April 19, 2022
The rapid turnover in a new church plant’s core launch team is not unusual, church-planting experts say. Of the 40 or so people who helped plant Canvas Church in North Carolina last September, almost half are gone . . . some simply disappeared without saying a word. “It’s weird, but it’s like, ‘Can you say goodbye?’” the lead planter said.
March 31, 2022
Compass Christian Church's "Unstoppable" campaign, launched just as COVID-19 was sweeping the nation, has proven to be just that. Almost $50 million has been raised for local ministry, outreach, and campus construction and renovation.
March 1, 2022
By Tyler McKenzie A pressing need exists for the church to focus discipleship efforts on emotional health, which is something the church rarely touches. It’s been over two years since COVID-19 first shut down the United States. Since then, leading a church has felt similar to being a frontline worker. I won’t pretend that our challenges have rivaled those of an emergency room doctor or a COVID-unit nurse. Still, pastoring a church has felt like a heavyweight boxing match that never ends. There has been heavy pressure, many needs, and relentless controversies. We have felt constantly embattled in fights we
January 26, 2022
Not long after Charlie and Faith Russell celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary, and only days before the birth of their first child, Charlie came down with COVID-19. That was in late July 2021. Charlie was hospitalized for weeks; he calls his recovery "a miracle."
January 26, 2022
Rusty Russell thought his son, Charlie, would recover quickly when his boy was hospitalized with COVID-19 in August. That wasn't the case. Rusty, who preaches in Florida, traveled back and forth to Tennessee weekly to help during Charlie's long ordeal.
January 19, 2022
When Bryan Sands answered the call to serve with Kaimuki Christian Church in Hawaii, he was following two ministers who served a combined 57 years. Sands hasn't regretted the move . . .
January 12, 2022
Tri-Village Christian Church in Pataskala, Ohio, has started a Stephen Ministry in which 18 lay members of the congregation have been trained to provide basic one-on-one Christian care to people in need of support.
January 1, 2022
So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ (Ephesians 4:11-13). As 2020 started, the church in America was already coping with issues ranging from racial tensions to gay marriage, all while competing with sports for a family’s attention on Sunday mornings. Then COVID-19 arrived in full
January 1, 2022
What Independent Christian Churches Have to Celebrate . . . and the Challenges Ahead We live in a world of polls describing a hopelessly post-Christian culture in which the church is constantly losing ground. A 2020 Gallup Poll found the number of Americans now affiliated with a church is just 47 percent, a sub-50 percent number for the first time in 80 years. Cary Nieuwhof shared a recent Barna/Stadia Poll that stated 30 percent fewer people in Generation Z (those born 1999 to 2015) attend church than baby boomers (those born 1946 to 1964). Another Barna study informed us that
December 27, 2021
Manchester Christian Church is changing its name to One Church as it continues to expand in New England. "It’s time to have a name that reflects not where we are, but who we are," senior pastor Bo Chancey said.
December 22, 2021
"On Dec. 16, 2020—my brother-in-law and husband, both pastors in our church, tested positive for COVID-19," Tina Wilson writes. Many other leaders needed to be quarantined, as well. At Ekklesia Christian Church, this all came at the start of 13 worship services over the next 14 days, closing on property, and launching a generosity initiative . . .
December 14, 2021
Amy Plummer says the COVID-19 pandemic certainly hasn’t made it easier to reach at-risk families in her community with the love of Christ. Plummer oversees a ministry called Giftmart at Community Christian Church, a multisite congregation in the Chicago metro. Now in its 19th year, Giftmart collects toys for families in need to purchase at a deep discount. . . .
December 1, 2021
n Movement roots—minister/church planter Jim Tune and Christian educator Stan Helton—to share their views.
November 30, 2021
Roger Munchian used to traffic marijuana. Tons of it. Today, as founder of the prison ministry Rescued Not Arrested, Munchian traffics something else—Bibles.
November 17, 2021
Chaplaincy Endorsement Commission recruitment has seen growth of 10 to 15 percent over the past year and a half, says executive director Kal McAlexander.
November 12, 2021
Bob Beckman's first book, "Presence in Solitude: The Pastoral Promise of the Pandemic," takes readers “on a brief journey through the New Testament with others who were seemingly alone in grace circumstances.”
November 10, 2021
After more than a year-and-a-half hiatus because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mark Ziese is eyeing a return to Israel. The Holy Land guide—owner of Bible Land Explorer LLC—said he’s ready to get back at it. . . .
November 1, 2021
By Kent E. Fillinger Some churches create “holy huddles” that are internally focused and address only the needs of their own members. Their mantra could be, “Us four, no more, close the door!” Other churches are more externally focused and spend time, energy, and resources serving their local communities and meeting practical needs. Church leaders should periodically ask, “If our church were to close today, would our community realize it and miss us?” Answering that question will help a church assess where they fall on the internally focused versus externally focused spectrum. Local Community Involvement Our annual church survey for
October 28, 2021
A comparison of Lifeway Research studies from 2015 and 2021 indicates that, despite the challenges of COVID-19, there has been virtually no change in the number of evangelical and historically Black Protestant senior pastors leaving the pulpit each year.
September 29, 2021
Leaders of some of the largest independent Christian church mission organizations say they monitor COVID-19 closely, but none requires their missionaries be fully vaccinated against the disease, a step recently taken by the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.
April 7, 2026
John B. Penrose Jr
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Rick Cherok