Our second Easter apart
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Our second Easter apart

COVID-19 may prevent us from coming together for yet another church holiday, but if the following stories are any indication, the hope of the Risen Christ is very much alive. We asked pastors and leaders from east to west to reflect on the state of the church on this one-year anniversary of the pandemic. Was…

Would Jesus Buy Bitcoin?
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Would Jesus Buy Bitcoin?

If you don’t know what the heck Bitcoin is, it might be time to figure it out. Not only has cryptocurrency – Bitcoin being the original and best known – taken off in the last year, much to the delight of speculative investors and counter-cultural diehards, but social justice advocates herald it as a way…

Business as Usual?
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Business as Usual?

With a fresh face mask for the day hanging off the gear shift, I worked my way through morning traffic heading to St. Andrew’s Hall at the University of British Columbia. The radio crackled with an interview with a CEO from a large online shopping platform. With the echoes of an Old Testament prophet, he…

An awful year

An awful year

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,…

Risky business
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Risky business

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…

Slowing Down
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Slowing Down

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…

Changing the conversation
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Changing the conversation

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…

Listen. Learn. Relinquish Power.
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Listen. Learn. Relinquish Power.

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?…

A Custodian of CC for a Time
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A Custodian of CC for a Time

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….

Persist and Persevere
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Persist and Persevere

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.

Dutch Reformed Bingo in Canada
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Dutch Reformed Bingo in Canada

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.

Welcoming a Young Writer
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Welcoming a Young Writer

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…