Christian Standard

Mary in the Middle of the Mess

Christmas songs are a genre all to themselves. Many have been written but only some make it to permanent Christmas status—and most of those are quite old. They were published as hymns for hymn books. More contemporary ones like “Walking in a Winter Wonderland” (1934), “The Little Drummer Boy” (1941), “White Christmas” (1942), “The Christmas Song” (1946), and “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” (1949) are more secular in nature. So it’s rare to have a new song that sticks with people and at the same time, communicates the actual meaning of Christmas. Such a song came together in 1991 with words by Mark Lowry and music by Buddy Greene. It’s been covered by Kenny Rogers, Wynonna Judd, Clay Aiken, CeeLo Green, Pentatonix, Jordan Smith, Carrie Underwood, Dolly Parton, and Maverick City Music. The song is, “Mary, Did You Know?”

This haunting and beautiful song is written in a minor key, its magnificent rhetorical questions leaving us to contemplate just how awesome the true Christmas story is. Each concept is so uplifting and powerful, and so

much a part of the story. But is it the whole story? As this song came to mind with the questions it poses, it makes me wonder just how much Mary knew when this story began to unfold in her life.

What did she know? Luke 1:26-38 lays out the biblical narrative. She knew that God favored her and was with her. She knew that God was going to cause her to have a son as a virgin, that his name would be Jesus, that he would be great and called the Son of God, and that he would reign on David’s throne forever. She knew that the Holy Spirit would overshadow her to conceive.

What didn’t she know? She didn’t know what Joseph’s response would be. She didn’t know what her parents’ response would be. She didn’t know what the community’s response would be. She didn’t know what it would cost her. She didn’t know she would have to travel about 90 miles in her ninth month of pregnancy. She didn’t know where she would deliver her first child or who would be there to help her. She didn’t

know that she and her baby would have to flee for their lives to Africa. There was much she didn’t know. However, I don’t think that she was so naive that she didn’t know there were going to be hardships, challenges, and pain.

And what was her response? It’s recorded after she had time to think about it and after experiencing some of the early hardships. It would have been before she was showing, but I believe Mary would have been forthcoming with Joseph and her parents. It’s probably why she went to visit Elizabeth, her cousin. It’s recorded in Luke 1:46-55 and has been called The Magnificat because of the translation of the first line, ”My soul magnifies the Lord.” Her words reflect her obvious emotion. She is full of joy. And why? She tells us. God has chosen her. He understands her humble circumstance but has exalted her. She sees herself from an eternal perspective referring to “all generations” and views her circumstance as a “great thing” for her! She concludes with a flurry of praise for God as evidenced by all the good things he has done.

Mary’s self-reflection raises the question of how we interpret the circumstances of our lives. Unlike Mary’s situation, much of the hardships, challenges, and pain we endure are of our own doing or that of the people around us. Much of Mary’s hardships would come from the people around her, but she kept her focus on how God viewed her. It begs the question; how much of our attitude comes from how God views us, how much comes from the viewpoint of others, and how much from how we view ourselves?

Thankfulness and gratitude are choices, and Mary demonstrated great strength in making her choices, which must have been at least one reason why God favored her. She was truly a person who kept her eyes on the upper story instead of being dragged down into the lower one. Thankfulness and gratitude are choices for us as well. I’m sure there are plenty of reasons we might give for bitter or discouraged hearts, but could it be that we are choosing not to concentrate on the good

things God has done and continues to do for us?

Mary was consistent in her choice too. When the wise men came to pay homage to her son, the Bible says that “she treasured all these things in her heart.” She could have blamed the wise men for placing her and her son in danger, but she didn’t. I’m sure the expensive gifts were used to fund their journey to Egypt, which she saw as God’s provision and protection for her and her family.

When Jesus was presented in the temple, an old man named Simeon told Mary that a sword would pierce her soul. Mary knew there were tough times ahead, but she had no idea just how tough they would be. There is a consistency in Mary throughout her life, whether becoming a widow and single parent, watching the brutal torture and death of her son, receiving him back from death only to watch him go again, or leaving her country later in life to go to a foreign land. No matter what happened, Mary remained locked on the upper story and the faithfulness of a God who always keeps his word.

I doubt if any of us have had to endure the difficulties Mary did. She was truly in the middle of the mess, but only from a certain point of view. What’s your point of view today? Think about all that God has done for you, what he has given you, and what he has called you to. There’s no doubt that there will be messes, but we can choose to lift our eyes above the mess to see that God has something better for us. 

@_jerryharris /jerrydharris

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Reasons to Be Grateful

While I enjoy the work our team does with each issue of Christian Standard, I take a special delight in the time and effort we invest in the final issue of the year. Our November/December issue incorporates two of my favorite holidays. The opportunity to focus on Thanksgiving and Christmas at the same time is a true joy.

As you read this issue, you’ll find that we’ve taken great care to focus on three unique events that take place in the months of November and December. As we’ve developed this focus, we’ve taken our major theme, Gratitude, and added three subthemes to support it.

• Missions: An expression of gratitude to God for our salvation.

• Thanksgiving : An expression of gratitude to God for our material and spiritual blessings.

• Christmas: An expression of gratitude to God for Jesus Christ and the hope he brings.

Missions

Our Missions subtheme honors one of the great annual gatherings of Christian Churches and Churches of Christ, the International Conference on Missions (www.theicom.org). For more than three quarters of a century (since 1948) ICOM has been bringing together thousands of faithful disciples who are passionate about global evangelism. If you’ve never attended and happen to live in the Midwest, this year would be the perfect year for you to participate in this great gathering. It will be held November 14-16 at the Central Bank Center and Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky.

We’ve asked James Thompson to help us develop our missions theme by writing, “Selecting and Sending: Best Practices for Raising Up, Sending Out, and Supporting Missionaries.” James contacted several churches that have developed solid processes for their missions ministries and shares their practices with us.

Dan Crum ads his voice of experience to our missions theme in, “Missionary Care: Ministering to Those Who Go.” Based on his personal experience on the mission field and his vocational work in providing care to missionaries around the world, Dan offers helpful guidelines to local churches who want to do more for the missionaries they send.

Forty-four years ago, a young missionary named Doug Priest wrote an article for Christian Standard looking to the future of mission work among Restoration Movement churches. We asked Doug to revisit that article, reflect on his projections, and help us think about the next decades of mission work. His article, “The Future of Missions,” helps us understand where we are today and how we can move effectively into the future of global evangelism.

Thanksgiving

As you might imagine, our second subtheme, focusing on Thanksgiving, encourages us to recognize God’s blessing in our lives and thank him for his goodness and mercy. And who better to help us think through this important topic than Wally Rendel, one of the most highly respected and well-loved preachers among our churches? His article, “Putting the Giving in Thanksgiving,” offers a biblical perspective on the importance of gratitude, how gratitude naturally leads us to generosity, and how that generosity can be expressed in our daily living.

Chris Moon wrote “Novel Generosity: Individuals and Churches Who Creatively Share Their Blessings with Others,” to highlight some of the unique ways churches and para-church ministries display generosity toward others. Our hope is that many local congregations will be encouraged by this article to be creatively generous in their own spheres of influence.

In “Well Received: The Importance of Receiving Well the Generosity and Love of Others,” Jerry Harris reflects on Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well in John 4. Jerry helps us grasp the importance of being good receivers as well as givers, accepting with grace and gratitude the blessings others extend to us.

Christmas

Our Christmas subtheme draws attention to the love and mercy of God in sending his Son to save us. In “The Wonder of the Incarnation,” John Mitchell brings into focus the meaning and significance of

Christ’s birth and challenges us to make Christmas a season of joy and worship.

Realizing that Christmas is celebrated around the world, how can we expand our understanding and appreciation of the global impact of Christ’s birth? In “Cross-Cultural Christmas,” Jeff Coon shows us how the birth of Christ evokes gratitude, joy, and worship in our hearts and challenges us to do all we can to help others around the world embrace it and respond to it.

Paul’s doxology in 1 Timothy 3:16 (New Living Translation) brings together all the components of this issue: our gratitude to God for our salvation, our gratitude to God for our blessings, and or gratitude to God for our Savior.

Without question, this is the great mystery of our faith:

Christ was revealed in a human body and vindicated by the Spirit. He was seen by angels and announced to the nations. He was believed in throughout the world and taken to heaven in glory.

His heart filled with gratitude, the apostle Paul wrote about “the great mystery of our faith,” drawing attention to what was previously hidden and now made known. Jesus Christ came to earth in human form, a tiny infant in a lowly manger. As he grew, the Spirit of God empowered him and confirmed his ministry. Angels ministered to him. He suffered death, conquered it, and ascended to heaven to rule and reign at the Father’s right hand, promising one day to return to earth and take us home to live with him forever. And as it was then, so it is today: the good news of the gospel continues to be proclaimed to the nations.

So many reasons to be grateful to our heavenly Father!

Let’s honor God in this season as we give thanks for our blessings, as we celebrate our salvation, and as we take the gospel to the world. 

@shawn.a.mcmullen

/shawn.a.mcmullen

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e 2:effective elders

Elders are Mission

Servant-Leaders

By David Wright

The entire offering will be given to a mission?” That was a question asked during our elders’ meeting as The Creek was nearing the completion of our new sanctuary in 2002. The question was only for clarification, it was not asked in opposition. But, as a relatively new elder, this decision firmly illustrated to me the importance our leadership placed upon the support of missions at Indian Creek Christian Church (Indianapolis, Indiana). That gift provided the funds for the completion of a church building 7,000 miles away in Kherson, Ukraine.

While serving as an elder at The Creek, I was introduced to the leadership of one of our mission partners, TCM International Institute. That introduction would change my life, my family, my heart, and even my vocation. The Lord led me to transition from a secular vocation to one that is sacred, as I was invited to become a part of the staff team at TCM. While on that team, my world view grew exponentially as I developed a desire to introduce the lost of the world to Jesus Christ.

Looking back on the 18 years I served with TCM, I was blessed to develop amazing relationships with leaders of churches, elders, and other ministry leaders. I saw those leaders impress on their congregations the vital importance of missions. A person could simply enter one of those churches and feel the zeal for and commitment to local and global missions. And who often led that charge? The local elders.

Leading the Missions Endeavor

Promoting missions within our fellowship of churches is done in a variety of ways. Faith Promise Initiatives, Mission Moments from the pulpit, short-term mission trips, and guest speakers from mission organizations are but a few examples. These efforts are effective when elder and staff teams urge and challenge individuals in the local church to make missions a vital part of their personal lives.

Moreover, effective mission ministries are multigenerational. I have seen pre-school kids spell bound by accounts of how God is changing lives in other parts of the world and even in their own communities. Personally, I have also seen a 54-year-old elder finally say “yes” to God’s call on his life to go and serve vocationally in missions. That 54-yearold was me 18 years ago and that call of God came as a result of a prayer that I uttered in my devotions the previous evening. The next morning, the Lord clearly called me into a sacred mission to serve him in a new way for which, unknown to me, the Lord had been preparing me for years.

Having served as an elder at The Creek for 25 years, I would encourage elders to impact missions in the local church in these simple ways:

• Have the elder team go on a mission trip together, particularly to one of the missions supported by the church that you lead.

• Pray and fast for your missionaries, perhaps designating the first day of each month for doing so and inviting the entire congregation to join along with the elders.

• Get personally involved with the leadership team of a mission organization, perhaps serving on its board of directors.

• Become more engaged with the missions you support, perhaps supporting one or more of them financially, regularly sending a word of encouragement to one or more of your missionaries via e-mail or text.

Pursuing the Great Commission

As elders, we are charged by Jesus himself to lead the local church in pursuing the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20). This should not intimidate us in any manner, because the Great Commission comes with a Great Companion, for Jesus said, “Surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

There has been no finer servant leader than Jesus, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Jesus called people to serve him then, and he calls people to serve him now. Even elders like me. 

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David Wright recently retired

Who Is More Religious, the Left or the Right?

By Tyler McKenzie

I heard it said recently that we are living through a revival of fundamentalist religion, but the revival is among nonreligious political groups. A revival of religion among the nonreligious. I agree. In our modern efforts to get rid of God and secularize in the USA, we had to find somewhere else to go for leadership, morality, hope, and meaning. We had to find something transcendent that could bring people together. So, politics took on a new religious fervor. Politicians are now our messiahs. Media personalities are our prophets. Political parties are our churches. Political platforms are our gospels.

Christianity hasn’t totally disappeared. Instead, politicians use it: (1) to lure Christians in, (2) baptize their pre-existing party beliefs, and (3) create a sanctimonious sense that “I’m on God’s side!” For example, earlier this year President Trump endorsed the Lee Greenwood “God Bless the USA” patriotic Bible. It was sold for $59.99. Inside this Bible, it includes copies of the Declaration of Independence, the Pledge of Allegiance, and other historic documents. INSIDE THE BIBLE! Right next to Genesis, the Psalms, Paul’s letters, and Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount! To be clear, “I’m proud to be an American,” but I’m prouder to be a Christian. I find it concerning that a kingdom of this world would put their constitutions or declarations inside the Bible. We should be irritable when people add stuff to our sacred book. This is the inspired Word. When people elevate writings of men even close to this level, we ought to call it out and protect the integrity of our faith. Don’t you see what’s going on here? This is political religion. They are using a perversion of the Bible (1) to lure you in, (2) baptize their pre-existing beliefs, and (3) create a sanctimonious sense that “We are on God’s side!”

The left is just as guilty of political religion, they just don’t pander to evangelicals. In an Atlantic article titled, “America Without God,” Muslim journalist Shadi Hamid showed that for 60 years (1937-1998), church membership remained steady in the USA at around 70 percent. Then over the last 20 years, the number dove to below 50 percent. The left celebrated this trend, assuming that less religion would make people more rational in politics. That has not happened. Hamid writes:

If secularists hoped that declining religiosity would make for more rational politics, drained of faith’s inflaming passions, they are likely disappointed. As Christianity’s hold, in particular, has weakened, ideological intensity and fragmentation have risen. American faith, it turns out, is as fervent as ever; it’s just that what was once religious belief has now been channeled into political belief. This is what religion without religion looks like.

Helen Lewis builds on this in a 2020 Atlantic article where she compares protest culture to religion. The article was titled, “How Social Justice Became a New Religion.” She begins quite cheeky, “Quick question. If someone is yelling ‘repent’ at you in the street, are they more likely to be (a) a religious preacher or (b) a left-wing activist?” It’s interesting how Christians always get pinned with the caricature of the “angry street-preacher downtown with a megaphone telling people they are evil and need to repent.” Ironically, it is more common now to find activists, not preachers, doing this!

Lewis argues that younger people are the least religious generation today. That is why they are more likely to be involved in protest culture like what we’ve seen this year on college campuses. When you don’t have a church, you must go somewhere to find “collective effervescence.” This is the sociological term for the emotional electricity people feel from singing, chanting, or worshiping in community. Hamid recalled that after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in September 2020, droves of mourners gathered outside the Supreme Court, kneeling, weeping, and holding “religious candles” with an icon of Ginsburg stamped on them. Hamid wrote, it was "as though they were at the Western Wall.” This is a slicing metaphor. Jews pilgrimage to the Western Wall of the Temple to pray, but also to mourn the loss of their holy space to Islam. When Ginsburg died, it was a time of mourning because many on the left knew they were losing the holy space of the Supreme Court. She would soon be replaced by a conservative judge. Do you see? The left is just as guilty of political religion, but instead of stealing our symbols, they mimic our practices.

“

“Christian” was a different political party, a party of citizens who worked for civic renewal, built strong families, moved the moral compass of their community, served the poor, nursed the sick, shared their wealth, loved their enemies, prayed for their leaders, and cared for the souls of their neighbors; but also a party who had no King higher than Jesus.

The problem with political religion should be obvious. Politicians make big promises but are bad saviors. Political parties make fanatical communities but bad churches. When politics become religion, Christian unity is poisoned and our more meaningful relationships die. As I recently heard Curtis Chang say, we must have the mind of Christ rather than the mind of a partisan (see Philippians 2:5 and the hymn that follows). As the election year reaches its boiling point this November and December, may we meditate on this. “Who is more religious – the Left or the Right?” I’m not sure. But my concern is that both may be more religious than the “Christians.” 

The human heart is made to worship, and when we get rid of God, we have to find something else to give our hearts to. Politics beckons us with open arms. We must resist.

The human heart is made to worship, and when we get rid of God, we have to find something else to give our hearts to. Politics beckons us with open arms. We must resist. Swiss theologian Karl Barth, theologizing about the complicity of the German Lutheran Church with Hitler, once said Christians should be an “unreliable ally” to government. This would be faithful to the example we were given by the earliest Christians.

Jared Stacy, a political ethicist, suggests that the word Christian was first created by Rome as a partisan label. In Ancient Rome, people signaled their political affiliation to a city or a leader in this way. The Augustianoi were the people of Caesar. The Herodianoi were the people of Herod Antipas. The Pompeiianoi were the citizens of Pompeii. The Christianoi were the people of Christ. Stacy argues this label was originally given to Christians by Rome to “other them.” Christian wasn’t a label invented by the church. It was applied to the church by outsiders, then redeemed by the church later. It wasn’t an identification; it was an accusation.

about the author

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

horizons

Uncharted International Charts

New Territory

By Laura McKillip Wood

I saiah* was a well-known, highly respected leader and researcher of Islam from the Shiite tribe, with a prominent family lineage descended directly from the prophet Muhammad. To enhance the strength of his teachings of Islam, Isaiah found himself wanting to research “the book of the enemy,” the Bible. One night, he downloaded the Bible app on his phone, read the words of Jesus in the New Testament, and was terrified. He read some revelations about Jesus that were not in the Quran and began feeling conflicted. He deleted the app.

That night, Isaiah had a dream he was in the time the Bible was written; the words of Jesus burned in his heart. When he awoke, he created a false Facebook profile to try to find a pastor who would answer his anonymous questions. His search went on for an entire year. When Isaiah studied the John 4 passage of the woman at the well, it all became clear. To Muslims, water holds great significance; it is the most important element on earth. When Isaiah read the words Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman, that he is the living water, something clicked in him. He gave his life to Christ. He also led his wife and sons to Christ. Because of their esteemed position in the Shiite tribe, they had to flee their country.

Now Isaiah has traded his former research and teaching of the Quran for studying the Bible and teaching it to his own people, who are also refugees. He is a staple at the community center run by Uncharted International in North Africa, where many refugees from all over the world gather. In the past, he had dreams of people praying for him and his people, but he could never understand what language they were praying in. Now when he meets believers from other countries, he understands these faces represent the praying people from his dreams. “In the past, all I could see was darkness, now all I see is life,” he exclaims.

Unreached, Overlooked, and Forgotten

“At Uncharted, we focus on locations that are unreached, overlooked, and forgotten,” says Ben Stewart, CEO of Uncharted International. Uncharted identifies places in the world that are underserved and have a low response to the gospel. Uncharted looks specifically for places that not only have little or no access to the gospel but are hostile to Christians.

Uncharted then identifies nationals in those countries who are already doing good work, going boldly into their communities to spread the gospel and reaching out to meet the needs of those around them. They refer to these nationals as field partners. Uncharted now has field partners in Southeast Asia, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and North Africa. Uncharted helps accelerate

the discipleship movements and church planting already happening in these areas, further empowering local people to reach out to their communities.

Uncharted officially began in 2010 in southern Indiana. In 2016, under the new leadership of Ben and Kathy Stewart, there was a significant relaunch and refocus on the primary goal of accelerating kingdom movements in parts of the world that are unreached and overlooked.

“Since the relaunch in 2016, Uncharted has seen exciting growth, both internationally and domestically,” Ben explains. “It is now serving in five unique locations, with a vision to be present in 10 unique locations in this first phase of growth, coming alongside 150 field partners.” Each community where field partners work includes outreach and discipleship, humanitarian efforts addressing tangible needs of the local community, and leadership development. The field partners look for ways to meet the people’s needs and build community with them, building relationships and trust that can last a lifetime. They also share their faith with the people in that community.

Partners Across the World

useful trade, earn a good income, find dignity and hope for a future, and hear about the love of Jesus. As a result, 11 underground churches have started. Obviously, this is a dangerous endeavor for believers and the females they serve, but they are willing to take this chance to serve Jesus and meet the needs of their community. Church partners in the United States support these Christians prayerfully and financially. In turn, the example set by the Central Asian Christians encourages and inspires their American partners.

These ministries are just two examples of the work being done by Uncharted International and their partners around the world. To learn more or become a partner, visit their website at https://www.unchartedinternational. org/who-we-are or email Ben and Kathy Stewart at info@ unchartedinternational.org. 

*Names have been changed for security reasons.

“ We don’t have a model, we have relationships.

“We don’t have a model,” according to Ben and Kathy, “we have relationships.” In addition to supporting field partners, Uncharted is passionate about unleashing God’s people from the western church into global mission. They connect the local church, who they call church partners, with the global church, the field partners. Uncharted’s church partner network includes over 20 partner churches. Ben explains, “Our church partners support our field partners, and our field partners challenge and equip our church partners to live out God’s mission right where they are. We all have the same mission—to see God’s kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.”

Education for Central Asian Women

Some Central Asian governments have passed laws that greatly restrict the freedom of women in their countries. As a result, women have been banned from obtaining an education. Even little girls are prohibited from going to school. Seeing this injustice and the negative effect it has on the economy and culture of the country, as well as on the well-being of women and children, believers began underground schools for women. Angar*, one of Uncharted’s field partners, and a network of brave Central Asian people lead two underground schools with around 300 female students who would otherwise be barred from having any type of education. In addition, these partners have started 4 branches of sewing programs where women learn a

about the author

/laura.wood2

@woodlaura30

lauramckillipwood.com

lauramckillipwood@gmail.com

Laura McKillip Wood, former missionary to Ukraine, now serves as bereavement coordinator and palliative care chaplain at Children's Hospital and Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska. She and her husband, Andrew, have three teenagers.

Navigating the Journey Toward Love and Respect

By Osharye Hagood

Rudy and I began this journey called marriage without much of a map, and just like the phones in our day, our marriage had no GPS. Back then, all we knew was that we loved each other, it was us against the world, it’s better to marry than to burn with passion, and we could do all things through Christ who strengthens us.

I still think that’s a pretty good start. And with that, we were on this journey and navigating its complexities with purpose, passion, our hope in Christ, and our good intentions. As it was then, and remains to be to this day, our primary tools are our communion with God and our communication with one another. Our communion with God revealed that God calls husbands to love their wives, and for wives to respect their husbands. However, we learned quickly that just as travelers need varied tools to find their way, we needed varied tools to help us know each other better so that we could love and respect one another well. The tools of value for us were personal assessments, personality tests, gift assessments, and readings. Marriage is often described as a journey; a journey two people embark on together, hoping to build a life filled with love, joy, and mutual fulfillment. One way to enhance the journey is to get to know one another well.

Personal Assessments

Personal assessments have served as a regular checkup for our marriage, much like routine maintenance for a car. In full transparency, we were separately learning about ourselves through the personal assessments we took, either out of personal curiosity or due to job requirements. Tests such as Strength Finders and DISC are excellent examples of personal assessments that can provide insights into our strengths and behavioral styles. As we received our results, we were excited to share them with each other, partly to see if the other agreed with the findings. This often led to the other person taking the same assessment. By regularly evaluating the state of ourselves, we could see how this added to our relationship. Learning more about each other helped us identify areas that needed improvement and allowed us to celebrate one another’s strengths. Personal assessments help couples stay aware of each other’s needs, feelings, and changes over time, ensuring that small issues are addressed before they become significant problems.

Personality Tests

Although similar to personal assessments, personality tests differ because they focus on identifying inherent traits and tendencies rather than skills or behavioral styles. These tests, such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the Enneagram, help partners understand each other’s inherent traits and tendencies.

Learning that Rudy was an introvert who thrives on connections (networking), and that his strengths and gifts awaken and shine when he is among people, was a game-changer for me. Knowing his personality type improved our communication, reduced misunderstandings, and fostered empathy. In plain language, I got mad at him less. For example, Rudy’s introversion and my extroversion sometimes led to arguments. Personality tests helped us find ways to balance social activities and personal time that respected each of our needs. I understood better that once the party was over, Rudy, “Mr. Social,” needed about 30 minutes of “alone time” when we got home. This was very different from my preference of coming straight in and beginning again with my full blast extroverted energy, excited to debrief the day.

A study titled, “Big Five Traits and Relationship Satisfaction: The Mediating Role of Self-Esteem,” by Mund, Finn, Hagemeyer, and Neyer (2018), published in The Journal of Research in Personality, examines how the Big Five personality traits (neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, and openness) influence relationship satisfaction through the mediation of self-esteem. The research suggests that understanding each other’s inherent traits and tendencies is crucial for relationship satisfaction.

Reading Together

We were also helped by reading books on marriage together. As a result, we learned not only that our personalities are different, but also our inner languages are distinct. Rudy learned to speak Osharye’s language, and I learned to speak Rudy’s language. Speaking to one another with the help of Gary Chapman’s Five Love Languages helped us understand how each of us preferred to express and receive love. Knowing whether your partner values words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time, or physical touch will transform how you express love and appreciation. This understanding ensures that both partners feel valued and cherished in the ways that matter most to them. It helps married couples respond with skill to the biblical teaching of loving your wife and respecting your husband.

Education is a powerful tool in any endeavor, and marriage is no exception. Reading books and articles about marriage provides couples with new insights, strategies, and perspectives. It’s like consulting a detailed travel guide before embarking on a journey. Literature on marriage offers evidence-based advice, real-life examples, and expert opinions that can help couples navigate their relationship more effectively. Continuous learning and growth are essential for adapting to the inevitable changes and challenges that marriage brings.

Dealing with Setbacks

On any journey, there will be setbacks, moments when things go wrong, such as "blowing a tire” on a journey in a car. In marriage, these setbacks can emerge as arguments, misunderstandings, or other crises. Just like a blown tire is no reason to throw the car away, neither should an argument, a misunderstanding, or a crisis be a reason to throw a marriage away. Instead, a blown tire is cause for calling a tow truck (a crisis counselor) and getting the tire replaced, which might mean using a temporary tire called a donut (trying a different approach for a while). Counseling provides professional guidance to help couples resolve conflicts and rebuild their connection. Trying new approaches, whether it’s communication techniques or ways to spend quality time together, helps to keep the relationship moving forward.

Marriage is a journey that requires more than just love to navigate successfully. By equipping ourselves with the right tools—personal assessments, personality tests, gift assessments, and a commitment to ongoing learning—couples can enhance their journey toward happiness. Setbacks are inevitable, but with the right approach, they become opportunities for growth rather than reasons to give up. Just as travelers rely on maps and GPS systems to reach their destinations, couples can rely on these tools to build a strong, fulfilling, and lasting marriage on our way to loving our wives and respecting our husbands. 

about the authors

Rudy and Osharye Hagood have seven children and nine grandchildren so far. Osharye is a women’s minister who is also certified as both a life coach and a health coach. Rudy is a college professor with a background in social work. They love being married and love to bless both married and engaged couples.

@rudy.hagood

@rudy_hagood_

Explaining the Word, Capturing the Heart

By Chris Philbeck

As I write this column, I am finishing my first full month of retirement. It’s strange, after serving in the local church for 45 years, to walk into church on Sunday and not give any thought to the details of the service. I don’t think about the lights, the sound, or the programming. My wife Sandy and I simply worship the Lord together. It’s been incredibly refreshing.

The church we’ve been attending has been involved in a summer series on the life of David titled, “Imperfect.” We’ve heard three sermons that have been excellent, but one was particularly moving to me. The text was 2 Samuel 6:14-23, the account of David leaping and dancing as he brought the Ark to Jerusalem. The outline for the message examined the story through Michal’s Window (Michal was David’s wife), through Israel’s Window (a historical look at the Ark), through David’s Window (a window into David’s heart of worship), and what the preacher called the Priority Window (a look at the Davidic worship system David put in place as a priority).

Speaking to My Heart

The outline was masterful. It was historic, it was insightful, and it was instructional. But it was the application statements that really spoke to my heart.

• First, music and praise are still indispensable to the way of worship.

• Second, different occasions call for varied but righthearted ways of worship.

• Third, the way of worship is the way back.

I loved the third application point, that as you look at David’s life you see his highs and his lows. You see moments when you are appalled by his sin, and moments when you are amazed by God’s restorative grace. But that restorative grace didn’t happen by accident because the common theme in David’s life, no matter what the circumstance, including his own sin, was that he always returned to God in genuine worship because worship is the way back.

• When David sinned with Bathsheba worship was the way back (Psalm 51).

• When David mourned the death of his child, worship was the way back (2 Samuel 12:20).

• When David’s pride cost 70,000 innocent lives in Israel, worship was the way back (2 Samuel 24:18-25).

Worship was the way back for David and worship is the way back for people like you and me today. As I listened,

I felt tears welling up in my eyes as I remembered different times when worship had been the way back for me; something I have thought about many times since that Sunday morning.

Explaining God’s Word

I’m sharing this story because it serves as a great reminder of the power of biblical preaching. As skillful as the messenger was that morning, the power and conviction came from the clear explanation of God’s Word. The illustrations and stories enhanced the message by making them more relatable and applicable to modern life, but it was the explanation of the Word of God showing the work of God in David’s life that captured my heart. And it reminded me of a quote from Roy Anderson in an article on preaching in Ministry Magazine. He said, “Sermons are not works of art for the purpose of display, but tools to achieve specific results.” In order for this to be true there must be a deliberate emphasis on content. In this message, it was the biblical content that brought the power and conviction; the historical content, the biographical content, and the practical content seen primarily in the actions and responses of David.

“Developing Biblical Content

mark of conviction and change that God wants to bring into the lives of the listeners.

Second, the ongoing consecration of your life is at stake. After 45 years of being a preacher I can say with integrity that the greatest benefit that comes from preaching is the work God does in my own life as I study and prepare. I’m sure any honest preacher would say the same. When you neglect the study and preparation necessary for genuine biblical preaching you neglect your own spiritual growth.

Third, the spiritual health of your church is at stake. Preaching that’s built on style rather than substance or content breeds shallow Christians who are more likely to be, to use Paul’s words in Ephesians 4:14, “tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching….” In short, they have no spiritual foundation.

It's been three weeks and I’m still thinking about that sermon from 2 Samuel 6. And I’m thanking God for the reminder that worship will always be the way back for my life. I’m also thankful for the power of genuine biblical preaching. 

The development of biblical content takes work. It takes time and commitment.

The development of biblical content takes work. It takes time and commitment. And while I know firsthand how busy each ministry week can be in the local church, you have to be committed to carving out and protecting the time necessary for genuine biblical preaching. I will confess that there were times during the last 10 years of my ministry when leading a large church with five satellite campuses ate into my sermon preparation. But I was fortunate to have my son on staff in an associate role to help me in content research. Since he had spent his entire life listening to me preach, he had a unique and personal insight into the way I developed a sermon. This was a great help to me.

You may not be in the position of having someone help you like this during the busy times of ministry. If that’s the case, then be all the more relentless in guarding your time of study and preparation because there is so much at stake. Let me mention three things.

First, the authority of God is at stake. When you don’t have the time (or you don’t take the time) to develop biblical content, whatever you substitute will not only pale in comparison, but it will ultimately miss the

about the author

/PastorCPhilbeck

@cphilbeck

Chris Philbeck retired as senior pastor of Mount Pleasant Christian Church in Greenwood, Indiana, at the end of June. He had served in full-time ministry since 1980. @pastorphilbeck

The Science Behind Giving and Receiving Gifts

By Kent E. Fillinger

Would you rather give a gift or receive one? During the Christmas season, gift giving is anticipated and even expected, but it can present a challenge. We often ask ourselves, “What do you give someone who already has everything?”

While it is not recorded for us in the gospels, the apostle Paul said, “You should remember the words of the Lord Jesus: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’ ” (Acts 20:35, New Living Translation). The act of giving elicits positive feelings and emotions for both the giver and the receiver, making it one of the most important exchanges you can have with someone.

Created to Give

God created us in his image; therefore, we are designed to be generous givers. We are healthier and happier when we give. I love it when secular social science research affirms what we already know from reading the Bible.

Numerous secular research studies have shown that no matter where they live and regardless of their income, age, culture, or even political persuasion, generous people are generally healthier and happier.

According to research by the Greater Good Science Center of UC Berkley, intentional generosity motivated by compassion is strongly associated with better overall health and delayed mortality. Not only that, but people who give of their time have greater selfesteem and vitality.

Studies show that generous givers of time and money suffer less from stress and depression, have better overall heart health and better immune systems, and even live longer. Generosity is also linked to improved psychological health, well-being, cooperation, social connection, and improved physical health, including reductions in blood pressure and lower inflammation levels in the blood.

Research shows that spending as little as five dollars on a recipient can make the giver happier. The joy of giving and receiving is not equated with how much the gift costs.

The opposite is also true. Secular research in the last 30 years confirms what the Bible has always taught. Materialism, which is the practical opposite of generosity, is associated with lower levels of personal well-being, poor health, and even damage to the well-being of others and to the environment.

Psychologist Liz Dunn of the University of British Columbia led a study in which participants were handed

a small sum of money and told that they could either keep the money or give it to someone else.

Unsurprisingly, they found that the more money people gave away, the happier they felt. Conversely, the more money people kept for themselves, the more they experienced shame and heightened levels of cortisol. Cortisol is a link between stress and disease, causing wear and tear on the body. Cortisol may be just the first hint of a kind of missing link between generosity and health.

Endless connections exist between our overall wellbeing and our generosity. It is not a fluke that we feel better when we give. It is the way God designed us, and it reflects how we are made in his image. God wired us for generosity. How cool is that?

“Are We Kinder at Christmas?

I’ve always wondered why people seem to be kinder and more cheerful during the Christmas season. Based on the following research, it’s easy to conclude that it’s because we are actively giving gifts to those we know and care about.

Economist James Andreoni first introduced the “warm glow of giving” theory, which suggests that when we give something to others, it leaves us with a warm fuzzy feeling that persists over time and creates a glow of kindness about us.

We can create this warm glow not just by giving gifts, but by engaging in other acts of kindness, like complimenting others and telling people how much they mean to us. This process can also extend beyond the giver and recipient; when we do something nice for another person, that person may be more apt to pay it forward.

A growing body of research suggests that when we feel close to someone and care deeply for them, we consider that person a part of ourselves, which enhances our willingness to act kindly toward them. And vice versa, when we do something nice for another person, we feel closer to that person as a result.

When we are kind to others, we are, in a way, being kind to ourselves. The psychological term "vicarious reward" suggests that when we witness something positive happening to another person, we vicariously feel that person's pleasure. We can capitalize on this phenomenon and make ourselves happy by doing good deeds for others, including giving gifts.

God created us in his image; therefore, we are designed to be generous givers. We are healthier and happier when we give.

Proverbs 19:6 says, “Everyone is the friend of a person who gives gifts.” Proverbs 18:16 reminds us, “Giving a gift works wonders.”

Givers Need Receivers

The act of giving cannot be complete without a receiver. Allowing yourself to be a gracious receiver is a humbling experience and an act of love because it provides others the opportunity to give. You may need to learn how to receive gifts graciously. Otherwise, you may deprive someone of the joy of giving.

A wise person doesn’t expect gifts but is always willing to accept them when given. Maya Angelou said, “When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed.”

James 1:17 says, “Whatever is good and perfect comes to us from God above.” Since God models generosity and giving for us, it is important that we receive the gifts he has in store for us. The word receive appears 260 times in the Bible.

Here is a brief list of things the Bible tells us to receive from God: mercy, grace, eternal life, the Holy Spirit, life-giving words, new life, the promises of God, the crown of life, salvation, and righteousness that comes by faith.

Giving to God

After the Israelites gave gifts to help build the temple, King David prayed, “I know, my God, that you examine our hearts and rejoice when you find integrity there. You know I have done all this with good motives, and I have watched your people offer their gifts willingly and joyously” (1 Chronicles 29:17).

“

The act of giving elicits positive feelings and emotions for both the giver and the receiver, making it one of the most important exchanges you can have with someone.

We also know from the account of Cain and Abel in the book of Genesis that God examined their hearts and knew the motives behind their gifts. God declared that Abel’s gift was more acceptable than Cain’s. The book of Leviticus often notes that “special gifts” to God are a “pleasing aroma” to him.

Demonstrating generosity writes you into the story of God. Think about the time Jesus fed the 5,000 with a few loaves and fish—and how that miracle sprang from the generosity of a young boy who sacrificed his lunch that day. Or the widow who placed the only two coins she had into the temple treasury. Jesus declared that her generosity was greater than the wealthy people who gave from their excess.

The questions we need to ask: Are our gifts acceptable to God? Are we giving willingly and joyously? Would God speak well of our offerings?

The writer of Hebrews admonishes us to “not forget to do good and to share what you have with those in need, for such sacrifices are very pleasing to God” (Hebrews 13:16).

Here is a parting question for church leaders: If someone in your church died and left the church enough money to totally fund the church’s ministry budget for the next two years, would you still collect a weekly offering from your congregation?

If you hesitated or paused before responding with an enthusiastic yes, then please re-read this article! Giving is not about what God wants from us, but what he wants for us—an abundant life full of joy as we experience the power of giving and receiving gifts! 

STAYING ON MISSION

HOW RESTORATION MOVEMENT CHURCHES ARE SUPPORTING GLOBAL MINISTRY

BY JAMES THOMPSON

O ver the past decade, the Barna Group has released a steady drumbeat of survey results that point to an unfortunate conclusion: the American church is increasingly ambivalent about missions work. One study found that a majority of U.S. churchgoers see participation in missions as “a calling for some Christians” rather than “a mandate for all.” Another poll revealed that over half of American Christians have not heard of the Great Commission. Yet another report suggested that a sizable percentage of younger adult believers think evangelistically sharing their faith is wrong. We seem to be witnessing a worrying decline in witnessing.

It would be easy for the more evangelical segments of the American church to distance themselves from these statistics. After all, these surveys reflect the attitudes of U.S. Christians more broadly. While other corners of the church may have lost their missional edge, not so with us! Specifically regarding independent Christian churches and churches of Christ, we have a record of missionary activity and advocacy that stretches back to the earliest chapters of Restoration history. Our many contemporary missions organizations, programs, and conferences show that this commitment to making disciples around the globe is still a key characteristic of our movement.

We should not assume, however, that we are immune from this problematic trend. It’s possible for any congregation to find itself slipping into Great Commission complacency. Fortunately, it does not have to be this way. There are a variety of dynamic approaches being modeled in Restoration Movement churches that can encourage other congregations to initiate or reinvigorate their own engagement with missions.

FAITH PROMISE

Each fall, Compassion Christian Church in Savannah, Georgia, dedicates two “Faith Promise” Sundays to highlighting and supporting the work of the congregation’s global ministry partners. These partners include American missionaries as well as ministers of other nationalities working in their home countries. Many of these workers temporarily leave their ministry contexts to join the Faith Promise events in person. On the first Sunday, they are often interviewed on stage at one of

Compassion’s seven campuses. They also participate in other gatherings, like dinners and cookouts, that give the church’s members an opportunity to build relationships with the global workers they support. John-Mark Romans, Compassion’s global engagement pastor, cannot contain a wide grin while describing what he calls “the greatest two weeks of our church.”

On the second Sunday, the focus shifts to what the church will do to support global ministry in the coming year. Senior Pastor Cam Huxford preaches a missions-focused sermon before asking church members to pledge a specific amount to support missions in addition to their regular tithing. In the weeks leading up to Faith Promise, Compassion’s leadership encourages each person to pray about what God would have them commit.

“The concept is, when God provides that commitment that you have made, you promise that you will give that back to the Lord specifically through missions,” explained Romans. “It is a commitment you have made in faith, and you promise that you will give this back to the Lord when he provides it.”

Faith Promise is an approach to supporting missions with a long history in Restoration Movement churches. Over the years, many congregations have surprised themselves by giving above and beyond their original goals. However, multiple leaders interviewed for this article said that many churches have moved away from Faith Promise, often in favor of a budget-based approach, meaning that a certain percentage of the church’s general fund is dedicated to missions. Romans believes that this can also be a very effective strategy and says that one model is not better than the other. However, he appreciates how Faith Promise requires Compassion to have “a consistent plan for communication” about missions throughout the year to ensure the congregation’s giving keeps pace with its commitment, which this year was over $2.5 million.

As the name implies, this approach is an exercise in faith, both for the members who make commitments and for church leaders who develop a missions budget based on dollars that have been promised but not yet received. At Compassion, God has consistently provided, and the church has exceeded its Faith Promise goal each year for well over a decade.

IT’S POSSIBLE FOR ANY CONGREGATION TO FIND ITSELF SLIPPING INTO GREAT COMMISSION COMPLACENCY.

REGIONAL CHURCH COOPERATION

While megachurches like Compassion are blessed with sufficient financial resources to fund missionaries’ travel to events like Faith Promise, this sort of engagement would not be realistic for congregations with more limited budgets. It would have been easy for the small, rural, and in some cases struggling churches that make up the Hi-Plains School of Missions to resign themselves to participating in global ministry by simply sending checks. Not satisfied with this, these believers band together to do more. Five churches in Oklahoma formed the school in 1984. The partnership grew quickly, and soon also included churches in Kansas and Texas. Seventeen congregations are signed up for this year’s program.

Vic Peterson, who took over as the Hi-Plains school’s director earlier this year when longtime chairman Marvin Garrison retired, says that the group's purpose is two-fold: First, “to show these small churches in this remote area what God is doing on the other side of the world,” and to show “churches on the other side of the world . . . what God could do with a handful of small churches in a very remote part of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas.”

The school has both an educational and a fundraising component. Each year, several missionaries are invited to be the program’s featured speakers. They come to Oklahoma in October for an orientation weekend before splitting up and heading to their first church visit. Each missionary attends a participating church’s Sunday morning gathering. Depending on the church, a missionary might get to know the congregation during a meet and greet time, give a presentation about their ministry during the Sunday school hour, preach the sermon during the worship service, or all three. After lunch, they set off again to share about their ministry with another church that evening. This continues for three weeks, with the missionaries sleeping in a different town almost every night as they travel the school’s circuit.

Each participating church devotes one week to the school. During their week on the schedule, they host and house the missionaries that come to visit. They also take up an offering for the school, which is divided between the participating missionaries to support their work. (Since its founding, the school has raised over $1.5 million.) It’s a big commitment for a small church, but Peterson says the congregations reap significant spiritual benefits. He describes the experience as “about as good as any revival meeting you can have.”

This face-to-face engagement has often led to strong bonds forming between the congregations and the missionaries who visit them. Some, such as Carrie McKean, have even decided to become global workers themselves. As a child, she looked forward each year to the week when the school’s speakers would visit Hi-Land Christian Church in Pampa, Texas.

“I'd lean forward in my pew, each click of the slide projector taking me further and further away from home . . . [and] closer to a new and wondrous corner of God's heart as I was introduced to more of his beloved children,” McKean recalled.

This exposure to international ministry during childhood “planted the seeds” that eventually led McKean to spend four years serving at an orphanage in China. Now back in Texas, she continues to look for opportunities to build relationships with people from other cultures.

LIVING LINK

While cooperative groups like the Hi-Plains school give churches the opportunity to spend time with several missionaries each year, some congregations opt to put a special emphasis on their connection with one missionary individual or family. In this close relationship, often referred to as a “living

WHILE THE STRATEGIES MAY BE DIFFERENT, THE GOAL IS THE SAME: TO JOIN IN CHRIST’S WORK TO “DRAW ALL PEOPLE” TO HIMSELF (JOHN 12:32) AND TO EXPRESS OUR GRATITUDE FOR HIS SAVING GRACE.

link,” a single church becomes the primary financial and spiritual supporter of a missionary. Often, this person was an active member of the same church before perceiving a call to missions. The church helps them discern and prepare to follow this calling, equipping them for the journey ahead. After settling in a new country, the missionary links the American congregation with the kingdom work happening abroad.

First Christian Church of Seminole, Florida, has supported missions using the living link model for almost 30 years. During that time, they have sent out three families to serve internationally. Even while thousands of miles away, the missionaries are considered staff members of the church. The congregation stays informed about their work through newsletters, virtual calls, and “missions moment” updates during Sunday worship. When back in the States on furlough, the missionaries are based in Seminole and work at the church.

In addition to linking First Christian to ministry in the wider world, the missionaries are also linked to each other. Larry Renfro was serving as an elder when the church’s first living link missionaries, Don and Alita Hulsey, requested that someone from the congregation visit them in Mozambique. Renfro went and was deeply affected by the experience. Seeing the Hulseys’ ministry up close awakened a desire in him to serve internationally as well. He wondered how his wife, Mandy, would respond to this, but he need not have worried. Back in Seminole, she was experiencing a similar feeling after listening to a missions-focused sermon. The couple eventually became Seminole’s second living link family and served for 12 years in Malawi.

“We both got the call half a world apart,” Renfro recalled with a laugh.

The church’s current living link missionaries, Ken and Sheila Nelson, serve with Wycliffe Bible Translators in Papua New Guinea. The congregation supports other cross-cultural work as well, but the special bond with living link missionaries has been especially important in connecting the church to missions and helping more members discover a passion for global service. Reflecting on how each living link couple has helped inspire the next, Renfro is excited about the church’s future.

“Who else is thinking about going to the mission field from this congregation?” he wondered. “Who’s next?”

MANY APPROACHES, ONE GOAL

Examining even just three of the many approaches to supporting cross-cultural ministry found in the Restoration Movement illustrates an important point: there’s no one-size-fits-all model for churches wanting to participate in God’s global mission. The specific approach that a church takes may be influenced by its size, resources, location, and leadership. While the strategies may be different, the goal is the same: to join in Christ’s work to “draw all people” to himself (John 12:32) and to express our gratitude for his saving grace. 

James Thompson is a missionary with CMF International and a freelance journalist.

MISSIONARY CARE

MINISTERING TO THOSE WHO

Go

By Dan Crum

Let’s just say it was a long time ago, before cell phones and when email was still a child. Life was hard in rural Kenya, and about the only convenience foods were locally grown tomatoes, fresh milk, and fresh bread baked 30 minutes away. But life was exhilarating, meaningful, and certainly glamorous with all the wildlife and abundant nature. The local people were our friends, and we were shown rich hospitality from the poor. New believers resulted in new churches. It was worthwhile being there.

But then we were robbed. It turned our world upside down and everything dramatically changed. It took us several months before we could re-establish a new way of ministry to the same people from a different place. It was a very hard time, and honestly, I still don’t like to talk about it much.

Member care in those days consisted of counseling, tremendous sympathy, a few weeks to recover, and then the unspoken expectation to keep going as before. Our mission sent a postcard to inform our supporters of the incident and ask for prayer on our behalf.

While I don’t remember what the postcard said, it did specify the amount of money that had been taken in the robbery. Quickly, an amazing piece of member care materialized. Churches took up offerings to replace the money we had lost, and the total came to 4 times the amount. Still makes me cry. Wow, did we feel loved and seen! And I won’t forget the phone call from our largest supporting church when they heard it would take a lot more support for us to stay because of a new living situation. On a very expensive phone call, where I reversed the charges and they accepted the call, we were told, “We will cover the rest of your monthly needs, whatever it takes. We believe in you.”

In those days, when the churches were presented with an opportunity to show us care in a way they understood, they did very well. They provided for an immediate need and stated their belief in us. The same is true today, and churches are getting better and better as best practices are shared.

Recently I spoke with several missions pastors, missions leaders, and missionaries to hear what churches are doing well in ministering to those who go. There are others out there who would present a fuller picture than I can, so I hope this will whet your appetite to learn more from them. My life experience in missions has been not only as a missionary, but also as a member care provider on the field, a missions pastor (thank you Connection Pointe Christian Church!), and missions organization staff. I’ve sat on many sides of the table.

A FEW WORDS FROM THE MISSIONARIES

During a national conference this summer I asked a couple working in Central Asia what kind of care

they most desired from the churches that support them. They mentioned the usual needs of funding, of being welcomed back, and of being given opportunities to share their work. After a short pause, the husband leaned in and said, “We would like our prayer needs to be disseminated to the entire church. To have everyone praying for us would be the number one way to demonstrate care for us.” This was not a canned answer. It’s a lifeline, especially for their area of Central Asia. As one missions pastor told me, “We are intentional about prayer because many people work in hard places, and nothing will happen unless God moves.”

My wife and I arranged a virtual call earlier this year with a young couple we personally support. They had just visited one of their supporting churches, where people came by and said hello in a room on Sunday morning. The largest group of people who stopped that day were parents of missionaries. They get it! This surprised the young family in all the right ways.

This parents-of-missionaries group was formed years ago by parents of missionaries, and they meet regularly to hear how each other’s kids are doing and to pray for them. They don’t all attend the same church, and some live far away, but they meet regularly. Missionary care provided by a group of parents whose kids are missionaries is a unique form of member care. They feel the ache of family separation, too, and are likely the most eager and sympathetic set of listeners a missionary could have. Given the chance, they will fill a room to be with one of their missionary children and grandchildren.

CHURCHES THAT CARE CREATIVELY

Here are some great missionary care ideas practiced by churches.

• Connect missionaries to one another so they can help each other. One church hosts a virtual weekly huddle with all their missionaries to read Scripture, pray, and build relationships.

• Set up a Care Team for each mission partner, made up of church members. This group becomes a critical link for missionaries to the church as a primary point of communication, prayer, and as an advocate within the congregation.

• Directing missionaries to resources such as mental health, kids’ educational needs, health insurance, vehicles, and housing when visiting supporters.

P R A Y P R A Y

“WE WOULD LIKE OUR PRAYER NEEDS TO BE DISSEMINATED TO THE ENTIRE CHURCH. TO HAVE EVERYONE PRAYING FOR US WOULD BE THE NUMBER ONE WAY TO DEMONSTRATE CARE FOR US.”

More and more churches are stepping up their missionary care involvement. They think in terms of walking with their missionaries, not simply sending them. They function more as co-laborers and less as bosses who demand productivity. I love what I heard from everyone I talked to in this regard. No one mentioned necessary field results. Instead, they all seemed to delight in their missionaries and were so pleased to do what they could for them.

For instance, take hospitality. One missions pastor said, “The hospitality of others in the world is much fuller than ours in the West. If we are hosting non-Western missionaries, we want to give them the same level of hospitality they would show us.” It’s a way to honor not only the missionaries, but also God. This pastor referred me to 3 John 6: “They have told the church about your love. Please send them on their way in a manner that honors God” (New International Version)

Here are a few more ideas that came up in my conversations:

• Include funds in the annual budget to send elders or staff to the field to minister to the missionaries and understand their setting.

• Take mission trips to visit missionaries and see them in their context. Trip members can make good Care Team members!

• Engage in local fundraising outside of the missions budget. The example given was of a church’s members that home-canned jams and jellies that were sold locally for thousands of dollars. My wife has a relative who involved all the bakers in her church in making homemade pie shells and selling them at the annual fair. Be creative! Involve the church body and sell something the community would enjoy.

• Be intentional with the small things. Treat your missionaries to fun events, meals out, playing games, or ask them what their children might like to do and follow through on it.

SENDING ORGANIZATIONS

The role of sending agencies in missionary care came up in several of my conversations. Some churches seem to be doing well with agencies and view their missionary care as collaboration. Others see it as cooperation, where each aligns differing areas of missionary care. Yet others see it as communication, and they simply inform each other of their efforts. Some work independently with very different views

on how to address care for the missionaries. When considering the responses of churches and agencies to missionary care, at least two statements should be considered:

• There must be more intentional communication between churches and agencies to improve missionary care.

• Questions should be asked regarding who has the right resources to provide for a missionary’s needs at the most appropriate time.

It would be a service to missionaries for churches and agencies to work together in providing missionary care. This can be in collaboration, cooperation, or coordination. They all have their place. My advice is to research churches and organizations that are already working together well and see what can be learned from them.

A FINAL WORD

If our robbery had occurred today, we would receive a much more robust response from our churches and organization. We would engage in virtual calls, people would come to help us, we would receive more counseling, We would experience deeper prayer involvement as we figured out next steps, other resources from organizations that major in missionary care would be provided, and more money would be raised both to replace the money we lost and to anticipate upcoming needs. Missionary care has greatly improved since the late 90s.

I was reading in 1 Samuel earlier this year. King David had a lesson for his warrior after defeating the Amalekites, when some did not want to share the fruits of victory:

“No, my brothers! Don’t be selfish with what the Lord has given us. He has kept us safe and helped us defeat the band of raiders that attacked us. Who will listen when you talk like this? We share and share alike—those who go to battle and those who guard the equipment” (1 Samuel 30:23-24, New Living Translation)

Share and share alike. Be generous toward others. We all have a part to play. Those in the field who go to battle need workers to guard the equipment. Missionary care is a guardianship of one of our most precious kingdom resources: our sent ones. 

Dan Crum previously served on staff with Connection Pointe Christian Church, Brownsburg, Indiana, and with Missionary Care Catlalysts. He currently serves as Director of Development with Asian Partners, International.

BY DOUG PRIEST

YESTERDAY

Forty-four years ago, as a young missionary ministering in Kenya with a recent graduate degree in missions, I submitted an article to Christian Standard entitled ,“Missions in the Eighties.” Though my focus was the coming decade, the 1990s, it might be instructive to see if those predictions still hold up today. In that article I suggested that the number of full-time or longterm missionaries from the Restoration Movement would decrease. Missions would become heavily influenced by world politics. Terms such as evangelism and missionary would be better defined and more precise. The church would become more involved and demand more accountability from its mission efforts. The old distinction between “independent missions” and “organized missions” would lose prominence. Missions would focus on being more culturally sensitive than in years gone by. More missionaries would be sent from non-Western countries. Bible colleges and seminaries would see stronger academic mission programs, and more professors teaching missions would obtain graduate degrees in the discipline of missiology. There would be more ethnic churches planted in America, and many people from all over the world would become followers of Christ. These predictions have held up over the ensuing decades, not just the 1990s.

But there were trends at that time, in retrospect, which should have been noted. I did not foresee the growing emphasis on short-term missions, where within two or three decades more funds from our congregations would flow to short-term mission efforts. I neglected to consider urbanization and globalization. The predominant mission strategy of “unreached people groups” gained ground in the 1980s and maintained that position until 10 to 15 years ago. Few predicted that, politically speaking, the decades-long emphasis focused on Communism would switch to Islam. The highly charged dichotomy going back for 60 years of “evangelism vs. social action” was already being replaced by “holistic mission” which saw growing efforts to combat hunger, HIV/AIDs, illiteracy, the plight of refugees, women, and children.

TODAY

Just where are we today, in terms of the number of Christians in the world? Since 1900 the percentage of Christians throughout the world has not changed. One-third of the world’s population claim to be Christian, making Christianity the world’s most populous religion. Remaining at one-third of the population of the world over the decades, however, does not mean that the number of Christians has remained static. If 50 years ago the world’s population was three and a half billion, today it is seven billion. Therefore, the number of Christians had to double in that period to continue to remain at one-third of the world’s population.

The biggest shift in world Christianity is that at the beginning of the 20th century, the majority of the world’s Christians (80%) were in the Western and European world. By 2050 the majority of the world’s Christians (80%) will be from the Southern part of the world: Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Furthermore, the majority of Christians in Africa, Asia, and Latin America are primarily evangelical and Pentecostal or charismatic.

Here at home, polls suggest church attendance is in decline. Numbers are obviously down since Covid, and many young people choose to leave the church when they reach college age. But it must be stated that those discouraging polls are examining traditional churches, those whose attendees are primarily of European descent. The polls that we hear so much about do not focus on Black and immigrant churches, which are growing at a strong rate. Contrary to the polls’ findings, the church in America is growing, just not primarily among white Protestants and Catholics. One wishes that the interviews of the immigrants crossing our borders asked not only, “Where are you from?” but “what is your religion?” The results might be quite surprising.

From the 1980s until a decade or so ago, the mission programs in our colleges and seminaries were doing well. Lots of students graduated with mission majors, many students went on short term mission trips (sometimes yearly), and many became longer term missionaries. Their professors upgraded their degrees with missiology classes. Today, the situation has changed. Some Bible colleges and seminaries have shuttered their doors or changed their emphasis to include a stronger focus on liberal arts. Mission majors became fewer, programs were discontinued, and professors retired or moved to other employment. For the future, we wonder where mission courses will be taught, for whom, and by whom?

THE CALL TO PARTICIPATE IN GOD’S MISSION HAS NOT CHANGED.

TOMORROW

Such a question misses an important truth, one already noted in this article—the global shift in the center of Christianity from the North to the South. There is a visible rise in the number of non-Western missionaries throughout the world. The number of missionaries from the South is greater than the number of missionaries sent from the North. One can go into our larger cities and find missionaries from Korea, Nigeria, or Brazil. They come because they know the church in America is declining, and they want to turn the tide.

The older mission paradigm “From the West to the Rest” has now become “From Everywhere to Everywhere.” If a missionary feels called to minister to Afghans or Syrians, that missionary does not need to sell everything and move to Afghanistan or Syria. There are hundreds of thousands of Afghans and Syrians living right here in America. The same is true for other countries that do not welcome American missionaries. In fact, people can get into Afghanistan and Syria as missionaries. The recently published book, Soul by Soul: The Evangelical Mission to Spread the Gospel to Muslims, is written by a Brazilian woman and documents the mission work of Latin American believers serving in countries that would be hostile and likely unsafe for those with passports from the USA. Therefore, the question that confronts us in missions today is, “Are we willing to give up on our ‘we are in charge’ mentality and replace it with ‘we will willingly share resources’ with our international partners?” We must explore new mission models, such as the merging of organizations and collaboration, and we must let non-Westerners take the lead in mission. American mission sending agencies need to become more intentional or they will perish.

Other trends that should affect missions globally are the aging of the world population, the increasing use of technology including Artificial Intelligence, and the rise out of poverty and into the middle class. Of course, the world’s population is still young, but with advances in medicine and infrastructure, people are living longer, representing a new mission field. Much of mission work was among those who live in poverty. However, current studies show that many of the world’s poor are moving out of destitute poverty and into the middle class. The war on poverty worldwide in the last two decades has become a success story. Here is one reason.

AN ILLUSTRATION

About 20 years ago Christian Missionary Fellowship (CMF) missionaries Keith and Kathy Ham decided they would leave their decade-long ministry with the Turkana people based in the desert of northern Kenya. Their new call was to the urban poor living in the capital city of Nairobi. Soon after relocating they were researching the slums to explore different models of ministry. They heard about Wallace and Mary Kamau who were using a mission model known as Community Health Evangelism (CHE). Wallace and Mary formed Missions of Hope International (MOHI) and within a couple of years CMF and MOHI formed a partnership with a memorandum of understanding. MOHI believed that the best strategy to reach the slums was to form a school and meet the parents through the enrolled children. The partnership led to sharing of resources and within 20 years the number of children enrolled in schools went from 50 to 25,000 and expanded beyond Nairobi and Kenya. More than 35 churches have been planted. Efforts like these explain much of the move out of poverty in places traditionally seen as poor.

One of the new schools started was in the desert in northern Kenya where the Turkana lived and where Keith and Kathy Ham had worked. With so many children involved in the MOHI ministry, the Hams discerned a real need for further discipleship for the older children. They started a camp near the Indian Ocean on the Kenyan Coast. Fifty children attend the two-week sessions. One two-week period is for girls and the next two-week period is for boys. The curriculum includes spiritual formation, discipleship, worship, nearby field trips, and teaching about the environment under the very biblical concept of Creation Care. The children who come to the camp have never been away from their home areas. They get to experience things they have never seen and engage in new activities, like seeing a zebra or swimming in the ocean. They make renewed decisions to follow Christ. The financial resources for the Angaza Camp come from the West. The camp leaders, teachers, and trainers are Kenyan, as it should be. American churches and Christians need to come to terms with their role changing from primarily senders of American missionaries to major funders of international missionaries and organizations.

A FINAL WORD

None of these developments, of course, are a surprise to God nor a sign of faithlessness or failure on the part of the American church. They do mean that American mission sending organizations, churches, and Christians will need to discern God’s leading for future obedience and involvement in the Great Commission. The call to participate in God’s mission has not changed. 

Doug Priest, now retired, was director of CMF International for 22 years. He has taken the advice of Jesus to “consider the birds,” and wants you to know that there are 250 references to birds in the Bible.

LIVING ON

GRATITUDE STREET

BY WALLY RENDEL

One of David Jeremiah’s devotionals caught my attention. It was entitled “The House on Gratitude Street.” That is the name of a small devotional book written by the late J. Ellsworth Kalas, professor at Asbury Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky. When I first scanned Jeremiah’s devotional, I read it quickly, thinking, “That’s nice . . . a street in nearby tiny Wilmore, Kentucky named Gratitude.”

Lori Vahle was a member of our church and worked in the Wilmore mayor's office. I called Lori and told her I would like to drive on Gratitude Street in Wilmore. I asked her where Gratitude Street was located. Lori searched her records and reported that there is no such street in Wilmore. Then I realized Dr. Kalas was speaking metaphorically. Kalas wrote, “Some years ago I bought a house on Gratitude Street. I can’t say when I made the purchase, because getting the house wasn’t like signing a conventional contract. But of this I am absolutely sure, I never intend, never again, to live anywhere else.” I ordered a copy of his book and was blessed as he shared helpful insights for living at the corner of Gratitude Street and Good Life Avenue.

I have enjoyed a humorous story I heard about a godly little lady who lived alone on meager means. During the summer, early in the mornings, she loved to stand on her porch and sing and shout praises to God. Her obnoxious, unbelieving next-door neighbor didn’t like it. He made fun of her. He would try to shout her down. One morning she was singing and praying to God for help. She had no money and needed groceries. The next morning, she found two bags full of groceries on her porch. She started jumping and singing and thanking God for answered prayer. Her obnoxious neighbor jumped out of the nearby bushes and shouted her down. “God didn’t do that,” he said. “There’s no God. I heard your prayers yesterday and I bought those groceries! God didn’t do it. I did.” The little spirit-filled lady started jumping and singing and thanking God, saying, “Jesus, you answered my prayer as I prayed yesterday for groceries and on top of that you made the devil pay for them!” Maybe she lived on Gratitude street!

I recall the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “It is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.” And I must share the poignant words Chris Brown preached, “You can’t be grateful for what you feel entitled to.”

GRACE AND GRATITUDE

Thanksgiving is far more than an American holiday. Gratitude Street winds its way through all of God’s Word. Grace and gratitude, double first cousins, are deeply rooted in the heart of God and Scripture. Words like gratitude, thanks, and thanksgiving are mentioned over 200 times in the Bible!

The apostle Paul often parked on Gratitude Street. I am thinking of his encouragement in Colossians 3:15-17. This passage oozes with gratitude.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Let me suggest that one of the best ways to let God’s Word dwell in you richly is to memorize thanksgiving passages like these Colossian verses. Or maybe Psalm 100, Lamentations 3:19-23, Habakkuk 3:17-18, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, Hebrews 13:15-16, or these eight words in 2 Corinthians 9:15: “Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift.” This is Thanksgiving and Christmas wrapped up in an easy-to-memorize verse! When you memorize God’s Word, it settles into your soul.

GRACE AND GRATITUDE, DOUBLE FIRST COUSINS, ARE DEEPLY ROOTED IN THE

HEART OF GOD AND SCRIPTURE.

WORSHIP AND GRATITUDE

To cultivate Thanksgiving, Paul urges us to sing. At Thanksgiving last fall, I taught a Sunday school class and suggested singing as a good way to begin each day. Nothing drives cares away like praising God. I suggested we start each morning singing the sublime and yet simple, age-old Doxology sung by Christians for the past three centuries:

Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow; Praise Him, all creatures here below; Praise Him above, ye heavenly host; Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

A few months later I saw Fran. She was in the Sunday school class the Sunday I taught. She stopped me at the grocery store, telling me how that simple practice had changed her spiritual walk and struggle with nagging anxiety! Do you have an old hymn book? It’s loaded with wonderful Thanksgiving songs just waiting for you to sing them. I know you may not be able to carry a tune in a bucket, but you can make a joyful noise to the Lord and that counts as well. It may change your days, too.

You see, memorizing Scripture and singing “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” (Colossians 3:16) is good medicine. Studies show it improves sleep, decreases depression and anxiety, increases immunity, lowers blood pressure, and helps in coping with chronic pain. If a pill could do this, everyone would be taking it.

I was moved by the story Max Lucado shared in his book, Trade Your Cares for Calm. Max said his friend, Jerry, taught Max the value of gratitude. Jerry’s wife, Ginger, battles Parkinson’s disease. What should have been a wonderful season of retirement was marred by multiple hospital stays, medication, and struggles. Yet, Jerry never complains. He said he asked Jerry his secret. Jerry said, “Every morning Ginger and I sit together and sing a hymn. I ask her what she wants to sing. She always says, ‘Count Your Many Blessings.’” Max said “Worry refuses to share the heart with gratitude. Focus more on what you have and less on what you don’t.” You see, gratitude turns what you have into enough—and more.

SERVICE AND GRATITUDE

Paul continued in Colossians 3:17, “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” I know of no one who epitomizes this verse any more than the lady I have been married to for 60 years, Barbara Thackston Rendel. She is not a person who likes the spotlight, but I believe her story is worth sharing. Again and again, I have watched her translate the theology of Thanksgiving into the biography of Thanksliving! She is multitalented and probably has a little Type A personality, which makes it difficult for her to sit on the sidelines. Some years ago, she started a ministry to help and serve others. Since joy is her favorite word, she named her non-profit ScatterJOY. And that is what she does—continually. She has no staff (only volunteers), draws no salary or expenses from her non-profit, and yet, like the Energizer Bunny (her nickname in some circles), she keeps on doing, going, serving, and scattering joy.

Unknown to her one recent week, I jotted down her “scatterings.” It included visiting and taking meals to six different families, including birthday gifts to a 92-year-old shut-in, organizing and serving a meal to 50 men in Celebrate Recovery, joining with her friend, Teresa, to plan a patriotic celebration for a nursing home, helping a new Ukrainian family in our community find housing, planning a 60,000 meal-packing event for Liberia, buying cards and baptism gifts for teenage boys I baptized, and on top of all that, taking care of her preacher (me)!

She does this week in and week out. I ask her why she does it. She simply remarked, “I truly love people, I love serving the needs of people, and I love hugging people and telling them I love them.” It’s not just talk. She really means it. She said her first inclinations for serving were stirred in her heart while sitting in a class for adults at Sugar Tree Ridge Church of Christ near Hillsboro, Ohio. She was only knee high to a grasshopper, but they let her participate. Interestingly, the class was the timeless Training for Service published by Standard Publishing. Barbara just wants to live, love, and serve like Jesus. She hopes people will find

Jesus in the middle of these “random acts of joy.”

Her motto: Find a need and fill it. Find a hurt and heal it. Find pain and soothe it. Find a heart and hug it. Find joy and celebrate it.

We are all blessed and called to be a blessing. John Piper put it like this, “God has called us to be conduits and not cul-de-sacs.” Your life is God’s gift to you. What you do with your life is your gift to God. You can be the glove into which God’s hand fits, transforming Thank giving into Thanksliving !

Some years ago, I first saw this verse taped in the flyleaf of Lisa Jones Cobb’s Bible. I’m not sure who wrote the words, but they settled in my heart. I read these words at Lisa’s memorial service.

Through this toilsome world, alas!

Once and only once I pass, If a kindness I may show,

If a good deed I may do

To a suffering fellow man, Let me do it while I can.

No delay for it is plain I shall not pass this way again.

In a message one Sunday, I shared the story about Professor Kalas and his book. Three weeks later Amazon delivered a package to our home. To my surprise it was a street sign. Joe, a fellow church

member and friend, sent it. He was in church the Sunday I told the Kalas story. As you might imagine, the sign reads Gratitude Street. I love it! I mounted it on the wall in one of my favorite rooms. It’s one of the first things I see early every morning when I go downstairs to brew a cup of bold Maxwell House coffee and read my Bible. Like a bridegroom, the sun is preparing to come out of its chamber (Psalm 19:5). Standing on Gratitude Street, I like to sing,

In the morning, when I rise.

In the morning, when I rise. In the morning, when I rise, give me Jesus. You may have all this world.

But give me Jesus.

In November, Barbara and I celebrated living in the same house for 42 years. It’s not as easy to take care of as it once was. But for us, our kids, and grandkids, it’s the “homeplace.” And by God’s grace, we never intend, never again, to live anywhere else. There is no place anywhere near this place or quite like this place, so living on Gratitude Street must be the right place.

I hope Gratitude Street is your street, too. 

Wally Rendel is a retired minister. He and his wife, Barbara, live in Lexington, Kentucky.

“THANKS BE TO GOD FOR HIS INDESCRIBABLE GIFT.”

Novel Generosity

INDIVIDUALS AND CHURCHES WHO CREATIVELY SHARE THEIR BLESSINGS WITH OTHERS

BY CHRIS MOON

Sometimes, being generous requires a little imagination.

Christians and churches are called by Christ to share their blessings with those around them. Giving often is pretty straight-forward. See a need and meet it.

But some givers go a little further with their generosity—not perhaps in what they give, but in how they go about doing it. Perhaps there’s a better way to meet a need. Perhaps it is possible to be generous in unlikely times. Perhaps it is possible to meet even the most difficult of needs.

It takes creativity.

“We’re called to think outside the box,” said Ken Tracy, a Cincinnati entrepreneur who has spent his career being generous to others, even as he pursues his vocation. “If you feel you are in a box, try every now and then to try to knock out one of the sides of the box because outside the box, there are people who need help.”

Christian Standard tracked down several individuals and churches within the Restoration Movement who—knowing or unknowingly—have found novel ways to share their blessings with others.

Their stories follow.

OUTSIDE THE BOX

Ken Tracy is the founder of Impacting Tomorrow, a nonprofit organization that helps low-income individuals in the Cincinnati area with food, clothing, and medical needs.

Impacting Tomorrow has all the makings of a food bank. But that’s not what it is—not really. It’s more creative than that. Food isn’t doled out in bags like a typical food pantry. Rather, the nonprofit’s customers pick up their food in local markets—grocery-store style. The idea is to give people dignity, even as their needs are met by others.

“Christ treated everyone equally. There was no difference between those who had money and those who didn’t,” Tracy said. “He cared for all of them, and he shared the message with all of them. That’s what we’re trying to do.”

Started in 2022, Impacting Tomorrow already has grown into one of the largest nonprofit organizations in the Cincinnati region. It employs 10 people, has more than 200 volunteers, and serves 2,000 people per week.

The organization sprang out of work Tracy already was doing in one of his companies. He’s made a habit of blending his entrepreneurial vocation with his charitable endeavors.

At one time, Tracy led a large health care staffing firm. Tracy thought it was important to help his employees become great both at their jobs and in their communities. So he began sending his employees on medical mission trips, all paid for by his company— flying them across the world to serve. Those missions were Christian-based, and some employees began attending church afterward.

When Tracy’s company merged with another one, he and his wife, Libby, felt it important to keep the work going in some form. Impacting Tomorrow was born.

The Tracys are members of River Hills Christian Church in Loveland, Ohio. Ken Tracy is a 1988 graduate of Cincinnati Christian University. Tracy said the work he’s doing through Impacting Tomorrow is some of the most rewarding of his life. “I want to do more with what God has given me,” he said.

IT IS POSSIBLE TO BE GENEROUS IN UNLIKELY TIMES. IT IS POSSIBLE TO MEET EVEN THE MOST DIFFICULT OF NEEDS.

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

Five years ago, Odon (Indiana) Christian Church was looking for a way to serve a hard-to-reach part of its community. The county just north of the rural Indiana church didn’t have enough Restoration Movement churches to meet its needs.

“We wanted to go be part of something where we are not just existing,” said Micah Stephen, senior minister at Odon Christian Church. “We wanted to be a church that was different, that was active, that was making a difference in some way.”

But what could the small-town church do? Odon Christian Church had an attendance of about 325. Stephen had heard of other churches that worked to pay off the past-due medical debts of people in their communities. Many people are financially crippled by such debt.

Stephen got connected with a debt relief organization called RIP Medical Debt. The group negotiates with creditors to resolve delinquent medical debt at a greatly reduced cost. The idea fit perfectly. “We know what Jesus did for us in canceling our debt,” Stephen said. “How could we go in and wipe their debt clean and give them a new shot at life?”

By early 2020, right at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Odon Christian Church raised $25,000 for the effort. That paid off $2.1 million in medical debt in Greene County, Indiana. The effort was different from anything Odon Christian Church had done before. Stephen admitted he was nervous about the congregation’s reaction. But, he concluded, “God has blessed us with a good group of people who just want to do things.”

Stephen said 70 to 80 people attend the church from Greene County now. The church’s attendance is approaching 500.

Odon Christian Church earlier this year completed its second round of medical debt relief, raising $21,000 to pay off $4.1 million in medical debt in seven counties surrounding it. Other churches can practice creative generosity like this, too, Stephen said. “We’re just trying to think of ways that would be the most effective,” he said.

COUNTER-CULTURAL MINISTRY

Sometimes, the idea of sharing one’s blessing comes quite naturally—like at Christmas. The creative part comes in figuring out how to make the most of that urge to give.

For more than a decade, the leaders at Madison Park Christian Church in Quincy, Illinois, have been on a crusade to change how their congregation approaches the Christmas season. They want to combat the consumerism that can overwhelm the holiday.

Madison Park’s annual ReThink Christmas campaign first launched in 2011. The church encourages people to redirect money they ordinarily would spend on gifts for their loved ones into donations to charities that help spread the gospel at home and abroad.

“Let’s be counter-cultural. Let’s go against the grain,” said Keith Ehresman, Madison Park’s executive minister. “Instead of giving to somebody, what can we do collectively as a church?”

The church each year identifies local and international causes its congregants can support through ReThink Christmas. Those causes might include the local food pantry, an overseas missionary, or scholarships for church camp. Parents can replace one gift they might have given to their children with a gift to a ReThink Christmas cause. Parents can send their kids a note letting them know where the gift went. “Teach your kids to replace,” Ehresman said. “That’s what naturally starts happening because families start rethinking.”

The ReThink Christmas initiative is particularly valuable for older adults—those who may not need gifts at Christmas because their needs largely are met already. Many are thrilled to see gifts made in their honor, Ehresman said.

Since 2011, more than $1 million in ReThink Christmas gifts have been made, Ehresman said. The church orients its preaching calendar in November around ReThink Christmas, Ehresman said. It takes a lot of focus to get people to see how they can take their ordinary acts of generosity and do something more life-changing with them. “A lot of people aren’t going to think of that,” Ehresman said. “That’s why we have to be creative.”

Sometimes, being generous requires a little imagination.

A LONG GIVING SEASON

Ken Dye has found there is no age limit to generosity. At 84, the retired pastor continues to do many of the things he’s always done—teaching and pastoring. He teaches an online class (for free) for NationsUniversity. And he serves as the chaplain for his retirement community in Nashville, Tennessee.

In Dye’s case, creative generosity comes with longevity. Older people can just keep on giving. And retirement creates more time to do so. “If you have been a giving person in your younger years, you are going to be a giving person in your older years,” Dye said. Dye’s ministry spanned 50 years in noninstrumental churches of Christ in Texas, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. Now, he’s giving his time away. Pastors do that a lot. Dye never stopped.

Dye and his wife live a simple life in a duplex in their retirement community. Dye said his wife jokes that “being a chaplain here is like living in the middle of your church.” Whether that’s good or bad, Dye just keeps pastoring. “There’s a dilemma in retirement: As you get older, you often are overlooked and forgotten,” he said. “If you choose to stay engaged, you’re not forgotten.”

The class Dye teaches for NationsUniversity is called “Encountering Biblical Spirituality.” It is the first course that master’s-level students take.

NationsUniversity’s mission is to provide tuitionfree theological education to students in developing countries. Like Dye, all its professors volunteer their time. When he was interviewed by Christian Standard, Dye said he had spent the past two days in communication with students from Nairobi, Ghana, Portugal, New Guinea, South Africa, Botswana, and China. “I feel an honor to be able to invest my time. I’m investing my time in them,” Dye said. “We can make a lot of difference.”

OVERWHELMING GENEROSITY

Sometimes, generosity just needs to go over the top to hit its mark. Last year, students in Kentucky Christian University’s nursing program watched as their beloved administrative assistant, Paula Brown, was grieving over the brain cancer diagnosis of her grandson. Four-year-old Ozzy Brown passed away in September 2023. The students had to do something to support the family, said Carol Brickey, dean of the Yancey School of Nursing at KCU. “These were just compassionate individuals,” she said. Young Ozzy lived in Salem, Oregon.

Before he passed away, the students raised funds to fly his family to KCU to spend time with his grandmother. The students organized a series of events to bless the family. For instance, Ozzy loved construction equipment. So students arranged a visit to a local construction site, where Ozzy was allowed to take a ride in a dump truck and sit in the cab of an excavator.

After Ozzy died, the KCU nursing students organized a community “Ozzyfest” event. They brought in local food and craft vendors. Student athletes organized games for children. Local bands played Ozzy’s favorite songs.

Ozzy’s parents and siblings were brought back to town for the event. It raised $2,000 for pediatric brain cancer research. And it served as a celebration of Ozzy’s life—something his grieving family hadn’t yet been able to do, Brickey said. It was creative and over-the-top generosity, Brickey said, and it brought blessings beyond what anyone expected.

“The students were creative in the way they approached raising the funds and organizing the event. It also was a creative way to love on the family and help them to have a time to heal that really brought together the entire KCU community,” Brickey said. “It touched every single part of our campus, and it reached out to the local community.” Her advice: Just do something. You might be surprised what happens.

“When you see a need, find a way to try to fill it,” Brickey said. “Don’t let the person in need have to ask. Just take action.” 

Chris Moon is a pastor and writer living in Redstone, Colorado.

The Laws of Giving and Receiving

By Jerry Harris

Do you think Jesus has divine appointments today?

With you?

When I was a kid, I led two separate lives: I had my school/neighborhood life, and I had my church life. My church life was the best part of me. I loved learning from God’s Word, and I loved the approval of my parents. There was a different standard there for kids and parents. It was safer, more predictable, and more loving. School/neighborhood was a different place with different rules. I learned a lot there too, but it was seldom good. There were different rules, a different language, different expectations and behavior.

Junior high and high school really changed things. Cliques existed in both environments, but it seemed to me as though the school was more honest about it. My church experience began to feel hypocritical with a combination of cliques, judgments, and lifestyles that didn’t match the rhetoric. This led me to start moving away from the church in my sophomore and junior years. In reflection, I was looking for a place where I fit in or could shape myself to fit in, while keeping my foot in the door of church, although it was much more on the side.

College was more of the same. I made many decisions that could have defined me, marking me for life in negative ways. It wasn’t until I had finished two years at Indiana University that I experienced God’s call on my life. It completely reversed my trajectory, returning me to a pursuit of God. I was 20 years old, and my life has never been the same from that moment until now.

CHOICES THAT AFFECT US

It makes me think about how our lives are affected by our choices or the choices that people around us make. It’s not hard to wonder how, if one of those choices or experiences had gone a different way, it would have affected my life’s direction. We all have a back story, a director’s cut so to speak, and an alternate ending that could have been a single decision away.

Laws of life are much like the laws of physics. Newton’s third law of motion states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Then there’s the second law of Thermodynamics that states everything in nature tends toward disorder. Wood rots, metal rusts, our bodies wear out, and with every bad choice, our lives become more and more complicated and out of order. It might be a decision or group of decisions we made, or it might be decisions that others have made that have affected us. We all have a catalog of self-inflicted wounds and wounds inflicted by others or some combination of them, but the result is the same: reactions and disorder. Otherwise known as life!

With these realities in mind, a powerful story from John 4 can be very helpful for us. It’s a story about a woman Jesus met at a well in Samaria, a story that has more impact when read as a first-person narrative rather than a third-person account. By that, I mean we understand ourselves a bit more from the perspective of the main character.

Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John—although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon (John 4:1-6).

The first verse of this narrative is one we might overlook, but it sets up a context to connect the story of the Samaritan woman with the back story of Jesus. Jesus was living under a threat. The Pharisees already hated John the Baptist because he undermined their control. And now here comes someone potentially even more dangerous than John! How do you think that threat affected Jesus? Do you think it affected him at all? The book of John was written to prove that Jesus is God in human form, but that doesn’t take away the fact that he was fully human. Verse 6 lets us know he was tired and thirsty. Sounds pretty human to me! But does that humanity stop him from being fully divine in these upcoming moments?

JESUS UNDERSTANDS

Jesus understands what it’s like to be human. He knows that we make bad choices and often let the choices of others affect us. He just didn’t let it control him. He was there for a divine appointment. John 4:4 says, “Now he had to go through Samaria.” He “had” to. As a practical matter, he didn’t. Jewish tradition at the time would have dictated that he couldn’t go through Samaria because of the racial hatred between Samaritans and the Jews. There were other routes; he just didn’t take them because he knew who would be at the end of the route he chose.

Do you think Jesus has divine appointments today? With you? Do you think he has more important things to attend to than to bother with you? I can assure you that Jesus never, ever misses an appointment and that you are worth every bit as much as the woman in this story. The question is, how have you responded to your divine appointments?

John 4:7-26 describes this divine appointment. Everything about this appointment makes the case that the woman was an outcast. First, she came at noon. Women in this culture would draw water early in the morning for the day. The implication is that she was avoiding the other women living in Sychar. In the conversation, she pointed out the obvious; that she was a woman and Jesus was a man. This also broke with cultural norms as casual, public conversations between people of the opposite sex were taboo. She also pointed out that she was a

We all have a back story, a director’s cut so to speak, and an alternate ending that could have been a single decision away.

Samaritan and Jesus was a Jew. This references the 700-year-old hatred between the races. She concluded that she wasn’t worthy to talk with Jesus—at least not in her own mind. She didn’t even fit in with her own people. The reason for that becomes obvious as the story unfolds.

We really don’t get an answer as to the “why” of her back story. Maybe it was her choices or maybe the choices of others, but more than likely it was a combination of choices that put her life into reaction and disorder. This is why I think we need to read this as a first-person narrative. She could be any of us!

In any case, Jesus faced an array of defense mechanisms. If we go back to physics, I’m reminded of Newton’s first law of motion: an object at rest tends to stay at rest. Whatever our lives look like, we tend to protect them from change, even though change is what we need the most. We get used to not fitting in.

WHAT’S IN YOUR JAR?

Now read John 4:27-30. This is my favorite part of the story. The woman left her water jar. You see, that was the whole point of her being there, at least from her point of view. She needed water for the day, and she wanted to get it while avoiding conflict. How much of our lives are spent just filling up water jars? A better question is, “What are you trying to fill your jar with?” I’ve seen people put forth so much effort to fill their lives with things they really don’t need. I’ve seen them sell out those things for the next jar of water. Is it time to leave the water jar behind and capture something much greater?

The second thing I see is the miraculous way Jesus turned her tragedy into her testimony. Her past didn’t change, but her attitude toward it changed completely. She had plenty to be ashamed of,

but there was now something greater than the shame, greater than the circumstance, that fit her into God’s plan of the ages. He can and will do the same for us. I wonder what tragedies in our lives Jesus can turn into testimonies.

Now this is where I’m taking you in the law of giving and receiving.

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers. They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world” (John 4:39-42).

This divine appointment began with a woman far from God, but it didn’t end with only her finding faith. We leave the story with a whole town finding faith in Jesus! While the Samaritan woman’s faith is a great part of this story, Jesus has something even greater in mind. Why? Because Jesus is better than you thought. What are we seeing? Faith becomes real when the ownership shifts from the giver to the receiver. It wasn’t her faith anymore, it was theirs. That’s what Jesus does. He writes a new story for everyone that faith in him touches.

“Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest” (John 4:35).

Just look around you. The harvest is right there. 

Jerry Harris is publisher of Christian Standard.

The Wonder of the Incarnation

By John Mitchell

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. . . . and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:1-2, 14, New King James Version used throughout). With this magnificent declaration, the gospel of John begins. John’s statement that the Word became flesh succinctly sets forth the Christian doctrine of the incarnation.

The word incarnation literally means “en-fleshment” or “embodiment in flesh,” and is derived from the Latin incarnatio, meaning “take on flesh.” For the Christian, it is the gracious voluntary act of the Son of God in assuming a human body and human nature. The doctrine of the incarnation is that the Lord Jesus Christ is one person with two natures. One nature is that of the eternal Son of God. The other is that of man, in that Jesus Christ was in all aspects fully human. Furthermore, these two natures are indissolubly united.

As Andy Williams sang in his 1963 Christmas song, Christmas truly is the most wonderful time of the year. The holidays are marked by family reunions, sparkling displays, presents under the tree, and precious childhood memories. For the Christian, however, it is also a time to reflect upon the greatest gift ever given to man, namely God’s gift of his Son to mankind. As the much beloved John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Let’s pause and reflect upon the wonders and blessings of the incarnation: God’s Son came in the flesh.

REDEMPTION

The birth of Jesus is a fascinating account indeed. First, the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary (Luke 1:26ff) and informed her that she would conceive and bring forth a son whose name would be Jesus. At this time, Mary is only betrothed to Joseph, not married. Confused as to how this could be since Mary did not “know a man,” Gabriel told her that the Holy Spirit would come upon her and the one born to her would be called the Son of God. Then Joseph, finding that Mary was with child, was also visited by a heavenly messenger. The angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph and revealed, “She will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). Here we learn of the first great blessing of the incarnation, salvation from sin.

The apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 1:7, “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.” The word redemption conveys the idea of the release from a captive condition by the paying of a ransom. Sin is a cruel taskmaster inflicting pain and destruction on both individuals and societies. Thankfully, the redeeming work of Jesus on the cross brings freedom from such captivity.

First, we are set free from the power of sin. In Romans 6-8, Paul paints a word picture of sin as a vicious tyrant leading people to act in ways in which they are now ashamed. In Romans 6, Paul teaches that when we are baptized into Christ we are risen to new life and sin no longer reigns over us. Instead, we are to present ourselves as servants to God and are to be used as instruments of righteousness. In addition, when we are baptized into Christ, we receive

Mercifully, Jesus— the sinless, perfect man— offered himself as the suitable sacrifice and thus paid the penalty of death for our sins.

the indwelling gift of the Holy Spirit. One purpose of this indwelling presence is for moral power as seen in Romans 8:13 where Paul exhorts us to use the Spirit to put to death the deeds of the flesh.

Next, we are set free from the punishment of sin. One of the greatest blessings of the incarnation is Jesus’ substitutionary death, in that he died in our place for our sins. Peter states clearly in 1 Peter 2:24 that Jesus “Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree.” As far back as the Garden of Eden, animal sacrifices were offered for sin. However, it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins. Mercifully, Jesus—the sinless, perfect man—offered himself as the suitable sacrifice and thus paid the penalty of death for our sins.

Finally, we are set free from the pain of sin. An often-neglected aspect of our salvation in Christ is that the blood of Christ cleanses our conscience from dead works to serve the living God (Hebrews 9:14). The blood of Jesus provides complete freedom from the pain and anguish of past sins. It is no wonder he proclaimed that “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62).

REMISSION

Another blessing resulting from the incarnation is the remission of sins. Sin involves the captivity of an individual’s mind and body, but forgiveness is freedom. The word remission literally means “the loosing of a person from that which binds.” Furthermore, Hebrews 8:12 teaches that one of the blessings of the new covenant is that God “will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” Biblically, the idea of remembrance is the recalling of something to mind with the intent of taking action. When we learn that God will remember our sins no more, we see that God will never

recall our past sins with an intent to use them against us. What a profound blessing, indeed.

RECONCILIATION

Yet another comforting blessing of the incarnation is that in Christ we have been reconciled to God. One of the consequences of sin is that it fractures the relationship between man and God, creating an enmity or hostility between the two parties. In Christ, however, this enmity is put to death resulting in reconciliation. This carries the idea of “to transfer from a certain state to another which is quite different; hence, to reconcile, restore to favor.” It is truly humbling to pause and consider what God has done for us through the incarnation and work of Jesus. Through our own efforts and devices, we would never have bridged the gulf created by sin. Thus, we marvel at Paul’s statement that, “He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love” (Colossians 1:13).

RENEWAL

One of the most interesting encounters in the life of Christ was his interaction with the Pharisee Nicodemus as recorded in John 3. It is here that Jesus affirmed that “unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” The idea of being born again is without a doubt one of the most fascinating aspects of Christianity. It’s hard to overstate the impact of the fresh start we have in Christ. In describing this rich blessing, the New Testament piles up the phrases: new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17), begotten again (1 Peter 1:3), new man which was created according to God (Ephesians 4:24), regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5), made alive together with Christ (Ephesians 2:5), and raised with Christ (Colossians 3:1). Our former life had left us dead in trespasses and sins, but God in his rich mercy sent his only begotten Son to offer us new life.

As we celebrate the birth of Jesus this season, what a comfort to know that one day we will be with him for eternity.

REIGN

When the angel Gabriel made his announcement to Mary, he also included the coming reign of Jesus. Specifically, he told her, “He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:32-33). It’s common at Christmastime to hear preachers remind listeners that the baby Jesus would become King Jesus. This reminder is certainly true and appropriate. Through his death, resurrection, and ascension, Jesus has been seated at God’s right hand, given the name, which is above every name, and has all things placed under his feet. The Lord Jesus is indeed King of kings and Lord of lords.

Jesus’ reign is of great practical value. Over the course of human history, man has repeatedly demonstrated an inability to properly order his life, as we clearly see today. Jesus in his sovereignty and through his Word has provided us clear instructions for basic Christian living. From personal holiness to family structure, to workplace conduct, to interaction with governing authorities, etc., the reign of Jesus provides the stability and structure to live a God honoring life.

REVELATION

In the life and ministry of Christ, God the Father is revealed. David was without a doubt correct when he exclaimed, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork” (Psalm 19:1). David’s point (Paul makes the same observation in Romans 1) is that simply by looking up and observing creation, one can tell that God exists. However,

the wonders of heaven fail to disclose the nature of God. Without revelation, we would be at a loss to comprehend God’s love, grace, mercy, holiness, etc. In the life of Jesus, as recorded in the gospel narratives, God’s nature is revealed (see John 14:7-9).

RESERVATION

Lastly, the incarnation secures us a reservation in heaven where we will have the immense privilege to spend eternity with God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Peter describes this inheritance as incorruptible, undefiled, and one that does not fade away. He goes on to say that this eternal salvation is reserved in heaven for you (1 Peter 1:4). As we celebrate the birth of Jesus this season, what a comfort to know that one day we will be with him for eternity.

When we reflect upon the incarnation, the words of Psalm 8:3-4 seem apropos, “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him?” The very idea that God would humble himself to become a man, live a sinless life revealing the character of the Father, and ultimately offer himself as a perfect sacrifice for our sins leaves one speechless. During this holiday season, let’s renew our commitment to glorify God in all we do, grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord, and especially go and tell others of the wonders of Jesus. 

John Mitchell is the Executive Director of the Christian Restoration Association and Editor of the Restoration Herald He lives in Mason, OH, with his wife, Renee, and 14-yearold daughter, Madison.

Cross-Cultural Christmas

By Jeff Coon

I was in a mountain village with a Fellowship of Associates of Medical Evangelism (FAME) partner physician when a couple came up to us shouting, “Thank you! Thank you for saving Alliya!” The man turned to me, and in broken English slowly said, “And now we know Jesus!”

They explained that just before Christmas last year, their daughter had gone to pick fruit as a special treat for their traditional Christmas meal. While attempting to reach a piece of fruit, she fell from the tree and severely broke her arm. The father explained that other children in their village had experienced similar accidents and were left permanently disabled. As a result, many were unable to work, were not considered marriageable, and were placed at risk for trafficking.

But that was not the case for Alliya, because this doctor had set up a medical clinic in their village. He was able to set her broken bones and put her on a path to full recovery. During the care and follow-up, the family was introduced to Jesus. They are now an active part of the new church that was planted in that area. Alliya’s accident and subsequent care are what drew this family to Christ.

DRAWING PEOPLE TO JESUS

The Christmas story is marked by events that drew people to Jesus Christ in unexpected ways and in unexpected places.

In Matthew’s account, the unexpecting people were wise men and the unexpected event was the appearance of a star: “Wise men from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star at its rising and have come to worship him.’” (2:1-2, Christian Standard Bible)

Stories from around the world of unexpected events that have drawn people to Christ fill my email inbox. In the course of FAME’s 50-plus years of mission work, we have confirmed that a lack of access to medical care often leads to a lack of access to the gospel. But when that medical care is made available, unexpected events routinely draw people to Christ.

In a remote village in the foothills of the Himalayan mountains, 15-year-old Anyi became seriously

ill while her parents were in the mountains harvesting cardamon for Christmas customers. When a young minister and his wife, a nurse, checked in on her and discovered her condition, they drove her 17 hours by car to the nearest hospital. Their unexpected and treacherous trip led FAME and other partners to provide an ambulance for the village as they carried out their plans to build a clinic in their community. Because of their care for her and others in this remote village, the church is growing rapidly!

THE GLOBAL MESSAGE OF CHRISTMAS

Patrick grew up in an African family of idol worshipers who sacrificed animals to “cleanse” themselves from any offenses against their god. He visited a FAME partner clinic because of a serious illness that required surgery. Following his surgery, a FAME staff member brought up the topic of Christmas. Patrick knew little about it, so they explained that God sent his Son as a baby to grow up as a man and die on a cross, a once-for-all sacrifice for sin. The staff member asked Patrick how many times his family would need to sacrifice to an idol to have all their sins forgiven. Patrick had no idea, but he was certain it would be many! When he understood that Jesus paid the ultimate price for his sins, Patrick chose to follow Christ. Since then, he has influenced many people in his family and tribe to abandon idol worship. Today Christmas has real meaning to Patrick and his family because of an unexpected event that drew them to the Christ child.

Vilya has a similar story. She was expecting her first child when she and her husband came to a newly opened FAME mother/child clinic on Christmas Eve, ready to give birth. Following the arrival of their son, the hospital chaplain asked what they thought of their son sharing his birthday with Jesus. They didn’t know who Jesus was. The chaplain learned that they celebrated Christmas by giving and receiving gifts, but had no idea about the gift of life that could only be found in Jesus. They didn’t know why they celebrated Christmas. They began attending church as they sought to learn more about this baby Jesus who shared a birthday with their son. This unexpected event drew them to the Christ child.

The Christmas story is marked by events that drew people to Jesus Christ in unexpected ways and in unexpected places.

“. .

. ALONG WITH PERSECUTIONS”

Matthew records that King Herod “was deeply disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him,” when the wise men came to him seeking the Christ child. “So, he assembled all the chief priests and scribes of the people and asked them where the Christ would be born” (Matthew 2:3-4).

Matthew’s account shows how civic and religious leaders have taken notice of unexpected events that drew people to Christ. This can happen today as well. Sometimes the results are positive and sometimes negative. While government and tribal leaders regularly express gratitude for FAME’s global partners and the help they give to their communities, persecutions have also resulted from people being drawn to Christ. For example, a hospital in the Manipur district of India was burned to the ground because the staff helped suffering people in Jesus’ name. In another situation, the groundbreaking of a church and clinic in another region of India was halted by religious and government officials because radical religious leaders were threatened by the advance of the gospel.

CELEBRATING LOVE AND HOPE

In the past year, more than two million people around the world have received medical treatment and have been introduced to Christ by FAME’s global partners. Add to this the multitude of mission and ministry works that have been carried out by our churches and missionaries throughout the year. It changes our perspective to look beyond our own nation and to see how the name of Christ is being honored around the world.

One way for American Christians to gain a broader understanding of the far-reaching impact of the gospel is to read accounts of global mission work. I have been reading such stories for 50 years. In my role with FAME, I have the privilege of sharing those stories weekly with our ministry partners.

I encourage individuals and churches who want to align themselves more closely to the worldwide work of the church to actively seek out global partners. Ask yourself, “What needs do I feel deeply burdened by and what needs do I want

to see met around the world? What issues have brought me to tears or caused me to ‘pound the table’?” Your answers to these questions can help you discover and build new partnerships.

Christmas is a time to reflect on things that matter. Perhaps you’ll take time this season to connect with new ministry partners. The Great Commission is a priority for every disciple of Christ, but many of us feel inadequate to fulfill it alone. Forming partnerships with international mission organizations is one way to accomplish Christ’s commission! You may reach several people for Christ on your own, but in partnerships you can reach millions.

As Moses led the vast nation of Israel in the wilderness, his father-in-law came to visit and noticed how he met continually with the people to serve as judge and to settle disputes. Jethro said to Moses, “What you are doing is not good . . . . The work is too heavy for you. You cannot do it alone” (Exodus 18:17-18). Jethro challenged Moses to distribute the workload and bring on partners to accomplish the task.

You can do a similar thing this Christmas season. Find a ministry or mission that serves people in ways that draw them to the Christ child, and partner with them in their work.

There are many such missions and ministries. FAME’s global partners focus on medical evangelism, while others focus on ministry to orphans and widows, food and clothing distribution, freedom from trafficking, Bible translation, disaster response, and providing clean water.

Search them out. Subscribe to their newsletters. Pray for them and look for tangible ways to serve with and support them. In this way you will increase your personal impact, bless and strengthen ministry partners, and bring hope this Christmas that transcends cultural barriers.

Like the wise men, people around the world are experiencing unexpected events. Maybe you can be a partner in evangelism with a global work that will meet their needs and open the door for them to be drawn to the Christ child. 

Jeff Coon is director of development for FAME (www.fameworld.org) in Indianapolis, Indiana.

A TRUSTWORTHY MINISTRY

BY NATHAN FREEMAN

It’s hard to know which organizations to trust today, but you can tell much about an organization that pours into you when it has nothing to gain. The Solomon Foundation was encouraging me and mentoring me long before I worked for a church associated with their network of churches. My relationship with The Solomon Foundation started with a man by the name of Mac McElroy. Mac was on the original board of TSF, and he mentored me for several years in Phoenix, Arizona. He later introduced me to Doug Crozier, the CEO of TSF. I had no idea how much my connection with Doug would bless my life a few years later.

A SMALL BEGINNING

Through a series of events, it was obvious that God was calling my family back home to Florida. I reached out to Ken Idleman, Vice President for Leadership Development with The Solomon Foundation. I told Ken I was committed to and desired to serve a TSF church, but that it had to be in Florida. Well, that’s pretty specific, but I believed somehow God would provide.

During this time, a small church in Clay County Florida was also connecting with The Solomon Foundation. River Christian Church, due to financial considerations, was meeting in a funeral home back then. You read that correctly.

They were meeting in a funeral home. They approached TSF because they had two big needs: they needed a pastor, and they needed a building.

The Solomon Foundation agreed to help River Christian Church. In 2017 the congregation began preparations to move out of the funeral home and renovate a dance studio for their next location. Around this time I connected to River Christian Church through The Solomon Foundation and was hired as their new pastor. I spent a few months preaching at the funeral home before we moved to the dance studio. It was a fascinating experience to watch 80 people show up on Sundays to have church at Russell Haven of Rest Funeral Home. Sometimes we had to move the hearse from the front door before people showed up for worship. Oh, and our Kids’ Ministry met in the cemetery! They even had an egg hunt in the graveyard. In those first few months we were able to grow despite our location. We even joked that we may have to go to multiple services . . . in a funeral home!

ROOM TO GROW

Gratefully settled into our new church home, we thought we would be at the location for many years. We were nervous when we launched at the new location, wondering if people would actually show up. We were hoping to have at least 300 people attend our first Easter service in our new church. We only had a few weeks to get ready for it, but our little church got the word out about Resurrection Sunday to everyone who would listen. Four hundred people showed up that first Easter in our renovated dance studio. We were surprised by what the Lord did.

We had spent quite a bit of our financial reserves renovating our new location and I was wondering how we were going to pay our new mortgage, so I called Doug Crozier. I shared my fear that we may not have the funds needed to sustain the work and that we needed more time to build up our giving. Doug’s sense of calm and faith put me in a better frame of mind as I realized that God was with us. Guess what? We made budget that month and never missed a mortgage payment. Doug was right. God was growing his church.

We were excited to leave the funeral home behind and move into the dance studio that The Solomon Foundation helped us purchase. No more moving the hearse and teaching kids in the cemetery. We were all now in the same building with more room. The new location made it much easier to invite someone to church without all the funeral home jokes that ensued.

We continued to grow in the dance studio. After adding our third Sunday service within six months of being in our new location, it became obvious that we needed to do something different. We realized that our forever home wasn’t big enough! We were cramming people in like sardines. By the fall of 2018, just six months in our new location, we started looking at different options. When I say we looked at different options, I mean we looked at all possible options. Nothing seemed to work. We felt stuck

and knew we needed something to happen or we would lose momentum. The church was asking what the next step was because everyone could tell we needed to do something. To be honest, we didn’t know what the next step was going to be. One of our board members, Susie Wood, always said, “God is not only with us, but he goes ahead of us.” She was right; the Lord was going ahead of us. What landed in our lap next was truly from God.

GOD PROVIDED

A local pastor and I were meeting for lunch. We met at Wendy’s and the pastor asked, out of nowhere, “Would River Christian Church be interested in buying our church building?” I just about spit out my Frosty!

The building contained 40,000 square feet on the best 10 acres in our entire county. More than 80,000 people drive by that location every day! It was like looking for a car and having someone say, “You want to buy my immaculate Porsche?” And the answer, of course, is “In my dreams!” I acted like I didn’t hear the question because there was no way a church comprised of 80 people earlier that year should ever consider buying a property like this. Yes, we had momentum with growth, baptisms, ministries, and giving. There was just no way our little church could afford it. Which is true. But God could.

the building, finance the acquisition, and then led us through the sale of the dance studio.

When we were able to move into our new building on the best 10 acres in Clay County, Florida, we arrived with just over 450 people. This month we are celebrating our fifth year on our new campus with more than 1,600 people worshiping with us in person every week. Many, many more watch us online. In 2023, we baptized 223 people into Jesus Christ and we’re trending towards having more baptisms than ever in 2024!

TRUSTING AS WE CONTINUE TO GROW

At present, we need to expand on our campus and we are seeking guidance from The Solomon Foundation once again. TSF has been with us through it all, and they will continue to support us as we take our next steps in expanding the kingdom of God.

God has used many people to help our little church grow into what we are today, but we wouldn’t be where we are without The Solomon Foundation. When I think of Doug Crozier and his team, I’m reminded of what Paul said when he talked about Stephanas’ household. He said about them, They have devoted themselves to the service of the Lord’s people” (1 Corinthians 16:15).

I immediately called Doug Crozier again and told him about the offer. I thought Doug was going to say, “Yeah, that would be nice Freeman, but this is just too big for you.” I had heard how much of a visionary Doug was and how he could see growth potential where many people wouldn’t even bother. What he said to me that day showed me he really puts his faith in what God can do through his church. “Let’s go for it,” were his words to me. I couldn’t believe it!

The Solomon Foundation was with us every step of the way. Doug and his team helped us purchase

Doug and TSF are devoted to serving the Lord’s people. They have been devoted to me when there was nothing to gain, and they have been devoted to River Christian Church when no one else would have partnered with us. My leadership team and I are forever grateful for the continued training, encouragement, and community that has been provided to us through The Solomon Foundation. Above all, they are devoted to winning more people to Jesus Christ. I can’t wait to take our next big step of faith with The Solomon Foundation and the Lord by our side! 

Nathan Freeman is lead pastor with River Christian Church, Fleming Island, Florida.

THE LOOKOUT

To access The Lookout weekly lesson material, simply visit ChristianStandard.com in your web browser and select +TheLookout in the main menu.

There you will fnd the most recent

• Study by Mark Scott (longtime Christian college professor)

• Application by David Faust (veteran Christian educator and minister)

• Discovery questions for use by your group or for personal refection.

A new block of related lessons begins every month, so your group can jump in at any time during the year.

Many small-group leaders and participants prefer to receive our lessons via newsletter, which we send out monthly at least 10 days in advance. The newsletter provides a link to a download of the next month’s lesson material all in one easy-to-print pdf. (Send an email including the title “The Lookout Study” to cs@christianstandardmedia.com to be added to our mailing list.)

You have our permission to print as many copies as you need for your group or class, or you can forward the link or share the pdf via email with your friends.

A fnal thought: Our Discovery questions are designed to foster conversation and “discovery” of biblical truth among groups and individuals with much Bible knowledge or little Bible background. Try it out! It’s free!

SEE PAGE 88 FOR EXCITING NEWS!

november 2024

REVELATION (PART 3)

VICTORY WON

This is the third month in the study of the book of Revelation. In the book we have found a call to arms (September) while all the while remembering that our battle is spiritual in nature (October). In this unit we come to the fnal victory of God. Reading of that victory ahead of time is like watching an Olympic competition and knowing who receives the gold medal, but still watching the competition play out. Students will learn that God’s justice is inextricably linked to that victory, allegiance to God keeps one righteous before God, just acts in the fallen world become our dress code, and fdelity to Christ grants true freedom.

december

2024

In the musical, Fiddler on the Roof, the Jews are being forced under duress to leave their village of Anatevka. One resident said, “Rabbi, we've been waiting all our lives for the Messiah. Wouldn't now be a good time for him to come?” The rabbi said, “We'll have to wait for him someplace else. Meanwhile, let's start packing.” Luke essentially said, “The wait is over. The Messiah has come.” Students will learn that Jesus comes with distinction as prophesied, he comes in amazement with his understanding and miraculous power, he comes as the divine Son of God, he comes with all the glory of heaven, and he comes to accomplish the Father’s purpose in the world.

LUKE THE MESSIAH COMES

By Jerry Harris

About seven years ago, I learned that the weekly lesson material written for The Lookout would require a new scope and sequence, a strategy through which we would approach Bible study. In addition, I learned that the scope and sequence we had been using was overseen by the National Council of Churches, an organization that is not known for an accurate interpretation of Scripture. This led me to a process of creating our own scope and sequence, and with that, a complete six-year study through the entirety of God’s Word with material written by Dr. David Faust and Dr. Mark Scott.

Now, six years later, and having completed this massive undertaking, Christian Standard Media is offering something new and exciting to our readers. We’ve named this new series 1717 Studies: Your Word Is Truth. The name comes from Jesus’ words in John 17:17. All of our biblical studies written over these last six years are being compiled into fully downloadable files from each Bible book with applications and study questions for your small group, Sunday school class, discipleship group, and for personal study and reflection.

While this has cost us over $100,000 to produce, we are offering it to you at no charge, asking only that you might consider a tax-deductible contribution to Christian Standard Media. We will be releasing each book or group of books in the coming months and already have the book of Galatians in our new format for your use.

Take a journey through the Bible with two of the most renowned and trusted scholars in our movement and discover what truths God will reveal to you as you spend time immersed in his Word! 1717 Studies: Your Word Is Truth is available online at Christianstandard.com.

INTERACT - IN PRINT

‘MUCH NEEDED STRATEGY’

Gary Black Cultivating Youth Worldview is a timely, innovative, and much needed strategy to raise up our children and students to hold to our most holy faith. Thanks, Connection Pointe, for initiating this approach and for your willingness to share these resources with other churches. I pray many will take advantage of this opportunity and follow your lead! [“Forming the Faith of the Next Generation,” by John S. Dickerson, July/ August 2024, p. 40].

‘BIBLICAL DISCIPLING BEGINS AND ENDS WITH EVANGELISM’

Dan Spader To the best of my research, the word “discipleship” was never used until 1850 by a man named Charles Adams. He separated “evangelism” from “discipleship” while using the two wings of an airplane to explain “making disciples” in Matthew 28. Disciple-making is our mission (not discipleship). Biblical discipling begins and ends with evangelism. [“Evangelism and Discipleship … Evangelism Comes First,” by Jerry Harris, July/August 2024, p. 2].

D. Eric Schansberg Like many other things, evangelism will (largely) follow naturally when folks are (actually) disciples of Jesus. Giving, serving, evangelizing, good marriages, hospitality, etc. We can try to get people to conform their behavior, but one can’t expect it to be all that efective. In this sense, a “discipleship frst” mindset is correct. In a word: if you aim at efective discipleship with Jesus and the Word, then evangelism (and so much more) will be added unto you.

‘MAY GOD MULTIPLY YOUR EFFORTS’

Ernest Ebak This is an inspiringly educational article. I am not just blessed but reminded of my faithbased practices and or belief system. [“Bringing the Streams Together: A Call to Unity Within the Restoration Movement,” by Orpheus J. Heyward, July/August 2024, p. 56].

Jason Carnley I think we should stop talking about unity with the disciples. Yes, we had a historical connection and yes, it is sad that we separated. That said, we have more in common with the non-denoms, Baptists, Mennonites, and frankly any Bible believing group than the Disciples. I think a reunifcation of the main body of the non-instrumental brethren would be of tremendous beneft to the kingdom. Beyond that, you should never try to graft a dead branch to a live tree.

Michael Bratten I do not believe complete unity will happen down here. While the article provides a nice history lesson, I don’t believe it provides a practical way of bringing about unity. I’m not sure anyone can. This doesn’t mean we don’t pray for it and work towards it. For me, it follows along the same lines as “Be perfect, even as your Father is perfect.” While that’s not going to happen down here in enemy territory, I still pray for it and work towards it and I’m even getting better at it! Each one of us, because of our diferences in understanding the Bible and in difering personalities, will fnd certain connections easy and others difcult.

Steve Brown We need to be united with all who love God and “are called according to His purpose” . . . even though I may understand some Scripture diferently than my brother . . . we are still brothers in Christ.

‘GREAT ARTICLE, SHAWN’

Irene Osborne Great article, Shawn. Glad you got the opportunity to go and experience the Thomas and Alexander Campbell lives here on this earth. May we never forget our Restoration Movement History. [“Hope for a Movement,” by Shawn McMullen, July/August 2024, p. 6].

INTERACT - IN PRINT

‘SHOULD BE READ AND DISCUSSED’

‘EXCELLENT

David Roadcup Gary Johnson’s article, “Future Thinking Elders” should be read and discussed by every eldership in every one of our churches! What this article speaks to hits at major issues in the life of many of our churches. Seeing our churches grow in numbers and improve in health is what we have been directed to do as leaders. [“Future-Thinking Elders,” by Gary Johnson, July/August 2024, p. 12].

ARTICLE’

‘GOOD

Loren C. Roberts Yes, it is absolutely necessary to know and live the truth. Unfortunately, from the pulpit preaching can be the truth but also not the hard truth. This is where the slippery slope starts. [“My Truth or The Truth,” by Steve Poe, July/August 2024, p. 46].

Robert Limb Forgive me, but after the frst paragraph I was disappointed. You say that “the idea of diferent religions coexisting together in peace is a commendable goal.” I agree, or rather, it seems to me that it is more than that, it is an absolute necessity if we are to seek the peace and welfare of our cities. I was hoping that this was the issue that you were going to address, hence my disappointment.

Michael Bratten What an excellent article, Steve. Thank you. The balancing acts of “grace & truth” and “truth & love” are never an easy thing. While we must stand on the truth, we must do it with grace & love.

WORDS’

David Roadcup David Stone’s article refects the founders of our movement! We know what we believe. We do, while staying connected to our movement, need to reach out to others who accept Jesus as the Divine Son of God and accept the Word of God as inspired. We would be blessed if we reached out. Good words, Dave! [“Fences, Freedom, and Fellowship,” by Dave Stone, July/August 2024, p. 52].

‘A GREAT DOCUMENT’

Joy M. Loare Thank you for the encouraging words. I am hopeful. [“A Time for Hope: A Bright Future for the Restoration Movement,” by LeRoy Lawson, July/August 2024, p. 74].

Paul Boatman As I read this article I weep, chuckle, and nod, . . . repeatedly. Thank you.

Wesley T. Paddock Since every Christian’s life is more like a "restoration" movement than an establishment, ,this latest essay is pertinent, both in assessing our ministry choices and our own lives.

‘WE NEED TO EXPLORE OUR IDENTITY’

Melinda J. With any movement, there has to be replication. Whether it be the lead preachers and elders, all the way down to nursery workers and youth volunteers. If you want the next generation to become your future preachers, you need to prioritize the next generation. Send them of to places like CIY and follow up with them when they come back. Have your older men mentor your young men. Same with women; we need those women’s ministries of old. Don’t separate ministries by ages. Let your older teens be included in Bible studies with your 55 and older folks. Intergenerational. We don’t need to conform to the world and separate by grades all the time. Let the church potluck become a thing again. And let the family worship together in church all at the same time. [The Forum: Thoughts on the Future of the Restoration Movement," July/August 2024, p. 80].

INTERACT - ONLINE

‘I HAVE A PODCAST’

Mark Imel I have a podcast where I share a historical fction novel series I wrote about the Restoration Movement, “The Secret of a Successful Life Series.” The setting begins in the early 1900’ and is currently describing 1950s. Several subjects of those eras are mentioned in the story format. [“A Listing of Restoration Movement Podcasts,” by Christian Standard, July 2, https://christianstandard.com/2024/07/a-listing-ofrestoration-movement-podcasts/].

Curtis J. Taylor I also have a daily one-minute video podcast that is totally a restoration podcast. I am a grad of Louisville Bible College. It is called “Day of Devotion,” and you will fnd it on all the platforms. YouTube is https://www.youtube.com/@dayofdevotion

‘HOW MUCH?’

Richard Draper I would fnd it interesting to know how much money Johnson University lost or how much they gained by selling this property. I would like to see those amounts. [“Johnson University Sells Florida Campus,” by Chris Moon, July 8, 2024, https://christianstandard.com/2024/07/johnson-university-sells-forida-campus/].

‘I LOVE IT!’

Nancy I love it! I so wish I could be a member and feel the power of Jesus working in and thru us! God bless your vision and hard work! [“Dedication of an Empty Tomb in Michigan,” by Rick Cherok, July 16, 2024, https:// christianstandard.com/2024/07/dedication-of-an-empty-tomb-in-michigan/].

Ronnie Leonard I don’t see the need of a gazebo, a bridge, crosses, and a faux tomb to remind us of Christ and his life, death, and resurrection unless you feel God’s written Word is insufcient. God already gave us baptism and the Lord’s Supper; we don’t need anything else of lesser value that serves to lead us away from those acts. Preach the Word and leave gimmicks to the worldly marketing gurus.

‘THOUGHT PROVOKING’

Richard Grabbe A thought provoking idea. Although you speak the truth and back it with Scripture. The presentation provokes thought. [“Not a Distant Memory,” by Doug Redford, July 1, 2024, https:// christianstandard.com/2024/07/not-a-distant-memory/].

‘GREAT ARTICLE’

Victor Knowles Great article on some good friends of mine! [“The Master’s Encouragers, Blaine and Boyd Cornwell,” by Rick Cherok, July 29, 2024, https://christianstandard.com/2024/07/the-masters-encouragersblaine-and-boyd-cornwell/].

Gene Barron Thanks for sharing Boyd and Blaine’s story. They’ve been a blessing to many over the years and a model of faithfulness and love for Jesus.

Linda Knapp I stumbled upon this article a few weeks ago and shared it with my mother because I remembered that The Cornwells came to our church many years ago. Just this evening my 96-year-old mother informed us in her goodnight text that Blaine and Boyd, along with some others, came to her house for dinner after church this morning. I wish I had been there!

INTERACT - ONLINE

‘SHE

KNOCKED OUR SOCKS OFF’

David Fish At the NACC held in Indianapolis in 1986, Dr. Templar, along with another faculty member at Johnson Bible College, John Lowe, introduced me to the use of a computer to aid my ministry. [“Remembering Dr. Chris Templar (1944-2024),” by Rick Cherok, August 13, 2024, https://christianstandard.com/2024/08/ remembering-dr-chris-templar-1944-2024/].

David Eunson I taught public school in Unicoi County, TN for over 30 years. At the beginning of each year, we had “in-service’ for several days, mostly from the “professionals” from the state department of education. One year we had Dr. Templar from this “small Bible college” in Knoxville, Tennessee for a couple of sessions. WOW, she knocked our socks of with her presentation. We felt we learned more from her in her short time with us than we ever did from the state professionals. What a profound good impression she made on us.

‘A DEAR FRIEND AND INSPIRATION’

Paul Dover I met C. Robert “Bob” Wetzel when he was in England. He was a great Christian and a strong infuence in the churches, together with Bonnie, Harold, and Rosalyn Merritt. I’m glad to say that he made a profound impression on me with his scholarship, his great knowledge, and his warm personality. I’m sad to hear of his death because it gives me a great feeling of loss, but I rejoice that I am assured of his eternal salvation. May God comfort Bonnie and his daughters. They must feel their loss so keenly. [“Dr. C. Robert Wetzel (1934-2024): A Scholar and Gentleman,” by Rick Cherok, August 20, 2024, https://christianstandard. com/2024/08/dr-c-robert-wetzel-1934-2024-a-scholar-and-gentleman/].

Suzanne Welch He was a dear friend and inspiration during my student days at Milligan College. May he rest in God’s peace.

Jef Dye I appreciated Dr. Wetzel’s gentle spirit, faithfulness, and subtle humor.

‘HAPPY FOR POINT’

Bob Stacy I’m happy for Point if her purpose is to educate students in secular majors. Is Point no longer a college specializing in Christian education and in preparing students for Christian service? I am only asking this question to understand the purpose of the University. [“Point University Continues to Grow Enrollment Through Employer ‘Subscription’ Program,” by Chris Moon, August 27, 2024, https://christianstandard.com/2024/08/ point-university-continued-to-grow-enrollment-through-employer-subscription-program/].

Point University Hi, Bob! Point University’s mission remains the same: to educate students for Christcentered service and leadership around the world. We continue to train ministers, and 1,575 students took classes in our College of Biblical Studies and Ministry last year. We are working with CIY and other Christian universities to recruit more students who are called to full-time ministry roles, as well. We are grateful that all Point students, whether called to vocational ministry or another feld, are prepared to share the gospel with a world in need of it! Thanks so much for your interest.

For space, length, readability, relevance, and civility, comments sent to Interact may remain unpublished or be edited. We do read them all and prayerfully take them to heart. If we publish your comment, we will try to honestly reproduce your thoughts with those considerations in mind. Where we disagree, let’s continue to keep P.H. Welshimer’s words in mind to “disagree without being disagreeable.”

@chrstandard @christianstandardmagazine @christianstandardmagazine cs@christianstandardmedia.com

by david faust

The Holidays’ Hard Edge

Do you ever get grouchy during the holidays? If so, you can relate to the first half of the psalmist’s blues song: “Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me?” (Psalm 42:5, 11). It’s tough to sing "Joy to the World" when your soul feels disturbed and downcast.

The holidays have a hard edge because life has a hard edge. Depression, disappointment, and loneliness don’t go on vacation from mid-November till early January. Winter’s dark days can leave you feeling more melancholy than merry.

Grateful or Grumpy?

Americans set aside one day a year for Thanksgiving, then grumble the rest of the year. We’ve got it backwards. Maybe we should have one day called Gripesgiving Day and get all the grumpiness out of our systems, then be grateful the other 364 days of the year!

Scripture wouldn’t say, “Give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:18) if we couldn’t be grateful under stress. Jonah was sloshing around in the belly of the great fish when he told the Lord, “But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you” (Jonah 2:9). Jesus gave thanks on the night before he died on the cross (Matthew 26:26-27). Paul rejoiced and gave thanks in a prison cell (Philippians 1:3-6).

Bible scholar Matthew Henry once was mugged by thieves who stole his wallet, but he still found reasons for gratitude. He wrote in his diary: “Let me be thankful first because I was never robbed before; second, although they took my wallet, they did not take my life; third, because although they took my all, it was not much; and fourth, because it was I who was robbed, not I who robbed.”

One year, my family invited Christian international students to our home for Christmas dinner. These young

believers from a dozen different nations ate, sang, prayed, and laughed as we talked about holiday customs observed in our homelands. A student from an Asian nation put things into perspective when he said quietly, “We like Christmas because during that season we aren’t persecuted as much.”

When the holiday blahs settle in, it’s time to do some self-talk and use the second half of the psalmist’s blues song to tell your soul, “Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God” (Psalm 42:5, 11).

Making the Most of the Season

God’s tidings of comfort and joy ring true in every season. Here are three ways to soften the holidays’ hard edge during these final weeks of the year.

Keep it real. (The Bible does.)

When “the Word became flesh” (John 1:14), the Lord of the universe opened himself up to real-world bumps, bruises, and burdens. The Bible doesn’t sugarcoat the story of Jesus’ birth. It’s filled with real-life sorrow, joy, fear, faith, confusion, and hope. Joseph and Mary endured difficult travel and negative public perceptions about their pregnancy, and they narrowly escaped King Herod’s deadly wrath. The Magi faced their own faith-stretching challenges while searching for the newborn King.

A suffering world needs more than cute stories about jingle bells, snowmen, and little drummer boys. Scripture doesn’t dodge the hard stuff. Neither should our worship services, sermons, and service projects.

Embrace the holidays' potential for both ministry and rest.

As you approach the year’s end, give yourself a little breathing room. Enjoy some silent nights and restful days. But at the same time, be sure to share God’s love with your neighbors during the last two months of the year.

Thanksgiving is a great time to encourage schoolteachers, fire fighters, and police officers. Could you find ways to bless missionaries, soldiers, or college students who live far from home?

Hopefully, your congregation already reaches out to shut-in members with visits, caroling, and gifts during the holidays. Years ago, when our family lived in New York, our church hosted a community meal on Thanksgiving Day for anyone who didn’t want to spend the holiday alone. Whole families joined us. So did young adults, senior citizens, and others who had never been in our church building before.

Last December, my wife Candy and I opened our home for a neighborhood Christmas open house on a Sunday afternoon. Two dozen neighbors came and got better acquainted over snacks and punch.

Grief intensifies during the holidays. This December our church is holding a Blue Christmas service to comfort widows, widowers, and others who grieve the loss of a loved one. It will create natural opportunities for our unchurched neighbors to encounter the hope Christ alone provides.

Keep the big picture in mind.

Don’t be fooled by the holiday glitz and hype. “The world and its desires pass away” (1 John 2:17). Thanksgiving feasts and Christmas concerts come and go before January’s cold reality slaps us in the face.

At its best, this season provides a taste of the soulsatisfying worship and koinonia we’ll enjoy someday in heaven. But don’t expect the holidays to do what only the Holy Spirit can do. Parties and football games can’t fill the void in our hearts. This season should fix our eyes on Jesus, not divert attention away from him.

After all, the best gift isn’t a present under the tree. It’s the Presence of the One who died on the tree. 

Dave Faust serves as contributing editor of Christian Standard. He has written a weekly lesson application for our Bible study material for several years. Previously, he was editor of The Lookout magazine. Dave presently serves as senior associate minister with East 91st Street Christian Church in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Restoration Movement Family,

As of August 21, 2024, The Solomon Foundation (TSF) will begin the search for the next Chief Executive Officer (CEO). This will be an exciting process as our CEO Search Task Force and I have been laying the groundwork of launching this exciting transition.

Our process will be rigorous, and we have established the TSF CEO Profile. This profile will describe the position in detail and ask each applicant to complete several tasks along with their resume.

These are exciting times at TSF! Julie and I are enthusiastic and fully in agreement with the process, and we are confident we will find the next TSF CEO who will take TSF to another level!

I will continue as CEO until the right candidate is selected and a full transition occurs. Julie and I will be a part of the TSF family forever.

The CEO Profile and application instructions can be found by clicking on the APPLY HERE button below. All submittals will go directly to the CEOsearch@thesolomonfoundation.org. Please do not contact either me or any board member or staff member at TSF. All information must be submitted directly to the email address above.

Please pray for this process as we know God has big plans for TSF and her future!

Blessings,

Douglas J. Crozier Chief Executive Officer