January 1, 2026
Think Outward
Every church will tell you they have an outward focus because they know that's Jesus' Great Commission, but the truth is that many are not.
Articles for tag: From My Bookshelf
January 1, 2026
Succession: The Things You Need to Know but Others Won’t Tell You
We need to start thinking and planning for succession earlier rather than later, knowing that the stakes are high, the process takes time, and that we are following a biblical mandate.
January 1, 2026
Retirement, Ministry, and Learning to Let Go: A Pastor’s Wife’s Perspective
Retirement doesn’t mean ministry is over. It just means it looks different. The way we influence and serve may change, but God still uses us.
January 1, 2026
Bridging the Leadership Gap: Essential Steps for Church Succession
Elders and pastors need to intentionally work to identify and develop future pastors and leaders, viewing this as both a calling and a priority.
January 1, 2026
Serving in the Shadows
If your main motivation is to please other people, and your self-worth depends on others’ approval, you will be frustrated and disappointed.
January 1, 2026
Pastoral Transition: Succession or Interim?
When done with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, succession and an intentional interim create the smoothest path to pastoral transition.
November 6, 2025
Love’s Persuasive Power
Love has persuasive power. Compassion makes our arguments more convincing, but without love, our arguments sound hollow.
May 31, 2017
I”m So Glad We Had This Time Together
By LeRoy Lawson The time has come. Nearly 10 years ago I submitted my first “From My Bookshelf” manuscript, wondering with fear and trembling, Is this what the editor wants? Is it something Christian Standard readers will read? I like talking about books whether anyone is listening or not. Would you listen? You did, and you kept on listening for almost a decade now. We haven”t always agreed, you and I, but ours were civil disagreements between friends. In today”s rancorous political climate, that civil friendship is to be treasured. I have enjoyed writing for you. Here”s why: You made
April 28, 2017
Personal Dramas, Universal Issues
By LeRoy Lawson Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End Atul Gawked New York: Metropolitan, 2014 The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Questto Arm an America at War A. J. Jaime Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2014 There”s a Sheep in My Bathtub: Birth of a Mongolian Church Planting Movement Brian Hogan Bayside: Asteroidea Books, 2008 Atul Gawande”s Being Mortal is a book for everyone. But everyone won”t like it. It”s for everyone because it”s about dying and dying is for everyone. Everyone won”t like it because it”s about honestly accepting dying, even if you”re a doctor
April 18, 2017
All the Potential in an Open Book
By Mark A. Taylor Several years ago I was helping host a retreat for emerging leaders among the Christian churches and churches of Christ. One session began with the question, “What are you reading?” and every one in the circle of 25 had something different to report. These men and women were reading widely””not only books about the Bible and church leadership, but also an assortment of biography, classic literature, and fiction. It was one of several times I”ve realized the future of our movement is strong because so many young leaders in our movement are strong. This happened around
March 31, 2017
Good Funerals & Neighbors, Troubled Times
By LeRoy Lawson The Good Funeral: Death, Grief and the Community of Care Thomas G. Long and Thomas Lynch Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2013 A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens First published in 1859 The Neighboring Church: Getting Better at What Jesus Said Matters Most Rick Rusaw and Brian Mavis Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2016 The Good Funeral is about the importance of funerals in “getting the dead where they need to go and the living where they need to be.” Authors Thomas Long and Thomas Lynch like this maxim of Lynch”s father so well they made it the theme of
February 2, 2017
Divine Encounters, Good Good-byes, Genes Seen
By LeRoy Lawson What”s in a Phrase? Pausing Where Scripture Gives You Pause Marilyn Chandler McEntyre Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014 A Faithful Farewell: Living Your Last Chapter with Love Marilyn Chandler McEntyre Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015 A Long Letting Go: Meditations on Losing Someone You Love Marilyn Chandler McEntyre Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015 The Gene: An Intimate History Siddhartha Mukherjee New York: Scribner, 2016 When I learned of Marilyn McEntyre”s 2014 book What”s in a Phrase? I had to add it to my “must read” list. Earlier I had read her Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies. Her purpose in
December 31, 2016
These Speakers Are Writers
By LeRoy Lawson Unashamed: Drop the Baggage, Pick Up Your Freedom, Fulfill Your Destiny Christine Caine Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016 The Scent of Water: Grace for Every Kind of Broken Naomi Zacharias Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011 Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World Bob Goff Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2012 The Serengeti Rules: The Quest to Discover How Life Works and Why It Matters Sean B. Carroll Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016 I had the good fortune to attend the 2016 North American Christian Convention in Anaheim, California. I can”t remember an NACC that was more upbeat, more focused
December 1, 2016
A President, a Poet, and Prescriptions for the Church
By LeRoy Lawson Eisenhower in War and Peace Jean Edward Smith New York: Random House, 2012 For All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet”s Journey Richard Blanco Boston: Beacon Press, 2013 Why Nobody Wants to Go to Church Anymore:Â And How 4 Acts of Love Will Make Your Church Irresistible Thom and Joani Schultz Loveland: Group Publishing, 2013 Why Nobody Wants to Be Around Christians Anymore:Â And How 4 Acts of Love Will Make Your Faith Magnetic Thom and Joani Schultz Loveland: Group Publishing, 2014 Dwight Eisenhower was America”s president during my teen years. To this Oregon adolescent he loomed
October 28, 2016
Reconsidering Lawrence, Rediscovering Conversation, and Recently Recommended
By LeRoy Lawson Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East Scott Anderson New York: Anchor, 2014 Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age Sherry Turkle New York: Penguin Press, 2015 Above the Waterfall Ron Rash New York: Ecco, 2016 Fools Crow James Welch New York: Penguin, 2011 (originally published in 1987) For a reader, seeing is never enough. Neither is being there. You have to read up on it, get another”s point of view, reflect on and modify previous impressions. That happened with a vengeance earlier this year. My wife, Joy, and
September 29, 2016
To Kill or to Keep an Intriguing Idea?
By LeRoy Lawson This Idea Must Die: Scientific Theories That Are Blocking Progress John Brockman, editor New York: Harper Perennial, 2015 The Hunt for Vulcan: . . . And How Albert Einstein Destroyed a Planet, Discovered Relativity, and Deciphered the Universe Thomas Levenson New York: Random House, 2015 The Cross and the Lynching Tree James H. Cone Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2013 (reprint) So you are running into resistance to change in your church, are you? So you believe religion alone is the great resister of new ideas, do you? So you”ve been thinking science, on the contrary, is always based on objective, bias-free research and
August 20, 2016
Discovery and the High Cost of Finding
By LeRoy Lawson How Dante Can Save Your Life: The Life Changing Wisdom of History”s Greatest Poem Rod Dreher New York: Regan Arts, 2015 Water to Wine: Some of My Story Brian Zahnd Spello Press, 2016 High Price: A Neuroscientist”s Journey of Self-Discovery that Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society Carl Hart New York: HarperCollins, 2013 The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade Thomas Lynch New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 2009 Today”s column is about discovery, with what happens when the lost becomes found””and the high cost of the finding. Let”s begin with Rod Dreher”s How Dante Can Save Your Life: The Life Changing Wisdom of
August 1, 2016
Car Talk, Gay Marriage, and the Death Journey
By LeRoy Lawson The Reckoning David Halberstam Available via Kindle; first published in 1986 God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships Matthew Vines New York: Convergent Books (reprint edition), 2015 A Long Letting Go: Meditations on Losing Someone You Love Marilyn Chandler McEntyre Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015 For decades America”s automotive industry dazzled the whole world as it drove itself to the pinnacle of creative, organizational, and mechanical success. No other nation could compete. Detroit ruled supreme. That was then. This is now. David Halberstam”s The Reckoning was published 30 years ago. It still captivates a reader
July 7, 2016
Miracles, Marvels, and the Vulnerable Minister
By LeRoy Lawson The Miracle of Dunkirk Walter Lord New York: Open Road Media; for Kindle, 2012 The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon Brad Stone New York: Little, Brown and Co., 2013 The Vulnerable Pastor: How Human Limitations Empower Our Ministry Mandy Smith Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2015 Just about everything I thought I knew about the “evacuation” of Dunkirk (read “retreat”) was wrong. Or at least wildly romanticized. I could picture the thousand-plus boats of all sizes and types crossing the English Channel to rescue soldiers fleeing for their lives from the Nazis. My mind”s eye saw them push up against the
June 3, 2016
Lawlessness and Poverty, Freakonomics, and Strategies for Succession
By LeRoy Lawson The Locust Effect: Why the End of Poverty Requires the End of Violence Gary A. Haugen and Victor Boutros New York: Oxford University Press, 2014 Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner New York: HarperPerennial, 2009 SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner New York: William Morrow, 2011 Think Like a Freak: the Authors of Freakonomics Offer to Retrain Your Brain Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner New York: William Morrow, 2014 Next: Pastoral Succession that Works William
