Do you remember where you were back in March? I can recall being at my fun, part-time job at an upscale boutique, and getting news that schools were closing and I had to close up shop and go home. It wasn’t long before people were hoarding toilet paper, arguing about wearing masks and personal rights,…
Most of us have grown weary of living life in a state of semi-panic and cautious concern. The COVID-19 pandemic has grown old.We knew that it could go on for a while, but seriously? Christmas is fast approaching, and we can almost taste the bitterness of the one-year anniversary. At this point, we can’t blame…
For 20 years, I hated Christmas. Or perhaps hate is too strong a word. It’s more accurate to say that Christmas was exhausting, and always I dreaded its arrival. As a pastor with four children I worked hard to have gifts bought and wrapped by the first Sunday in Advent because the month of December…
For the past few years, inclusion has been a popular buzzword. Businesses, organizations, and individuals profess to be inclusive, to accept others for who they are, and to be a safe place for everyone to be authentic. However, for individuals on the margin, or anyone who doesn’t fit into traditional definitions of “normal,” inclusion sometimes…
Where can a congregation go if they’re looking for resources to learn how to centre people from minority groups and go beyond merely including them? What if you’re wanting to listen to the voices of the LGBTQ+ community in your congregation? Or people with disabilities? People affected by poverty or homelessness? People with mental illnesses?…
It was the fall of 1975 when I learned that Dick Farenhorst, editor of Calvinist Contact, was dealing with terminal cancer. I was an editor of a daily newspaper in Welland, Ont., and I had written in CC on occasion. On March 1, 1976, at the age of 26, I was appointed editor of CC by the board of directors….
About a year ago a friend asked me, “What is the difference between doing and being?” The question stumped me because each time I thought of the act of being, it was associated with an equivalent act of doing: if I am this, I do that. The two seemed inseparable. It took me a few weeks of contemplation to express that while being is indeed often associated with doing, there has to be more to it than that.
When I was an adolescent in the late-70s and early-80s, Calvinist Contact was the place to find out what was going on, for the Dutch Reformed immigrant community in Canada. CC wrote about the wider world in which we lived. And it shaped our smaller ethnic and religious world. It reflected the ease with which Dutch Reformed folk made connections with each other, figuring out people that they knew in common.
I first met Bert Witvoet at a collaborative art luncheon at church. He made me feel immediately welcome, not in the too-familiar style of an obligatory attempt to recruit a new member to church, but with sincere interest in who I was. We had a lot in common: he was a former Christian high school…
Innovation in theological education has always been an essential part of equipping leaders for Christ’s church in the world. Many of our theological colleges across North America have stories of hard-scrabble beginnings, quick pivots, and adaptive responses to the context through various twists and turns along the way, before becoming the more established institutions we…
Early on in the COVID-19 Pandemic, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau advised people to not “speak moistly on others,” for fear of spreading the virus, it nudged me to think about the theological significance of incarnation for us as Christians. As a Reformed Christian I am mindful of our common faith in the risen Christ that takes both human flesh…
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit Canada in March, it interrupted my plans. I had five more flights booked for visits to various Presbyterian congregations and larger gatherings in my role as Moderator of the 2019 General Assembly.
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