Articles for tag: Ananias And Sapphira

July 1, 2022

Ken Idleman

Healthy Churches Are Built on Trustworthy Leaders

Healthy Churches Are Built on Trustworthy Leaders

By Ken Idleman In 2011, New York Times best-selling author Tina Rosenberg published Join the Club: How Peer Pressure Can Transform the World. The question she addressed in her secular book was, How do you get people to change for the better? How do you get them to live healthier lives . . . to diet, exercise, and not drink excessively? In short, how do you get individuals to grow in a positive direction? She concluded that the masses don’t change simply because they desire to change or by getting more information. Virtually everyone who smokes knows smoking is bad

November 30, 2015

Christian Standard

Lesson for December 6, 2015: The Lord’s Day (Exodus 20:8″“11; 31:12″“16)

Dr. Mark Scott wrote this treatment of the International Sunday School Lesson. Scott teaches preaching and New Testament at Ozark Christian College, Joplin, Missouri, and has held preaching ministries in Missouri, Illinois, and Colorado. This lesson treatment is published in the November 29 issue of The Lookout magazine, and is also available online at www.lookoutmag.com. ______ By Mark Scott  A certain workaholic said, “Thank God it”s Monday.” But even the most aggressive workaholic needs rest. Out of eternity God carved time and made days, weeks, months, seasons, and years. Habit is a great liberator””learning the rhythms of God gives proper pacing to our lives.

September 7, 2015

Christian Standard

Lesson for September 13, 2015: Sharing with Sincerity (Acts 4:34″”5:10)

Dr. Mark Scott wrote this treatment of the International Sunday School Lesson. Scott teaches preaching and New Testament at Ozark Christian College, Joplin, Missouri, and has held preaching ministries in Missouri, Illinois, and Colorado. This lesson treatment is published in the September 6 issue of The Lookout magazine, and is also available online at www.lookoutmag.com. ______ By Mark Scott  In Luke”s summaries of the earliest church, we see it at its best (Acts 2:42-47; 4:32-37). The gospel was being preached, people were being saved, a congregation was being planted, Communion was being celebrated, and giving was off the charts. Who would not want to

April 25, 2014

Christian Standard

Ministry Confidential

By Eddie Lowen “Can I speak to you, confidentially?” A church leader is asked some form of this question at least several times a year. Normally it comes from within the church, but it can also be voiced by nonattendees. For relationally gifted leaders with a pastoral bent, requests for confidential conversations are more frequent. The most important response to a request for confidentiality is the initial one. Many church leaders feel an ethical or pastoral obligation to grant the request without qualification. With no clue about what will be reported or confessed, many church leaders indiscriminately reply by saying,

September 23, 2012

Christian Standard

Gifts that Make God Smile

By Jeff Anderson Autumn Joy toddled across the room and stood at the edge of my laptop-centered view. I was in task mode, typing away in my living room recliner. My 18-month-old daughter looked up at me, her Shirley Temple curls bouncing around her face. Then she handed me a plastic doughnut from her kitchen play set. I looked at the doughnut my toddler had just given me and then back at her again. She was waiting for a response. So I lifted the doughnut to my mouth and said with great animation, “Yummm, ymmm . . . thank you,

July 8, 2011

Christian Standard

Our “˜God Is Able” Verse

By Dennis Bratton He walked into the classroom and drew three stair steps on the blackboard. On the bottom rung he wrote “To Know.” On the second rung he wrote “To Feel.” And finally the third rung received the phrase “To Do.” This was J.B. Richardson”s formula for Christian education, and I never forgot it. I like things that are simple, make sense, and work. When preaching, for instance, I would use the “stair steps” to evaluate the sermon. To Know“”what is the truth this sermon exposes? To Feel“”is the truth presented in a way that can reach the heart

June 22, 2008

Christian Standard

Lord, Help, I Am Hearing Voices!

By Terry O’Casey I can still picture the elder and his wife playing “footsie” beneath the folding fellowship hall tables at a board meeting at one of my first churches. It was in the days when the 18 deacons could outvote the six elders. Voting for some was by “secret” ballot, in the form of a swift kick. Seriously! The elders had just finished sharing a unified vision with the rest of those at the meeting. Then I saw it, plain as day, beneath the cheap tablecloth. She kicked her husband . . . hard””so hard he had to change

May 21, 2006

Christian Standard

The Mark

By Dave Smith I walked across the parking lot. I wasn”t sure why I was there. But God was working in me. I had questions. I needed answers. Besides, I was new in town and mom said nice girls go to church. A young man my age saw me. He stopped and introduced himself. He walked with me into the singles Bible study. I was nervous. The memory of Jim Jones and the mass suicides at Guyana bothered me. We sat down in a circle and began to study the book of John. I understood very little. But this group

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