Articles for tag: Church Growth Movement

July 22, 2019

Jerry Harris

Righting the Wrongs of the Past

By Jerry Harris I’m a product of the suburbs. I grew up on the west side of Indianapolis in the early 1960s, part of a post-World War II migration from urban areas to planned neighborhoods that sprang up from what were formerly farm fields surrounding big cities. There were a number of reasons for this great migration. Ex-servicemen had access to loans to pursue the American dream, so they moved out of apartments in the city and purchased their own homes on their own land in burgeoning suburbs. The availability of automobiles and creation of the interstate highway system encouraged

November 23, 2015

Christian Standard

Back to the City

By Kendi Howells Douglas Our increasingly urban world requires a commitment to embracing diversity and pursuing reconciliation as we plant churches in cosmopolitan environments. Our world is more urban than rural for the first time in history1, and in addition to rethinking how we prepare people to minister in an urban world, we must look at church planting efforts in light of this new reality. In researching the history of the Restoration Movement in urban areas, I have discovered some factors that have kept many of our churches out of cities in the past. One issue was failure to be

July 19, 2012

Christian Standard

Preaching, Prevailing, and Seeking

By LeRoy Lawson The Collected Sermons of Fred B. Craddock Fred B. Craddock Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2011 When You Come Home: The True Love Story of a Soldier”s Heroism and His Wife”s Sacrifice Nancy Cavin Pitts Kingsport: Christian Devotions Ministry, 2011 The Celtic Way of Evangelism: How Christianity Can Reach the West . . . AGAIN (10th Anniversary Edition) George C. Hunter III Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2010 I”ve known of Fred Craddock almost as long as I”ve been preaching, but I”ve never met him. When I was a guest preacher at the Christian Church in Newport, Tennessee, his ghost filled the church. He wasn”t dead,

July 15, 2012

Christian Standard

Megachurches: Storm Clouds Ahead?

By Brian Maris It”s not all smooth sailing for the megachurches. Church leaders I interviewed foresee some storms on the horizon. In my previous column (May 27), I shared seven positive trends megachurches are experiencing. These were gleaned from interviewing nine authors, academics, megachurch pastors, and missional church planters. These nine were overwhelmingly optimistic about the future of megachurches. But not everything they see is positive. Today, we”ll look at three concerns that were mentioned in those interviews.   1. Overfishing in Other Churches” Ponds “There are two kinds of megachurches,” states Eddie Gibbs, senior professor of church growth at

November 29, 2009

Christian Standard

Fifty Years of Missiology: 1960″“2010

  by Doug Priest While missions began in biblical times, the academic discipline of missiology goes back only to the early 1800s. The definition of missiology we learned in college in the 1970s was, “the scientific study of missions.” I recall my missionary father cringing upon hearing this definition, fearing that others would assume the spiritual component in mission was being left out.  In seminary I learned a more technical definition: “The academic discipline or science which researches, records, and applies data relating to the biblical origin, the history, the anthropological principles and techniques and the theological basis of Christian

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