Leadership. What comes to mind when you hear the word? If you are like most people in the western self-determinist part of the world, you think of a person, an individual. History and Scripture would not necessarily dissuade you. Lincoln, Churchill, Moses, King David. We immediately gravitate toward their successes. The individual is, for us,…
It’s been three years since Synod last met in-person. Since Synod 2019, a tremendous amount of change to ministry has occurred while we as Christian Reformed Church (CRC) members and leaders all waited for the day when we could have Synod together again. Such change has left the CRCNA in a state that eerily echoes…
Because of the first Easter, the behaviours of the followers of the one true God changed dramatically. The gospel was thrown wide open to people of every nation. Eating habits began to differ. Long standing practices such as circumcision and sacrifice were given flexibility. For a first century resident in Jerusalem it would have felt…
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.
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