Articles for tag: Opinions

April 20, 2012

Christian Standard

Filtering Criticism

By Jim Dalrymple Leaders face criticism with regularity. Most don”t enjoy the sting. Over time, many are crushed under the weight, like a roof weakened by too much snow. But have you noticed how some handle criticism better than others? As a young leader, my ability to filter criticism has been one of the most difficult things I have had to learn. I am a people-pleaser by default, but I realize as a leader that not everyone is pleased by my decisions and actions. One of the slogans I adopted early in ministry was, “My job isn”t to make you

January 6, 2012

Christian Standard

In Just One Year: Pundit Predictions

Nothing challenges us to think about changing times more than the transition from one year to the next. On this first day of 2012, we asked six Christian leaders to think about the church a year from now and to draw a picture of our progress””and our problems””then.  * * * By Paul Boatman To predict what we”ll be saying about the church one year from now is difficult, and it”s easy to see why: The January 2013 evaluators of our predictions will have the benefit of hindsight. With information that was simply not available to us at the dawn

January 15, 2011

Christian Standard

Whatever Happened to the Invitation?

By Mark Atteberry The elders at my church very graciously gave me seven weeks off, a kind of mini-sabbatical. It was during the summer and my wife and I had a trip planned anyway, so we laid out a plan to visit a different church every weekend. We chose a mixture of large and small churches, city and rural churches, and Restoration Movement and denominational churches from Florida to the mountain west. Overall, it was a positive experience. We heard some fine sermons, met some nice people, and picked up a few good ideas. There was, however, one big surprise

January 10, 2011

Christian Standard

The Cure for Moralistic Therapeutic Deism

By Jon Weatherly Nothing alarms church folk quite so much as problems with the young folk. So it was about five years ago with Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton”s book, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. Smith and Denton”s research produced the phrase “moralistic therapeutic deism” to describe the typical American teen”s view of God. It”s “deism” because the god of the typical teen is mostly distant and uninvolved. It”s “therapeutic” because that distant god still wants everyone to have a happy life and occasionally is willing to get involved when a person has an

January 2, 2011

Christian Standard

The Essential About Opinions

by Mark A. Taylor Any parent of young adults knows two things: First, you”ll always be a parent. Just because they”re out of the house, you don”t stop worrying about their health and their choices and their future. Just because they”re earning a living, you don”t stop wondering if they have enough money. Second, and more important, the parent of young adults must keep his opinions to himself””or at least state them in a gentle way that earns a hearing. Grown children don”t respond well to lectures from their parents, especially when they passionately disagree about the issue at hand.

January 2, 2011

Christian Standard

What Should We Believe About Hell?

By Glen Elliott People of the Restoration Movement know the declaration well. These days I hear it quoted by many in the church worldwide. I use it when I introduce our doctrinal position to the new members at our welcome event. Most attribute the statement to St. Augustine. This 1,500-year-old declaration remains powerful in its simplicity: “In essentials, unity. In opinions, liberty. In all things, love.” Nothing has the potential to divide us so much as differences over doctrine and theology. We take different stands regarding the end times and the “rapture.” We still have debates over speaking in tongues.

October 22, 2010

Christian Standard

The Best Preparation Possible

By Tracy Marx and Mike Sweeney Why attend a Bible college, Christian college/university, or seminary? Are we not all ministers of the church? In a movement that recognizes no distinction between clergy and laity, what”s the point of sending people on for a theological education? Does having a bachelor”s degree in Bible or a master of divinity degree make someone a better harvest worker for the kingdom of God? While no one would claim that a college degree somehow confers spiritual maturity on a person, we believe a strong biblical case can be made for Christian higher education for those

May 10, 2009

Christian Standard

Serving with Cultural Intelligence

  By Gayla Cooper Congdon    Amor Ministries began taking groups on short-term mission trips in the summer of 1981. That first summer, four churches with about 100 students traveled to serve in Tijuana, Mexico. Since then, more than 250,000 students and adults have gone on short-term mission trips to six locations in Mexico, and most recently, in South Africa. Last year, I heard about a book making waves in the short-term mission world. David Livermore”s Serving With Eyes Wide Open upset quite a few people because of his critique of short-term missions. When I learned about it, I just

June 22, 2008

Christian Standard

Who Am I?

By Chuck Sackett It happened to me again . . . another noun. We don”t use nouns much at our place. It”s mostly verbs. We like actions. We shy away from titles. So, I”m not “the preacher”; I”m “responsible for preaching.” But not everyone relates to that. And certainly not everyone is satisfied with that. They want a title. “Tell me who you are.” “What do they call you here?” It”s been so prevalent over the years I”ve kept track of much of what I”m called. Some of these titles are usable in a Christian publication; the rest I”ll refrain

July 10, 2005

Ben Cachiaras

what is truth

What Is Truth?

Is truth personal preference or something real and knowable? Ben Cachiaras contrasts cultural relativism with Jesus as the standard of truth, urging believers to hold to Scripture and embody truth with conviction and grace.

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