Articles for tag: Gift

January 5, 2018

Christian Standard

Money & Debt Stewardship & Generosity

ON-RAMPS AND EXITS: How to Help Your Children Reach Financial Freedom

By Barry Cameron The most visited museum in all of Scandinavia is in Stockholm, Sweden. It contains the world’s only preserved 17th-century ship—a Swedish warship built between 1626 and 1628 during the reign of King Gustav II Adolf, who is considered one of the great military minds in European history. The Vasa, built on the king’s orders as part of a military expansion during a war with Poland and Lithuania, was constructed from the timber of 1,000 oak trees; it had two gun decks with 64 bronze cannons and a mast more than 150 feet tall. The ship was covered

December 22, 2017

Keeping Down Appearances

By Doug Redford Some years ago an article in the Cincinnati Enquirer featured this headline: “Appearance Counts When Wrapping Holiday Gifts.” Said one employee at a luxury goods store in San Antonio, Texas, “The biggest thing I”ve seen through the years is that the wrapping is just as important as what”s on the inside. You can take a $5 item and make it look like a million bucks.” Another person quoted in the article noted, “Packaging will make a whole lot of difference, and it will make the gift special.” On the other hand, there are occasions when the lack

December 16, 2017

Christian Standard

“˜And It Came to Pass in Those Days”

This Christmas essay originally appeared in the December 18/25, 2011, issue of Christian Standard. ___ By John Caldwell I love Christmas! It is without a doubt my favorite season of the year. I like almost everything about it, both secular and spiritual. I enjoy the music, the lights, the decorations, the parties, and the programs. I enjoy the hustle and the bustle, the giving and receiving of gifts. But most of all, I enjoy the Christmas story itself””the fact that God became flesh and dwelt among us; that Jesus is indeed the reason for the season. In our 46 years

December 9, 2017

Christian Standard

Anxiety & Depression Care & Counseling

You Can Cope with Holiday Stress

(This article originally appeared in the December 19/26, 2010, issue of Christian Standard.) By Larry W. Bailey How”s your holiday going? For many, it”s more stress than celebration. At Christmastime, the laughter of the “Ho, Ho, Ho” may give way to the pressure of the “Go, Go, Go.” Fantasies of a “silent night” turn into the noisy bustle of crowded department stores. For some, the jingling of Christmas bells yields to the jangling of nerves. We may find ourselves moving from holiday dreams to horrible nightmares, from anticipation to aggravation, from sugar plums to sour grapes, from happiness to

November 18, 2017

Michael C. Mack

Family & Relationships Parenting

Stand: When You Did Not Receive Your Father”s Blessing

By Michael C. Mack “Stand up if you grew up without a father . . . if you never knew him . . . if he was abusive or inept or spiritually vacant and unavailable . . . even if he was around, but not really there . . . if you knew him but weren”t known by him . . .” I and six other members of my men”s group had traveled to the RCA Dome in Indianapolis for the Promise Keepers conference, joining some 62,000 other men worshipping God and being inspired to live godly lives. On the

March 31, 2017

Christian Standard

Communion & Lord's Supper Theology & Bible

In Remembrance of Me

By Becky Ahlberg Do you remember your first Communion? The first time you held the bread and cup and accepted the invitation to this table offered by the Lord himself upon your baptism and commitment to him? How old were you? Where were you? Who else was there? For some of us, that moment was decades ago; for some others, it might be this very day. For all of us, it is a call to remembrance. We”re called to remember our commitment. We”re called to remember our community here in this place and to remember Christians around the world. And

March 15, 2017

Christian Standard

Culture & Public Square Technology

Keeping Smartphones in Their Place

By Jim Tune The New York Times reports people spend close to three hours a day looking at a mobile screen, and that excludes the time they spend actually talking on the phones. In a 2015 survey of smartphone use by Bank of America, about one-third of respondents said they were “constantly” checking their smartphones, and a little more than two-thirds said they went to bed with a smartphone by their side. One teenager reports, “I bring my [iPhone] everywhere. I have to be holding it. It”s like OCD””I have to have it with me. And I check it a

February 27, 2017

Christian Standard

Bible Study Theology & Bible

Lesson for March 5, 2017: Perfect Love (1 John 4:7-19)

Dr. Mark Scott wrote this treatment of the International Sunday School Lesson. Scott teachesÂ preaching and New Testament at Ozark Christian College, Joplin, Missouri. This lesson treatment is published in the February 26, 2017,Â issue ofÂ The LookoutÂ magazine, and is also available online atÂ www.lookoutmag.com. ______ By Mark ScottÂ God”s primary identity must become our primary activity. That identity and activity in a word is love. A loving God was all but unheard of in ancient Greece. The false gods they believed in were often more immoral than humans and had to be appeased””not embraced due to their love. But in a stunning statement

February 3, 2017

Christian Standard

Conferences & Gatherings Organizations & Events

ICOM 2016: Disciples Making Disciples

By Doug Priest Mitchell and Luis looked a little lost in the exhibition hall at the Lexington (Kentucky) Convention Center, home to the 2016 International Conference on Missions. They came from the Dominican Republic. Mitchell had come to the convention once before, eight years ago. But the convention had grown a lot in the past eight years, and there were 300 different exhibitors! It is no wonder they were amazed at all they saw. These men are pastors. They belong to Centro Cristiano, an association of Christian churches in the Dominican Republic that has 23 pastors. Four of the pastors

February 2, 2017

Christian Standard

Church & Ministry Church Leadership Preaching

The Best Sermon I”ve Ever Heard (19)

By Arron Chambers Christian leaders, some of them preachers themselves, tell us about a sermon they can”t forget””and maybe you won”t either. Neill Snyder Neill Snyder grew up in the church and became a Christian at the age of 12. His love for Latino people led him to plant Iglesia Cristiana Southwest in Denver, Colorado. He and his wife, Rosy, have two preschool-age children. Neill”s Best Sermon: The best sermon on compassion is “Get God in Your Gut” by Vince Antonucci. The sermon can be heard at http://vivalaverve.org/media/messages (it”s part of the Renegade series). Why Neill likes this sermon:

December 15, 2016

Christian Standard

Church & Ministry Leadership Development

Many Gifts, Much Service: A Profile of Eleanor Daniel

By Bruce Parmenter I call Eleanor Daniel “The Queen of the Deans” because, to my knowledge, she is the only woman, aside from Dr. Dinelle Frankland and Karen Diefendorf, to serve as academic dean in seminaries of the more “traditional” side of the Stone-Campbell fellowship. Daniel has been dean at not one, but three seminaries. She is also a missionary, and a missionary to missionaries, a scholar par excellence (summa cum laude graduate of Lincoln Christian College, master”s degree and PhD from the University of Illinois), and an extraordinary teacher and preacher. Tucked in among the plethora of her gifts,

December 2, 2016

Christian Standard

Care & Counseling Grief & Suffering

The Gift of Grief

By Daniel Schantz “A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3, King James Version). Sorrow does not take a holiday at Christmas. One of America”s most comforting Christmas anthems, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” was composed by a man fluent in the language of grief. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a popular professor and poet at Harvard in 1850, but he paid a price for his greatness. Although he loved students, he found teaching to be “a grinding mill.” He suffered from stomach distress, arthritis, vertigo, and depression. At one point he said, “I hate the sight

November 28, 2016

Christian Standard

Culture & Public Square Justice

A Different View of the Oppressed

By Casey Tygrett Oppressed. What does that word evoke for you? I typed oppression into Google, clicked Search, and it returned 36.5 million results. There is a lot being said about oppression. And Scripture says much about oppression, too. In fact, the word oppression appears nearly 4,500 times there. The first Bible story about oppression details the plight of the Israelites in Egypt and the beautifully momentous exodus that set them loose to chase the everlasting land and the everlasting covenant under the everlasting God. It”s a wonderful story, but it begins with oppression. To Be Helpless, to Be

September 16, 2016

Christian Standard

Church Leadership

Lead to Freedom

By Brian Jennings When Israel returned home after 70 years of captivity, their walls lay in ruins, their memories of God”s Law had faded, and their citizens were vulnerable. Without leadership, everything might have crumbled again. Ezra and Nehemiah emerged as two of the greatest leaders in Scripture. While dozens of leadership principles ripple through this story, here are four essential ones for leading people to freedom. 1. Lead by Studying “For Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the Lord, and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel” (Ezra 7:10). The word

September 9, 2016

Christian Standard

Communion & Lord's Supper Theology & Bible

The Vertical and the Horizontal

By C. Robert Wetzel There is both a vertical and a horizontal dimension to the Lord Supper. In a spiritual sense, we are looking up as we once again focus our thoughts on the gift of God in the sacrificial death of our Lord Jesus Christ. As we eat the bread we remember his words, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me” (1 Corinthians 11:24). And as we drink from the cup we hear his words, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it in remembrance

August 29, 2016

Christian Standard

Church Leadership

Leadership Condensed

By Randy Gariss and Ryan Fletcher The actual idea of leadership is profound and indispensable, but as a trendy fad it is often wearisome. The popularity of leadership podcasts, books, seminars, conferences, workshops, and sermons tell us we crave better leadership. The reality is that much of the current offerings on leadership are just spiritualized mush. It seems we”ve taken every leadership book on Amazon, reworded the points to make them sound kinder, attached a Scripture or two, and then thrown them to the church. The only thing missing is the essence of biblical leadership. We, the authors of this

August 14, 2016

Christian Standard

Culture & Public Square Justice

Why Them?

By Jennifer Johnson In her memoir Lit, Mary Karr quotes her father speaking about the well-off: “Born on third base, . . . and they think they hit a home run.” I was born on second base, at least, and when I was a kid the game was black and white. People who don”t have jobs should get them, if you”re a responsible and hard-working person you will be able to afford a place to live, and only those with lesser character would need a hand up or a handout. I never heard things put so starkly by my parents,

August 12, 2016

Christian Standard

Crying for Calvary

By Victor Knowles In 1983, President Ronald Reagan issued a proclamation establishing the first National Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. (It will be observed next on Jan. 15, 2017.) This day calls attention to the cause of the unborn and to the precious gift of life itself. Life is a sacred gift from God, but it was not considered so in the time of Christ. The Anglican priest and poet G. A. Studdert-Kennedy (1883″“1929) writes in his famous poem “Indifference”: When Jesus came to Golgotha they hanged Him on a tree, They drave great nails through hands and feet, and

May 1, 2016

Michael C. Mack

Church Leadership

May Ministry Ideas

By Michael C. Mack National Day of Prayer””May 5: Consider visiting local businesses and government officials to ask how you may pray for them. Gather people on that day to ask God”™s blessings on your community. The National Day of Prayer, observed annually on the first Thursday of May in the United States, invites people of all faiths to pray for the nation. It was created in 1952 by a joint resolution of Congress, and signed into law by President Harry S. Truman. Mother”™s Day””May 8: Churches typically focus their Mother”™s Day observance on moms and their families who attend

April 29, 2016

Christian Standard

Christian Living

Guilt and Forgiveness

By Mark Krause Guilt. Oh, how we manipulate our lives to avoid, deny, or relieve any sense of guilt! No one likes to feel guilty, but once we get the feeling, it has staying power. We need to do something to alleviate the burden of guiltiness. Some people try to remove guilt by consulting a friend or therapist who tells them they”ve really done nothing wrong. But true guilt cannot be dismissed so easily, so the feeling lingers. Some seek a dialogue of forgiveness with the offended party. But this may be denied or impossible to us, so the guilt