Articles for tag: Gospel

September 14, 2020

Christian Standard

‘Surely, You Don’t Mean Me?’

By Randy Ballinger When we read the Gospel accounts about the night before Jesus went to the cross, we see words about the institution of the Lord’s Supper: “Do this in remembrance of me”; we remember what Jesus did for us. “For the forgiveness of sins”; this is why Jesus did what he did for us. But we also see words that may trouble us, for they certainly troubled his disciples: “One of you will betray me.” When Jesus revealed that a betrayer was sitting at the table with him, it caused each one of his disciples to consider whether

August 15, 2020

Megan Rawlings

Megan Rawlings

The Gospel That Never Shuts Down

By Megan Rawlings What a time to be alive. This year has handed us unique opportunities that have changed our sense of normalcy. Could these changes become the standard moving forward? I doubt it, but it’s safe to say some changes are here for a while. Take the quarantine, for example. Our routine was roughed up, plans were postponed, and distraction delayed what needed to be done. But there is a positive side to all of this. We were exposed to an eternal truth: Even when the world seems to be falling apart, God has a plan. I have seen

July 29, 2020

Christian Standard

Bailey’s Dream of Military Chaplaincy Has Covered 16 Years

By Chris Moon Sometimes, a vision doesn’t immediately come to fruition. It can take years to develop. Such has been the case for Jamin Bailey. Sixteen years ago, while he was a preaching student at Johnson University in Knoxville, Tenn., he visited his brother at a military base. While there, he saw a couple of Marines getting “dressed down” by a sergeant for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. “In the midst of this uproar came a chaplain,” Bailey told Christian Standard. “I do not know who he was or how he knew to be there that

June 29, 2020

Stuart Powell

Declaration

By Stuart Powell In the late 18th century, a colonist began writing a manuscript that summarized the political unrest of his time. He produced a startling declaration read aloud in a political hall in Philadelphia: When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes

June 14, 2020

Megan Rawlings

Megan Rawlings

Unity Despite Politics

By Megan Rawlings We’re entering that time of year. We are inundated with campaign signs, slogans, brochures, and TV ads. Candidates are making promises, doing their best to make their competitors look bad, and trying to convince the public that they are the right person for the job. Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop there. Serious disagreements erupt in the public arena, and even believers get caught up in the drama. But how are we, as Christians, supposed to politely express our political opinions without offending others? Good Manners Had Bad Results Etiquette books fascinate me. I read them and study how

June 1, 2020

Michael C. Mack

Ask the Lord . . . to Send Workers!

By Michael C. Mack We planned the articles for our August 2020 issue on March 20, the day the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 916 points and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said the nation’s largest city was “now the epicenter of this crisis” in the U.S., with 5,151 coronavirus cases and 29 deaths at that point. We were a nation looking for some sense of hope in the midst of a crisis we didn’t even understand. People’s anxiety was palpable and pessimism itself took on pandemic proportions. On that day, publisher Jerry Harris and I talked on

May 20, 2020

Christian Standard

Mountain Christian’s New Podcast Accessible to All—Including Skeptics

By Chris Moon The leaders at Mountain Christian Church in Joppa, Md., had long thought about starting a podcast, but it took COVID-19 to spur them into action. “That was the little push we needed,” said Luke Erickson, the church’s executive pastor. Once the coronavirus hit, no in-person church services or group meetings were happening, and church staffers were looking for other ways to continue their work of disciple-making. The church launched its 6 Feet Apart video podcast—named for the familiar social distancing guideline—about a month ago. The weekly show is built around a conversation between Erickson and lead pastor

May 11, 2020

Christian Standard

Perspective

By Jon Wren One evening more than 2,000 years ago, Jesus and his followers huddled in a house in Jerusalem and shared a meal we now call Communion. We don’t have any details about what the house looked like or who owned it. But in that house that night, a small group of fishermen and outcasts huddled together for a meal while hiding out from the authorities. Today, untold numbers of tourists from around the world visit Jerusalem to visit places where scholars think that house might possibly have been. Think about that for a moment. When Jesus’ followers took

April 2, 2020

Christian Standard

Influenza Pandemic of 1918-19: “Our Ministry, Especially, Has Been Smitten”

With coronavirus, or COVID-19, continuing to infect and kill people in the United States and around the world, we thought it an appropriate time to reflect on the 1918-19 influenza pandemic that caused at least 50 million deaths worldwide, with about 675,000 occurring in the United States. Last week we shared a Christian Standard editorial from Nov. 2, 1918 (click here to read it). This week we opt for a somber editorial from January 4, 1919. (By the way, in our last column we reported there had been 475,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide resulting in more than 21,000 deaths. As

February 22, 2020

Jon Weatherly

How Paul Used the Social Media of His Time

By Jon Weatherly Would the apostle Paul use today’s social media? After all, it is filled with triviality, gossip, cruelty, divisiveness, indecency, blasphemy, and “fake news.” When videos of cats wearing shark suits and riding Roombas may be the least evil thing on social media, how can we imagine Christ’s apostle engaging in such an environment? When a person uses social media for what they consider a noble purpose, still it can backfire. Consider the case of Adam Smith in 2012 in Tucson, Arizona. One particular day, Smith filmed his interaction with a fast-food employee. Smith wanted to make a

February 22, 2020

Laura McKillip Wood

Laura-McKillip-Wood

A Social Presence that Spreads the Gospel

Laura McKillip Wood Terry pounded the steering wheel and cried. It took her last ounce of restraint not to throw open the car door and march right back into the boarding school to collect her son’s things and take him home. Who cared if the mission organization she and her husband, Kevin, worked with required them to send their child to boarding school? Was it even worth it? “Please, God, just give me my son back!” she cried. In the stillness that followed, the assurance that God was working through them in their ministry settled her heart. “I loved Jesus,

January 29, 2020

Jerry Harris

Healing the Brokenhearted

By Jerry Harris He was absolutely convinced he was doing the right thing. His indoctrination into the rightness of his position came about over many years; it was painstakingly produced through study and a network of key relationships. His animosity toward this new sect was fueled by an urgency to stamp it out quickly, before it irreparably damaged the true faith forged in a 1,500-year fire of trial and adversity. Followers of this cult didn’t deserve mercy, pity, or the benefit of due process; they didn’t deserve even a second thought because of their perversion of all things good and

January 14, 2020

Stuart Powell

A Table for All People

By Stuart Powell Have you ever wondered if Jesus would eat a meal at your house? Have you ever imagined yourself living in a first-century village in Galilee the day Jesus came to visit? Would you have been bold enough to ask a miracle-working prophet to join you at your table? I think if I had the courage to ask, Jesus would have accepted the invitation. Why do I think that? Because Jesus had a reputation among the pious in Judea. The Gospel writer offered a glimpse of how the Jewish leaders summarized Jesus’ social standards: “Now the tax collectors

January 2, 2020

Christian Standard

Ministry Behind Bars: How God Used a 'Reluctant Prison Chaplain' to Reach Hundreds on the Inside

By Bill Twaddell After trying my best to avoid him, I found myself face-to-face with a murderer. I didn’t like this guy. He had done horrible things to land himself at Western Illinois Correctional Center in Mt. Sterling, Illinois. In the casual parlance of American jurisprudence, he was a “poster child” for the insanity defense. Many years earlier, he had committed a murder, pleaded insanity, and been found not guilty. After being set free, he committed another murder. By the spring of 2011, this man had spent most of his life behind walls and razor wire. He had sent several

December 25, 2019

Megan Rawlings

Megan Rawlings

The Importance of Women, and Women’s Ministry, in the Church

By Megan Rawlings As a young girl, I always wanted to be just like my mom. Whether it was cutting jeans into shorts, teasing my bangs, or thanking veterans in the grocery store, if she did it, so did I. One time, I saw Mom get eye level with a homeless man, hand him a sandwich, and say, “Jesus loves you.” That moment—the small act of telling a nameless person about the love of God—cemented the woman I wanted to be. At the age of 3, “Jesus loves you” was my mantra. I wasn’t a prodigy of the Primary Department.

November 13, 2019

Christian Standard

Barbara Rendel Continuing to Scatter JOY after Many Years in Ministry

By Chris Moon Barbara Rendel shows few signs of slowing down. She served many years in ministry alongside her husband, Wally—former pastor of Southern Acres Christian Church and Jessamine Christian Church in Kentucky—and since 2012 has been leading a multifaceted ministry program that serves families in need in central Kentucky. ScatterJOY Inc. partners with the public school system in Jessamine County, Ky., to provide food, clothing, and shelter for students and their families. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg for the organization. The group also holds events to support people coming out of addictions. It does work in

May 22, 2019

Christian Standard

Vested in Our Leaders: The Pastor’s Project

Vested in Our Leaders: The Pastor’s Project By Richard Creek In 1975 I was standing in the lobby of the Veteran’s Hospital in Cheyenne, Wyoming, waiting to see Dr. Bruce Howar. Howar was the chief physician/administrator of the hospital, but he previously had been my family doctor back in Iowa. He had brought me into the world with the help of his nurse, my grandmother. From that time he had cared for all my broken bones, bumps, and bruises. “So, tell me,” he asked after we had greeted each other with hugs and smiles, “What are you doing with your

May 14, 2019

Stuart Powell

Contemplative Steps

By Stuart Powell On the southern end of the temple mount in Jerusalem is a broad staircase that led throngs of first-century worshippers of Israel’s God to the center of the Jewish faith. The steps were built irregularly and uneven, alternating between long and short treads. This pattern seemed intended to slow down the hectic pace of worship, possibly by directing the pilgrims’ attentions away from social interaction surrounding them. Instead, they focused on what it meant to approach the awesome presence of the Creator. The temple entrance was designed to demand contemplative steps, so that the multitudes passing through

April 24, 2019

Jerry Harris

What Do Attendance Numbers Represent?

By Jerry Harris More than a year ago, I wrote a publisher’s column called “The Tyranny of Numbers.” As a senior pastor, when I review reports of numbers representing baptisms and budgets, and especially attendance, it has a great personal effect on me. Affirming words are a primary love language for many pastors, and since attendance, on its surface, seems to be a measure of affirmation, numbers that represent attendance feel like a metric of worth. I think that’s one reason some pastors choose not to report their church’s attendance and baptism numbers (along with other statistics) for annual surveys

April 10, 2019

Christian Standard

Church Follows John’s Pathway to Easter

By Jim Nieman Greenwood (Ind.) Christian Church has been building up to Easter through a 21-day study of the book of John, including four sermons, daily Bible readings of one chapter of the Gospel each day with companion devotions—both written and video—shared via Facebook, and an emphasis on prayer. GCC’s approach with “Pray 21” has been both simple and surprisingly comprehensive. It’s a series capable of being carried out by much smaller churches, says Matt Giebler, senior minister of Greenwood, which averages about 1,200 for worship each week. “We’ve all been pleased with the overall level of engagement,” Giebler says.

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