this topic. We fear that too many Christians have come quickly to their conclusions without considering counter views from others who also love God. And some Christians haven”t

June 26, 2012

Christian Standard

Deep Change

By Mark A. Taylor The discussion was about missions, but the topic was change. And I couldn”t stop thinking about the church”s task in a world changing faster than we may realize. Steve Moore, president of Missio Nexus (missionexus.org), was leading about 30 of us at the Cincinnati installment of Reset Tour, a 10-city event sponsored by the International Conference on Missions (ICOM). The Tour, which concluded with a West Coast swing in May, was expected to reach 250 missions-minded members and leaders of Christian churches and churches of Christ, according to David Empson, executive director of ICOM. From this

June 16, 2012

Christian Standard

Conflict Is a Constant, Encouragement Is a Fuel

By Mark A. Taylor The best way to avoid conflict about worship styles is to leave things the way they are, right? Not according to a survey conducted by Faith Communities Today* (FACT). FACT has surveyed religious congregations of every kind, Jewish and Muslim and others as well as Protestants, Evangelicals, Catholics, and Orthodox. When it comes to worship, these groups, diverse as they are, have some things in common. One of these is conflict. One set of questions in the FACT surveys surrounded worship change and conflict. Most of the congregations (60 percent) that introduced “a lot of change”

June 8, 2012

Christian Standard

Difficult Questions

By Mark A. Taylor Steve Reeves makes an eloquent and convincing case for long ministries. But how can we reconcile positive experience like his with the result of our research showing how church growth slows as a minister”s tenure increases? That”s the question we posed to church leaders across the country, and their answers this week suggest this is an issue for all of us to consider. Perhaps the truth is not as cut-and-dried as the numbers alone suggest. Perhaps several other factors (church dynamics, community growth and culture and demographics) are in play when church growth slows in a

June 3, 2012

Christian Standard

How Long Should a Sermon Be?

By Mark A. Taylor The question came to me when I discovered Peggy Noonan”s On Speaking Well at a $5 book table. The very first piece of advice from the most famous of President Ronald Reagan”s spreechwriters? “No speech should last more than 20 minutes.” I remember all the sermons I”ve heard””and delivered””that have been way longer than that. And I wonder if Noonan”s advice should apply to sermons too. Her rationale:   Reagan . . . knew twenty minutes is more than enough time to say the biggest, most important thing in the world. The Gettysburg Address went three

May 25, 2012

Christian Standard

Beautiful

By Mark A. Taylor   “How beautiful is the body of Christ,” sang the children”s choir, standing in perfect rows on risers in the Sunday-morning worship service. The Twila Paris anthem pictures Christ”s perfect hands and feet and heart and eyes””all sacrificed with pain deeper than we fully understand to take care of sin greater than we fully grasp. And then it reminds us that his beautiful body is still alive and active today, whenever “humble hearts give the fruit of pure lives so that others may live.” As the melody echoed in my mind throughout the day, I remembered

May 9, 2012

Christian Standard

Elder Governance: Everybody”s Concern

By Mark A. Taylor Some readers may feel this week”s articles don”t apply to them. “I”m not an elder, and I”ll never be one.” “I sometimes wonder what happens in those elders meetings, but not enough to think about how they could be better.” “Governance? What is elder governance? We just approve the bills and try to keep the preacher on the right track. Governance is too fancy a word for what we do in our monthly meetings.” But think carefully about Don Green”s ideas andGary Johnson”s experience, and you”ll see that elder governance can revolutionize how a church functions.

May 7, 2012

Christian Standard

Chicken Sandwiches and Glorifying God

By Mark A. Taylor “Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” Paul”s teaching to the Corinthians (10:31) has become the motto of Christians in all the centuries since then. But when we see a successful business guided by that value, we can”t help but notice. And Chick-fil-A, the country”s second-largest quick service chicken restaurant, deserves notice. Chick-fil-A founder Truett Cathy tells would-be entrepreneurs, “Invite God to be involved in every decision.” In his book How Did You Do It, Truett? he writes, “We honor God with our success.” Dee Ann Turner, vice president of talent at

April 25, 2012

Christian Standard

Either, or Both, or Neither?

By Mark A. Taylor This week we have offered readers a picture of four dynamic Christian churches. Maybe you, like me, will decide you”d be pleased to be a member of any of them. Each is committed to Scripture and preaching the gospel. Each is seeking to develop new believers into mature disciples. Each is looking beyond the walls of its building and to the needs and hurts and opportunities to serve all around them. And each of the four has a different take on the current debate about whether a church should be attractional or missional. Paul Williams commented

April 18, 2012

Christian Standard

Sacrifice and Balance in a Life of Ministry

By Mark A. Taylor Several readers wrote to thank us for our January 22 issue on preacher”s kids. Their e-mails made me realize we had touched a nerve. With preacher”s kids, as well as with preachers themselves, we live in constant tension: We want them to be everyday folks while we silently feel that, somehow really, they”re different. I thought about this again when I read an intriguing column in the February 8 Wall Street Journal by Richard Cipolla, a married Catholic priest. If you”re like me, you didn”t realize there is such a person, but Cipolla was ordained in

April 7, 2012

Christian Standard

My Wish for the Irregulars

By Mark A. Taylor   Regular churchgoers sometimes resent the come-on-Easter crowd, suspecting shallow motives among those who don”t make it to worship more often. But this Easter, as I think about seeing folks I don”t know or haven”t seen at church in months, I”m more inclined to feel sad than mad. Think of all they”re missing by not joining us week after week! We need each other, and how do people find support and encouragement and friendship without the church to lean on? Earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal featured one man”s answer to that question. Alain de

April 2, 2012

Christian Standard

Unexpectedly Sweet

By Mark A. Taylor A few weeks ago I reported on Christian Standard”s annual contributing editors retreat, January 11-13. But I didn”t describe a bittersweet part of our time together. One of our members had just learned about a tragic, sudden death in his church. The auto accident had happened on the other side of the country in the afternoon as we were gathering for our meeting. Our friend skipped dinner to handle phone calls and make plans to return home the next morning. Then he came to our opening session. Once our group had assembled, we asked him to

March 27, 2012

Christian Standard

Considering the Question of “˜Them” and “˜Us” and “˜Ours”

By Mark A. Taylor The spirit of the day was one of inclusiveness. “Denominationalism is dead.” “Sectarianism is to be shunned.” “People today are more interested in Jesus than any human hierarchy or divisions.” Hear, hear for the plea to be “Christians only.” But this discussion was not just about whom to treat as Christians, but also about whom to include in one of “our” meetings. And here opinions were not as uniform. If the meeting is by and for “us,” some wondered, shouldn”t those credentialed by the meeting planners be from among “us”? Their question of “them” and “us”

March 21, 2012

Christian Standard

The Challenge Is for All of Us

By Mark A. Taylor Gary Weedman”s analysis deserves careful reading and thorough discussion among church leaders everywhere. Here”s why: Most of us attend congregations led by ministers and other staff members who graduated from one of the schools listed on pages 14, 15. Most of us attend churches that send financial support to one or several of them. Many of us have urged our own children to attend one of these schools. We have strong emotional, philosophical, and financial ties to these colleges and universities. They deserve our support: they continue to serve faithfully, they continue to improve the quality

March 12, 2012

Christian Standard

We Know Leaders Like Those the World Is Seeking

By Mark A. Taylor “Go down with the ship? Not in this century.” So observed commentator Robert Marquand as the world learned details this January about the cruise ship disaster off the coast of Italy. The hull of the 117,000-ton Costa Concordia was torn open by rocks in shallow water Friday night, January 13. And soon the world was treated to the excuses of captain Francesco Schettino, who said he fell into a lifeboat and was unable to reboard the ship. Despite the fact that thousands of passengers were screaming and scrambling to save themselves from the chaos on the

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