In which God incubates the Church through a pandemic
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In which God incubates the Church through a pandemic

We’re crouched in the dark, gently bending over the antique incubator. I hear a faint chirping, and my husband lifts the metal lid. There’s a bowl of water inside to keep the eggs soft, and the air smells like warm, wet grass. Inside, a newly hatched chick bravely stands, singing his baby victory songs. And…

The narcissistic church and our need for a Saviour
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The narcissistic church and our need for a Saviour

“For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power” (1 Cor. 4:20). We’re seated at supper around chicken wings and garlic toast. I’m telling my family about Pastor Sonnel, a friend of mine from Sierra Leone who’s been leading revivals in eight remote villages. I tell them how he was…

What the Church can learn from St. Francis of Assisi at Christmas
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What the Church can learn from St. Francis of Assisi at Christmas

Since I was young, I’ve longed to see Jesus. I’ve longed to encounter God in a very physical way.  And most every Alberta winter, when the sky is just a scroll of black parchment and the stars wink of some ancient secret, when the path beneath our feet crunches of snow and ice and the…

What It Means to Live a Victorious Life in the Midst of Suffering
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What It Means to Live a Victorious Life in the Midst of Suffering

I’m seated amidst a sea of black dresses and suits in the glaring heat of a summer afternoon. There’s the faint smell of lilacs. We’re outside on white plastic chairs in a semi-circle facing a table of photos of a man who died at 33 years old, after being rendered paralyzed five years earlier through a car accident.

The Church Ablaze with Hope During COVID-19

The Church Ablaze with Hope During COVID-19

I walk the long lonely gravel roads of our small Alberta hamlet, past farm fields giving way to spring, under a night sky studded with the same stars Father Abraham once knew. I’m worshiping in this darkest hour but my worship turns to weeping as I remember the German Minister of Finance Thomas Schaefer, his body found by train-tracks, presumably suicide, at the end of March.

New Life is Coming
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New Life is Coming

I’m driving to my in-laws’ farm. It’s after supper and the gravel roads are empty, just like the churches, just like the schools, just like the stores in nearly every town, every city, every region and every continent. It’s Spring of 2020 and COVID-19 has taken over in what World Health Organization has called a pandemic, and for once it would seem we are completely unified – fighting the same invisible virus.

A message to the church at Easter
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A message to the church at Easter

It was a week when the world froze over in northern Alberta. A week when mercury slid below forty and schools closed and traffic halted. When the power went off one night for a few hours, our hearts stopped too, and neighbours huddled around one another’s woodstoves to eat and pray. Not knowing that in this same week, in the same county, a man was sitting stranded, in his vehicle, stuck in the sandhills, for nearly three days before being found.

The ‘In Sickness’ Vow

The ‘In Sickness’ Vow

I’m pressing a cool cloth to his forehead and next I’ll be removing the bedsheets because this is a bad flu. My husband of 17 years peers at me over the top of the duvet, his hazel eyes sorry, and I nod and swallow and quietly shut the door. The house smells of woodsmoke and chicken noodle soup. Next it’s the kids’ turn and I know I’ll be sick last because that’s how it goes. Somehow grace keeps you serving one after the other until the body knows it can finally rest. And that’s when it collapses.