Series: News

July 23, 2018

Christian Standard

6 Students Answer Call, Share Preaching Duties at Church

By Jim Nieman High school seniors who attend Peterstown (W.Va.) Christian Church didn’t hesitate when asked if they would be willing to fill the pulpit at a nearby church. Of course they would. And so, since the beginning of the year, these five young men, plus another who is already attending college, have been serving in a preaching rotation at the Church of Christ at Lerona (W.Va.). “I have a fantastic group of teenagers,” says Don Henegar, who has taught the high school Sunday school class most of the 16 years he has served as evangelist with the Peterstown church.

July 18, 2018

Christian Standard

NACC Attendance Exceeds 6,000 (Plus News Briefs)

North American Christian Convention managing director Larry Collins provided various statistics about the recent gathering in Indianapolis June 26-28. “The NACC 2018 was a wonderful event and combined the best of all the programming tweaks that have been made over the last five years,” Collins said. Total attendance for the event was 6,032. Of that total, 4,826 people registered and an estimated 1,206 people—or about 25 percent—did not register. Among those who registered, 233 were students and 442 were children. In addition, Compassion Experience prearranged with the NACC to have a large number of folks visit their display during the

July 17, 2018

Christian Standard

Church Celebrates Long-Married Couples

By Peggy Park It was a golden day in Lexington, Ky., on June 10, as Tates Creek Christian Church celebrated its annual Wedding Bells Sunday with 83 couples who have been married 50 years or longer. One couple, in fact, has been married 75 years. Ladies received white corsages while the men received boutonnieres, and all of the couples had their pictures taken. The couples were also recognized as a group during the worship service. Additionally, senior minister Tommy Simpson recognized the widows and widowers who would have been married 50 years or more. The church administrator and some members

July 11, 2018

Christian Standard

Church Doubles Scripture Reading Goal (Plus News Briefs)

By Chris Moon Redemption Christian Church in Jasper, Ind., discovered a powerful way to spur its members to begin reading the Bible. On the final Sunday of 2017, senior minister Darrel Land challenged the church to read—as a group—at least 500,000 verses of the Bible during 2018. The church created an online form so that members could submit the number of verses they read each day, week, or month. (To provide context, there are 31,102 verses in the Bible: the Old Testament has 23,145 and the New Testament has 7,957, according to various online sources.) “Here’s the deal: If we

July 10, 2018

Christian Standard

Making an IMPACT in Indy

By Jim Nieman On June 24, the Fairfax Christian Church family in inner-city Indianapolis celebrated their final weekend of worship together under longtime minister Tom Richason, and on July 1, the church became the newest site of Mount Pleasant Christian Church’s IMPACT Ministry. Chris Philbeck, senior pastor of Mount Pleasant—a church of about 4,700 located in Greenwood, Ind., about a dozen miles south of Indy—says MPCC hopes to “bring renewal to this new ministry opportunity.” Fairfax voted unanimously to transfer ownership to MPCC on Feb. 25, but no ministry changes occurred until the first of this month. Like many urban

July 4, 2018

Christian Standard

Serving Ice Cream to Serve the Community (plus News Briefs)

By Chris Moon Momentum Christian Church in Georgia has found that ice cream is a good way to reach the community. The church takes its ice cream truck into the community to serve various events and found it’s an easy way to meet and serve its neighbors. “It is a fun way for us to serve our community,” the church’s website says. “It is a great way for children to participate in transforming our families as well.” In March, for example, the ice cream truck was on site at a local Easter egg hunt that served special-needs children and their

June 27, 2018

Christian Standard

Church Hosts 18 Different Camps for Kids (plus News Briefs)

By Chris Moon Summer has been a little more fun this year in Independence, KY. Nicholson Christian Church is hosting 18 different children’s camps throughout the summer for kids in the community. The camps are dedicated to such things as volleyball, engineering, woodworking, scrapbooking, basic first aid, tae kwon do, “Whodunnit,” food decorating, basketball, archery, Legos, dance, music, and soccer. The church is also hosting a weeklong theater camp for kids of all ages that will culminate in a production of the Broadway musical Mary Poppins at 7 p.m. this Friday. ________ NEWS BRIEFS Cincinnati Christian University hosted a celebration

June 20, 2018

Christian Standard

Members Use Homes for One-Another Ministry (plus News Briefs)

By Chris Moon After studying the book of Acts, members of East Win Christian Church in Memphis, TN, were challenged to put what they learned into action. The church hosted a campaign to encourage church members to use their homes in the same manner as the earliest Christians—for meeting together, eating together, and encouraging one another. As a means of measuring progress, the church placed a container in its lobby and asked members to drop a seashell into it for every person they invited into their homes. This was to symbolize that church members had “broken out of their shells”

June 13, 2018

Christian Standard

New City Plants New Campus (plus News Briefs)

By Chris Moon New City Church of Los Angeles has launched a second campus. The 10-year-old church located in downtown Los Angeles opened a new location in the lower San Fernando Valley. The new church—called New City Church of San Fernando Valley—is led by pastor David Guyer. The church plant is part of New City Church’s vision to open three to five new locations across Los Angeles during the next five years. “This is an ambitious vision,” lead pastor Kevin Haah said in a video introduction about the church plant. “God doesn’t call us to what’s easy but to where

June 3, 2018

Christian Standard

Obituaries for 2018

Send obituary information for **@********************ia.com. (Recent obituaries are listed first, before a comprehensive alphabetical listing further down.) Carol June Lukens Beeman Piper, 91, who was born Jan. 26, 1927, to George Oran and Ella Hall Lukens in a home 10 miles north of Mitchell, NE—the sixth of eight children—died in Tempe, AZ, on May 31, 2018. As a 3-year-old child, upon the death of her mother, Carol June (known then as “June”) moved to Beaver City, NE, to be raised by her aunt and uncle, Fannie Hall Rennecker and Albert Rennecker. She attended Beaver City Public Schools, graduating from high

June 2, 2018

Christian Standard

Update on Christian Standard Media’s Searchable Church/Organization Database

As previously announced, Christian Standard Media is working to make available a searchable database of up to 10,000 Christian churches and organizations to readers of Christian Standard and The Lookout. And while that remains the goal, some factors have changed, but the end result should be an improved final product. After announcing in February our plan to develop a directory using the Christian Church Today database, we learned the Center for Church Leadership has been working in a similar fashion to develop a directory from other sources. Jerry Harris, publisher of CSM, and Tim Wallingford, director of CCL, came together and

May 19, 2018

Christian Standard

Headlines: June 2018

By Chris Moon   Fire Destroys MOHI School but Not Hope in Its Mission Missions of Hope International suffered a blow to its efforts to spread the gospel in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya, when one of its school buildings burned to the ground in February. The building in the Bondeni community housed 18 classrooms that served 694 students. Desks and textbooks were lost in the blaze. MOHI is a partner of Indianapolis-based Christian Missionary Fellowship International, which immediately began fund-raising to replace what was lost. The estimated loss was $300,000. “We thank God there were no injuries,” said Mary Kamau, executive

April 19, 2018

Christian Standard

HEADLINES: May 2018

By Chris Moon   KCU Grad Uses Art for the Kingdom A Kentucky Christian University graduate is putting his art to work for Jesus. Cody Sabol always loved to paint. After his freshman year in college, he asked God how he could use his art for the kingdom. God began to answer that prayer when one of Sabol’s friends asked him to paint during an event where the friend was performing. Sabol initially resisted, but then relented after being offered two Taco Bell tacos. (College students can be bribed.) “The paintings turned out awful. A-W-F-U-L,” Sabol wrote on his website,

March 29, 2018

Christian Standard

Personal Milestones and Honors

Jean and Lloyd Strickland, who have served in ministry in and around Clearwater, BC, Canada, for more than 50 years, were honored as Clearwater’s Citizens of the Year by the Clearwater and District Chamber of Commerce on March 23. The Stricklands went to Clearwater after graduation from Ozark Bible College (now Ozark Christian College), Joplin, MO; he was commissioned and supported by his home church, First Christian (now called LifeBridge Christian), Longmont, CO. They began their ministry with Clearwater Christian Church in 1965 and served there until retirement in 2015. In addition to work with multisite ministries in the North

March 21, 2018

Christian Standard

HEADLINES: April 2018

By Chris Moon   5-Year-Old Signs Basketball National Letter of Intent Milligan College’s latest basketball recruit is young—very young. The Tennessee school last fall brought 5-year-old Eli Roberts to campus to sign a National Letter of Intent to play on the school’s basketball team. Eli, who was diagnosed with cancer at birth, is the son of a Milligan College graduate. “Eli signed a letter of intent, which means he’s part of our program,” said Milligan basketball coach Bill Robinson in a story published in the college’s alumni magazine. “It’s the coolest signing I’ve been a part of, that’s for sure.”

February 22, 2018

Christian Standard

Headlines: July 2018

By Chris Moon   Churches Unite to Carry the Cross Campton  (Ky.) Christian Church  brought the message of the cross to its region in the lead-up to Easter. The church’s “Cross Across Wolfe County” event brought churches and other believers together to carry a large wooden cross from one end of Wolfe County, Ky., to the other. The event took place on the Saturday before Easter. Churches, youth groups, and families signed up to carry the cross in 2-mile segments. The cross covered a distance of about 20 miles. Local law enforcement provided an escort for participants, and an assist

February 17, 2018

Christian Standard

HEADLINES: March 2018

By Chris Moon Church Responds to Youth Departure Maryland Community Church in Terre Haute, Ind., is revamping its youth ministry to try to help stop the exodus of young people from our nation’s churches.   With “Growing Young at MCC,” the church is dropping some staples of traditional youth ministry—like its high school worship service on Sunday morning—and adding more elements that bring parents and students together in church. The theory is that offering age-specific programming twice a week for students overburdens families. MCC wants to encourage high school students to be part of the larger church body in ministry

January 20, 2018

Christian Standard

HEADLINES: February 2018

By Chris Moon   Kentucky Church Hosts “Drug House Odyssey”  Nicholson Christian Church in Independence, Ky., bypassed the typical church “fall festival” and “trunk-or-treat” event this past Halloween to focus on something scarier. The Northern Kentucky church spent three days in late October hosting what it called “Drug House Odyssey,” an interactive walk through the horrors of drug addiction. According to WLWT Channel 5, the church produced a handful of live-action scenes that played out stories of drug addiction—from a childcare worker suffering an overdose to a teenager finding his mother had overdosed. Kentucky has been particularly hard hit by

December 24, 2017

Christian Standard

Obituaries for 2017

The most recently received obituaries are listed first. An alphabetical listing of all 2017 obituaries begins further down. Ione Etta McEathron Williams, 99, died on Nov. 23, 2017. She was the last remaining child of Alexander and Ida McEathron, pioneer missionaries and church planters to the Flambeau Hills of northern Wisconsin. She was born Sept. 14, 1918, in Hillsdale, Barron County, WI. The family moved to the Mud Brook Valley west of Holcombe, WI, when she was 2. She was baptized at age 10 in the Chippewa River by her father. At an early age she began teaching children”s Sunday

December 15, 2017

Christian Standard

HEADLINES: January 2018

By Chris Moon   Church Planter Helps with Recovery in Dominican Republic Church planter Chris Hornbrook had to weather the storm last fall in his mission work in the Dominican Republic. Hornbrook is working to start a church-planting movement on the Caribbean island and watched as Hurricane Maria spun by, doing significant damage to the region. It generated a lot of work for Hornbrook and his team, according to the Daily Journal in Franklin, Ind., which wrote about Hornbrook”s efforts. “We”re working through our local churches and pastors so that they can help the people in their communities,” Hornbrook told

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