Articles for tag: Christian Churches

August 30, 2016

Mark A. Taylor

Cartwheels Wanted

Mark A. Taylor Last week a message popped up on my phone that”s just too good not to share. A friend, a longtime member of the Christian churches, had taken advantage of our summer subscription push, and she wrote to tell me how she feels about it. I”ve received my first two issues of CHRISTIAN STANDARD, and I”m kicking myself for not following through sooner on my urge to subscribe. It is relevant, inspirational, motivational, and implementable. I was expecting very good and traditional. What I got was excellent and cutting edge! I”m over here doing cartwheels! Words to make

July 20, 2016

Christian Standard

An Interview with Gene Appel

Contributing editor Ben Cachiaras speaks with Gene Appel, minister with Eastside Christian Church, Anaheim, California, about next year”s North American Christian Convention (he”s president), why he loves the “tribe” of Christian churches/churches of Christ, and how to lead change in a local church. See this exclusive interview here.

July 18, 2016

Christian Standard

An Interview with Dave Stone

Dave Stone, 2016 North American Christian Convention president, shares where this year”s theme, “A Better Story,” came from. In this exclusive interview with contributing editor Ben Cachiaras, Dave thanks California churches for the convention”s success and shares reactions to Christian churches and churches of Christ he”s receiving from Christian leaders outside that fellowship. (Click here to view the interview.)

February 2, 2016

Mark A. Taylor

Our Continuing Ministry

By Mark A. Taylor CHRISTIAN STANDARD’s  contributing editors are a diverse group of men and women from across the country who serve from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives. They do not all see everything the same way, but all of them are leading significant ministry among the Christian churches and churches of Christ as they express a deep commitment to Jesus as Lord. Readers will regularly see most of them named as authors of articles and columns in the magazine. But that”s not the only way they contribute. Even more significant is the input they offer about writers and

October 22, 2015

Christian Standard

New Testament Church, New Insights on Ministry

By LeRoy Lawson Renewal for Mission: A Concise History of Christian Churches and Churches of Christ W. Dennis Helsabeck Jr., Gary Holloway, Douglas A. Foster Abilene: Abilene Christian University Press, 2009 A Dresser of Sycamore Trees: The Finding of a Ministry Garret Keizer HarperSanFrancisco, 1991, 1993 Priest, Prophet, Pilgrim: Types and Distortions of Spiritual Vocation in the Fiction of Wendell Berry and Cormac McCarthy Todd Edmonds Eugene: Pickwick Publications, 2014 When I was 9 years old, I made my nervous way down the aisle of my home church. I confessed my faith to our minister in front of all those people.

July 6, 2015

Christian Standard

A Conversation with John Mark Hicks

  John Mark Hicks tells what thrills him when he looks at the Christian churches and churches of Christ. “We need an infusion of church-planting enthusiasm among the a cappella churches of Christ,” he says. In this exclusive interview with Editor Mark Taylor, he explains the trend he sees with Baptists and Stone-Campbell churches coming closer to each other on the position of baptism. “Does God do something through baptism?” Answers to the question are creating new dialogue. See the interview here.

May 19, 2015

Mark A. Taylor

Considering Ourselves Amid the Decline of Mainline Churches

My Mark A. Taylor  If you think religion in America is claiming less loyalty than ever, the latest data released by the Pew Research Center will affirm your concern. At the same time, it offers a few morsels of encouragement for Evangelicals, who seem not to be losing as much ground as mainline Protestants and Catholics. America”s Changing Religious Landscape, based on more than 35,000 extensive phone interviews with adults in all 50 states, summarizes the situation this way: “The Christian share of the U.S. population is declining, while the number of U.S. adults who do not identify with any

May 12, 2015

Mark A. Taylor

Weighing the Numbers

By Mark A. Taylor Don”t tell a numbers guy you”re not interested in numbers! You may risk seeing the seething side of a fellow you thought was a mild-mannered researcher! Maybe I”m exaggerating, but it was quite clear to me from correspondence with Kent Fillinger, compiler of our annual “numbers” report, that he wasn”t happy. At issue was the decision by more than one Christian church or church of Christ not to participate in this year”s survey. Their stated reasons sound lofty. “We don”t want to compare ourselves with others.” “Our ministry is about so much more than numbers.” But

April 14, 2015

Mark A. Taylor

Finding Our Place, Claiming Our Heritage

By Mark A. Taylor Talk to Mike Baker and you”ll discover a guy who”s serious about his work while not taking himself too seriously at all. In fact, in our latest episode of Beyond the Standard, Baker used the word unfortunate to describe the “celebrity culture” in today”s church climate. “There are a lot of great preachers and leaders in churches of 150 and 200 who in their part of the world are really doing great things for God and for his kingdom,” he said. “But they”re just not ever going to get the accolades” that often come to leaders

April 6, 2015

Christian Standard

Alberta Bible College Appoints New President

Alberta Bible College, Calgary, AB, Canada, announced the appointment of Dr. Stanley N. Helton as its new president effective July 1, 2015. Helton has served as professor of Bible and ministry, and later, academic dean with Western Christian College, Regina, SK, Canada. His congregational ministry experience spans almost 20 years working with all three streams in the Restoration Movement: Disciples, a cappella, and independent churches of Christ and Christian churches. He served churches in North Carolina, South Carolina, New Orleans, LA, and Chicago, IL, before pursuing full-time teaching and doctoral studies. He grew up in a small Oklahoma town. Helton

January 13, 2015

Mark A. Taylor

Contributors, Indeed!

By Mark A. Taylor Today is the middle day of this year”s annual CHRISTIAN STANDARD contributing editors retreat. For all of us who attend it, this is a special gathering that enriches us in a unique way. Of course, personal enrichment is a byproduct of the meeting. Its stated purpose is to brainstorm topics and writers for future editions of CHRISTIAN STANDARD. And this is a purpose that has been wonderfully achieved, year after year. Many of the innovations and changes you”ve seen in the magazine through the years have come at the suggestion (or prodding!) of this group. Several

September 1, 2014

Christian Standard

2014 NACC: One Man’s Testimony

  By Darrel Rowland Lee Strobel has made The Case for Christ, The Case for Faith, and even The Case for Christmas. At the North American Christian Convention, the popular Christian speaker and apologetics author made the case for Christian churches and churches of Christ. “This movement of churches is nothing short of miraculous,” he said the day before taking the NACC stage.  “God is doing amazing things. I love their pastors””they”ve got huge hearts, they love the lost, they”re strategic, they”re prayerful, they”re culturally relevant, they”re scriptural, they”re entrepreneurial.” Strobel has appeared at several Christian churches across the country.

August 17, 2014

Christian Standard

Charting Some Changes (a Seminary Professor’s Reflections)

By Robert Hull Professor of New Testament, Emeritus, Emmanuel Christian Seminary, Johnson City, Tennessee I have had the rare privilege of spending my entire teaching career (33 years) at Emmanuel Christian Seminary in Johnson City, Tennessee. With all the caveats about the risks of generalizing, here are my reflections on some changes during the last couple of decades. The Students Educationally, about half our students come from Christian colleges or universities (20 years ago we would have said “Bible colleges”) and the other half from secular colleges or universities. Some of them are ready to hit the ground running, but

August 8, 2014

Christian Standard

Why Celebrate Every Week?

By Mark S. Krause Some in the church world today ask, “Why celebrate the Lord”s Supper every week?” In the Christian churches/churches of Christ, we celebrate the Lord”s Supper each Sunday because we find that pattern reflected in the early church described in the New Testament. While it is inevitable that the church has changed over the centuries, we believe there are basic patterns worth preserving, and this is one of them. But this leads to a more basic question: “Why did the early church celebrate the Lord”s Supper every week?” The answer is very simple, but it requires a

May 11, 2014

Christian Standard

Megachurches and Missions

By Chris DeWelt Suspicious of missions? Uninterested in missionaries? Disengaged from foreign fields? Not the megachurches I interviewed for my doctoral thesis and this report. Actually, I found just the opposite. The American megachurch is interested in missions! The advent of the megachurch is a phenomenon unique in church history. The fact that the megachurch is here is hardly a news item, but the growth and influence of megachurches is a significant part of our current story.1 Just 53 years ago there were only 16 Protestant megachurches2 in America. The Hartford Institute for Religion Research lists about 1,500 megachurches.3 Currently,

March 25, 2014

Mark A. Taylor

Just Enough Scaffolding

By Mark A. Taylor “We all seemed to be on the same page,” Bob Russell wrote me after last week”s Beyond the Standard BlogTalkRadio program. “Maybe that made for boring listening, but it makes for a stronger brotherhood!” His comment sowed a new thought for me. Should I be looking for opposing points of view among the guests who appear on these monthly programs? For this episode, could I have found Christian leaders to disagree with “We”re not the only Christians, but we are Christians only”? Maybe. At least one comment about CHRISTIAN STANDARD”s March issue, devoted to that centuries-old

March 11, 2014

Mark A. Taylor

Staying Connected”“It”s to Our Benefit!

By Mark A. Taylor The following column first appeared at this site in 2008, but it strikes me, with a couple of tweaks,  as remarkably current still today. So while I’m on vacation this week, let me offer it for your consideration. I’m guessing many readers have forgotten it or missed it when it first appeared! Christ followers outside our movement are often intrigued when they get to know us better. They”re impressed first with the accomplishments of Christian churches and churches of Christ: “¢ Dynamic missions work “¢ World-class church planting initiatives “¢ Creative leadership of new approaches like

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