“Horrifically peaceful.” That’s how Richard Bodini, pastor at Heritage Fellowship Christian Reformed Church (CRC) in Brampton, Ontario, describes being present with a person passing from life to death through Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID). “Going from having a conversation with the person to praying over their cold body in a matter of moments,” he says,…
Wander into Roy’s Place, a restaurant in the southern Alberta town of Claresholm, and you might find an informal gathering of Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRCNA) leaders, some from hours away, deep in conversation. For the past few years, they’ve been convening here periodically, drawn not only by the food but by a…
From name to business model, New Jubilee in northeast Edmonton exists to share a uniquely situated bit of creation even beyond the 50-year timeframe for redistribution prescribed in the biblical Jubilee. People come to band birds, hold events in the on-site yurt, tour the forest and participate in two thriving U-pick operations: Lady Flower Gardens…
When the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) began allowing the ordination of women as clergy, Helen Reitsma anticipated positive change for the church she attends in Brantford, Ontario. Twenty-five years later, however, her congregation still has no women in office, let alone female clergy. Even so, she says, “a lot of stuff is really run by…
“It’s really hard to keep loving a denomination that doesn’t love you back. Honestly, it’s getting harder and harder to stay.” That’s one of many sobering responses to a Christian Courier survey of ordained women in the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) a quarter century after the denomination opened that office to women. Of the 20…
Amanda Bakale can still picture the first time she saw a woman step up to the pulpit to preach, her long lavender skirt swishing in the silence of the sanctuary. “I remember the movement of her skirt,” Bakale recounts, years later. “Not a suit, but a beautiful, flowing skirt. And a body that looked like…
Decades before the first woman was ordained in the Christian Reformed Church (CRC), groups of women (and some men) with a vision for the full expression of women’s gifts were at work, opening a path toward leadership. For me and other Edmonton women, that journey began in 1983 with informal house meetings and grew into…
Twin nieces turned 25 the day I began writing this article. They were born in 1996, the very year when the synod of the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) first approved women for ordination and gave congregations the option of calling women as Ministers of the Word. Born prematurely, those two tiny girls spent agonizing months…
A sense of abundance enfolds Sunrise Farm in east central Alberta, the fruit of 20 years of working in harmony with creation. Since shifting to holistic management and certifying as organic, Don and Marie Ruzicka have created a “7-11 convenience store” for a growing diversity of species.
In a sunny living room overlooking the forest, Jim recalls addressing a parade of planning boards and councils over the decades, drawing on soil science and his own experience to make the case that this land must be stewarded.
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