Articles for tag: church staff

March 31, 2013

Christian Standard

Shared Secrets for Ministers, Useful Advice for Elders

By LeRoy Lawson   Open Secrets: A Memoir of Faith and Discovery Richard Lischer New York: Broadway Books, 2001 Answer His Call (2009) Reflect His Character (2009) Lead His Church (2010) Enjoy His People (2011) Jim Estep, David Roadcup, and Gary Johnson Joplin: College Press The Healthy Elder: Vital Signs of a Strong Leader Jim Estep, David Roadcup, and Gary Johnson e2 Effective Elders, 2012 Effective Elders: What Every Elder Should Know””a digital curriculum (CD/DVD combo) Jim Estep, Gary Johnson, and David Roadcup e2 Effective Elders  A colleague recently asked for recommendations for articles or books on the subject of

February 12, 2013

Christian Standard

What We’re Learning on Our Walk (Part 2)

By Mike Baker I am unashamed to tell you I want my church to grow! I want it to grow numerically because every person counted on a Sunday morning is a life that matters, a story of redemption, and a person in need of a Savior. But numeric growth is not the only growth God desires for his church. With increased attendance and baptisms come the responsibility of encouraging spiritual growth in those God has entrusted to our care. Early in my ministry, I was easily impressed. I often thought, Cool, our numbers are growing, naively believing our work was

January 11, 2013

Christian Standard

How Do You Define Your Leadership? Melissa Sandel

By Melissa Sandel My role is to serve as the chief architect of staff culture. I find high-capacity leaders who are determined to grow, and equip them to hit the ball out of the park in their respective roles. Crafting the environment in which this process unfolds is one of my most vital assignments. Several principles define our staff culture and have shaped the way I lead. Require development. We don”t believe anyone is so sharp or devoted that he or she can play a productive role on our team without growing. To model this, I invite our lead pastor

August 29, 2012

Christian Standard

Surprise!

By Eddie Lowen On my 30th birthday, a sweet woman from the church I served interrupted the close of the worship service. She walked up the center aisle holding a large birthday cake decorated with my name in icing. Everyone sang “Happy Birthday.” It was a very kind gesture and, looking back, it was a harmless moment, perhaps even helpful. At the time, however, I didn”t like it. Why? I don”t like surprises””especially during the worship service! Since that birthday surprise, I”ve learned that minimizing surprises is feasible, but eliminating surprises is impossible. When you throw hundreds (or thousands) of

April 19, 2012

Christian Standard

The Unwanted Gift

By Eddie Lowen Am I a bad father? On Christmas morning, I felt like one. My son decided his gift to me would be more than the usual gift card. He settled on a name-brand protective case for my name-brand smart phone. He was pleased with his thoughtfulness and generosity. I was pleased with the selflessness and gratitude he displayed. There”s just one problem: I don”t want it. More precisely, I don”t want to use it. Why? First, it”s designed to clip to my belt. Social science has irrefutably shown that a belt-clipped phone case increases a person”s dork factor

August 27, 2011

Christian Standard

The T-shirt Aristocracy

By Daniel Schantz I was speaking at a small Missouri church, and I couldn”t help noticing I was the only male wearing a necktie. Services were over, and I was shaking hands with the last person to leave. “Hmmm, seems like I”m the only male wearing a tie today,” I noted. The lady laughed. “Oh, don”t worry about that! Our preacher doesn”t wear a tie, and he urges us to dress down too, so that we don”t offend any seekers who might be poor and unable to afford dress clothes.” I said nothing. I have heard this line many times

January 20, 2011

Christian Standard

Every Issue from 2010 on One CD!

The 2010 CHRISTIAN STANDARD CD-ROM provides readers with a whole year of CHRISTIAN STANDARD at ready reference. This helpful tool contains every 2010 issue, conveniently indexed and searchable. Click on an article in the index, and it immediately opens a PDF of the issue in which that article appears. Click on that issue’s table of contents, and the article will pop-up on your computer screen. Use the CD-ROM for research or to find teaching and preaching illustrations. Search by topic or author name. Find articles to share with friends, church staff members, elders, deacons, and teachers. You’ll use this new

November 3, 2010

Christian Standard

Small Groups . . . Foundation for a Healthy Church

By Dick Alexander For most of our adult lives my wife and I have been in a small group””not because my job requires it but because our souls do. Our small groups have laughed, cried, prayed, encouraged, and studied the Bible with us, and helped us keep our bearings through troubled times. They have been “church” to us. Usually when there”s conversation about the value of small groups in the church, it”s done on a pragmatic basis””they keep people connected, they”re important for assimilation, etc. But the main reason for small groups is this: they are foundational for a larger

October 7, 2010

Christian Standard

Checking References of Ministerial Candidates

By Brent Storms In my local church ministry, and now in my position as president of a church planting organization, I have considered more than 1,000 candidates for open positions in ministry. I have screened and interviewed hundreds, and have hired more than 30 people for ministry positions. As I look back on the hiring process, I understand there are few elements more important than checking references and previous employers. Let me share three examples. Not long ago I met a candidate for the position of lead planter for a new church to be started in one of our northeastern

August 18, 2010

Christian Standard

Lookin” for Squirrels

By George Ross I”m sitting in a motel a long ways from home with a laptop and a deadline. (I”m on a staff recruiting trip interviewing two guys for two key positions for our ministry leadership team.) I”m wondering if I should acknowledge in this article what I”m struggling with. So here I sit in the motel facing a big mirror on the wall as I look beyond my computer. I”m OK with the deadline and the risk factor, just not the mirror! A visual of myself at 6:30 am brings no inspiration! A Specific Sign In recruiting for a

June 6, 2010

Christian Standard

Preparing to Preach

By Bruce E. Shields Who is your ideal preacher? Think about a preacher who has had a positive impact on you. Can you recall a single sermon he preached? Was it the sermons or the character of the preacher that left the lasting impression? I often ask student preachers these questions, and invariably it is character they recall and not individual sermons. I hasten to add that this does not mean sermons have no lasting value, but rather that the sermons make up just one part of the overall impression that preachers leave. This means the preacher needs to pay

March 28, 2010

Christian Standard

The Blessings of Scarcity

By Stephen Bond I meet for lunch every month with four other senior pastors who serve in my community. I”m surprised by the openness of each pastor in sharing the unique hurdles and challenges his church faces. But one challenge we”ve all wrestled with in the past two years is finances. The economic downturn has affected our churches in different degrees””but we”ve all felt the crunch. In our state, Nevada, unemployment hovers near 13 percent. When people don”t have jobs, it often means they don”t have money to support their local church. This inevitably affects the financial resources churches have

March 17, 2010

Christian Standard

Life is Hard, and That”s OK

By Mark A. Taylor I”ve thought a lot about the churches I know, the parachurch ministries I”ve seen, and the work situations I”ve experienced. My conclusion: There”s a problem with all of them. To one degree or another, they”re all broken. In fact, some are shattered messes. Every senior minister or elder or boss or chief executive has a blind spot. And some at the top are plagued by self-interest, paranoia, or a true incompetence they”re frantic to hide. Every organization chart, while conceived to solve problems, thereby creates new difficulties for those who must function within it, bound by

February 28, 2010

Christian Standard

Leadership Coaching in the Local Church (Developing Leaders of Leaders)

By Janet McMahon “The fruit of my work grows up on other people”s trees.” (Bob Buford)1 The phone call went something like this, “I was praying for you last night; how did it go?” I was juggling my 6-month-old son on one hip while wedging the phone between my ear and shoulder. “It went OK . . . I think,” I replied. What was this conversation? This was a coaching call. I had led my first women”s small group at Community Christian Church in Naperville, Illinois, the night before. The call was from Sue, my coach. She wanted to know

September 9, 2009

Christian Standard

Interview with Lorraine Dupray

By Brad Dupray Married just days after high school graduation, Lorraine Dupray dedicated herself to raising her family and serving the local church. As a young woman she had no idea she would eventually become a ministry pioneer, developing the staff role of “director of women”s ministry” at Knott Avenue Christian Church, Anaheim, California, in the early 1980s. She went on to serve on several boards of directors, including that of Hope International University. She led the girls” camp at Angeles Crest Christian Camp in Southern California for 30 years, served alongside her husband, Carl, in ministering to junior high

April 19, 2009

Christian Standard

Megachurches: The Value of a Brand (Web-Only Feature)

  By Kent E. Fillinger “Christianity has an image problem.” This is the first sentence in UnChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity . . . And Why It Matters. The book chronicles the negative perceptions and skepticism that Americans ages 16-29 have of all things Christian: the faith itself, the people who profess it, the church, the Bible, and even Jesus.  Authors David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons summarize the most common points of skepticism and objections raised by outsiders into the following six broad themes: hypocritical, too focused on getting converts, antihomosexual, sheltered, too political, and judgmental.

March 8, 2009

Christian Standard

WEB EXTRA: A Time of Cutbacks, But a Season of Opportunities

By Ben Cachiaras EDITOR’S NOTE: Contributing editor Ben Cachiaras wrote late in February to say Mountain Christian Church, where he ministers in Joppa, Maryland, was forced by the economy to initiate some cutbacks. “They were pervasive and widely felt,” he said. When he met with the church staff to explain the cuts, he challenged them by saying this crossroads was actually an exciting time for the church. “Matthew 28 does not say, “˜Go, and make disciples . . . as long as the Dow is up,”” he said. “While I would never wish economic disaster on anyone, I do know that

October 26, 2008

Christian Standard

Sin Among the Shepherds

By Name Withheld   In a perfect world there would be no articles like this. The leaders in our churches would be solid, stable, and blameless. You wouldn”t need the testimony “of a leader who failed.” And I wouldn”t be that leader. In a serious understatement, I was asked to describe for you “what happens when a shepherd “˜stubs his toe” and it is handled well by the church.” I was asked because I am that shepherd, but I didn”t feel I had “stubbed my toe”””it felt like I had cut off my legs. While the elders of my church know

October 19, 2008

Christian Standard

Hunting or Hunted?

By Don Wilson Climbing the corporate ladder is the American way. For most employees, no matter what their position, the ultimate goal is to get ahead in their career. The better an employee performs, the greater his chance of advancing, either in his current company or at another company. His advancement may come in the form of a job offer from within or without, or from his own inclination to seek another position. Whatever the case, there is potential for misunderstanding and hard feelings between the employee and his current employer. As in the corporate world, church employees who do

June 22, 2008

Christian Standard

What Is an Elder”s Most Important Job?

By Arron Chambers Who is an elder supposed to be? The Bible makes it clear Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God”s church?) He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall

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