Christian Standard | September/October 2021 by Christian Standard Media

fr o m th e pu bli sh er

The ‘Independent’ Christian Church

s I write this in June, many have been seeing news stories coming from the Southern Baptist Convention. Just about all of the news has been less than flattering, and some of it has been scandalous. There have been stories connected to sexual abuse, a history of racism (and debate over critical race theory), leadership roles and speaking roles for women, and the list goes on. At the convention meeting, outgoing president J. D. Greear changed a gavel used to open and close ceremonies because the traditional gavel had been provided by an early SBC leader who was an outspoken Confederate and slaveholder. Notable people such as Beth Moore, Russell Moore, and Anne Graham Lotz have stepped away from the SBC because of infighting and politics. Some leaders took very active roles and delivered strong opinions during this past political season, and this alienated many connected to the denomination. The winner of the SBC presidential election received 52 percent of the vote—

not exactly a mandate, but a strong indicator that the turmoil will continue for quite some time. While SBC churches consider themselves independent, a denominational reality definitely exists. I write this not to revel in the SBC’s turmoil, for any time there is scandal or dissension in Christian evangelical circles, the ripples extend outward, which has a cumulative effect on anyone who espouses an intimate personal relationship with Jesus. In this issue, we discuss many situations and circumstances such as the SBC is facing. We must address several questions: What can we learn from them moving forward? What is the path of righteousness that we need to be led in for his name’s sake? What are we doing right that our present circumstances reinforce? The issue of greatest concern that jumps out to me in light of the SBC’s woes involves the independence and

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local autonomy of Restoration Movement Christian churches. It’s a sword that cuts both ways. On one hand, there is much that being an independent church leaves wanting. A denomination is more tightly bound, providing strength in numbers and a strong unity binding individual churches together. A denomination enjoys more unified communication for its news and publishing, resources such as health care and retirement, partnerships in mission work and evangelism, tools for discipleship, stewardship, and worship, theological principles and institutions of higher education . . . the list goes on. Independent (or only loosely affiliated) churches can be isolated and not enjoy the best ground for fellowship. Such a scenario can be fertile ground for rogue actors who push their own agendas for selfish ends. On the other hand, independence is freeing for a local church. In large part, the Restoration Movement grew out of manipulation and coercion by denominations and denominational hierarchy. In many ways, it was a reaction to the dark side of unity that can happen when ecclesiastical structures are created and evolve. Much of the Restoration Movement in America was fueled by politics, specifically the birth of a nation founded in independence, freedom, and liberty. Some might argue that American independence was a catalyst for church independence and the Second Great Awakening. But independence runs deeper than that. The book of Acts shows few if any denominational structures. Churches were independent, with their own elderships; they were modeled similarly to the organization of first-century synagogues. Some might argue that the primitive structure of the church was hauntingly similar to the synagogue. Denominational structures came later—and corruption came with it.

But there is a purity to the restoration of the primitive church. It isn’t easier or more efficient; oftentimes it is frustrating as opportunities are missed, assets are squandered, and best practices must constantly be reinvented. However, God does great and mighty things in the midst of simplicity, and I, for one, am deeply thankful for our independence. The leaders of the local church decide whether to buy, build, hire, fire, join, separate, save, spend, give, support (or drop support), and so on. We decide on curriculum, programs, ordination, order of worship, music style, eldership style and structure, mission statements, and core values. All responsibility falls on the shoulders of local leaders as they seek to honor the Lordship of Christ. When I sit around a table with our elders, we know that we answer to our Chief Shepherd alone, and the gravity of that truth tempers our resolve to do Bible things in Bible ways, letting the New Testament be our only rule of faith and practice.

Jerry Harris is publisher of Christian Standard Media and senior pastor of The Crossing, a multisite church located in three states across the Midwest. @_jerryharris /jerrydharris

CHRISTIAN STANDARD FOUNDED 1866 BY ISAAC ERRETT Devoted to the restoration of New Testament Christianity, its doctrine, its ordinances, and its fruits.

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Volume CLVI. Number 7. Christian Standard (ISSN 0009-5656) is published every other month by Christian Standard Media at 16965 Pine Lane, Suite 202, Parker, CO 80134. Periodicals postage paid at Parker, CO, and additional offices.

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REVERSE THE COURSE: 5 Strategies to Protect the Integrity of the Church S T I L L L E A R N I N G F R O M R AV I Z A C H A R I A S : H o w D o We R e s p o n d W h e n a R o l e M o d e l F a l l s ? Brett Seybold

HE MADE US BETTER: The Life and Ministry of Sam E. Stone David Faust

Christina Stanton

THE 4-1-1 ON 9/11: H o w a Te r r o r i s t A t t a c k o n America Changed Everything Rick Chromey

M a r k A . Ta y l o r

B A C K TO T H E D R AW I N G B O A R D : How to Lead a Church Built Around Making Disciples (No Matter the Cost) John Whittaker

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Erik Tryggestad

THE EQUALITY ACT: Its Impact on Churches and H o w We S h o u l d R e s p o n d Caleb Kaltenbach

from the Editor

8-9

BOLD

10-11

E2: EFFECTIVE ELDERS

79 82

5 Ministry Lessons (to Save You from Heartache) Megan Rawlings

Elders Who Disciple: One Key to an Effective Church David Roadcup

12-14

ENGAGE

16-17

HEAL

18-19

HORIZONS

20-21

LEAD

22-23

METRICS

How Do We Respond to Cancel Culture? Tyler McKenzie

Look After My Sheep . . . and You’re a Sheep Too! Wes Beavis

Medical Ministr y Brings Change Laura McKillip Wood

The Pastor ’s Most Rewarding Ministr y Don Wilson

The Faith Practices Churches Emphasize Kent Fillinger

CUR R ENT EV ENTS T H E S TAT E O F N O N I N S T R U M E N TA L CHURCHES OF CHRIST . . . Before and After the Pandemic

6-7

M A K I NG DI S C I PL E S A POSTURE, NOT A PROGRAM

from the publisher

R E M E M B E R I NG 9/1 1 OUR 9/11 JOURNEY OF E S C A P E A N D T R A N S F O R M AT I O N

In Every Issue

L E A DE R S H I P L E S S ON S

2-3

24-25

PREACH

92-93

THE LOOKOUT

94-95

Interact

The High Call of Preaching Chris Philbeck

final word

f r o m th e edi to r

Why Are Christian Leaders Falling?

hy are so many Christian leaders falling? In a blog post on Crosswalk.com, pastor, professor, and writer James Emery White suggests three explanations: the celebration of ability over character, an eradication of accountability, and the fact that leaders today are often put on a pedestal and believe the press reports about themselves. White’s assessment seems accurate, but I believe there’s a deeper cause underneath these reasons. It’s a heart issue (see Matthew 15:8, 18-19; Ephesians 4:18; etc.) and a sovereignty issue. For many years in my teaching and one-on-one discipleship I’ve used a graphic developed by Campus Crusade for Christ, now known simply as Cru, that contains three circles, each representing a person’s life. You may be familiar with it. The first circle, the “self-directed life,” contains a chair in the center, representing the throne of someone’s life, with “Self”

on the throne and directing all that person’s interests. Christ is outside this circle. The second circle, the “self-directed religious life,” is the same as the first except Christ is within the circle, along with all the other interests of this person. Though this person might call themselves a Christian, they are still the lord of their life. In the third circle, the “Christdirected surrendered life,” Christ is now on the throne, and he is directing all this person’s interests. Living (and leading) as a Christ follower means living in that third circle—knowing and following the will of God. That takes surrender—total abandonment to God, forsaking the false security of meeting our own needs by our own means. Surrender demands faith in a God who will never fail us. It is an act of the will. When Christian leaders minister out of the second circle, they may find temporary success, but they are

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in for an eventual fall. But Jesus was the perfect example of someone who lived in and led out of the third circle.

praying for them, their families, and their ministries— but we certainly want to discover any takeaways from their failures that will benefit the kingdom.

Near the end of his earthly ministry, Jesus said he had accomplished everything the Father had given him to do (John 17:4). Up to that point, what had he accomplished? He was unsuccessful in winning the Jewish leaders and most of the Jewish people over. He didn’t cure all their diseases or put an end to any of the regional conflicts. Some expected him to free the Jewish nation from Rome, but he didn’t get that done either. Even his closest followers still argued over who was greatest, and most of them ran and hid at Jesus’ most desperate hour. Yet, Jesus said he had accomplished everything the Father had given him to do.

Like many others who were blessed to have a relationship with Sam Stone, I am a better person for knowing him. When I worked at Standard Publishing as associate editor of The Lookout some 30 years ago, Sam’s desk as editor of Christian Standard was about 20 feet and in easy eyesight and earshot from mine. Though he was soft-spoken, I overheard some of his conversations and saw him do his work and interact with others. His humility and integrity made a huge impression on me, and I began trying to live and lead more like him.

What Christian leaders think we should make happen or what others might expect of us may be diametrically opposed to what God has given us to do. Earthly accomplishments and success in God’s eyes may be two very different things. Christ followers live in this world and yet we do not abide as citizens of it. While we can enjoy this world God has made, the things that attract us and excite us the most should be heavenly kingdom stuff. Paul is a great model for us in this. Read the first half of Romans 1, for instance, to see his priorities and passion. Fellow leaders, we’ve been called to serve the King of kings, not ephemeral kings. We’re called to glory in Christ Jesus in our service to God (Romans 15:17), not fall for fame and fortune and everything that goes with it. In three featured articles in this issue, we juxtapose two kinds of leaders: surrendered, third-circle leaders like Sam Stone who lived and led in humility, submission, and high integrity . . . and several failed leaders who apparently did not. We do not wish to throw stones at leaders who have fallen—we should be

I believe Sam was the epitome of a leader who modeled Paul’s advice: “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). I hope I can be that for others. I’ll close with a prayer I heard from a young leader: “Lord, let the size of my platform never grow bigger than the size of my character. Let the size of my character grow no matter the size of my platform. Let the size of my character be my concern and the size of my platform be yours.” I believe Sam would have proclaimed a hearty Amen!

@michaelc.mack @michaelcmack @michaelcmack /authormichaelcmack

BOLD

ll Christians are called to ministry, and the place of that ministry is not always behind a pulpit.

For example, my sister’s ministry is to serve new brides by helping them pick their wedding dress. This might seem like a silly thing to call a ministry, but it involves much more than a dress. When she works with a bride, she listens to their desires and makes them feel comfortable. More than that—my sister is helping the brides feel beautiful in their own skin. She tells them of their worth because they are created in the image of God.

5 Ministry Lessons (to Save You from Heartache) by Megan Rawlings

This is quite different from my best friend’s ministry. She designs creative concepts that end up in magazines, social media, and on T-shirts. She takes time to think through how the final product can point others to Christ, whether he is explicit in the design or not. My aunt’s ministry is to correct grammar, mostly mine. She uses her expertise in writing to make sure others, who are just as passionate as she is, sound articulate when they write about Jesus. (And she makes sure we aren’t talking in the passive voice.) You, too, have a ministry waiting and ready. God has placed you in your position, at this moment, with your personality and skill set, to glorify him. Before you step into or carry on in your role, I will share five sometimes painful lessons I have learned. I share these with the intention and prayer that it will save you from some heartache I faced, but if it doesn’t, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

B e t r aya l I s R e a l , b u t G o d M i g h t B l e s s I t

“

I am not a stranger to being betrayed. A few years ago, I had a vision for an outreach ministry to help women grow spiritually. I partnered with a friend I trusted implicitly; we shared the vision as well as the hopes and dreams of instituting an effective program. Things were going well until one day, to my utter shock and disbelief, I learned my trusted friend—without notice—had taken all of our resources and materials to start her own ministry! I felt so betrayed, but then I learned God was blessing her in spite of her deception. It was painful. Really painful. I found that Paul totally understood this type of situation and left some good advice. He told the church, “But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice” (Philippians 1:18). Hopefully, one day I can rejoice in this truth too.

P l e a s e b e e n c o u r a g e d b y y o u r d e s i r e t o q u i t. I t m e a n s y o u a r e p r o b a b ly r i g h t o n t r a c k .

I t Ta k e s Y e a r s f o r T r e e s t o G r o w F r u i t N.T. Wright talked about how new converts can show quick growth, similar to a sprouting plant. The green pops out of the ground and it seems like it will bloom at any time. The thing is, that plant still needs to be watered, it still needs sunlight, and the ground around it must be weeded. Christian converts are the same. They need someone to come alongside to make sure they are growing and to protect them when false doctrine creeps in. We might see quick growth, but in the case of trees, strong roots take years, and they won’t produce fruit until they are mature and ready. Although I think it’s safe to say that new Christians won’t need years before we see their fruit, their growth and maturity will take time, and we must be patient and understanding.

I f Y o u ’r e D o i n g M i n i s t r y R i g h t, Y o u ’l l Wa n t t o Q u i t a Million Times I met a man at a coffee shop who told me he was a pastor in town. I mentioned how much I admired pastors and the crazy hard work they put into leading their congregations. He quickly, with offense, replied, “My congregation is great. I never feel stressed or pressured.” To which I thought, I don’t think you’re doing it right. When you go into ministry, you commit to walking with your people through their hurt, pain, happiness, and every emotion in between. There is nothing easy about ministry, but if it is being done right, it is incredibly easy to get burned-out. So, please be encouraged by the desire to quit. It means you are probably right on track.

D o I t f o r t h e G l o r y o f G o d o r D o n’ t D o I t Nikolaus Ludwig, a 16th-century religious reformer, said, “Preach the gospel, die, and be forgotten.” When I first read this, it felt like a gut punch. Most of my adult life I had searched for ways to “leave my legacy.” Ludwig’s quote made me realize my legacy should be nothing other than pointing others to Christ.

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It is hard to observe Christians and not create expectations based on what the Bible says they should look like. I remember numerous times when I was let down or disappointed by the sinful nature of a Christian friend. When it has happened, my loving husband would ever so gently nudge me with the truth, “You’re a sinner saved by grace just like them.” It’s always easier to love and forgive when we step off our pedestals and move down to the place we were meant to be. Might I add . . . the only person who belongs on a pedestal is Christ.

I’m not a 50-year ministry veteran or a leadership expert, but I do have a heart for God’s people because I believe we all are called to serve—and serving is not always easy. The good news is we are in this together and we are not alone. God is with us. 

Sinners Sin

abou t the au thor

Megan Rawlings is the founder and CEO of The Bold Movement. She is an extrovert, pastor’s wife, and lover of the Scriptures. /tbmministry @tbm_ministry @tbm_ministry @theboldmovement theboldmovement.com

e 2:e ffe ct i v e e ld e r s

ELDERS WHO DISCIPLE: ONE KEY TO AN EFFECTIVE CHURCH by David Roadcup

n his book Disciple, Juan Carlos Ortiz says the greatest problem facing the church today is “the perpetual childhood of the believer.” The fact that most of our churches are made up of spiritually immature believers is a major issue to the church fulfilling her mission. This extreme lack of spiritual development continually cripples the dynamic advancement of our churches. We will never take our cities for Christ if the vast number of our people remain at a “kindergarten” level of spiritual growth and maturity. This deep and widespread problem can be attributed, more than anything else, to the lack of quality training, development, and facilitating of believers in our congregations. As leaders, we have long been satisfied with having people attend on Sunday mornings, give an offering, and maintain a semblance of external morality. This has resulted in vast numbers of our congregations producing weak, starving, lukewarm, and inept Christ followers! The evidence for our lack of planned believer development is overwhelming. In today’s church, we see the following: • a serious lack of spiritual development that has resulted in a large number of weak, uncommitted, and nonparticipating Christians • a dramatic lack of evangelism • only 20 percent of the members doing 80 percent of the ministry, on average • only 20 percent of the members giving 80 percent of the offering, on average • an unparalleled level of biblical illiteracy on the part of children and adults (and it’s getting worse) • a troubling number of Christian marriages that end in divorce • relational problems plaguing the church • an absence of a spirit of true servanthood among key leaders • the pilfering of church finances • Christians filing lawsuits against one another and against churches • increasing instances of sexual immorality among leadership and laity that are doing generational damage

S TA R T W I T H L E A D E R S How can these deeply ingrained patterns be modified? It must start with the leaders of our congregations. Consider that when Jesus began his public ministry, in his omniscience, he knew every educational approach that would ever exist. From all of those possibilities, he

In his book Successful Discipling, Allen Hadidian defined the concept this way:

The apostle Paul gave what can be considered his personal ministry mission statement: “We proclaim Him, admonishing every person and teaching every person with all wisdom, so that we may present every person complete in Christ. For this purpose I also labor, striving according to His power which works mightily within me” (Colossians 1:28-29, New American Standard Bible).

Discipling others is the process by which a Christian with a life worth emulating commits himself for an extended period of time to a few individuals who have been won to Christ, the purpose being to aid and guide their growth and maturity, and equip them to reproduce themselves in a third spiritual generation. Discipling is simply the process whereby a person who can spiritually lead others selects a group of the same gender and invites each one to join him or her on a spiritual journey of study, prayer, growing, and development. This continues until the learner can reproduce this same ministry in the lives of others. Remember, we don’t want to simply make disciples. We want to make disciples who make disciples.

LAUNCH A DISCIPLING MINISTRY I suggest elders and staff of a church create a new discipling ministry that would not replace any existing ministry. The new initiative would be for training future leaders and for maturing believers for service to Christ and his church. Here are suggestions for how to launch a discipling ministry: • Begin the new ministry with serious prayer and fasting on the part of the leadership team. The Holy Spirit working through the Word of God is what will bring growth and maturity to our people.

Paul’s goal for all those for whom he felt spiritually responsible was to teach, train, and lead them to maturity in Christ. We should take his words to the Colossians deeply into our hearts and minds as we examine our ministries in the name of Jesus. We cannot allow believers in our churches to stay at a preschool level in their spiritual journeys. We must have a plan. We must help them. We need something that will facilitate growth in their lives. After 54 years of ministering in the church, I have personally discovered that the discipling approach is, without question, the most effective means of stimulating the spiritual life and growth of a follower of Christ. Let’s work together to see our people grow to maturity, depth, and wisdom in their individual journeys in Christ! 

abou t the au thor

• Identify the person who will own and direct this ministry. • Identify those on the leadership team who—after effective training is provided—will lead new discipling groups. • Those leaders should invite men and women to join their discipleship groups in an organized and coordinated manner. • D-groups should work together to grow believers in their spiritual lives and journeys. • Challenge those who have been discipled to lead future groups. Sometimes two people can come together to serve as co-leaders. A new initiative like a Discipling Ministry must slowly be introduced into the life of a church. A veteran discipling minister advised, “When starting a discipling ministry in

David Roadcup is cofounder and outreach director for e2: effective elders. He serves as professor of discipleship and global outreach representative with TCM International Institute. He is also on the board of directors of Christian Arabic Services.

/e2elders @e2elders

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a church that has previously not had one, always start small, go slow, and go deep.”

chose “discipling”—to use today’s parlance—as his approach to train the Twelve.

engage

ancel culture can reek of moral superiority, revel in violence, lack in grace, and eschew redemption, but I believe it can also do some good. When racism is squelched, abuse is punished, victims are protected, the corrupt are exposed, and moral progress is made, Jesus is glad. Even when the fire burns within the church—that is, when church leaders are guilty and held accountable— we should be hopeful God will resurrect from the ashes something sanctified in the furnace of repentance! Maybe we should thank God for cancel culture. As Christians, we have the best theological resources to shine in a cancel culture, but only if we are distinct from it rather than representative of it.

How Do We Respond to Cancel Culture? by Tyler McKenzie

C A N C E L C U LT U R E I S N’ T N E W We don’t actually hate cancel culture; we hate being canceled. We say that cancel culture is un-Christian and unAmerican, yet I’ve seen many indulge. When we’re the target, it’s censorship, unfair, and lacking in grace. But when we’re targeting others, it’s justice, accountability, and speaking truth. Funny how our tune changes. The victim narrative decries the Activist Left for weaponizing cancellations today with an energy unlike anything the Evangelical Right has ever experienced. I believe that’s true. But perhaps it’s being on the receiving end that makes it feel new. Canceling those with whom we disagree is not new. Christians deployed it long before this cultural moment. Catholics performed excommunications. Pilgrim Puritans chased folks out of town (type “Anne Hutchinson” into your favorite search engine). In 1997, the Southern Baptist Convention called for a boycott of Disney because they were too gay-friendly. Jerry Falwell later called for a boycott of Teletubbies because Tinky Winky was covertly gay (he’s the purple one for those wondering). And let’s not get into Starbucks holiday cups. If cancel culture isn’t new, why does it feel new? Two words help here: • Publicity—we see more of it more often. Thanks to social media and smartphones flattening our world, momentary mistakes can be broadcast globally in real time. But the mob mentality that is so pervasive online can make this especially dangerous. The bigger the mob, the more irrational and violent it can be. Before you know it, thinking people become trigger-happy and you can’t put the bullet back into the gun (search “Emmanuel Cafferty” on Google). • Ferocity —the cancellations feel more violent and vindictive. People are out for blood. Tribes

CHURCH LEADERS ARE AFRAID All of this has shaken church leaders. No one wants to get canceled, so in self-preservation we bend. Fear always provokes an extreme response rather than a faithful response. I’ve watched friends cave left and adjust our timetested faith to curry favor from a younger, progressive crowd. Others cave right and go silent on issues like race, nationalism, or political corruption to keep offerings and attendance stable. I sympathize with the situation in which we find ourselves. It feels impossible. But where has our courage gone? C.S. Lewis famously said that courage is any virtue at its testing point. It’s been unsettling to see many sacrifice Scripture at the altar of cultural approval or conscience at the altar of church attendance. It seems like the sheep are leading the shepherds.

When the mob goes too far: Too often the cancel card is played too soon or too harshly. When we are the victims, Christians should be known for a supernatural ability to forgive. There are cases (as with abuse) when strong boundaries must be established. Otherwise, our goal should be to convert enemy to friend, not block, mute, or cancel them outright. As the forgiven, we understand forgiveness’s evangelistic potential when we give our enemies a taste.

Here are several common situations in our culture and the perspectives we as Christians can apply to them.

When evil goes unpunished: We are empowered to see the image of God in our enemies. I take inspiration from Martin Luther King Jr. He had this idea I call the victimization of the enemy. On November 6, 1956, King preached in Montgomery, Alabama, one week before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against segregated bus laws. In a sermon called “The Most Durable Power” he taught,

When someone should be canceled: Sometimes cancel culture is healthy accountability. It’s a victory for justice. Justice should never be mistaken as a failure to forgive. Both justice and forgiveness fall on the larger spectrum of what cross-shaped love can look like. When perpetrators face the just consequences of their actions, the world is being renewed. There are some things we as Christians should seek to “cancel.” We pray, “On earth as it is in heaven.” If it won’t be in heaven, why tolerate it on earth?

In your struggle for justice, let your oppressor know that you are not attempting to defeat or humiliate him, or even to pay him back for injustices that he has heaped on you. Let him know that you are merely seeking justice for him as well as yourself. Let him know that the festering sore of segregation debilitates the white man as well as the [black man]. With this attitude you will be able to keep your struggle on high Christian standards.

That said, the restitution we require should also be just . . . not cruel and unusual. We can be glad when evil faces justice, but our gladness should be wrapped in a prayerful hope for repentance. I’ll never forget former gymnast Rachel Denhollander’s victim impact statement when she addressed Larry Nassar, former team doctor for USA Gymnastics. Nassar abused her and hundreds of other young women. She said,

King recognized oppressed black people were victims. He also recognized their oppressors were victims of Satan, the chief oppressor. He was deeply motivated to see them freed.

PRACTICAL PERSPECTIVES ARE NEEDED

Yet, even if they remain unpunished, God’s judgment gives us solace. He sees all, he is good, history is on his side, and he eventually will render justice in a way we

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You spoke of praying for forgiveness. But Larry, if you have read the Bible you carry, you know forgiveness does not come from doing good things, as if good deeds can erase what you have done. It comes from repentance, which requires facing and acknowledging the truth about what you have done in all of its utter depravity and horror without mitigation, without excuse, without acting as if good deeds can erase what you have seen in this courtroom today. . . . [The Bible] carries a final judgment where all of God’s wrath and eternal terror is poured out on men like you. Should you ever reach the point of truly facing what you have done, the guilt will be crushing. And that is what makes the gospel of Christ so sweet. Because it extends grace and hope and mercy where none should be found. And it will be there for you. I pray you experience the soul-crushing weight of guilt so you may someday experience true repentance and true forgiveness from God, which you need far more than forgiveness from me—though I extend that to you as well.

today form around common enemies rather than common loves. It’s called negative polarization. You earn currency in this tribal economy by humiliating your adversaries. Censor them. Boycott them. Deplatform them. Lock them up. Whatever it takes. The zeal feels like religious fundamentalism. There are doctrines, sins, and speech patterns that must remain unviolated. If you cross these lines, we completely ignore anything good you’ve ever said or done. Cancel culture has been granted omnipresence as folks exhume your past decades later and expose things you did long before your prefrontal cortex fully developed.

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will find satisfying. Paul wrote, “Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord” (Romans 12:19, New American Standard Bible). I remember not long ago there was a movement to erase judgment from Scripture. Come to find out, that’s not “good news” to the oppressed. When I’m canceled and deserve it: Christians should be the best at confession and restitution. Christianity is the only major religion that recognizes continuous repentance as not only good but necessary. We are called to humble sanctification. You will fail. You will sin. You will discover shortcomings again and again. In those inevitable moments, a Christian will own it and make amends.

Tyler McKenzie serves as lead pastor at Northeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky.

When I am canceled but I don’t deserve it: If that is you, congratulations! You’ve got a “woe” off your back. Jesus said, “Blessed are you when the people hate you, and when they exclude you, and insult you, and scorn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man. . . . Woe to you when all the people speak well of you; for their fathers used to treat the false prophets the same way” (Luke 6:22, 26, NASB). I don’t want to trivialize your pain, but take heart! Jesus guarantees we will be unfairly scorned and in that very moment, as we turn to him, we will also be blessed. 

AD 15

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He a l

efore I went to theological college to train for the ministry, I worked in a Christian bookstore. My official role was to manage the music department. It was a fun job that allowed me to play the latest Christian music over the store’s sound system. This usually led to a tugof-war between me and Hazel, the bookstore’s manager. Hazel liked the music soft; I liked the music loud.

Look After My Sheep . . . and You’re a Sheep Too! by Wes Beavis

In fairness to Hazel, she liked to be able to converse with customers without having to yell. I thought turning the bookstore into a dance floor would stimulate more music sales. Of course, the sales would be of good, wholesome, Jesus-honoring music! Hazel determined there was an acceptable music decibel level, and if I flew into the loudness “no fly zone,” she would assign me to the worst job of all—inventorying the books remaining on the shelves. It was a dull and tedious job and usually quelled my desire to be the store DJ for at least a few days. On one grueling tour of book-counting duty I noticed a book titled, When I Relax I Feel Guilty. I remember thinking to myself, Who are these people that feel guilty when they relax? At that time, I certainly never felt guilty about relaxing, chilling out, or putting my feet up. However, my season was coming.

R u n n i n g t h e S e l f- C a r e R e d L i g h t After a decade of ministry and parenthood with so much to do, I also came to feel guilty when I relaxed. If I took a breather, my mind would quickly start ruminating over all the jobs I needed to do. It felt like “doing nothing” was poor stewardship of my time and that one day I would stand before God and have to explain why I rested when there was so much work to be done. You know, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.” I had become a Christian workaholic. I was a devotee of to-do lists (and I still am). I was the ambassador of getting stuff done. No way was I going to stand before Jesus as a lazy person. Perhaps you can relate to Christian workaholism? It was not until I commenced my graduate studies in marriage and family therapy that I was introduced to the concept of self-care. Until that point, “self-care” meant regularly going to the dentist, wearing clean underwear, and making sure I lathered up with sunscreen before going to the beach. Perhaps that is why, as a pastor, I ended up running a self-care “red light” and smashing into ministry burnout!

“

W e l l , I f i g u r e d I c o u l d a lway s r e s t w h e n t h e w o r k wa s d o n e . T h at ’ s p r e m i u m f l aw e d t h i n k i n g . T h e w o r k is never done!

Sure, I was discipling people to follow Christ, but I eventually discovered I was not completely following Christ myself. Yes, I was a formidable Christian worker, but I was not an exemplary Christ follower. It makes

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me slightly uncomfortable to admit to that, especially as a ministry leader. What was I thinking? Well, I figured I could always rest when the work was done. That’s premium flawed thinking. The work is never done!

S k i p p i n g B r e a k fa s t In John 21, Jesus’ disciples had temporarily returned to their profession of fishing. As fishing trips go, it was a bad one. They fished all night and caught nothing. Now, it’s one thing to work hard and come home with the tuna, but when you work hard and come away empty-handed, that wears on a person’s spirit. Fortunately, Jesus blessed the disciples with some divine guidance—“relocate your nets.” It produced a net full of fish. Large fish—153 of them to be exact. I love that somebody measured and counted. That’s what I would have done. Then Jesus told his disciples to join him for breakfast. Wait a minute. Isn’t that irresponsible? I may have said, “Hey Jesus, you’ve blessed us with a bountiful catch of valuable seafood. Good stewardship demands that we get these fish to market while they’re fresh. Let’s catch up later and do lunch instead!” Now, before you judge me, let me ask: How many times have you skipped a meal for the sake of ministry? How often have you skipped your personal time with Jesus because of ministry work? (Or am I the only one who has done that?)

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Fortunately, the disciples all joined Jesus for breakfast. This gave Jesus the opportunity to do some deeper work with Simon Peter. It is likely that Simon Peter, having denied knowing Jesus three times, would have been feeling insecure as a follower of Jesus. Yet, Jesus masterfully brought healing to Simon Peter’s injured soul. In doing so, Jesus implored Peter to love his Savior by taking care of his Savior’s sheep. Is it too big a leap to suggest that Peter was a sheep too? And that Christ included Peter as someone who needed care and feeding? Surely Jesus would not say, “Feed and take care of others, but starve and neglect yourself in the process.” I still struggle to adequately care for myself. I still feel a little guilty when I relax. It’s especially hard because I love ministry work. However, I am getting better at feeding and caring for a sheep called Dr. Wes Beavis. I have learned we are more effective as Christ followers when we tend to our needs for rest. I may be committed to the work of discipling others, but when all is said and done, I am just like you—a lamb that needs a shepherd who says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). 

Dr. Wes Beavis has served as a pastor in Restoration Movement churches in both the United States and Australia. He is also a licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in helping ministry leaders navigate the leadership journey. His latest book is Let’s Talk about Ministry Burnout: A Proven Research-based Approach to the Wellbeing of Pastors. drwesbeavis.com text 949.246.7836

hori z ons

udmilla and June sat in a makeshift examination room in a small Ukrainian Baptist church where a team of medical missionaries had set up a clinic. June helped the elderly woman pull her arm from her sleeve as she listened to her story of the cancer treatment and its effects on her body. Ludmilla also had a broken shoulder and a wound at the base of her neck that the surgeon would not operate on since it might involve cancer. The oncologist did not want to treat her because she had an open wound. Ludmilla was left to manage her care on her own. The woman cried as June drained and dressed her wound. “Am I hurting you?” June asked.

Medical Ministry Brings Change by Laura McKillip Wood

“No, I am crying because you touched me,” Ludmilla sobbed. After caring for the wound, June dug into a humanitarian aid box and pulled out an arm sling. As she fitted the sling, Ludmilla dropped her head onto June’s chest, shaking with silent tears. She could not afford a sling, so she had been improvising with torn strips of cloth. They both saw the blessing God had provided. “Do you understand that God is with you?” June asked. “Yes! He is my rock and my fortress. He is with me. He feels my pain.” “Praise God!” June whispered, and then she thanked God for the privilege of helping one of his children.

A Chance to Struggle

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June Johnson grew up in a family that combined medicine and ministry. Her father, a surgeon, took the family to Kenya where he served at a Christian hospital for one summer after June finished second grade. As she grew up, June was interested in health care and became a nurse. She settled into a job as a wound care specialist in a hospital. She used her nursing skills on occasional short-term mission trips to places like the Dominican Republic, but she never god took a proud, independent, self-centered person considered being a full-time and used this land, these people, and the call to be a medical missionary.

missionary to break me and draw me closer to his heart.

In 1996, June was in the process of buying a house; she had just finished taking a recertification test for her specialty license when she went on another short-term mission trip. She and a friend traveled to Feodosia, Ukraine, to help with a Vacation Bible School outreach.

This incident shook June. She knew that Lena’s mother could have cared for her hands, but Lena’s mother and father were both alcoholics. In short, the little girl was raising herself and did not know how to care for her injury. June realized God had placed her in the right place at just the right time to help a little hurting girl.

“This country would have gotten along just fine without me, but I needed Ukraine,” June said. “God took a proud, independent, self-centered person and used this land, these people, and the call to be a missionary to break me and draw me closer to his heart.” She is thankful for how God has helped her grow. 

June’s story has taken many unexpected twists, but she loves how God has worked in her life. Having lived and ministered in Ukraine for 23 years now, June has seen many changes. However, she knows the biggest changes have happened within her.

“Anyone could have helped her, but [God] chose me,” June explained. “And wrapped in that realization was the understanding that he was asking if I was available to him.” She returned home and began to think about her priorities; she struggled to come to terms with the way God was working. Whose approval did she live for, God’s or her own? Being fully available to God would change everything in her life. June felt torn between the known and unknown.

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In December, June’s boss, whom she respected, called her into her office and said, “Your heart isn’t here anymore. You need to figure out where it is.” After a few more weeks, June decided God was calling her to be a missionary.

A Clear Calling In September 1998, June moved to Feodosia, Ukraine, to work as a missionary for Christian Missionary Fellowship International, alongside the same missionaries she had visited two years earlier. She was 33 years old and starting an entirely new life in a new country. In time, her ministry evolved to spending half of her time doing medical work, which consisted of working in three local church clinics, doing medical outreaches to villages, speaking at Christian medical conferences, and seeing patients in their homes. The other half of her work focused on helping local churches reach out to the younger generation. She stayed in Crimea for 16 years before leaving because of political unrest. On March 1, 2014, June fled Crimea as Russia annexed and occupied the peninsula. She relocated to Kiev, the capital city of Ukraine, where she continued her medical

Laura McKillip Wood, former missionary to Ukraine, now lives in Papillion, Nebraska. She serves as an on-call chaplain at Children’s Hospital and Medical Center in Omaha. She and her husband, Andrew, have three teenagers. /laura.wood2 @woodlaura30 @woodlaura30 lauramckillipwood.com lauramckillipwood@gmail.com

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ministry and began reaching out to those with special needs. There she also began facilitating yearly shortterm mission trips for nursing students from the United States. June attends a local church in Kiev and works with the congregation to take the gospel to families that have children with special needs.

On the first day of VBS, she saw a poorly dressed 8-yearold girl clutching her hands to her chest. Lena, the girl, was terrified of her, so June had to stand several yards away before the girl lowered her arms and showed June her palms. Through a translator, June learned that Lena had fallen into gravel about 10 days earlier, and her dirty hands were covered with pustules—each little wound encapsulating a piece of stone. She could not play or even pay attention because of her painful hands. After gaining Lena’s trust, June taught her how to clean her hands and gave her antibiotics. Within four days, Lena’s hands had healed, and she was fully participating in VBS.

le a d

s I look back over 50 years in ministry, my wife and I have been blessed in so many ways. We have had the opportunity to serve in churches of all sizes with staff members and elders who love God. We’ve had some difficult situations and struggles, but most of our experiences have been positive. Watching lives change as people accept Jesus has been a great joy. By far, my greatest reward in ministry has been seeing all of my children and grandchildren become Christ followers. All three of my children are in full-time ministry and several of my grandchildren are now in or are preparing for full-time ministry.

The Pastor’s Most Rewarding Ministry by Don Wilson

As imperfect parents, my wife and I did not have perfect children. We had joys and sorrows, struggles and successes, and lots of prayer along the way. As I look back, I believe we all go through five stages of parenting.

1. Caretaker (Birth through Preschool): Provide and Protect “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6, King James Version). Abraham Lincoln said, “There is just one way to bring up a child in the way he should go and that is to travel that way yourself.” This simply means that we lead by example. I learned early on I couldn’t rear all of my children the same way because they were all different. My parenting style had to adjust with each child. This was especially evident in learning each child’s communication style.

2. Coach (Elementary School Age): Influence and Instruct “These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates” (Deuteronomy 6:6-9). How do we get God’s Word in our hearts and the hearts of our children? • We must be intentional by impressing God’s Word on our children. Studies indicate the key to healthy families is eating a meal together every day and using that time to reinforce biblical truth as you recap the day’s experiences and challenges. Reading the Bible and/or praying with your children before they go to bed is another intentional ritual that can make a big difference.

3. Counselor (Teenage Years): Listen and Lead “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). My wife was a better listener with our children than I was. This became obvious to me when my children were teenagers. One of them called home and I answered the phone. They asked if mom was there. I said no. They said they would call back. Translation: Mom would listen to them and give feedback and advice; Dad would tell them what they needed to do. “Do not let your heart envy sinners, but always be zealous for the fear of the Lord” (Proverbs 23:17). Help your children determine their own values before they leave home. Help them learn how to deal with peer pressure and stand alone. Observe the teenagers they socialize with. My parents always told me, “Either you change your friends, or your friends change you.”

Younger folks tend to focus on fans, fame, and fortune. As you get older, your focus typically turns to family, faith, and friends. You realize your career matters less and your family matters more. As grandparents, my wife and I have been intentional about making memories instead of making money. We have 11 grandchildren—7 girls and 4 boys. When they turn 13, we take each of them away for a week to build a memory. When the girls graduate from high school, my wife takes them and their mother away for a week to build a memory. I do the same thing with the grandsons and their father. When we celebrated our 40th, 45th, and 50th anniversaries, we took our 3 children and 11 grandchildren on cruises. Yes, we paid for it. We have decided to share our money with them now in building memories instead of simply leaving it to them after we die. No matter what stage of parenting you are in, read God’s Word, share God’s Word with your children, and model God’s Word on a daily basis. The reward will be incredible.  abou t the au thor

4. Confidant (When Children Leave Home): Advise and Affirm “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:5-6). You are a sounding board for your children as they struggle with the consequences of their own decisions. Allow them to make mistakes, but help them learn from those mistakes so they will not repeat them. Maturity does not come with age; it comes with acceptance of responsibility. At every stage of parenting, as the children get older, parents must learn to gradually release them to make their own decisions.

5. Cheerleader (Grandchildren): Experiences and Encouragement “Children’s children are a crown to the aged, and parents are the pride of their children” (Proverbs 17:6). “Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, my God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your mighty acts to all who are to come” (Psalm 71:18).

After faithfully serving Christ’s Church of the Valley in Arizona for 35 years, Dr. Don Wilson launched Accelerate Group with his wife Sue, and they have served scores of pastor couples across the U.S. to date. Don has the unique ability to relate to varying age groups and demographics to inspire their leadership in advancing the gospel. @AccelerateGroupInfo @accelerate.group accelerate.group

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Try to model a Christlike attitude and lifestyle as you spend time with your children at church, at home, on vacation, and with friends.

When your family gets together for holidays and vacations, be sure to talk about your values and traditions. Remind them why you have the values you do. Don’t be afraid to tell them about some of the struggles and pressure you have had to deal with to maintain those Christian values.

• We must be informal; so much of what we learn is caught rather than taught. Someone said that 60 percent of learning comes by watching others we trust.

METR I CS

hat people believe really matters, according to a 2017 Canadian study of 22 churches and more than 2,000 churchgoers. Churches that adhere to conservative theology are more likely to grow than those that do not, and people who attend growing churches reported praying more often and reading their Bibles more often than those who attend declining churches, the study showed. What churches teach impacts the spiritual practices of their attendees and, in turn, the health of the church. Our 2020 annual church survey asked church leaders this question: How much does your church emphasize the following personal and family faith practices? • regular worship attendance • giving generously

The Faith Practices Churches Emphasize by Kent E. Fillinger

• personal Bible study • group Bible study • talking about one’s faith with those who aren’t part of your church and/or believers • parents talking with children about faith • living out one’s faith in all aspects of one’s daily life The response options included “not at all,” “a little,” “some,” “quite a bit,” and “a lot.” We were seeking to learn the areas of faith that churches emphasize the most with the understanding that “what gets recognized gets repeated; what gets celebrated becomes a habit,” as author and consultant Leslie Yerkes said. It follows that churchgoers are more apt to do what they hear emphasized by their church leaders. In looking collectively at these seven faith practices, 91 percent of megachurches said they emphasized them “a lot” or “quite a bit,” the highest figure among the six church size categories. Among large and medium churches, 85 percent emphasized these faith practices “a lot” or “quite a bit,” followed by emerging megachurches (84 percent), small churches (83 percent), and very small churches (74 percent). In general, the larger the church, the more likely they were to report spending time emphasizing these personal and family faith practices, which seemed to reinforce the findings of the Canadian study cited at the outset.

T h e M o s t E m p h a s i z e d Fa i t h P r a c t i c e s Overall, the top three faith practices churches emphasized “a lot” and “quite a bit” were “living out one’s faith in all aspects of life” (93 percent), “personal Bible study” (91 percent), and “regular worship attendance” (89 percent).

T h e I m pa c t o f C h u r c h S i z e o n W h at I s E m p h a s i z e d Churches from four of the six size categories indicated they emphasized “living out one’s faith” more than any other—it was the spiritual practice they highlighted the most. Only large and very small churches emphasized a different faith practice more. Overall, the top three faith practices for each church size category were distinctly different. Here’s a summary of the faith practices the highest percentage of churches in each size category said they emphasized “a lot” or “quite a bit”: Very small churches (99 or fewer in average worship attendance) focused the most on the following faith practices: personal Bible study (88 percent), living out one’s faith (87 percent), and regular worship attendance (87 percent). Small churches (averaging 100 to 249 weekly)—living out one’s faith (94 percent), personal Bible study (93 percent), and regular worship attendance (88 percent). Medium churches (averaging 250 to 499)—living out one’s faith (94 percent), regular worship attendance (90 percent), and personal Bible study (90 percent). Large churches (500 to 999)—regular worship attendance (92 percent), group Bible study such as small groups or Bible classes (92 percent), and personal Bible study (91 percent). Emerging megachurches (1,000 to 1,999)—living out one’s faith (93 percent), personal Bible study (90 percent), and group Bible study (90 percent).

This reality might help to explain why many churches are not growing. This finding likely also reflects an increased focus on an “attractional” model of church over the last 20-plus years rather than a “missional” model of ministry. Another concerning finding from this research is the lesser emphasis on “parents talking with children about faith.” Deuteronomy 6:4-9 is a portion of liturgy known as the Shema which emphasizes the need to worship God alone and to love God with our whole being. The Israelites were called to repeat these two truths again and again to their children. Parents were supposed to “talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up” (v. 7). A September 2019 Barna report found, “Nearly two-thirds of U.S. 18–29-year-olds who grew up in church have withdrawn from church involvement as an adult after having been active as a child or teen.” Therefore, it’s vital for churches to create tangible tools to better equip parents to talk with their children about matters of faith. These tools could expand and evolve as children become teenagers, so that faith discussions can transition from “milk” to “meat” to better ensure young adults’ faith is solid and steadfast as they transition into adulthood. This would help to decrease the high percentage of young adults who leave the faith after growing up in church. What gets recognized gets repeated; what gets celebrated becomes a habit. What is your church recognizing and celebrating the most in your gatherings and groups? 

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Megachurches (2,000 or more)—living out one’s faith (100 percent), regular worship attendance (93 percent), and personal Bible study (93 percent).

T h e L e a s t E m p h a s i z e d Fa i t h P r a c t i c e s The least-emphasized faith practices were “talking about one’s faith with those who aren’t part of your church and/ or believers” (75 percent), “parents talking with children about faith” (76 percent), and “giving generously” (78 percent). The gap between the most-emphasized and leastemphasized faith practice was 17 percentage points (93 percent vs. 75 percent). The fact that churches are more likely to stress “regular church attendance” than “talking about one’s faith” is

Kent E. Fillinger serves as president of 3:STRANDS Consulting, Indianapolis, Indiana, and regional vice president (Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan) with Christian Financial Resources.

/3strandsconsulting 3strandsconsulting.com

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concerning. Granted, the frequency of church attendance has declined for more than a decade, but maybe we’re “majoring in the minors” by stressing church attendance more than sharing our faith.

The least emphasized was “talking about one’s faith with those who aren’t part of your family and/or believers,” with only 75 percent of churches saying they emphasized this “a lot” or “quite a bit.”

pre ach

’m sure every preacher can think of a time when they were convinced God had given them a life-changing, church-altering message. I’m talking about a message born out of significant time alone with God and his Word. I’m referring to a message that grew inside of the preacher’s heart for some time as the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, led them into all truth.

The High Call of Preaching by Chris Philbeck

I remember a weekend like that at the church I serve. I was convinced my message that week had a special anointing from God. I believed it was a message that could change lives as well as the future of our church. So, when the weekend rolled around, I was prepared, and I preached that message with passion and conviction. After the first service, I was standing outside our Guest Connection room when I noticed a woman headed my direction. She had a smile on her face, and she grabbed my hand with both of her hands. I was certain she was going to thank me for the message or tell me how God had spoken to her through my words. Instead, she said, “Pastor, I just wanted to let you know the toilets in the women’s bathroom aren’t flushing.” And with that, she was out the door. That first response to my “life-changing, church-altering message” did two things for me. First, it tempered my expectations for the remaining services. Second, it reminded me of a quote from Bruce Thielemann: There is no special honor in preaching, there is only special pain. The pulpit calls those anointed to it as the sea calls its sailors. And like the sea, it batters and bruises and does not rest. To preach, to really preach is to die naked a little at a time and to know each time you do it that you must do it again.

S tay t h e C o u r s e Preaching has been a great blessing to me for over 40 years. At times, though, it has been a burden. How do you stay committed, passionate, and effective in your preaching for the long haul? Here’s what works for me.

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First, believe that your best sermon will be your next sermon. I remember attending a monthly minister’s lunch in Houston, Texas, during my early years of ministry and hearing Max Hickerson say, “My best sermon will always be my next sermon.” I loved those words, and they have stayed with me ever since. When you view your next sermon as your best sermon, you there is no special honor in preaching, there is will approach the prepao n ly s p e c i a l pa i n . t h e p u l p i t c a l l s t h o s e a n o i n t e d ration with commitment and conviction. to it as the sea calls its sailors. I’ve heard preachers my age and older say that

His words encouraged me, and they were way better than, “Pastor, the toilets in the women’s bathroom aren’t flushing.” 

Second, spend time with preachers. I never realized the benefit of spending time with other preachers until I served on the board of directors of The Solomon Foundation. During my six years of service, I spent significant time with great preachers like Jerry Harris, Tim Liston, Barry Cameron, Dennis Bratton, Don Wilson, Jim Putman, Rusty Russell, and Dave Dummitt, to name a few. And while we didn’t spend all our time sitting around talking specifically about preaching, we talked about ministry, ministry challenges, and ministry passion. When I listened to them talking about their churches or leading workshops in our pastor’s conferences, it inspired me to be the best preacher I could be. And there were times when we did talk about preaching. I know it’s not easy to find time to spend with other preachers, but if you can, it will be refreshing and inspiring. Third, share your pulpit. I should have embraced this practice much earlier in my ministry. For the longest time I felt like I was hired, first and foremost, to preach, so I needed to be in the pulpit every weekend unless I was out of town. I admire younger preachers who have known intuitively that sharing the pulpit is a good thing. Utilize your staff and embrace the opportunity to mentor young preachers. Put a line item in your budget for guest preachers and “go for broke” when it comes to whom you invite. Do whatever you have to do to share your pulpit.

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S tay E n c o u r a g e d ! Preaching can be a lonely calling. Even in a large church and even with a large staff, there will still be times when you feel the loneliness of your calling. You can pour your heart—your life—into a sermon only to have it met with little enthusiasm. You can go long periods without a lot of affirmation. There will be times when the responsibility of standing before people on behalf of God will feel overwhelming. But preaching is also a high calling. I love the way the late Haddon W. Robinson captured that truth when he said, “The God who speaks with utmost integrity must have messengers who represent him well.” Preaching is a high calling because it’s a calling to speak the words of God. I received a letter in the mail today from a man who has been a part of my church for about 10 years. His very kind letter ended like this: “I hope this letter encourages you to persevere. I appreciate your honesty in preaching and

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your adherence to the Word of God. Know that we are praying for you.”

while they continue to enjoy preaching, they’ve gotten to the place where they don’t enjoy the sermon preparation. Believing your next sermon will be your best sermon can help you embrace the time and effort it takes to prepare. As I write this article, I’m in the middle of writing a sermon from Psalm 118 that I’m sure will be the best sermon I’ve ever preached.

Chris Philbeck serves as senior pastor of Mount Pleasant Christian Church in Greenwood, Indiana. He has been in ministry since 1980 and has had the privilege of planting a new church, leading a turn-around church, and now leading a megachurch. Chris is passionate about biblical preaching, effective leadership, and developing new and better ways for the local church to make an impact in the community and the world. /PastorCPhilbeck @cphilbeck @pastorphilbeck

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Leadership Lessons

Making Disciples

Reverse the Course: 5 Strategies to Protect the Integrity of the Church <sidebar> Recent Leadership Scandals

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Still Learning from Ravi Zacharias: How Do We Respond When a Role Model Falls? by Brett Seybold

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He Made Us Better: The Life and Ministry of Sam E. Stone by David Faust <sidebar> Remembering Sam Stone

Current Events

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Remembering 9/11

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Leadership Lessons

A STUDY IN CONTR ASTS

28 c hristia n sta nda rd

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REVERSE THE COURSE

In the Aftermath of Several High-Profile Leadership Failures . . . 5 Strategies to Protect the Integrity of the Church Name Withheld

Let’s be honest. High-profile Christian leadership failures and the resulting controversies have devastated the global church of Christ in the past three years. (And devastated is not too strong a word to use.) The exposure of deceit and duplicity in the personal lives of recognized Christian leaders has caused overwhelming shock and grief in the church and has greatly contributed to ridicule and cynicism toward the church by the watching world. More people than ever, it seems, are prone to believe that Christian leaders are motivated purely by selfindulgence and self-interest. At the very least, there is more skepticism and suspicion in the minds of the populous about how few spiritual leaders they can trust. Of course, astute people of faith know that a consistent strategy of the evil one through the centuries has been to discourage belief in Christ by discrediting Christian leaders. On the night he was betrayed, Jesus warned his disciples, “You will fall away . . . for it is written: ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered’” (Mark 14:27). Jesus was quoting Zechariah 13:7 to prepare the apostles for the impact his crucifixion would initially have on their faithfulness. The arrest, illegal trials, scourging, and brutal death of Jesus caused his followers to fall away and be scattered.

wonder: Is the state of evangelicalism today, in the form practiced by its biggest churches, more like Chicago of the 19th century or Chernobyl of the 20th?

Can you see the broader application of this principle? The figurative destruction of the moral character of spiritual shepherds has had the same effect on many followers of Jesus in the 21st century. Shepherds have been struck down by their own hand and the sheep are being scattered. (See “Recent Leadership Scandals” sidebar for six examples.)

If we are to reverse the curse and the course of the high-profile Christian leadership failures in recent years, we must learn some vital lessons and make some ironclad determinations to protect the integrity of the faith communities represented by our Christian institutions, churches, and ministries. Here is a partial to-do list:

Paul Lundquist, a former missionary with Wycliffe Bible Translators, poses a relevant question for us as we seek God’s wisdom about what we can learn and how we must respond to these tragic and all too prevalent Christian leadership failures: In any institution or assembly there are always a few people whose behavior cries out for judgment, and recalcitrant transgressors must be fired, excommunicated, exiled, impeached, imprisoned or what-have-you. No community has ever been free of lethal contaminants. Even Jesus had Judas among his 12 disciples. But it seems that there is a certain point, a critical mass of corruption, beyond which you can no longer pick the few bad apples out of the barrel but have to start over with a new barrel. In 1900 engineers reversed the course of a Chicago River that had made a sewer of Lake Michigan and filled the city with stench and disease— but in 1986 no one could decontaminate Chernobyl. That city had to be abandoned in haste. I

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Value the Prophetic Voices Among Us

We live in an age of permissiveness and tolerance. Everything is shifting radically to the left these days. Right and wrong are determined, not by consulting the absolute truth in the Word of God, but by what feels good, what seems right, what is allowed by law, or what is politically correct. And those who raise a dissenting voice on moral issues are considered public enemies to be censored by social media, shouted down in public assemblies, voted out of office, ridiculed by comedians, or boycotted. The Old Testament prophet had a dangerous calling. The writer of Hebrews said prophets had been “tortured. . . . Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated. . . . They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground” (Hebrews 11:35-38). So, what was their crime? The prophets had only two items on their job description: (1) Foretell the future (which was not what made them unpopular); (2) Confront personal and national sin (which caused them to be both resisted and resented). But without prophetic voices, many will be doomed in this life and damned in the greater life. We do not need fewer prophetic voices. We need more and louder and more eloquent and more winsome voices that will confront the power brokers and influencers of our generation inside and outside of the church. We need people such as Nathan, who confronted King David about his deceit, manipulation, bullying, sexual sin, and murder by saying, “You are the man! This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says” (2 Samuel 12:7). We need people like Jesus, who confronted the teachers of the law and Pharisees by saying, “Woe to you . . . you hypocrites! . . . you blind guides! . . . you snakes! . . . you brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?” (Matthew 23:13-39). Even as I copy this passage, I am struck by how totally foreign these words sound compared to the way we relate to leaders overtaken by sin in the church today. We must not be timid about wearing the prophet’s mantle when it is necessarily redemptive. We need to pray, “Father God, give us ears to hear our contemporary prophets and hearts to esteem them highly when they speak for you!”

RECENT L E A DE R S H I P S C A N DA L S In her “Top 10 Stories of 2020,” Julie Roys, who hosts The Roys Report, investigated and documented several leadership scandals that rocked the evangelical world, including these 6:

Ravi Zacharias Exposed

James MacDonald Expelled

Christianity Today reported on the allegations in written and verbal testimony from multiple sources that provided “much evidence” that the late apologist was a sexual predator. Ravi Zacharias International Ministries conducted their own independent investigation, which found “credible evidence” that Zacharias “engaged in sexual misconduct over many years.” (See “Still Learning from Ravi Zacharias: How Do We Respond When a Role Model Falls?” by Brett Seybold on page 36.)

Despite being disqualified for public ministry by the elders of Harvest Bible Chapel, James MacDonald recently returned to Chicago and secured a multimillion-dollar arbitration settlement from Harvest. He maintains a website accusing the church of running a “campaign to destroy” his reputation. MacDonald’s son has returned with him to plant a new church despite reports of their bizarre and bullying behavior.

The Fall of Jerry Falwell Jr.

John Ortberg Resignation

At the beginning of 2020 published reports of Falwell’s financial misconduct and bullying surfaced, but the Liberty University president seemed invincible. However, in August, a video was posted online which resulted in allegations of sexual misconduct and alcohol abuse. His board forced him to resign. Multimillion-dollar lawsuits have since been filed by both Falwell and the university.

John Ortberg was considered a champion of sex abuse victims because of his role in exposing Bill Hybels in 2018. That changed when it was revealed Ortberg failed to protect minors at his church from a volunteer who had admitted to him an attraction to children. Later, Ortberg’s transgender daughter revealed the volunteer actually was Ortberg’s son, who continued to serve in children’s ministry without the church elders’ knowledge and consent.

Willow Creek Church Scandal

Turmoil at Hillsong

After multiple females stepped forward to accuse senior pastor Bill Hybels of sexual sin, he simply denied all the charges and promptly vanished from sight. In the months since, Hybels’s spiritual mentor and Willow Creek co-founder Dr. Gilbert Bilezikian was accused of sexual abuse by a longtime church member. Wheaton College, where “Dr. B” taught for two decades, rescinded his title of professor emeritus following reports that he had also abused female students there.

In November, Hillsong Church global senior pastor Brian Houston fired Hillsong NYC celebrity pastor Carl Lentz for “breaches of trust” and “moral failures,” which Lentz later confessed included an extramarital affair. Lentz has since moved to California with his wife and children to begin intense therapy.

Israel wanted a king. The nation envisioned a leader like Saul, who was “as handsome a young man as could be found anywhere in Israel, and he was a head taller than anyone else” (1 Samuel 9:2). But Saul turned out to be a leadership loser. He was insecure, willful, greedy, jealous, resentful, violent, and unjust. God gave Israel what they wanted for their first king, but God gave them what they needed for their second king. David was “a man after [God’s] own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14). And that pure heart was what qualified him to lead God’s people to experience their best days. What do we look for in church leaders today? People skills, good looks, eloquence, charm, a commanding presence? Is the church an assembly of God’s people in Christ or a stadium with a star celebrity whose gifts and charisma attract a crowd? Beware the church whose pastor lives lavishly, uses a ghost writer to publish his best-selling books, leads lots of cruises, majors in fundraising, and/or is interviewed by Oprah. What qualifies a spiritual leader? The prophet said of Jesus, “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him” (Isaiah 53:2). He was humble and lowly in heart. He was the Good Shepherd and those of us who serve as leaders in his church are undershepherds. All of the qualifications for church leaders in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 are character qualifications. Only one qualification has to do with giftedness, and that involves being willing and able to teach. So, let’s realign what we prefer in our leaders with the Word of God and go for a pure heart and a servant spirit more than personality type and giftedness. We need to pray, “Father God, give us discernment as we look for the right stuff in the godly leaders we need in this generation and as we disciple the next generation who will take our place of leadership one day.”

In too many churches, vocational and volunteer leaders are taken for granted. That should not be. Instead, church leaders should be received with gratitude. Periodically, do or say something to personally and practically appreciate those who serve the church. Most leaders are significantly edified by a compliment or encouragement or a thoughtful act or gift. Younger ministry leaders often can feel vulnerable and exposed. At such times, our presence and verbal reassurances are deeply appreciated expressions of support that can bolster their confidence. At the same time, accountability is needed. Many fallen and failed Christian leaders did not have accountability partners. They did not have a true friend—someone to speak into their life and tell them the truth, whether they wanted to hear it or not. I was a confident Bible college freshman. In fact, I’m pretty sure I crossed the line into arrogance. One of my mentors noticed that about me, and so one day, as I strutted down the hall, he called me into his office and said, “Little brother, you have everything it takes to be a flash in the pan.” My first response was to become defensive, but my thoughts later that day were more objective. He apparently saw a shallowness and superficiality in me that needed correction. From that day on, I remembered those words when I was tempted by pridefulness. His imposition of accountability made me more self-aware and more consciously humble. Recently I preached a message in which I zealously scalded another world religion and impugned the character of its founder. The next morning, when our team reviewed the worship service, a young minister on staff carefully, almost apologetically, confronted me by saying my spirit in that part of the sermon came across as angry and unloving. What if there had been people from that faith visiting our church that day? Instead of reacting defensively, I said (after quick reflection), “You are right. My sense of justice dominated my better spirit of grace in that moment.” It was humbling for me in a good way.

Balance Leadership Encouragement with Leadership Accountability

The young pastor approached me the next day and said, “I can’t believe the way you responded to my corrective criticism yesterday. It was a teachable moment for me. You taught me a lot by your humility.”

The writer of Hebrews admonished Christians to “remember your leaders . . . [and to] consider the outcome of their way of life and to imitate their faith” (Hebrews 13:7). A few verses later the writer instructed us to “have confidence in [them] and submit to their authority . . . so that their work will be a joy, not a burden” (13:17). These are the practical ways we encourage our spiritual leaders and generate confidence in them for the demanding task of serving the church.

Accountability is good for us as leaders. It should be embraced, not shunned. It will make us better. It will cultivate the opportunity for Christ to be formed in us. Without accountability, our blind spots will remain unknown to us, and probably even grow over time. We need to pray, “Father God, please provide our leaders with people in their faith communities who will both encourage them, to build their confidence, and provide accountability, to keep them humble.”

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Scripturally Align Our Leadership Qualifications

The best indicator of future performance is past performance.

This decadent river of Christian leadership failure will not be reversed naturally. It will require a supernatural force . . . an act of God . . . the intervention of the Holy Spirit in leaders’ hearts . . . a miracle of healing and empowering grace. Christians must pray hard personally and corporately for forgiveness and renewal. Pray for leaders to recognize and resist the lures of ego, power, popularity, sex, and money. Pray that leaders will be open and honest, without any secrets from their wives and children. Pray for leaders to have inward brokenness that God will mightily use them and develop their ministries to be deeply, broadly, and perpetually impactful. Pray for leaders to adopt this wisdom: “For this command is a lamp, this teaching is a light, and correction and instruction are the way to life” (Proverbs 6:23). Pray for leaders to be more intentional about how they program their minds, specifically by governing what gains entry to their brains through their eyes and ears. The revolution must begin there! Through passionate prayer, we must both lead and sustain this reversal of the negative perception of Christian leadership! We need to pray, “Father God, we ask for pure hearts and clean hands so that you can work through us to be catalytic leaders for a revival of true holiness in your church in our generation.”

Understand the Difference Between Restoration to Fellowship and Restoration to Leadership!

If a Christian leader, as a matter of conscience, is convicted of secret sin and comes forward voluntarily to confess—seeking forgiveness, counsel, and prayer— then restoration to both fellowship and leadership is possible. But if a Christian leader lives with the secret sin for months or years, and only “repents” when they are exposed by others, they may be restored to fellowship, but I believe they should not—for their soul’s sake—be restored to leadership. The best indicator of future performance is past performance. It is not the only indicator, but it is the best indicator. The capacity to compartmentalize secret sin, particularly sexual sin, long-term can make ministry leadership too great a temptation. The broken covenant with God, with a spouse and family, with the trust of a church family that is only acknowledged because of exposure by others is too deep an offense. Forgiveness and restoration to fellowship is commanded. Forgiveness and restoration to vocational ministry leadership is not commanded. We need to pray, “Father God, give us the heart to forgive and restore those who have failed and fallen to full fellowship in the church of Jesus. We pray for the backbone to protect the sacredness of the high calling of the ministry, and we pray for the wisdom to discern what balancing grace and truth requires in the moment. In the Name that is above every name, the Name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.” 

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Pray for Cleansing and Revival

zacharias STILL LEARNING FROM RAVI

H OW DO WE RESPON D WH EN A ROL E M O DEL FALLS?

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B Y B RETT SEYB OL D

I was greatly humbled about a year ago when I was invited to write an article about the late Ravi Zacharias’s impact on my journey. I still stand behind every word of that piece, published in last November’s Christian Standard, a few months after Zacharias’s death. However, just prior to that issue’s cover date, apparent confirmation of Zacharias’s alleged infidelity and sexual misconduct surfaced. And I, like most people blessed by his ministry, was shocked and brokenhearted. Perhaps the most difficult challenge for me was in the fact that prior to this alarming development, there were no shortage of testimonies regarding his outstanding character. Jeff Vines, lead pastor with ONE&ALL Church in San Dimas, California, said, Ravi mentored me for over 20 years. I . . . recently [had been] in Sri Lanka with Ravi and Louie Giglio. I knew him very well. I never saw any impropriety in Ravi. In fact, I even looked for it. You want a level of purity in the life of mentors that catalyzes a degree of confidence, trust, and integrity. When leaders fall, one often says, “I saw that coming.” There are some people who, [when] you get into their inner circle and begin to see red flags, you say, “No, this is not a person whose lead I want to follow.” With Ravi, the more intimate you were with him the more you saw the “above reproach” life. Consequently, I was heartbroken, and suspicious, when the investigative report highlighted so many alleged failures. Moreover, Ravi was so peaceful about dying. His last days were spent on his knees in prayer. This was not a man fearful of meeting his maker. In the wake of misconduct reports are many questions. How does the church recover from such an apparent betrayal? What precautions should Christian leaders take to guard their moral integrity?

Ironically, as I started work on this follow-up article, a very comprehensive blog by Zacharias’s son that refutes the allegations (defendingravi.com) emerged. As I combed through this thorough rejoinder, I was starkly reminded of several key biblical principles. First, we must keep in mind that although absolute certainty is impossible regarding all that happened behind the scenes, our heavenly Father—all-knowing and all-loving as he is—will not make any mistakes on Judgment Day or via his continued providence (1 Samuel 16:7; 2 Chronicles 16:9). In spite of our moral failures, God remains holy—that is a foundational biblical truth for all humanity. Second, we must continue to defend the cause of those victimized in such situations. Third, such empathy for victims must be equally balanced with Paul’s instruction to Timothy not to “receive an accusation against an elder except on the basis of two or three witnesses” (1 Timothy 5:19). Nonetheless, as David Faust emphasized to me, “If the charges turn out to be true, leaders responsible for God’s flock must deal with the situation firmly and fairly.” The limited nature of our judgments brings us face-toface with the modern-postmodern divide. The truth is out there, and yet we filter all information through our personal interpretive paradigms, and we often arrive at conclusions before the heavenly jury is out. Some antagonists revel in the fall of Christian leaders. Nevertheless, the reality of moral failure of our leaders knocks at the doors of our hearts. A good dose of critical realism is necessary. Whether a living or deceased leader is (or was) truly guilty or truly innocent, it is daunting to write a delicate piece such as this in a fair and balanced way. I see no other option but to frame the following in hypothetical “if-then” terms: “If (or when) our rolemodels fall, what then?”

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'DISTINGUISH THE PRODUCT FROM THE SOURCE' When a cherished Christian voice is discovered to have committed any form of moral impropriety, we naturally wrestle with whether to cite their works. The results of Ravi Zachiarias International Ministry’s investigation —RZIM reported there was convincing and credible evidence that Ravi Zacharias “engaged in sexual misconduct over the course of many years”—produced a wide variety of responses on social media. I read comments ranging from disappointment to heartbreak and from disbelief to rage. Several commenters threatened to purge all of Zacharias’s works from their private collections. (RZIM, in fact, has wiped all trace of Ravi Zacharias content from its website and social media platforms.) I recently faced this troublesome conundrum when invited to participate in several days of Christian apologetic talks with Valley Christian Church of Fargo, North Dakota. My Friday-evening defense of Jesus among the skeptics included a brief description of our current Western society that was properly credited to Zacharias. I felt obligated to ask Valley’s preacher, Brent Captain, as to whether he found the quote appropriate in light of these allegations. Captain wisely encouraged me to keep it in the presentation, though I admit to removing a picture of Zacharias from my PowerPoint slides.

DON'T FORGET TO GRIEVE THE LOSS “How do we respond to disturbing news like this? First, with grief,” said Faust, senior associate minister with East 91st Street Christian Church in Indianapolis. “May God help us if we ever become so callous that we react to moral failure with a casual shrug. “We grieve for the victims of abuse. We grieve over the damage caused to the Lord’s church. We ache for the families and organizations that have been wounded. We wince when scandals like these disillusion new believers and give ammunition to opponents of the gospel. And we grieve over our own feelings of loss and disappointment. It hurts when a role model we respected proves unfaithful and a voice we trusted falls silent.”

Captain’s advice was wise because, as sinners, we are all in the same boat. If we start canceling quotes due to the moral imperfection of an author, when and where should we stop? While we never want to gloss over a person’s moral failures, we must ask ourselves where to draw the line of which sins or what number of sins relegate a voice to being unworthy of reference. In reality, none of us is worthy of reference. Christian theologian, philosopher, and author Jack Cottrell told me, “We can rightly judge [Zacharias’s] actions (if the allegations stand), many of which seem very unholy, but only God can judge his eternal destiny. I believe we must find a way to separate his positive works for God’s kingdom from the sinful (even hypocritical) works of his personal life. This is very difficult, I know, but he has written some very useful books which cannot just be ‘cancelled’ because their source was imperfect. We must try to distinguish the product from the source.”

“ T HIS WA S N O T A M A N FEA RFU L OF MEETIN G H IS MA KER.“ —Je ff V in e s

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CURB YOUR DEPENDENCE ON CELEBRITY STATUS WITHIN GOD'S KINGDOM The Western church is currently overrun by mass reversions (or “deconversions”) as the authentic self becomes more important than the denied self (Matthew 16:24). Celebrity status can be a dangerous temptation; it is best avoided by the Christ follower. Not only does it place individuals on unrealistic pedestals, but it also attracts Satan to easy targets as people cash in Spiritfilled service for prestige. If Satan was willing to go after Jesus in the desert, is it not easier for him to attack Christians in the spotlight? As servants in God’s kingdom, our focus must be on impact rather than accolades, on discipleship rather than on gathering a crowd, and on evangelism rather than merely winning arguments.

DEPEND COMPLETELY ON GOD'S GRACE Skeptics accurately point out that all Christ followers regularly engage in hypocrisy. As Christians, we should never deny this. Nevertheless, as painful as this reality may be, such hypocrisy does not undermine the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ and Scripture, but rather, it confirms it. True sin and hypocrisy rightly conjure up moral judgments (John 7:24). Our immediate awareness of moral facts points to a transcendent moral standard; and the presence of such a transcendent moral standard, against which all humanity fails to measure up, opens the door for God’s abundant grace (Romans 5:20). In a way, our skeptic friends inadvertently highlight the veracity of God’s moral standard as revealed in both Scripture and nature (Romans 1:19-20) when they point out our moral failures as Jesus’ disciples. Moral relativism has no basis for transcendent right and wrong; it must borrow from moral absolutism—such as Christian theism—to fault anyone for things such as sexual impropriety. And when our Christian leaders do stumble and fall, we believers are reminded to bend our knees and bow our heads in repentance, confessing our utter dependence upon the grace of our heavenly Father. That grace was poured out in Jesus Christ when he stood face-to-face with our individual and collective sins (Philippians 2:9-11; Ephesians 2:8-9).

We need to ask ourselves, What is our reputation actually worth? While we shouldn’t aspire to have poor reputations (John 13:35; Romans 12:18), we must never forget that our Lord and Savior began his movement in the depths of embarrassment and shame. The humble origins of Jesus of Nazareth, coupled with the scorn of the Roman cross and Jewish claims of blasphemy, seemed to set the world against him. Yet Christ prevailed! These continue as some of the strongest circumstantial evidences for the veracity and exponential spread of early Christianity—that its source is God and not man. We mustn’t forget that popularity as an obstacle and temptation is not something unique to our current context. Paul warned the Corinthians against such (1 Corinthians 1:12-13) and James staunchly challenged favoritism (James 2).

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Jeff Vines continues to view the allegations against Zacharias with suspicion, but he shared thoughts he feels he must consider when a well-respected Christian leader like Zacharias falls: I’m hurt and I’m wounded, but my faith is in Jesus Christ alone! My advice to the world [is this]: If you’re putting so much stock into a man or woman that his or her failure leads to disbelief in the Christian gospel, then back away for a moment, reflect and realize that we are culpable. It is possible for a fall to happen in anybody’s life, anywhere, and anytime. The effectiveness of any leader should be measured by how successful they are in drawing you toward Jesus, helping you fall in love with him. To this day, I believe Zacharias’s ministry helped me fall more deeply in love with Jesus. This will never change, regardless of the extent of Zacharias’s personal failings.

PROCLAIM THE GOSPEL “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us; and we saw His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14, New American Standard Bible, emphasis mine). In reality, our only hope and way forward remains the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is good news! This is why the Lord’s grace will forever remain amazing, unparalleled throughout human history. Yet our calling to chase after God’s holiness remains (1 Peter 1:16). The Lord is not done with our sanctification. We will continue to confess our sins to God as we mature until the day of Christ’s return (1 John 1:9). We grieve when our spiritual role models fall. We are starkly reminded of our need for accountability and to resist the temptation of worldly accolades and notoriety. Yet we can place our confidence in God’s moral goodness as opposed to human fabrications. As followers of Jesus Christ, we must continue to lovingly proclaim the gospel as the only way of salvation for mankind (Acts 4:12). The true church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone (Ephesians 2:20). And this foundation can weather any storm. 

Brett Seybold is founder of KAPOL (Kontakt Apologetics), an international apologetics ministry with an individual touch. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/KAPOLvideo

He Made Us Better

The Life and Ministry of Sam E. Stone O C TO B E R 12 , 1936 — JA N UA RY 2 5 , 2021

BY DAVID FAUST

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I waited outside the dean’s office on a steamy summer afternoon in 1976. I was 22 years old—eager but nervous about enrolling in graduate school—and I brought my wife with me to meet the seminary dean. A friend once advised, “If you have butterflies in your stomach, get them to fly in formation,” but Candy and I couldn’t disguise our apprehension as we took our seats on the other side of the dean’s desk. Our anxiety quickly changed to relief when he smiled, his eyes sparkling behind dark-rimmed glasses. The dean shook our hands and said warmly, “I’m glad you’re here!” He answered our questions and encouraged us to trust the Lord as we prepared for a lifetime of ministry. That first meeting with Sam Stone wasn’t much different than my other encounters with him over the next 45 years, except I learned not to be nervous around him. Sam was interested in other people and earnest about serving the Lord—the kind of leader who makes others better. It’s a daunting task to write about the man who edited this magazine for a quarter of a century and published my first article (in 1978). My goal is not merely to eulogize him and certainly not to idolize him, but it’s good to ask, What can we learn from his life and ministry? Sam’s family recalls how in difficult situations he would try to discern God’s will and then humbly say, “All we can do is our best.” So, in this limited space I will do my best to highlight three points about Sam Stone: (1) He loved his family well; (2) he served the Lord with excellence; and (3) he led with faith and godliness.

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He Loved His Family Well Samuel Edwin Stone was born in Clovis, New Mexico, on October 12, 1936, and he was baptized on October 13, 1946, at Central Church of Christ in Clovis. His only sibling, a younger sister, died at birth. His dad worked at a grain elevator and a hardware store, and later managed a 1,200-acre cattle ranch. Sam got involved with Boy Scouts, student government, and sports. He worked for a radio station and scooped ice cream at a soda shop. (He never lost his love for ice cream.) As the 16-year-old editor of his high school newspaper, he interviewed Billy Graham before the evangelist’s Albuquerque Crusade. After high school, Sam and several of his friends enrolled at Ozark Christian College and he began preaching during his freshman year, serving part-time with a church in Summersville, Missouri. While at Ozark he lived with the Edwin Hayden family, not realizing that, in God’s providence, two decades later he would succeed Mr. Hayden as editor of Christian Standard. Sam met Gwen Gardner in college, and shortly after both of them graduated from Ozark they wed on June 6, 1958, the start of 57 years of marriage until Gwen’s death in 2015. Their sons, Dave and Jeff, followed their parents’ footsteps in ministry and inherited their sense of humor. Years later, Sam told his sons that he and Gwen stayed in a motel on their honeymoon, and the next morning discovered that he had left the room key in the door on the outside the entire night. Sam often took one of his boys along when he ran errands or engaged in ministry. If people asked, “Who do you have with you, Sam?” he would answer, “This is my bodyguard!” His sons accompanied him to visit shut-ins, new members, and prospective members. Dave says, “As impatient kids we became bored if those meetings went too long, so Dad came up with a system. When Jeff or I could sit still no longer, we would brush imaginary dust off our knees. This signaled, ‘Can we please go?’ To signify

that he saw our nonverbal message, Dad would take his glasses off and then put them back on to let us know he was wrapping up.” “Dad was our favorite preacher,” Dave remembers. “Sometimes after a sermon he would ask us to repeat his three points and each joke he had told.” Mark Taylor and Sam were colleagues at Standard Publishing. Mark says, “I’ll always remember the small stack of index cards Sam kept in his shirt pocket or on his desk, each of them filled with a list of reminders. Tasks. Errands. Goals. I’m guessing prayer requests. Any time I saw one of the cards, it always contained several items crossed off, even as he added another.” I remember those note cards, too. Sam told me that when he got home from work each evening, he shared the day’s events with Gwen. Many things happen each day in a leader’s life—phone calls, people stopping by, hearing a bit of good or bad news. By writing notes, Sam could remember what to tell Gwen so she could stay in touch with his daily life. It was a practical lesson about communication in marriage from a man who loved his family well.

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H E LE D W ITH FAITH AN D G O D LI N E S S .

Faith and G

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He Served the Lord with Excellence From 1958 to 1960, Sam edited Standard Publishing’s youth quarterlies and a teen magazine called Straight. He simultaneously served as Dr. Lewis Foster’s associate minister at Western Hills Church of Christ in Cincinnati while teaching part-time at Cincinnati Bible Seminary, where Sam had earned his Master of Divinity degree. When Lewis became dean of the seminary, Sam became the senior minister at Western Hills, serving from 1962 to 1971. (Mark Taylor was one of his associate ministers.) In 1974 Sam succeeded Dr. Foster as the seminary dean. Sam became the editor of Christian Standard on January 1, 1978, when his journalism mentor Edwin Hayden retired, and he served in this role until January 1, 2003—the longest editorship in the magazine’s history. During those 25 years, he continued to teach classes in practical ministry, creative writing, and journalism. When I became editor of The Lookout in 1996, I noticed that Sam usually arrived for work early in the morning. He didn’t have a fancy office—just a cubicle in the corner where he talked on the phone, read stacks of manuscripts, and wrote editorials on an IBM Selectric typewriter. Sam served on the boards of several mission organizations, including Christian Arabic Services, the CBA Foundation for the Aging, Jerusalem Christian Mission, and Good News Productions, International. His brother-in-law (Gwen’s youngest brother, Greg) had cerebral palsy, and Sam decided more should be done to assist people with disabilities. He visited churches, raised funds, and wrote articles about this need. The January 29, 1984, issue of Christian Standard carried a front-page announcement about the start of a new ministry led by Jim Pierson as executive director and Sam as board chair. Nearly 40 years later, Ability Ministries (originally called the Christian Church Foundation for the Handicapped) continues to partner with individuals, churches, and organizations to serve people with disabilities. Jeff Stone calls this God-sized vision “our dad’s greatest and least-known contribution to the kingdom.”

Sam’s passion for Christian unity led him to partner with others to create unity meetings where people could discuss doctrinal opinions without creating uncharitable divisions in the body of Christ. He served as president of the 1997 North American Christian Convention in Kansas City, Missouri, using the theme “God’s Family . . . Growing Together.” He was the first NACC president to have a son serve as president of the NACC and the only one to have two sons serve as presidents (Jeff in 2009 and Dave in 2016). Orrin Root wrote a weekly Bible lesson for The Lookout magazine for 54 consecutive years. After Mr. Root died in 2003 at age 98, choosing his successor was a challenging decision and Sam Stone was the obvious choice. The Lookout’s editor at the time, Shawn McMullen, compared it to the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. Recently retired from editing Christian Standard, Sam preached the funeral message for Mr. Root’s memorial service, then stepped in and wrote the weekly Bible commentary for 12 years, from 2003 to 2015. Altogether Sam wrote half a dozen books and preached in 35 states, at 32 Bible colleges, and in 27 countries. He served the Lord with excellence.

remembering SAM STONE Known for “speaking the truth in love,” Sam Stone deeply impacted my life. His writing and speaking were powerful. I was inspired by his compassion and tenderness whenever accompanying him to visit his parents, stricken with Alzheimer’s, and his brother-inlaw, Greg, [who had] severe cerebral palsy. Integrity and humility were obvious during our college days, while serving together on mission boards, and doing projects together in India, Africa, Australia, and the United States. His passion for unity and our Restoration heritage were challenging. He was a “true yokefellow” who rejoiced, wept, and prayed together with me on many occasions. —Ziden Nutt Retired Executive Director Good News Productions, International

Many happy memories come to mind when I think of Sam Stone! When my husband, Barry, became president of Cincinnati Christian University in the summer of 1988, I had planned to be a stay-at-home mom. Six months after we moved, Sam gave me a call to see if I would work for him as news editor of Christian Standard. I said yes and worked with Sam for five wonderful years. He was the most compassionate and caring boss I’ve had in my almost 50 years as an administrative assistant. He always encouraged me in whatever I did, and I learned what it meant to assist someone and feel appreciated. He will always be remembered as a kind boss and dear friend! —Pat McCarty Marketing Department Production Coordinator Guidestone Financial Resources, Dallas, Texas

remembering SAM STONE Sam Stone was a gentle and humble servant of our Lord. He ministered to Joyce and me at a particularly critical time when he came to the hospital where we had just suffered the sudden death of our firstborn son. His words, prayer, and Scripture were of immense comfort. Sam also introduced me to the Christian HolyLand Foundation, asking me to serve as a board member and introducing me to Christians throughout Israel. My son and I are still involved in that growing ministry more than 30 years later. Thank you, Sam, for your many kingdom contributions around the world. —John C. Samples Minister Emeritus East 91st Street Christian Church, Indianapolis, Indiana

What a privilege it was to have Sam Stone join us at The Christian Village at Mason. We often passed in the hall, and he always took advantage of an opportunity to encourage me. As [his] dementia progressed, those interactions became less about words, usually replaced by a smile and a simple thumbs up. His gentle way of dealing with staff touched them in unforgettable ways. We will dedicate the new 400-seat Stone Worship Center and Auditorium later this year, where the legacy of Sam and Gwen Stone will live on as future lives are touched in Jesus’ name. www.christianvillages.org/ stonecenter —Larry Monroe President and CEO Christian Village Communities, Mason and Cincinnati, Ohio

From his retirement home at Mason Christian Village, Sam spoke frequently with his sons on the phone. On the night before he died, his last words to Dave were, “I love you and I’m praying for you.” Despite COVID-19 restrictions, providentially Jeff was able to be in the hospital room when his dad passed into glory.

“Everything grew quiet,” he says, “except for Dad’s quivering voice: ‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. . . .’ My father’s face had struck the steering wheel. He had shards of glass in his eyes. Behind him in the back seat, Mom was bleeding from a life-threatening skull fracture. In the distance we heard the howl of sirens approaching through the rain. But above the wail of the ambulances, the words kept coming: ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.’”

“I am so grateful that I was able to be by his side to the end of the road,” Jeff says. “His journey is completed. ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’”

“This was no foxhole prayer, no panicked appeal in a time of crisis,” Dave says. “It was Dad’s default setting. Quoting Scripture was natural and normal for him, whether in the valley or on the mountaintop. My father knew that the Bible offered words that help and heal, words that deepen joy and lessen sorrow. When the sirens of life sounded, he found strength and connection with God in the Scriptures. Even in that moment of shock and pain, even when he thought Mom was dying, he instinctively turned to the Bible.” Gene Wigginton was Sam’s boss for several years. Gene remembers, “Sam was always a Christian gentleman and was always fair and honest. One time he received a letter from a reader that simply stated, ‘To the Christian Standard—which is neither.’ He published the letter! I believe that gave credibility not only to Sam but also to Standard Publishing.”

The Bible tells about good kings and bad kings, faithful leaders and unfaithful ones. Occasionally we get to know godly leaders like Barnabas, who encouraged others. Or Paul and John, who ministered by writing and preaching. Or Hananiah, “who was a man of integrity and feared God more than most people do” (Nehemiah 7:2). Mark Taylor saw qualities like those in Sam Stone. “Sam was pleasant, smiling, polite,” Mark remembers. “Beneath that easygoing persona was a man driven to use every moment for God, to remember and handle every obligation on time and with excellence. When someone made a request of Sam or gave him an assignment, with a smile he’d answer, ‘I’ll do my best!’ Now we’re smiling, too, as we remember how his best blessed us again and again.” Perhaps the best summary of Sam’s life comes from the cover of a book he wrote about the Restoration Movement. The title expresses what Sam aspired to be and what he wanted all of us to be: Simply Christians. 

Donna Fehl worked with Sam as office editor for 18 years. “During that time Sam never spoke a harsh or critical word to me,” she says. “He gave me responsibility, trusted me, and did not micromanage the process. Once Sam had edited the copy, he gave me free rein and did not see the copy again until the paper printed. I appreciated Sam’s trust.” Donna’s husband, Jim, served as editor of The Standard Lesson Commentary. He remembers how, before publishing his own weekly editorials, Sam would take them to other editors and ask them to suggest any clarifications or improvements. Sam graciously accepted the suggestions of others because he wanted to give the Lord his best.

Dave Faust serves as associate minister at East 91st Street Christian Church in Indianapolis, Indiana, and writes the Application for Christian Standard’s weekly Lookout Bible studies.

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One rainy afternoon when their family was young, Sam and Gwen were returning from a vacation with their boys. An oncoming car hydroplaned on the wet pavement, hitting the Stones’ car head-on. Dave remembers what happened immediately after the sickening crash of shattering glass and crumpling steel.

He Led with Faith and Godliness

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The 4-1-1 On 9/11: How a Terrorist Attack on America Changed Everything by Rick Chromey

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Remembering 9/11 Our 9/11 Journey of Escape and Transformation by Christina Stanton

Current Events

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Making Disciples

On the 20th anniversary of 9/11, we look back with a personal account of the terrorist attack in New York City and how that day brought spiritual transformation. Then we examine how that day has changed our culture over the last two decades and the lessons the church can learn.

Remembering 9/11

TH E 20-Y EA R A NNI V ERSA RY

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OUR

9/11 JOURNEY O F E S C A P E A N D T R A N S F O R M AT I O N

By Christina Stanton

“Get up! Get up!” my husband yelled, “Someone’s bombed the World Trade Center!” I struggled to sit up, but one glimpse of the fear in Brian’s eyes jolted me fully awake. I jumped out of bed and followed him to our terrace. Brian and I had just moved into this apartment only six blocks south of the World Trade Center complex, and our 24th-floor terrace provided a coveted view of the city. Now, we could see thick black smoke rolling from the North Tower. Emergency vehicles raced toward the World Trade Center—lights flashing, sirens blaring. Suddenly, something caught my eye. Looking up over my right shoulder, I saw a plane flying low—too low. With a thunderous, deafening roar, the jet swooped like a hawk between the buildings and banked to the left until its wings were at about eight and two o’clock. We felt, rather than saw, the impact. One moment we were standing on the terrace, and the next we were lying on our backs in the middle of the living room floor.

“A L L A R O U N D U S , PA N I C K E D P E O P L E W E R E S E A R C H I N G F O R A WAY T O E S C A P E T H E C H A O S A N D D E VA S TAT I O N . I S L O W LY B E G A N T O R E A L I Z E W E M I G H T N O T S U R V I V E . ”

Although I was barefoot and still wearing my nightgown, I knew we had to get out of the apartment. We raced down 24 flights of stairs, with Brian carrying Gabriel, our 40-pound Boston terrier. Outside, we joined hundreds of people fleeing the burning buildings. Men in suits and ties and women in blazers and skirts rushed past us. Many were in their stocking feet. Paper and scraps floated through the air. We dodged fire trucks screaming toward the towers as we raced across the West Side Highway. With the towers to the north of us, we headed south—to Battery Park, at the tip of the island of Manhattan. At the edge of the park, I felt a sense of relief; surely the worst was over. Gasping for breath, we finally turned around to get a glimpse of the danger we had been fleeing. The top half of the Twin Towers were engulfed in a black cloud, smoke rising a quarter mile into the bright blue sky. Voices from the panicked crowd floated around us. “This was a terrorist attack.” “More planes could be in the air!” Suddenly, the ground began to shake violently, and I heard a rumble like a freight train. Somehow, I knew what was happening. “Brian, a tower is coming down!” I froze in terror as a mass of something hit me in the face. I felt like someone had thrown a bucket of sticky sand over me: gunk filled my nose and mouth, covered my pajamas, and coated every pore of unprotected skin. I opened my eyes slowly, trying to protect them from whatever was on my eyelids. Brian hadn’t moved, but he looked completely different—like an upright mummy. All around us, panicked people were searching for a way to escape the chaos and devastation. I slowly began to realize we might not survive. I began to silently pray for my mother and to consider my own relationship with Christ. Although I had always considered myself a Christian, I knew I had never made Jesus the center of my life. Physical redemption came to us that day from an unexpected source: a ferry that had joined an unofficial evacuation fleet of boats rushing to the tip of Manhattan to rescue the thousands of people who had been trapped there by the burning, falling towers. We were dropped off in New Jersey, filthy and traumatized and with little understanding of what had just happened to us.

DISASTER RELIEF

RENEWED FAITH

Over the next few days—that stretched into long weeks and then months— friends and strangers offered us comfort and shelter as we faced homelessness and unemployment. Only later did we realize we were also struggling with PTSD.

That simple act of Christian mercy began the process toward restoring my faith in humanity. The weight of injustice I’d been carrying began to lift. I felt less like the world was against me. And I had a new desire to learn more about God.

A good friend advised me to approach Redeemer Presbyterian Church, which had created a 9/11 disaster relief fund, for help with paying the bills that were piling up. I was grateful for her concern but reluctant to ask the church for money.

Within a few weeks, Brian and I attended a service at the church and fell in love with the atmosphere, the music, the people we met, and the message the pastor delivered. We returned each Sunday, eventually making friends, joining Bible study groups, engaging in church activities, and volunteering with outreach programs. All led us into a deeper relationship with Christ.

I identified as a Christian, but my faith was shallow, untested, and compartmentalized. Sporadic church attendance was the extent of my spiritual involvement. I went anyway. When I timidly arrived at the church office, I was greeted warmly and asked a simple question about our experience. I didn’t have to elaborate, but I did. I described how my worldview had been shaken and how I was seriously questioning my previous beliefs that everyone was basically good. As I vented my sorrow and frustration, these Christian women listened intently. They bore witness to my pain and validated my experience. And they cared. At the end of our meeting, I walked out the door holding an envelope with financial help. And something shifted inside of me. I felt hope.

Twenty years after the 9/11 attacks, I remain profoundly grateful that God used his church and its disaster relief work to reach out to Brian and me at our lowest point and bring us into a renewed relationship with him. Over the past two decades, I have learned repeatedly that injustice and suffering will be a constant presence in this broken world. Because of our 9/11 experience, we were molded more into his image, and we enjoy a deeper relationship with him. We have freedom to give away in increasing measure to others as a result. We now live with the assurance that through faith in Christ, we don’t have to fear anything because our brokenness is where he meets us in his strength. 

Christina Stanton is a 25-year licensed New York City tour guide, a longtime resident of the Financial District, and an award-winning author of Out of the Shadow of 9/11: An Inspiring Tale of Escape and Transformation. She and her husband founded a nonprofit called Loving All Nations that helps the world’s poor. /christinaraystanton

@craycrayinnyc

christinaraystanton.com

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BY RICK CHROMEY

THE ON H OW A T ER R O R I S T AT TAC K O N A M ER I C A C H A N G ED E V ER Y T H I N G

American generational history is defined by marker events. Terrible assassinations. Catastrophic disasters. Tragic failures. Bloody wars. Economic depressions. From Bunker Hill to Gettysburg to Vietnam, America has been shaped by Thomas Paine’s “the times that try men’s souls.” For those born in the last half of the 20th century, no event proved more horrific than the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. That moment was our generation’s “Pearl Harbor.” In its wake came transformational change in how America socialized, worked, learned, played, and churched. In telephone vocabulary, 9-1-1 is an emergency assistance call. So it’s strangely fitting that September 11, 2001, sounded a wake-up call to our national institutions. Every fabric of American life was changing.

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Over the next two decades our political affinities solidified into “red” and “blue” partisanship. Prior to the contentious 2000 Bush-Gore presidential election, the national media used “red” and “blue” interchangeably. Tim Russert of NBC News changed all that in 2000 when he began using the terms “red states” and “blue states.” In the past 20 years, American social institutions and clubs—from the Elks to Rotary to Toastmasters—have aged, stagnated, and declined in membership. Masonic lodges have declined over 50 percent. As one Mason lamented a decade ago in Ethos magazine, “People just aren’t interested in what the Masons represent anymore.” The American church also stagnated and declined as the millennial generation graduated from high school and bade farewell to church. According to Gallup, 70 percent of Americans attended a church, synagogue, or mosque in 1999. In 2021, for the first time ever, religious service attendance was below 50 percent. Church membership has plummeted 20 percent since 2000 while “non-affiliation” soared from 8 to 21 percent, according to Gallup. The American church can no longer deny the decline or disconnect.

REIMAGINING AMERICA Three buildings were attacked on September 11, 2001. And from the rubble of steel and concrete, three clear, transformative “3D” shifts have risen in America. The American church, in particular, needs to heed these three innovative swings. In my book GenTech: An American Story of Technology, Change and Who We Really Are, I argue how technology tattoos generational psyches, and that there has been more technological change in the past 20 years than in the previous two centuries. Since the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center fell, America has experienced the emergence of tablet, touch screen, mobile, wireless, streaming, and cloud technologies. We’ve embraced Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and other social media. We’ve shifted our lifestyles to “smart” technology (phones, doorbells, televisions, speakers). We now “Google,” “Alexa,” and “Siri.” Robots, drones, holograms, self-driving cars, Sling, Uber, and Zoom have become culturally mainstream. The times have changed . . . fast. And it’s in this new 3D culture we live.

D I G I TA L The attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., exposed a rising post-analog culture. In the wake of September 11, America comfortably adopted new digital formats. In fact, only weeks after the attacks, Apple released the iPod—a digital music player that became the season’s top Christmas present. In 2007 Apple unveiled the iPhone, which revolutionized communication. Three years later the iPad transformed learning, gaming, and information technology. Church, do you have an “app for that”? In 2004, Facebook reimagined “friendship.” Two years later, Twitter microwaved communications into 140 characters (at that time). Social media introduced a new lexicon: meme, tweet, viral, and troll. Digital photographs transformed boring text websites into imaginative visual spaces. In 2012, digital eventually bankrupted Kodak, which resisted cultural change (despite Kodak inventing the digital camera). COVID-19 exploited this digital culture. We quickly shifted to shop by app, gather by Zoom, interact by FaceTime, and church by livestream. In a post-COVID-19 culture, the digital church has distinct advantages. In fact, the coronavirus freed the American church to explore community in other spaces. A Zoom small group. Streamed worship. Instructional teaching through YouTube. Bible study on Facebook Live. My post-virus life group features a “Zoom” cohort. We improved how we gathered. The churches with the best success in reaching the under-40 crowd are immersive in the digital culture. It’s not a fad or temporary trend. The digital culture is here and churches who refuse to embrace it might soon experience their own “Kodak moment.”

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DIVERSE A second transformative shift in the past 20 years has involved diversity. The attacks in 2001 opened up our perceptions and prejudices, first in how we viewed Islam but eventually to other cultures, lifestyles, and worldviews. America transitioned from a monochromatic universe into a marbled, colored multiverse. We had little choice. The U.S population exploded by 50 million people, from 281.4 million to 331.4 million, between 2000 and 2020. Americans were also on the move. Neighborhoods shifted. Communities changed. Regions transformed. In 1970, the legal immigrant population in the U.S. was 9.6 million. Between 2000 and 2019, it grew from 31.1 to 44.9 million. By 2013, according to researchers, three out of four immigrants arrived from Mexico, Latin America, or Asia. According to Statista, the non-Hispanic white population is expected to drop under 50 percent by 2060 (it was 80 percent in 1980). Meanwhile, the number of Hispanic Americans will increase from 17.8 to 27.5 percent, Asian Americans will rise from 5.7 to 9.1 percent, and Black Americans will go from 13.3 to 15 percent. The bottom line is this: America is becoming more colorful. But we’re also diversifying in other ways. Consider the “blended” American family. According to the 2020 census, Americans are waiting longer to marry, cohabitating more, and having fewer children. The rate of divorce was 14.9 per 1,000 marriages in 2019, the lowest rate since the mid-1960s. The rise of LGBTQ+ families in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court allowing same-sex marriage in all 50 states in 2015 is notable. More recently, transgender and nonbinary gender identification posted headlines. While America is growing more diverse, evidence suggests the church (as well as other religious groups) is not. The great American melting pot has truly become a salad bar . . . at least for the religious. While there are exceptions, particularly in urban areas, most Americans attend a church, synagogue, or mosque that mirrors their ethnic culture. Diversity creates difficulty for homogenous churches, especially in neighborhoods that no longer reflect their ethnicity or culture.

DECENTR ALIZED The internet decentralized everything it touched. Back in September 2001, Americans still mostly shopped at malls (not Amazon). We found dates and marriage partners through local contexts (not eHarmony). Most people conducted research at libraries (not by using Google). And until COVID-19, we attended church at an address (not online). In a flat (decentralized) culture, every person has a voice, space, and opportunity. YouTube made us filmmakers and news producers. SoundCloud gave us a microphone. Twitter afforded a platform for the “nobodies” to acquire followers. Have you heard of Ryan’s World? This 9-year-old YouTuber started off reviewing toys and now has about 30 million subscribers and almost 50 trillion views. All the rules have changed in our brave new world. The mission field has come to our door . . . or rather, our computer screen. Decentralization isn’t without consequence. When everyone has a voice, it makes it harder to know what’s true. Just because a narrative is socially popular doesn’t make it ethically right or historically accurate. Social media has hijacked information and weaponized truth. Decentralized culture embraces subjective truth and reimagines morality through popular opinions, feelings, and experiences. Any contrarian idea is considered “hateful” or “phobic” or “fake news.” It can even get you “canceled.” In a pre-2000 culture, mass communication through mass media to reach the masses was effective. On the day New York and Washington, D.C., were attacked, Americans largely tuned into television, though younger adults were surfing news sources on the internet. Today, television is our last choice for news. We get our information virtually, instantly, and 24/7/365. Similarly, the vast majority of Christians, particularly those under 60, now read their Bibles through online portals. They learn by Christian podcasts, videos, and blogs. They attend multiple livestream worship services. They communicate through email and text. They gather on social media. A decentralized web culture makes all that happen.

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In the coming years, historians and sociologists will likely bookend the early 21st century by two events: the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the COVID-19 pandemic. Will this period be the genesis of revival for the American church or her final hurrah? With the baby boom generation—the last American “church” generation— fading into history, many congregations are rapidly graying. The time is ripe for fresh models to embrace a digital, diverse, and decentralized culture. Can we become more interactive, visual, nimble, and accessible without relinquishing truth? I believe so. It’s why 9/11 matters. It’s the day everything changed. 

Dr. Rick Chromey is the founder and president of MANNA! Educational Services International and the author of GenTech: An American Story of Technology, Change and Who We Really Are (Morgan James, 2020). rickchromey.com

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Making Disciples

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<sidebar> Pressing Need, Practical Help Back to the Drawing Board: How to Lead a Church Built Around Making Disciples (No Matter the Cost) by John Whittaker

Current Events

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A Posture, Not a Program by Mark A. Taylor

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A POSTURE, NOT A PROGRAM

REACHING OUR WORLDS WITH THE GOSPEL TODAY DEMANDS THAT WE THINK AFRESH ABOUT OUTREACH by Mark A. Taylor

"Outreach means more—so much more!—than making insiders out of outsiders. Outreach is more—so much more!—than attracting larger crowds to our buildings."

Through the years, churches with an eye toward the lost have taken noble strides to reach them. Often they have mounted special efforts (think revival meetings, youth crusades, a week—or even two!—of VBS). Sometimes they’ve revamped their approach to make their church more appealing to the secular community around them: They’ve made their worship style more contemporary. They’ve trained hospitality teams so visitors will feel welcome at weekend services. They’ve offered electives on parenting and finances and other topics to meet current needs. But after speaking about outreach with seven leaders in growing churches, I’ve come to understand that outreach means more—so much more!—than making insiders out of outsiders. Outreach is more—so much more!—than attracting larger crowds to our buildings. In fact, biblical outreach isn’t primarily about our congregations at all. Outreach is about pointing people to Jesus. And for us to succeed at our task of making disciples, effective outreach today will begin outside our buildings with those who would never consider visiting us there. “We can’t put all our eggs into the basket of getting people to come to church as a first step,” said Ben Cachiaras, lead minister with Mountain Christian Church, a megachurch multisite congregation based in Joppa, Maryland. “We must focus on being mission driven, not members driven or maintenance driven or me driven. Churches must ask, ‘Are we actually reaching people and making disciples out of people who weren’t disciples? Are we reaching non-Christians or just the “dechurched”?’” How does this happen? The input from all seven leaders I interviewed informed and energized a handbook for outreach volunteers I put together for Church Leaders Press, book-publishing arm for Outreach (see sidebar) last year. The passion and perspectives of those leaders can energize all of us to seek a biblical model for reaching those outside Christ today.

EVANGELISTIC “Our God is a missionary God,” Cachiaras said, quoting Luke 19:10 (Jesus came “to seek and to save the lost”) and John 20:21 (“As the Father has sent me,” Jesus said, “I am sending you”). “Jesus cared for lost people more than anyone who has walked the planet.” If we want to look more like Jesus, he said, concern for the lost will be our priority. Outreach happens when the church becomes outward focused. David Dummitt, senior pastor at Willow Creek Community Church, South Barrington, Illinois, spoke with me as he was finishing his ministry with 2|42 Community Church, also a multisite congregation, based in Brighton, Michigan. He challenged me to look at how God has called servants to ministry again and again. “Jesus said, ‘Come follow me so I can make you fishers of men,’ not so you can have a better life, find peace, or have your problems solved,” Dummitt said. “God’s call to Abraham was ‘I will bless you so you can bless the nations.’” God created the church to reach the lost.

EVERYDAY This means outreach is not an event, the responsibility of one committee, or the assignment to one staff member. As Dummitt said, “Outreach is our posture, not a program.” The church should think about “sending capacity” more than “seating capacity,” he said. “Get people involved where they live, work, and play.” In other words, eliminate the mind-set that believes all evangelism must begin or end with professional input, at special times, or in the church building. The Lord added to the first church daily those who were being saved (see Acts 2:47)—all without special meetings, committees, or paid staff.

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EM P O W E R E D This happens, Cachiaras believes, when the church learns how to “make missionaries out of everyone who wants to follow Christ.”

But Brian Jennings, lead minister at Highland Park church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, believes something vital comes before training. “We can train and equip our people to death,” Jennings said, and “if they don’t care about the Great Commission, it won’t matter.” Once that passion has been instilled as a result of prayer, preaching, example, and visible congregational priorities, the church does well to set members free to pursue outreach on their own. Mountain Christian told every small group they needed to have a mission beyond just meeting and studying the Bible. 2|42 Church took its marketing budget one year and disbursed it among the church’s small groups. “Here’s $1,000,” they were told. “Go bless the community and invite them to church.” “Our job is to equip the saints,” Dummitt said. “They’re supposed to be sent out. They are the ones supposed to do the ministry. Jesus took a risk when he returned to Heaven and entrusted his followers with the ministry. . . . Jesus trusted us with the mission; we need to trust others, too.” 2|42 bought a Free Stuff Van church members can use for outreach —usually at their own expense. One group bought ceramic mugs and imprinted them with “You’ve been mugged by 2|42 Church.” They filled the mugs with hot chocolate and distributed them to shoppers on a chilly Black Friday morning. One fellow who received this gift visited the church, became a Christian, and eventually served as executive minister on the church staff.

This may involve training. Glen Elliott, lead pastor with Pantano Christian Church, Tucson, Arizona, admitted a time came when they realized volunteer leaders needed help taking others farther along in their faith. So, Pantano offered training.

EXTERNALLY FOCUSED Note that these churches are not sending members two-by-two to knock on doors and leave tracts in local neighborhoods. None of them has invested in bullhorns for street-corner preaching. Instead, they’re discovering and meeting real needs in the communities where they’re located. “Serving is our best apologetic today,” Cachiaras said. “The younger population is asking, ‘What are you doing for good in the world?’ People not inspired by faith at all will be inspired by that.” He encourages churches to look at the community around them (not at what other churches are doing) to discover a need and then ask, “Why don’t we help meet that need?” Before choosing a project, he suggests, Christians should be able to answer yes to three questions: (1) Is this something God cares about? (2) Does the community need it? (3) Do we have the resources? Jennifer Reed, outreach and involvement minister with Mount Gilead Christian Church, Mooresville, Indiana, spent the first three months of her service there with questions like those.

Mountain hosts commissioning services where they hand a small card to everyone attending a weekend worship service. Cachiaras preaches about the priesthood of all believers and then challenges members to commit to one area of their lives where they can be a missionary for Jesus. At the end of the service, he asks members to write that commitment on the card they’ve been given.

“I met with anybody and everybody in our community to discover needs,” she said. Once a church gains a reputation for this kind of concern, opportunities multiply. “Now community members are reaching out to us to tell us what they need.”

Maybe their area is their weekly bridge game, maybe it’s a grandparents’ group, maybe it’s their child’s ball team. They put it on the card and line up at one of several prayer stations around the auditorium. One by one, each member is sent out to be an influence for Jesus in the arena they have chosen.

Other congregations have had similar experiences. Steve Bond, lead pastor with Summit Christian Church in Sparks, Nevada, said, “We believe the more we can do to winsomely represent Jesus in a beautiful way, the sooner people will come to us when they experience crisis in their lives.” Elliott echoes that conviction. “One way we reach non-Christians is because we have an excellent reputation,” he said. “People tell us, ‘We came because there’s a buzz about this church in this town.’”

Never has there been a more pressing need for outreach, but changing times require fresh approaches for reaching spiritual seekers who aren’t interested in the church. I believe this resource, for which I served as editor, will help. Nowhere else will you find a more compact, practical guide for outreach volunteers. The Outreach Ministry Volunteer Handbook begins with sound philosophies and strategies for outreach (many of them from those quoted in the accompanying article). Then it moves on to provide a wealth of helps to instruct and encourage the outreach volunteers at your church: • outreach Scriptures • sample prayers • discussion questions for team meetings • how to organize an outreach team • recommended resources for further needs or particular situations The core of the book is an encyclopedia of outreach projects, 121 ideas to help you take the love of Christ to those all around you: • community events • seasonal events • helping in a crisis • ideas for serving teachers, local businesses, first responders, the oppressed, and underresourced • individual sections with ideas for reaching families, children, youth, millennials, seniors, and those with special needs The book’s introduction says it well: “All these possibilities are based on the real-life experience of Christian workers serving a weary and wary world with the hope only Jesus offers. You can join them, emboldened by the fresh strategies and equipped with the remarkable collection of resources you’ll find in these pages.” Outreach Ministry Volunteer Handbook: Equipping You to Serve (Outreach Ministry Guides), Mark A. Taylor, Editor Find the book at outreachministryguides.com. There you’ll also see a whole library of similar practical guides: Hospitality Ministry, Children’s Ministry, Care and Visitation Ministry, and Prayer Ministry. —M.T.

“I’m head track coach at a public high school,” he said. “It keeps me grounded.” Chambers says he concentrates on intentionally building relationships, one by one. “Some churches do things called outreach,” he said, “but I don’t think it’s really outreach. VBS, for example, isn’t outreach unless workers are building relationships with those kids.” He encourages volunteers to take time to listen to those they’re serving. “It’s so much easier to paint a wall than to sit down with a teacher or student and hear their story,” he said. At the beginning of each group service project, Chambers creates expectation by telling volunteers he’ll be asking them to share the stories they heard when they debrief after the event. “We’re living a bigger story here than just raking leaves,” he said.

EXPECTANT It’s important to remember that this “bigger story” plays out on God’s timetable, not ours. Outreach should be more than “a once-a-year event that makes us feel good about ourselves,” Chambers said. Acts of service lead to conversion growth, but not necessarily when or how we expect. Jennings tells his service volunteers, “Your main goal is to love these people where they are. Maybe they need someone to talk to. Meet their felt need, but be open to what the Spirit may do while you’re there.” Most people asking for help will accept the offer of prayer, he said. “If the moment seems right, take a minute to share the hope of Jesus.” Then be patient with how God will use that interaction in days to come. And in all of this, also watch for what God will do in the lives of those serving. Reed thinks of volunteers when she says, “People are desperate for interaction with other people.” She says service gives them the opportunity to deepen relationships with Christians, and this helps their spiritual growth to continue. Bond is passionate about his congregation’s outreach projects because they “help people to love beyond themselves.” The natural human tendency, he’s observed, is to satisfy self, but “whoever wants to save their life will lose it” (Matthew 16:25). “Our service opportunities give people the chance to counter the flesh in order to give and serve and do,” he said. “It’s almost never convenient. Flesh tugs to the very end.” But the rewards of simple service are great. He said the church’s most meaningful groups are those serving together. And his own service at a Teen Challenge boys’ home “has become one of the most significant personal joys for me in years.” As the Outreach Ministry Volunteer Handbook says, the “ultimate goal” of effective outreach “is to help Christians sacrifice self for the sake of Christ every day,” while remembering these words from the apostle Peter: “But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15). 

Mark A. Taylor retired as publisher and editor of Christian Standard about four years ago. These days he’s writing most weeks at deancollins.co/saturday-posts.

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In all of this, relationships are key, according to Arron Chambers, lead pastor with Greeley Christian Church in Fort Collins, Colorado.

ENGAGED

How to Lead a Church Built Around Making Disciples (No Matter the Cost)

BY J O HN WHI T TA K ER

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer is well-known for penning the book The Cost of Discipleship about what it costs each of us to follow Jesus. In addition to that cost, discipleship—or disciple-making—also costs church leaders who take it seriously. I recently spoke with a lead pastor who serves not far from where I live. Our conversation went something like this: Me: Disciple-making is the mission Jesus gave to the church. Him: I think we need to focus more on evangelism. It seems like all I hear of late is “discipleship,” and [to me] it sounds like “work harder, learn more, go deep.” It sounds like self-indulgent, intellectual superiority.

What Does 'Disciple-Making' Actually Mean?

Me: Discipleship includes evangelism, but it also involves helping people learn to obey Jesus, not just making them Bible smart.

Jesus gave a very clear mission to his apostles: Make disciples (Matthew 28:19-20).

Him: All I see is fellowship and discipleship, and as a result churches aren’t reaching the lost, their doors are closing, and we’re not impacting culture. What we need to do is get back to simply sharing the gospel with people. This illustrates one of the key reasons we struggle to live out the mission Jesus gave us: We don’t understand what Jesus meant by “make disciples,” so we infuse it with our own ideas and then do what we want to do rather than what Jesus commissioned us to do. But Jesus is King, and if we want to be faithful, we’re not free to make up the mission of the church.

And that doesn’t mean make converts (i.e., evangelism). And it doesn’t mean make super-smart-in-the-Bible, ingrown believers (i.e., self-indulgent believers who consider themselves to be intellectually superior). For Jesus, a disciple is someone who has arranged their life to be with a rabbi/teacher in order to become like them (see Luke 6:40). In our case, that means helping someone learn how to be with Jesus as his disciple so they can become like Jesus. And that includes two components: (1) helping unbelievers become believers, “baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” (evangelism); and (2) helping new believers become mature believers who “obey everything Jesus commanded.” That’s disciple-making. That’s the mission Jesus gave us. Jesus meant for that to be the heart of everything we do as churches. Making it the heart of everything we do is a subtle but massive shift, one that we must be willing to make if we’re truly committed to the mission of Jesus. Disciple-making is what we should measure more than anything else. This is what we should celebrate. Discipleship isn’t something we do; it’s everything we do. For that to be true in our churches, we must cultivate a discipleship culture, which I admit isn’t easy.

I received an email from someone working in a youthfocused ministry that addressed this challenge: I currently work in a context where the end goal of my efforts is to help church communities see the value of making disciples, especially of young people. We run into this issue all the time, where the idea of making disciples is relegated to a “part” of what we do, and not “everything we do,” and church leaders end up in serious amounts of dissonance trying to conceive of the wholesale changes to the status quo necessary to lead a church built around discipleship. All of that to ask, how have you found it best to help church communities (1) see the value of discipleship, (2) see it worth every struggle to change their direction, and (3) endure the long road of obedience required to see it through? The heart of the issue for us as church leaders is this: Are we content doing church the way we’re used to and hoping it will somehow produce growing disciples? Or are we willing to go back to the drawing board and figure out how disciple-making can become everything we do, no matter the cost? Again, I want to be clear: Disciple-making doesn’t mean making converts. It includes that, but it is bigger and greater than that. Disciple-making entails helping someone live as a disciple of Jesus so that they become like Jesus. That means helping someone move from outside Christ to inside Christ, and then on to maturity in Christ. As the apostle put it, the aim of all our labor and toil is to “present everyone fully mature in Christ” (Colossians 1:28), until Christ is “formed” in them (Galatians 4:19). This is the mission of the church and the goal of our ministry. Pastors, elders, church leaders . . . since discipleship is everything we do, that means 1. it’s not a piece of your ministry; it’s the whole thing 2. it’s not a program that you tack on to everything else you already do in church; every program is a discipleship program . . . and if not, why do it? 3. it’s not a six-week emphasis once a year or a special event we push to “try to get people into small groups”; it’s meant to happen all the time because it’s (supposed to be) at the heart of all you do Since discipleship was Jesus’ assignment to us, this is the question for us as pastors: Is everything we’re doing helping unbelievers become believers and new believers become mature believers?

How Can We Develop a Disciple-Making Culture in the Church? If you’re thinking, I’ve tried discipleship programs before and . . . I get it. Or if you’re saying to yourself, We already do small groups and do our discipleship through those . . . I know. But, I’m talking about a culture of discipleship, so that your church is like a greenhouse for growing disciples. I’m talking about a culture that makes it normal for unbelievers to become new believers and for new believers to become mature believers. And trust me, I know there are lots of things that make this hard. Making discipleship everything you do is costly. Cultivating a discipleship culture in your church is costly. There’s so much pressure to focus on other things, many of them good. There’s the constant urge to measure success by more obvious things—like buildings, bodies, and budgets— rather than genuine, deep transformation that’s harder to quantify.

And then there’s the messiness of dealing with people. Growing good humans is messier work than leading a great organization. And all of that requires patience. We’ve got to be willing to play the long game. Helping people become like Jesus takes a while. Creating a new culture doesn’t happen overnight. And the most difficult part might be that cultivating a discipleship culture requires change . . . and that change needs to start with ourselves. We must change what we value, what we know and are used to, and how we do church. But most of all, we probably need to change our own character, our own walk with Jesus, and our own discipleship. And change—especially change—is always hard.

deep,

personal,

internal

But we have no choice because we have no other mission than this: Go and make disciples. How can we cultivate a discipleship culture in the church? The No. 1 key is to focus solely on our mission (i.e., “own it”) and begin to evaluate everything we do in light of it. In addition to that, here are a few other suggestions. (I explore these more fully in my free online workshop for pastors and church leaders on this subject; visit discipleshipworkshop.net.) Clarify the path. Too often we think in terms of a discipleship program. What we really need is a discipleship path. A path communicates direction and shows someone where to go. We need a clear path that helps guide people from unbeliever to new believer and new believer to mature believer (not a path that makes them a good church member). We need a path that helps them live and grow as a disciple of Jesus. Train people to practice the “one anothers.” Discipleship always happens through a life-on-life transfer because humans grow best in relational environments. And rather than guessing what that environment should look like or creating our preferred idea of “community,” we’d do best to create a one-another environment, meaning an environment that practices the one-anothers of the New

Focus on growing good humans. So much effort and energy in Christian leadership focuses on growing “churches,” meaning the organization. But the organization exists for the good of the people; the people don’t exist to advance the organization (I think we all know this, but we don’t always act this way). So, the goal of our leadership ought to focus on growing good humans. Jesus described this as helping people become “good trees” who routinely produce good fruit. Our best efforts as leaders ought to be to cultivate a culture where “good trees” consistently grow. Provide opportunities and resources for growth. Our discipleship efforts usually focus on creating programs and events that we put on at our building or under our direct oversight. Instead, once we have a clear path, we need to provide resources and opportunities that will enable people to move down the path and will equip others to mentor and guide people as they move down the path. These are resources and opportunities that can be used at various times and places apart from our building or our direct involvement, so that we can facilitate but decentralize discipleship. In this way, we can equip and release people to make disciples. Here’s the thing: Jesus gave us one mission. Our best thinking, planning, and efforts must go into carrying out that mission. Merely making good church members won’t cut it. We’ve got to make disciples . . . and Jesus said he’d be with us to help us the whole way, no matter how much it costs! 

John Whittaker has been a pastor in two churches and taught New Testament, theology, and preaching at Boise (Idaho) Bible College for 19 years. Currently he equips people to follow Jesus by creating podcasts, YouTube Bible studies, and online courses to help people learn and live the Bible. /johnwhittaker1969 @john.whittaker1969 johnwhittaker.net /JohnWhittaker

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Testament. We need to train people how to practice these skills.

We’re fighting against the busy-ness of life, for us and our people. How do we make disciples when people seem barely to have time to attend church services?

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The Equality Act: Its Impact on Churches and How We Should Respond by Caleb Kaltenbach

Current Events The State of Noninstrumental Churches of Christ . . . Before and After the Pandemic by Erik Tryggestad

Current Events

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The State of Noninstrumental Churches of Christ by Erik Tryggestad

Beforre Befo “ I and AAfter ter f the Pan ddemic emic

don’t want things to go back like they were. I want things to be better.”

Oklahoma minister Randy Roper’s words are echoed by people in Churches of Christ across the nation as they emerge from the global COVID-19 pandemic. Roper preaches for the Edmond Church of Christ in the suburbs of Oklahoma City. The congregation, which was averaging about 1,250 for weekly worship prior to the pandemic, is one of about 12,000 autonomous congregations in the U.S. that seek to share Jesus through the practice of simple, New Testament Christianity without manmade creeds. Churches of Christ share roots with Christian Churches in the Restoration or Stone-Campbell Movement. Even before arrival of the virus in the first few months of 2020, Churches of Christ were declining numerically in the United States. In the past decade, the number of adherents (baptized believers and their children) in the pews had dropped nearly 10 percent to 1,425,836, according to research by Carl Royster of 21st Century Christian, a publishing ministry associated with the fellowship. Added to that were the stresses of the pandemic, which restricted in-person

gathering for a cappella worship—a staple in most Churches of Christ. As churches shut their doors and moved services online, congregations endured hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19. “I don’t know that anyone can understand the impact that [the virus] has unless they have lost a loved one,” said Lynn Jones, a member of the Church of Christ in Farmers Branch, Texas. Her father-in-law, brother-in-law, and cousin all died from COVID-19. As for coping with the profound sense of loss, Jones said, “I don’t know how people do this without God.” Now (as of June 2021), as case numbers drop and vaccination rates rise, members are returning to the pews, based on their states’ guidelines. On the West Coast and in New England, many congregations continue to meet virtually. In Tennessee and Texas, two epicenters among Churches of Christ, many have resumed in-person, mask-optional services. “This whole experience has brought home how much we need each other,” said Lawana Perrault, a member of the Jersey Village Church of Christ in Houston. “I miss my brothers and sisters who have not returned yet. I want to see all of them at services.”

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‘What is Worth Keeping?’ But will the people return? That’s the question on the minds of many ministers, elders, and members of Churches of Christ, according to a recent online survey conducted by The Christian Chronicle, a newspaper that serves the fellowship. Uncertainty about a bounceback in attendance, paired with the declining numbers that preceded the pandemic, has many church members rethinking their in-person services. As Sarah Stirman, a member of the Greenville Oaks Church of Christ in Allen, Texas, put it: “What is worth keeping?” In addition to robust, four-part harmonies, Churches of Christ have been known for their adherence to a regular schedule of three main activities per week. In addition to Sunday morning worship—with weekly Communion— many Churches of Christ host a smaller Sunday evening worship gathering that allows those who were unable to attend Sunday morning to take Communion. Churches also host Wednesday evening Bible study. Those evening activities, which some Churches of Christ already had eliminated due to declining attendance, disappeared almost entirely during the months of closures, though many congregations posted Bible studies and children’s activities online throughout the week. The pandemic presented churches with a sort of “reset button,” and members such as James Prather of the Southern Hills Church of Christ in

“

Abilene, Texas, ponder whether or not services that were ailing in attendance pre-pandemic will return. A more immediate concern for churches that have reconvened in-person Sunday worship is whether to resume passing Communion trays. Most congregations either ask worshippers to bring their own supplies—unleavened wafers and fruit of the vine—or else provide disposable Communion kits, which have less-than-affectionately become known as “rip and sips.” As a result, Communion has a “less communal feeling,” Prather said, though “I’m not sure how it can be avoided, given the circumstances.” “The pandemic has forced us to be socially distant,” he added, “and that affects our worship practices as well. What this really highlights to me is that, when fundamental parts of our worship practices break due to external circumstances, we need to be rethinking what and how we’re doing it if we want our services to stay both personally and communally meaningful.” In a post-pandemic world, Churches of Christ “need an attitude of pressing forward, not going back,” said John Dobbs, minister with the Forsythe Church of Christ in Monroe, Louisiana. For example, many preachers have become adept at preparing digital services, Dobbs said, “and to give up that online presence would be a huge mistake.”

A Simpler Church In many ways, the COVID-19 pandemic flipped the conventional wisdom of church growth on its head.

For Churches of Christ, which seek to emulate the first-century church, house churches have a scriptural appeal.

Worship services at megachurches became super-spreader events, too dangerous to attend. But the majority of Churches of Christ in the U.S. have 100 members or fewer. Declining, rural congregations that meet in facilities much larger than what they need suddenly had the ideal setup for socially distanced worship. Many of these congregations broadcast their services on Zoom or Google Meet and were able to reconnect with members in senior care centers and former members who had moved away. Meanwhile, larger, urban congregations conducted Bible class activities online. Some divided into groups of two or three families and met in homes. “Small groups are having an interesting resurgence,” said Jeff Walling, who directs the Youth Leadership Initiative at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. “More and more people are asking the question, ‘Is this more what God intended than 1,000 of us all standing in an auditorium, all staring in the same direction?’” And some are asking, “Why have a church building at all?” In the early days of the pandemic, Matt Dabbs was recording a sermon for the Auburn Church of Christ in Alabama, where he served as minister. If the 400-member congregation couldn’t meet in a building, he thought, “what about 10 to 15 in our yard?”

Backyard Church was born. It began as an outdoor gathering of a few families from the minister’s subdivision, spaced apart and masked. A few were members of Dabbs’s congregation. Most weren’t. After the initial closures lifted, the members of the Auburn Church of Christ returned to the pews. But Backyard Church kept growing, and in October 2020 Dabbs made the prayerful decision to step away from the pulpit. He now focuses on Backyard Church full time in addition to his duties as editor of Wineskins, a faith-based publication. The congregation is determined to not buy a building, he said. Instead, Backyard Church may plant new churches that multiply across the backyards of east Alabama. The pandemic has taught them not to cling too tightly to future plans, Dabbs said, and to be open to the opportunities God provides. For Churches of Christ, which seek to emulate the first-century church, house churches have a scriptural appeal. “I think the first-century church often followed the home model,” said Kenneth Fatula, an elder of the 50-member Berwick Church of Christ in Pennsylvania. “It seems that larger congregations must be careful to identify members by name as individuals, not just as numbers and revenue sources. “I think it’s time to evaluate what constitutes assembly and why we do it,”

Fatula said. Churches do not “gather to worship,” he added, but are instructed to “live lives of worship,” as the apostle Paul urged in Romans 12:1.

Redefining ‘Church’ Ben Pickett remembers when churches measured the success of a ministry event primarily by the number of people who showed up.

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Uncertainty about a bounceback in attendance, paired with the declining numbers that preceded the pandemic, has many church members rethinking their inperson services.

Now, “if the event happens, it’s a win,” said Pickett, executive minister for the West Houston Church of Christ in Texas, which averaged 700 worshippers on Sundays prior to COVID-19. “In many ways, we’re like Israel in the wilderness,” Pickett said. Questions about the long-term effects of vaccines on church life and the emerging new normal are hard to fathom. “We don’t know where this thing is going to end,” Pickett said, “but we know that God is leading us.” One benefit of the pandemic might be that it has forced Christians to rethink what the word church means, said Jessica Knapp. “I don’t think we will ‘go back’ to church the way it was any time soon—and I think that is potentially a good thing,” said Knapp, associate campus minister for Ambassadors 4 Christ, a campus ministry in Tucson, Arizona.

each other for a quick bite on Sundays, or are we a community that shares life together, sees one another, and communicates in multiple modalities across platforms, regularly and often?” As they ponder changes and mourn losses, members of Churches of Christ see the Lord at work through the tragedies and trials of the pandemic. “Things may never be back like they were, but it was God’s will, and in some ways that’s what we need,” said Viveca Thompson, a member of the Church of Christ of Sweet Home in Little Rock, Arkansas. Speaking to her brothers and sisters in the faith, Thompson said, “Sometimes, Church of Christ people, God has to get our attention. And he got the whole world’s attention.” 

Students who took part in church “out of habit” may not return, she said, but those “who need Jesus and know it, will be in the group, stronger and more connected than before.” Knapp added, “I see the need to redefine what it means to be a church. Are we a family who see

Erik Tryggestad serves as president and CEO of The Christian Chronicle. He and his family worship with the Memorial Road Church of Christ in Oklahoma City, where he serves as a deacon.

THE EQUALITY ACT

BY C A LE B K A LT E N BAC H

IT’S EASY TO SEE HOW THE

E Q UA L I T Y AC T D O E S N ’ T L I V E U P T O I T S O W N N A M E — E Q UA L I T Y.

ITS

IMPACT ON CHURCHES HOW WE SHOULD RESPOND AND

O N M AY 14 , 1 9 74 , A S P U N K Y U. S . R E P R E S E N TAT I V E F R O M N E W YO R K N A M E D B E L L A A B Z U G I N T R O D U C E D T H E F I R S T V E R S I O N O F W H AT W E N O W K N O W A S T H E E Q UA L I T Y AC T. E V E N T H O U G H T H E B I L L WA S C O -S P O N S O R E D BY A N O T H E R N E W YO R K R E P R E S E N TAT I V E A N D WA S R E F E R R E D T O T H E H O U S E C O M M I T T E E O N T H E J U D I C I A RY, T H E B I L L H A D L I T T L E S U P P O R T A N D N E V E R S AW T H E L I G H T O F DAY. F O R T H E N E X T 4 5 Y E A R S , T H E E Q UA L I T Y AC T, I N O N E F O R M O R A N O T H E R , F O U N D I T S WAY B AC K I N F R O N T O F C O N G R E S S .

In 2019, the Equality Act passed the House for the first time. Even though it died in the Senate, the bill returned in early 2021 and the House passed it again. However, the bill is once again all but dead in the Senate. Though President Biden failed to keep his promise to pass the Equality Act in his first 100 days in office, one would be hard-pressed to argue that he abandoned LGBTQ causes. In the first few months of his first term, President Biden appointed Rachel Levine as assistant secretary for health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (the first transgender woman to serve in such a high office), and issued various memorandums, executive orders, statements, and more that demonstrate the Biden administration is an ally for gender identity and transgender issues. As of summer 2021, a White House spokesperson said President Biden “remains committed to seeing this legislation passed as quickly as possible.”

If passed, the Equality Act will amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act (specifically, titles II, III, IV, VI, VII, and IX) to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. The Equality Act contains some good aspects, but there are even more negative elements. In addition to stripping away protection that religious institutions enjoy from the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), the bill would deal a catastrophic blow to women’s rights. In January, Abigail Shrier of the Wall Street Journal lamented the negative impact the Equality Act would have on women’s equality: “Decades of women’s achievement and opportunity rolled back by executive fiat. . . . Women’s rights turn out to be cheap and up for grabs. Who will voice objection?” One organization, Feminists in Struggle (or FIST; feministstruggle.org), issued a blistering statement about the Equality Act. It said, in part, The bill as currently written would eliminate sex as a protected category under federal law—a move that would have dire consequences for the sex-based rights of women and girls. This redefinition would also erase the basis for same-sex attraction, undermining the very protections for sexual orientation that the Equality Act claims to enshrine. . . . By making self-declaration what determines whether someone is considered male or female, the Equality Act would radically remake U.S. law, making gender self-identity the criteria for accessing all female facilities, being housed in female domestic violence shelters and prisons, competing in female sports, representing female people, and defining “same-sex” orientation. The Equality Act would also expand the list of what would and wouldn’t be considered a “public accommodation.” The bill defines “public accommodation” as “including restaurants, senior centers, stores, places of or establishments that provide entertainment, health care facilities, shelters, government offices, youth service providers including adoption and foster care providers, and transportation.” This means “public accommodations” could be interpreted to include religious institutions, thereby making it illegal for them to be misaligned in practice with government regulations regarding sexual orientation and gender identity.

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W H AT WO U LD B E T H E E F F EC T S O F T H E E Q UA LIT Y AC T ?

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CONS Similarly, the bill would also prohibit organizations from stopping transgender men and transgender women from using restrooms, locker rooms, and dressing rooms that aligned with their sense of gender identity. The ability of religious institutions to provide services to their local communities might also be compromised. According to a Religion News Service article, a Jewish organization that provides free and affordable lunches for school children of low-income families claims that it legally wouldn’t be able to continue providing such meals because, theologically, they don’t agree with same-sex marriage. Students at theologically conservative religious schools might be denied federal aid if the school applies its beliefs about marriage to their employment and admissions practices. It’s conceivable those same schools would also lose their accreditation (which is an extension of the government through the Council for Higher Education Accreditation). If such schools lost their funding and accreditation, they wouldn’t be viewed as non-profit anymore. At that point, a school could be interpreted as a for-profit entity and no longer have the religious exemptions they’re currently afforded. It’s easy to see how the Equality Act doesn’t live up to its own name—equality. A spokesperson for U.S. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said, “The Equality Act was a starting point for negotiations, and in its current form, it cannot pass. That’s why there are ongoing discussions among senators and stakeholders about a path forward.” Dr. Douglas Laycock, a professor at the University of Virginia’s School of Law—and a politically liberal supporter of same-sex marriage—also opposes the Equality Act. In 2019, he told the National Review, “[It] is not a good-faith attempt to reconcile competing interests. It is an attempt by one side to grab all the disputed territory and to crush the other side.” In a 2017 book, LGBTQ rights expert and Rutgers University Law School professor Dr. Carlos Ball warned that the culture war progressive activists are fighting actually are eroding First Amendment principles that afforded LGBTQ individuals their rights. Some congressional leaders have put forth compromise bills such as the Fairness for All Act that would safeguard freedoms

for both religious institutions and LBGTQ people in the civil square. However, just as the Equality Act won’t pass the Senate, the Fairness for All Act cannot pass the House. So, why won’t our elected leaders work toward a truly bipartisan legislative solution that would pass both the House and Senate? It’s because, for some Republicans and Democrats, it isn’t about whether the Equality Act passes or not; rather, it’s all about a photo opportunity, a chance to blame others, and adding another component to their re-election bid. Public perception is vitally important to the architects of culture wars. Here’s another catch—even though the bill hasn’t passed yet, versions of the Equality Act could find their way into your state, county, or city laws.

H OW S H O U LD C H R I S T I A N O R G A N I Z AT I O N S P R E PA R E A N D R E S P O N D ?

What should churches, parachurch ministries, Christian colleges, and seminaries be doing? Don’t Shif t Your Theological Views Perhaps the best example of how to walk in this tension is Jesus himself. Jesus attended a gathering of “many tax collectors and sinners” at Matthew’s house without compromising his convictions. He actually told the Pharisees, “Go figure out what this Scripture means: ‘I’m after mercy, not religion.’ I’m here to invite outsiders, not coddle insiders” (Matthew 9:13, The Message). Jesus also affirmed God’s marriage covenant without malice toward others, was gracious and truthful with the woman by the well, forgave the adulterous woman in John 8 and told her not to sin anymore, etc. Living in the tension of grace and truth is both challenging and life changing. Know What Might Be Said About You A person or religious institution that holds conservative beliefs about sexuality (contrary to the narrow-minded metanarrative of the Equality Act) might be accused of being hateful and bigoted.

ISTENT W GRACIOU Those words are already being used to describe (i.e., attack) pastors. Earlier this year, Max Lucado was invited to preach virtually at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. His invitation sparked outrage among progressive extremists. One such individual—an Episcopal Church priest—said, “Max Lucado’s theology has a body count. . . . It feels deeply disrespectful for an Episcopal church . . . to publicize Lucado without any mention of this.” A “body count”? Seriously? As crazy as that sounds, some extremists will accuse more pastors of such villainy. Stay Updated on Ministerial Exemption Even if the Equality Act passes and eliminates the coverage the RFRA provides, religious institutions still have ministerial exemption. Though it’s not as encompassing as the RFRA, it does provide protection for religious freedom, and it firmly lies within the judicial branch, not the legislative branch. Discuss Facility Rentals Similarly, churches that rent out their facilities (or even allow their facilities to be used free of charge) for weddings, funerals, special events, and so on could be viewed as “public accommodations.” In other words, if a church rents out their facilities for weddings, then the church may need to be prepared to rent out their facilities to both opposite-sex and same-sex couples. My opinion is that religious organizations should apply more stringent filters to deciding who can and cannot rent out their facilities. The best-case scenario might be not to rent out any facilities, but I realize the complexities of how this idea flies in the face of reaching out to the community. Many churches (like Eastpoint

Christian Church in Maine, 2|42 Community Church in Michigan, and Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas) already use their facilities in ways that reach out to the community—but it is done under the banner of their organization.

Ser ve LGBTQ People One of the best ways to gain allies and influence people for Jesus is to serve them. Do some research about upcoming events in your communities. Is there a pantry that’s having a “fill the pantry day” for homeless LGBTQ people? Is a medical center having a day dedicated to serving individuals with HIV/AIDS where people from your church could volunteer? In Knowing Christ Today, author and Christian philosopher Dallas Willard wrote that our society is experiencing a tension “between the central things Christians believe and what is accepted as knowledge of reality, [and the outcome of that tension] is the destabilization of belief and practice.” Those words from 2009 seem more applicable than ever before, and yet, churches and Christian educational institutions must be consistent with their theological convictions and gracious at the same time. Even though my tone may seem fear-based, that’s not my intention. Religious institutions must be strategic, but that doesn’t mean they need to be scared. This is not a season to be fearful, but a season which the church can leverage to serve people and influence them for Christ in new ways.  Caleb Kaltenbach serves as research pastor with Shepherd Church in Greater Los Angeles and is the author of Messy Grace and Messy Truth. He also leads The Messy Grace Group where he helps churches and schools love LGBTQ people in grace and truth.

Investing in Leadership BY DOUG CROZIER

Leadership makes or breaks a church. This became even more obvious during the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Leaders had to rapidly deal with major changes. I witnessed firsthand how church leaders reacted, and it was evident those with solid leadership skills led the way. Those who dealt with the issues quickly and communicated wisely came out of the pandemic stronger.

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Leading a church is not easy, and many times it is painful. In his book Leadership Pain, Samuel R. Chand gives us many great tidbits. Here are two of my favorites:

• “Pain is a part of progress. Anything that grows experiences some pain. If I avoid all pain, I’m avoiding growth.” • “Growth equals change; change equals loss; loss equals pain; so inevitably, growth equals pain.” During COVID-19, church leaders experienced change, loss, and pain. Those who remained steadfast in their approach by setting goals and persevering ultimately made it through. Another favorite quote on leadership is from Dr. J. Robert Clinton: “Never trust a leader who doesn’t walk with a limp.” Leaders must suffer pain as they go through wars in order to progress.

Leaders Worth Investing Into We invest in leadership at The Solomon Foundation. Unlike a conventional bank or even most church extension funds, investing in leadership is the main focus of our underwriting process. Yes, consideration of the financial aspects is very important before we originate a loan to a church, but in our system it is secondary. Would you loan money to an organization that has broken leadership? Would you partner with an organization that has major cash reserves but dysfunctional leadership? Or would you rather invest in a dynamic, faith-filled, grounded, and supported leader? Our success as a church lender revolves around building and supporting strong and godly leaders. Based on years of experience, I have concluded the two biggest risks in originating church loans involve neither finances nor high-risk rating but, rather, leadership. It all boils down to avoiding moral failure in the pulpit and leadership meltdown. We teach our team to “go with the goers.” Here are the key criteria we use to evaluate church leadership and recognize and determine which leaders are worth the risk of investing into:

WE WANT TEAM PLAYERS.

WE WANT A HEALTHY AND BIBLICAL ELDERSHIP.

WE WANT TO SEE CONFIDENT LEADERSHIP.

WE WANT TO SEE ORGANIZED LEADERSHIP.

You cannot win a Super Bowl with a few stars. You need a team. Developing the team is a neverending process.

Stronger biblical eldership is paramount to our future. Sadly, many churches today are getting away from this. The church needs to be elder protected to successfully grow.

Confident leaders build trust and integrity in their teams. (And by confident, I do not mean controlling or manipulative.)

Disorganized leadership always results in chaos and problems. A healthy organizational structure allows the body to blossom and grow.

WE WANT LEADERSHIP THAT EVALUATES AND CRITIQUES THEMSELVES. It is healthy for Restoration Movement leaders to provide honest feedback and mentoring to one another.

WE WANT TO SEE A LEADERSHIP WITH REALISTIC GOALS.

WE WANT TO SEE SERVANT LEADERS.

We need to see the church’s plan for the future. I have never been a sandbagger when it comes to setting goals. My motto has been, “Shoot for the stars with big, audacious, godly goals.”

Jesus was the greatest servant leader ever. He balanced truth with grace and led by example.

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