19 March, 2024

Writer’s Guidelines

Christian Standard is written by and for leaders—paid and volunteer, in all types of positions and ministries—especially in independent Christian churches and churches of Christ around the world. We exist to leverage the power of our unity and to resource Christian churches to fulfill Christ’s commission. As every issue since 1866 has stated, we are “devoted to the restoration of New Testament Christianity, its doctrine, its ordinances, and its fruits.” See our About page for more information.

Print/Digital Magazine

Christian Standard magazine is now published every other month. Our issues are theme-driven.

We assign about 95 percent of our print/digital magazine articles, but occasionally we use one that comes our way via a query. Here are several tips for writing queries. (1) Read and study our magazine. Your query or article has the best chance of being accepted if you know who we are, who our readers are, and what we’re about.  (2) The ideas with the best chance of being published come from people who are “one of us”; that is, they are Christian Standard readers and often engaged in ministry in the churches that subscribe with us. (3) The queries we accept are well-articulated, relate well to the theme, and come from a unique or intriguing—yet always biblical—angle. We look for articles that include good, well-written stories that illustrate the subject at hand and practical application points.

Our articles seek to reflect and exemplify our movement’s mottoes:

• Where the Bible speaks, we speak. Where the Bible is silent, we are silent. We want stories that not only quote Scripture, but we also want biblical truth to saturate and be embedded into them, whether you quote directly from the Bible or not. Be careful of proof-texting.

• We have no creed but Christ, no book but the Bible, no name but Christian.

• We’re Christians only but not the only Christians.

• In essentials, unity; in opinions, liberty; in all things, love. All articles should exemplify this precept and fulfill our mission to “leverage the power of our unity.”

We do not print poetry, and we are not seeking reviews, generic devotions, opinion pieces, general inspirational material, or pieces on general Christian living.

Christian Standard articles for our print/digital magazine are generally no longer than 1,800 words. We pay upon acceptance. Request upcoming themes and/or send queries to [email protected].

News Reporting (Online Only)

We are seeking news items to report on our website. If you have a news tip or an idea for a news feature, or if you have a news or press release for our consideration, please contact us at [email protected]. We cannot pay for these news tips, ideas, or releases, but we appreciate receiving them.

News articles that we assign—and for which we pay reporters upon acceptance—typically highlight our churches, schools, parachurch ministries, events, leaders, and other items of interest to our readers.

Occasionally a person who queries us about a news story will be asked to write that article; you may query us at [email protected].

Writers with journalism backgrounds who are interested in covering stories, conducting interviews, and writing news articles are invited to contact us about becoming a freelance general assignment reporter. These reporters may develop their own leads or they may write on assignment by editors; they should be available to write news stories on relatively short notice. If you are interested in being considered, please email us at [email protected] and include your journalism education and experience as well as several published clips.

Communion Meditations

We are always looking for well-written Communion meditations, which we provide weekly on our website. Send a single meditation or a batch of three or four for our consideration. Communion meditations should not exceed 400 words and must be written so that anyone can use them in local church services. Read past Communion meditations here.