I am sick of waiting – literally sick and tired of it. I’m tired of waiting to get closer than six feet to loved ones who are outside my social bubble, waiting for a decision on Medical Assistance in Dying to be rightfully dealt with in Canada, waiting for my neighbour to say “yes” to…
The COVID-19 pandemic has welled up a large inner fear within many Christian leaders in North America. They fear empty pews, forever. I have heard pastors postulating that the self-isolation, necessary in our current pandemic, will translate into a self-absorbed “I don’t need the church community” kind of attitude when the pandemic is over. The church of tomorrow, they say, will be characterized by a hyper-individualism.
As many have heard, there are changes afoot in the Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRCNA) that have some a tad anxious. For those who have not heard, over the past several weeks and months, the Canadian governing directors of the CRCNA in Canada served well in their roles of guiding and protecting the church by making changes to fulfill its legal requirements according to Canadian charitable law.
There is a bit of a cryptic account at the end of the gospel of Mark that leaves me curious. The Roman centurion professes to believe that Jesus is the Son of God after seeing “the way he died.” What was it about the way Jesus died that left the centurion so convinced?
Regular readers of the Christian Courier will know that “The Bridge App” (thebridgeapp.org) is a communications tool for tablets and cell phones, that was developed by the Christian Reformed Church in partnership with Extreme Technology.
As a pastor and follower of Jesus Christ, I come back to the same key question every time a shooting makes front page headlines: Is there a way in a Reformed faith structure to conclude “NO” to handguns in the hands of a nation’s citizens? I mean, biblically/theologically speaking, is there way to say “NO MORE HANDGUNS”? Will you wonder with me?
The CRCNA offices in Burlington, Ontario recently underwent a major renovation. We are having a Grand Opening in November, and we’d like to invite people from far and wide to come see the new space, and find out what is central to our ministry.
The Christian Reformed Church in North America is trying a pilot project with CC where we partner with them for one page of space in select issues.
Sometimes I am part of conversations in which the CRC is understood to be the most liberal expression of Christianity from which a believer would want to run. And indeed, people do, thinking that the CRC is “going to hell in a handbasket.” At other times, I am part of conversational circles or leadership groups in which this faith tradition stands out as a lonely bastion of conservative Christianity, and people look at me sideways because my faith is so markedly conservative, so “reformed.” Both cases can spark an identity crisis.
I am not sure the average pew sitter sees, feels or cares about the difference between the faith life of typical Canadians versus Americans. Spoken simplistically, he would probably say “because Christ died for the forgiveness of my sins, my relationship with God is of first importance and I want others to share in my joy. I want my faith to make a difference in the lives of my coworkers, family and Tuesday night slo-pitch teammates.”
Shouldn’t this kind of faith be universal? Is not this faith the same above and below the 49th parallel?
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