Articles for tag: One Discipleship

September 27, 2019

Michael C. Mack

Intentionally Small: The Places Where Discipleship Happens Best

By Michael C. Mack In his October Metrics column on small and very small churches, Kent Fillinger noted that “only 4 percent of very small churches relied on small groups as their primary form of discipleship.” That’s not surprising. Some might say very small churches are small groups. Well, that depends on how we define small groups, purely by size or by how they function. Tom Claibourne made this point in a 2012 Christian Standard article: “I have actually observed deeper interpersonal relationships, confession, and openness in the lives of Christians involved in small groups in large churches than I’ve

October 6, 2017

Christian Standard

Overcoming the Challenges of Rural Ministry

By Justin Horey Imagine you live a half hour from the nearest pizza place, and no one delivers. That”s not the premise for a new reality television show. It”s how Dr. Barney Wells, graduate academic dean and associate professor of Bible and ministry at Lincoln (Illinois) Christian University, playfully defines “rural communities” for his undergraduate students. Although millions of Americans live in rural communities, small-town people are often overlooked and misunderstood by sociologists and economists more focused on serving larger population centers. Likewise, few have studied or analyzed what it takes to succeed and thrive as a ministry in a

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