Articles for tag: Social Justice

July 1, 2022

Tyler McKenzie

8 Ways Church Growth Has Reached an Idolatrous Level (Part 1)

8 Ways Church Growth Has Reached an Idolatrous Level (Part 1)

By Tyler McKenzie I love the church. That’s why I would like to suggest that pursuit of church growth by some leaders has reached an idolatrous level. Growth has become synonymous with health and success. It’s why we invest so many resources in the weekend gathering. It’s why we platform the leaders we do. Having led a large congregation for a decade now, I’ve experienced some of the lusts and obsessions in my own heart.   Growth shouldn’t be the main thing. Tim Keller wrote in “Leadership and Church Size Dynamics,” Out of necessity, the large church must use organizational

June 12, 2019

Christian Standard

Pantano Recognized for Racial Reconciliation Efforts

By Jim Nieman Glen Elliott, lead pastor with Pantano Christian Church, Tucson, Ariz., represented PCC Sunday as they received the church of the year award for racial reconciliation from the Racial Reconciliation Community Outreach Network in that city. “I’m so grateful to be a part of a church that embraces racial equality & unity,” Elliott wrote on Facebook. Pantano has been working toward racial reconciliation for many years. “Back in 2013 a small group of black and white pastors agreed—some reluctantly—to meet to better understand each other and see if we could address this in our community,” Elliott shared with

June 21, 2018

Jerry Harris

Is the Independent Christian Church Taking Ground?

By Jerry Harris Is the independent Christian church taking ground? That depends on how you measure it. One could measure it by the weekly attendance of affiliated churches, because numerical growth is probably the most common measurement of “taking ground.” By this type of measurement, independent Christian churches are advancing like never before. Our churches fill the lists of Outreach magazine’s largest and fastest-growing churches. Kent Fillinger’s study in our May issue (“Special Church Report Part 1: Megachurches and Emerging Megachurches”) indicates we are building, baptizing, and boldly dreaming like never before. Our mission efforts are also gaining ground as we

February 25, 2015

Christian Standard

A Little More Substance, Please!

By Jim Tune We cannot cry over a story we don”t know. That much I”m sure of. Events in Ferguson, Missouri, the Eric Garner tragedy in New York City, and other controversial stories divide and confuse. I often wish I had more of the facts behind these tragedies. Something tells me I would respond more appropriately if I knew the people””the victims, the police officers, the circumstances. Even then, as a white male and beneficiary of a host of advantages since birth, there are gaps in my experience that cannot be easily closed. Empathy is in short supply in the

December 16, 2014

Christian Standard

What Does “˜Justice” Mean?

By Chris Travis Generous Justice Timothy Keller New York: Riverhead, 2010 In Generous Justice, Tim Keller leads us through a straightforward, well-reasoned, and brief but comprehensive survey of what the Bible says about justice. It”s eye-opening to see how much emphasis God puts on justice in Scripture. This is a particularly relevant book in the wake of socially volatile situations like this summer”s shooting of Michael Brown and ensuing protests in Ferguson, Missouri. There is so much impassioned public discourse about what”s right and wrong, and not nearly enough deep contemplation about what the Bible actually says about justice. Generous

July 25, 2013

Mark A. Taylor

Interview with Frank Smith Jr.

Frank Smith challenges the church to lead in community transformation and asserts, “Pro-life means more than being anti-abortion.” Click here to see the interview with CHRISTIAN STANDARD Editor Mark Taylor filmed at the North American Christian Convention in Louisville, Kentucky, in July.

May 30, 2013

Christian Standard

Where Missional Is Moving

By Matt Smay Missionaries””they were the devout adventurers who traveled the world helping people from other cultures learn about God. As a boy I admired their pictures posted on the bulletin board of our church lobby, and followed the strings that connected their faces to pins on a map that identified their mission fields. I was impressed. I grew up in church. It was a small, traditional, suburban congregation in Southern California started in the 1940s that ministered to a sprawling city. Like many in the postwar industrial boom, my paternal grandparents relocated with their four young kids from middle

October 8, 2012

Christian Standard

Explicit, Not Assumed: Find This Book and Read It! (Part 2)

By David Faust   The Explicit Gospel Matt Chandler with Jared Wilson Wheaton: Crossway, 2012 In the contemporary church”s effort to be cool and culturally relevant, have we diminished the message of the cross? Matt Chandler, who preaches for The Village Church in Dallas, Texas, suggests that for lots of American churchgoers, the gospel has been merely assumed, not made explicit. And what many assume about Christian faith is not the robust gospel that takes God and sin seriously and sees grace as the God-given solution. Instead, many hold to an anemic “moralistic therapeutic deism”””we try to be good, we

April 4, 2012

Christian Standard

A Poor Man”s Wish for His Christian Friends

By Anonymous It is normal to desire health and blessings for our friends and loved ones. Especially in these hard economic times, it is natural to wish prosperity for one another. But I can no longer bring myself to wish for that. In defiance of the Old Testament prophets and Jesus himself, our culture has equated financial prosperity with God”s favor. And, as the Pharisees before us, we seem to have similarly concluded that poverty is the mark of unworthiness. The poor do not deserve our help. Recently I have been assaulted one too many times by condescending e-mails, forwarded

January 7, 2012

Christian Standard

In Just One Year: Tell Me It’s Not Just a Dream!

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 Eleanor Daniel It is so vivid””identifiable people and places, actions, colors, and sounds. The year is somewhere beyond 2012. I see a church that intrigues me. The people include those of all colors, ethnic backgrounds, and languages. Names like Gomez and Vegas, Wong and Hasmani, as well as

September 23, 2011

Christian Standard

Reconsidering Politics, Revisiting Columbine, and Rediscovering Fun

By LeRoy Lawson The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith and Politics in a Post-Religious Right America Jim Wallis New York: HarperOne, 2008 Columbine Dave Cullen New York: Twelve (e-book), 2009 Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul Stuart Brown, MD New York: Penguin Group, 2009 I didn”t read Jim Wallis”s The Great Awakening when it came out in 2008. My “must-read” stack was pretty high then, so I opted to skip the Sojourners founder”s sequel to God”s Politics, his opinion of””and this is the book”s subtitle””Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn”t Get It.

June 7, 2011

Christian Standard

Getting the Most from Old Testament Prophets (Part 1)

Just as a Rubik”s Cube has six sides, six principles will help you understand these often-overlooked books. (This is another in a series of articles titled “Reading the Bible for All It”s Worth” that Matt Proctor is writing this year.) _____________   By Matt Proctor The 17 Old Testament books we call the Prophets””Isaiah through Malachi””contain some of the most powerful passages in all of Scripture, and yet these books remain some of the least read portions of the Bible. A nationally respected business leader, John Dasburg, saved Northwest Airlines from bankruptcy in the early 1990s when he served as CEO.

November 19, 2010

Christian Standard

A New Way to Train Workers

By Ron Holland As demographics and strategies for the mission of God change and shift, we find that old methods and ideas need to be rethought. The globalization and urbanization of the world”s populations present major challenges and opportunities in the church”s efforts to participate in the mission of God. Meanwhile, Christians today are realizing anew that God wants the church to be an instrument of social justice in the world. This sends us back to the drawing board in most of our endeavors. LivingStone International University (LIU), a joint project of Christian churches and churches of Christ, in Mbale,

August 11, 2010

Christian Standard

Prophetic Lessons for the 21st-Century Christian Leader (Part 1)

By Edward Sanders He walked a familiar dusty road. He had traveled this way numerous times throughout his life. But this trip was different, for it would end with turmoil and trouble. The prophet Jeremiah was trying to remain faithful as a prophet of God in the seventh century bc. He had the arduous task of proclaiming warning and judgment to God”s unfaithful people in Judah. I wonder if Jeremiah walked to the temple more slowly than normal that day in 608 bc.1 Or did he take the longer route? Like a nervous young boy walking home from school carrying

July 6, 2008

Christian Standard

A New Movement and the Choices We Must Make

By Greg Taylor There”s a new Restoration Movement on fire and spreading in the United States and the world. For those of us who have passionately believed in Restoration principles of wearing Christ”s name alone, who see Scripture as our only rule of faith and practice, and who are imperfectly living out a dream of being the church Jesus wanted, we have a decision to make. We can continue with the little pickup stickball game outside the World Series stadium, or we can realize the larger Christian world is singing our song and playing our game in the arena. A

September 16, 2007

Christian Standard

Emerging, Emergent, Missional: What’s the Difference?

By Gary Zustiak Confused by the terms emerging, emergent, and missional? That would be normal, because many people use the words interchangeably in discussing the current church scene. I apologize if I unfairly portray any group, but we must do some generalizing if we are to provide definitions for these movements to help guide the average church member through the blogs, magazines, and books that focus on them. “¢ An emerging church is an evangelical church that seeks to engage postmodern people, especially the unchurched and postchurched, with the story of the gospel and to challenge them to a radical

May 13, 2007

Christian Standard

Commerce Without Morality

By Francis Nash Jesus called Christians to be salt and light in the world. We have often said the body of Christ should act as the conscience of the community. We are here to bring hope for eternity and help for the present. If you surveyed the general public about issues important to Christians, they would probably list abortion, stem-cell research, pornography, and homosexual marriage. Those are the ones we hear about in the news. While there are Scripture references leading us to speak out on these social problems, Jesus never actually mentioned any of them, specifically. But Jesus did

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