November 17, 2015
Mike Schrage, executive director with Good News Productions International talks about the need for churches to make better use of technology and how that will be the subject of the 2016 International Conference on Missions, scheduled to meet in Lexington, November 17-20. (He”s the president.) Click here to see this interview with Mark A. Taylor.
November 4, 2015
By Jennifer Johnson The Virginia Evangelizing Fellowship and Envision (North Carolina), two mid-Atlantic evangelizing associations, publicly announced their merger at last week”s International Conference on Missions. The two groups are joining to become Waypoint Church Partners. The two organizations completed a two-year process syncing their legal, financial, and organizational structures to form a new regional alliance. Envision, once known as the Piedmont Evangelizing Association, had been involved with more than 30 new church projects in North Carolina over the past 45 years. VEF, in existence since 1938, planted more than 80 churches in Virginia and more recently in the adjoining
December 19, 2014
Christian Standard Editor Mark A. Taylor talks with Paul Covert, one of only three full-time prayer ministers in the U.S., at the 2014 International Conference on Missions. Hear their conversation here.
December 18, 2014
At the 2014 International Conference on Missions, Dick Eastman talks about how to reach every home for Christ in this exclusive interview with Christian Standard Editor Mark A. Taylor.
November 21, 2014
Mike Schrage, president of the 2016 International Conference on Missions to be held in Lexington, Kentucky, talked about the work of Good News Productions, the impact through the decades of the missionary conference, and his plans for 2016. See the video interview with Editor Mark Taylor, from the exhibit floor of the 2014 ICOM, here.
November 20, 2014
Editor Mark Taylor talked with Dave Empson, executive director of International Conference on Missions, and Gary Holloway, executive director of World Convention, about their joint venture in India in 2017. See the video interview, from on the exhibit floor of the 2014 ICOM, here.
November 8, 2014
By Carol Norris From its beginning in 1973, Academy Christian Church”s leaders and members have emphasized missions. The program”s successes are due, in part, to the formal, documented policies and systems set up to help with decision- making and the ongoing operations of the mission team. These mission policies include a purpose statement, financial and selection policies, and responsibilities of the missionary, the church, and the team. There are also questionnaires for missionaries and organizations that request support; their responses are evaluated against set criteria. Mission support is an integral part of ACC. We believe missionary work is vital to
November 6, 2014
By Jon Rice I believe Markle Church of Christ has sustained interest in missions for longer than I have been alive. This deeply rooted, mission-focused body of believers puts a lot of effort into providing missionary updates to our church and living out what we say is important. Mission commissioning and involvement is one of our five core values, for we believe “every member is called, by God, to actively engage in missions” (see Matthew 28:18-20). Faith promise is a key element to sustaining interest in missions. Faith promise is a personal commitment each person can make to God to
June 1, 2014
By Jennifer Johnson More than 1 million American Christians participate in short-term mission trips each year, and many churches build their missions strategy around opportunities to engage members in these experiences. However, not every church has relationships with missionaries who need help, expertise in planning the trip and prepping participants, or enough interested members to create a team. Andy Newton created Ministro Journeys to remove these obstacles and make it easier for churches and individuals to get involved. While serving as associate missions director at Southland Christian Church (Lexington, KY), Newton often received inquiries from professional groups and smaller churches
May 11, 2014
By Chris DeWelt Suspicious of missions? Uninterested in missionaries? Disengaged from foreign fields? Not the megachurches I interviewed for my doctoral thesis and this report. Actually, I found just the opposite. The American megachurch is interested in missions! The advent of the megachurch is a phenomenon unique in church history. The fact that the megachurch is here is hardly a news item, but the growth and influence of megachurches is a significant part of our current story.1 Just 53 years ago there were only 16 Protestant megachurches2 in America. The Hartford Institute for Religion Research lists about 1,500 megachurches.3 Currently,
By Jennifer Johnson There are conferences for senior pastors, executive pastors, youth ministers, worship pastors, and even administrative assistants. Now Tim Anderson, associate director at CrossRoads Missions (Louisville, KY), is creating a conference for associate ministers. “I”ve been an associate minister for 26 years, in three churches””everything from the small church where I had a hand in everything to a large megachurch where I had more focused responsibilities,” he says. “It”s a unique role with unique challenges, and I wanted to do something that could help this group.” He “pitched” the idea to Bob Russell more than a year ago
By Jim Powell Recently, several leaders from a local church asked to meet with me to discuss their congregation”s decline. They wanted advice on how to turn things around. When I sat down to visit with them, I noticed all of their questions were exclusively programmatic in nature. What kind of music do you play? What do you wear on Sundays? How do you present announcements? Do you serve coffee and doughnuts? There is value in asking such questions because we need to contextualize the gospel, and having relevant methods can make a difference. Yet I was concerned that they
January 3, 2013
By Mark A. Taylor This summer CHRISTIAN STANDARD wants to profile leaders in the Christian churches and churches of Christ who are 40 years old or younger. We”re focusing especially on church leaders””paid or volunteer, working for local churches, on the mission field, in a Christian college, or some other parachurch ministry. Maybe this leader is a local church minister, or the president or dean or teacher at a college, or the head of a missions agency, or a writer or missionary or musician. Whatever their calling, the younger leaders we”ll feature all will have this in common: These influencers
December 1, 2012
By Dave Butts “Radical . . . Again.” The theme for the 2012 International Conference on Missions (ICOM) November 15-18, was more than a clever title pulled from a popular Christian book. It was an apt description of a conference committed to challenging Christians to meet the needs of an increasingly desperate world in every way possible. Preaching, workshops, worship, exhibits, and service projects combined to call those thousands who attended to deeper levels of global impacting discipleship. It was appropriate the inaugural meeting of ICOM, formerly the National Missionary Convention, was in Indianapolis. The Indianapolis Convention Center is always
August 27, 2012
By Mark A. Taylor Over lunch with a visiting missionary friend, we spoke of the latest alerts she and her team had received from the U.S. State Department. Her particular region was not threatened””yet. But the possibility for terrorist activity was coming closer. The waitress tended to us carefully (“More water?” “Everything taste OK?”) while our guest spoke of her contingency plans in case of an emergency evacuation. Hiding places among local natives, secret rendezvous sites, and options in case the closest airport was compromised””these were the details she shared while we savored the restaurant”s service. I couldn”t help but
June 26, 2012
By Mark A. Taylor The discussion was about missions, but the topic was change. And I couldn”t stop thinking about the church”s task in a world changing faster than we may realize. Steve Moore, president of Missio Nexus (missionexus.org), was leading about 30 of us at the Cincinnati installment of Reset Tour, a 10-city event sponsored by the International Conference on Missions (ICOM). The Tour, which concluded with a West Coast swing in May, was expected to reach 250 missions-minded members and leaders of Christian churches and churches of Christ, according to David Empson, executive director of ICOM. From this
May 25, 2012
By Mark A. Taylor “How beautiful is the body of Christ,” sang the children”s choir, standing in perfect rows on risers in the Sunday-morning worship service. The Twila Paris anthem pictures Christ”s perfect hands and feet and heart and eyes””all sacrificed with pain deeper than we fully understand to take care of sin greater than we fully grasp. And then it reminds us that his beautiful body is still alive and active today, whenever “humble hearts give the fruit of pure lives so that others may live.” As the melody echoed in my mind throughout the day, I remembered
By Paul Boatman After a career in ministry and missions, Terry Stine is completing his fifth year as president of Boise Bible College in Idaho. Many were surprised when you became president of Boise Bible College. How did that happen? Well, my lifelong ministry objective is to preach the Word and go where God sends me. My end-of-life goal is to hear “well done, good and faithful servant.” Wherever God sends me, I go and I stay there until he moves me somewhere else. I”ve never looked to jump from one location to another. But you have been
February 22, 2012
By Jennifer Taylor Team Expansion (Founded 1978) 4112 Old Routt Road, Louisville, KY 40299 www.teamexpansion.org Doug Lucas, President Team Expansion is serious about prayer. The ministry began as a movement of prayer when President Doug Lucas was a student at Kentucky Christian College (now Kentucky Christian University). In addition to raising support, team members also recruit prayer partners””an average of 200 for each individual or family! And Emerald Hills, the ministry”s training center, is “a prayer center first,” says Eric Derry, vice president, mobilization. From those first prayers almost 35 years ago, Team Expansion has grown to more than 300
February 22, 2012
By Jennifer Taylor TCM International Institute (Founded 1957) P.O. Box 24560, Indianapolis, IN 46224 www.tcmi.org Tony Twist, President It takes a one-time Master of Arts scholarship investment of $16,000 to equip an international leader for a lifetime of service and ministry in his home country. Compare this to the $60,000 or more needed annually to send a U.S. missionary overseas (where service is usually less than four years), and it”s obvious: equipping national leaders to reach their own countries for Christ is both effective and cost-effective. TCM exists to develop bivocational “international disciple makers” throughout Europe, Russia, the Middle East, and
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