What matters?
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What matters?

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Last week, our friends were excitedly planning for the upcoming youth convention. Then we heard the news. The 2023 All Ontario Youth Convention (AOYC) scheduled for this month was cancelled at the last minute because of objections to the main speaker Kevin Makins’ view of same-sex marriage. He wasn’t going to speak about or mention…

Who picks the pictures?
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Who picks the pictures?

Last April, as Russia’s invasion into Ukraine was still fresh on the news and the reports of war crimes were leaking out, I received a folder of images from a news correspondent with the permission to print them in Christian Courier. The images were gut-wrenching, taken by civilians as ground-level evidence of Russian war crimes….

My virtual hearth
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My virtual hearth

There was no possibility of meeting in person that day. The pandemic had brought with it risks so new, and an uncertainty so deep, that gathering the lectio divina group in the same room was now out of the question. A few minutes before 8:30 a.m., I settled my infant daughter and her toddler brother with their…

Saints in the family
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Saints in the family

Angela, Editor of CC, wrote this as a companion piece to her editorial in March. Did you ever wonder if your mom really had eyes in the back of her head? If so, you’re not alone. Ripley’s Believe it or Not asked 1,000 kids between six and eight years old if they thought their parents…

The problem with powerful men
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The problem with powerful men

A few years ago, I was on Council as an elder at our church. This was before the pandemic; our congregation at the time was fairly large, around 700 professing members. I am not a numbers person but I would get a copy of the budget, like everyone else. We would vote on a few…

The robots are coming
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The robots are coming

Could you tell if this editorial was written by a robot? I started asking this question in mid-December right around the time my husband, Jakob was spending his evenings talking to something (someone?) who wasn’t human at all. He had discovered ChatGPT, a large language model developed by OpenAI, a company co-founded by Elon Musk….

The words that started a flood
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The words that started a flood

It was only two pages at first. A single, double-sided sheet. Paul De Koekkoek, pastor of First Christian Reformed Church (CRC) in Edmonton, wrote the articles and paid for the issues to be mimeographed and mailed to churches and interested individuals across Canada. In April 1946, De Koekkoek proposed (in Dutch) that the CRC denomination…

Joseph, first-time dad
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Joseph, first-time dad

“The angels explained things to Joseph after he’d talked to Mary, not before. Be patient when you don’t understand.”  – Bob Goff, Live in Grace, Walk in Love (389)  He’s usually in the background. If the kids in your church are putting on a nativity play, it’s one of the minor roles. He might lead…

Cathedral Grove
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Cathedral Grove

“Mount Doug is a good short hike. If it’s a clear day you should be able to see the Olympic mountains in Washington,” Meghan texted me. “You’ll find lots of arbutus trees – a rare species only on Vancouver Island and parts of Vancouver. They have funky multicolour bark and look almost biblical.” I’m writing…

The mysterious case of Marguerite Périer
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The mysterious case of Marguerite Périer

The miraculous healing of a 12-year-old girl brought the French army to a standstill in 1656. The girl was Marguerite Périer. She was Blaise Pascal’s niece and a boarding student at an abbey just outside of Paris called Port-Royal-des-Champs. Marguerite was suffering from an incurable physical ailment: an eye abscess. Several doctors had examined the…

Praying in Schiphol airport
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Praying in Schiphol airport

“The Qur’an is a masterpiece of language,” my tour guide says, her face radiant. “It’s a miracle.” “I experienced some of that beauty,” I say shyly. “I memorized al-Fatihah.” “You memorized al-Fatihah?” I don’t blame her incredulity. I had cold called a mosque in downtown Oshawa, and my tour guide was the founder’s wife. She…

7 Kinds of People Who Read Christian Courier

7 Kinds of People Who Read Christian Courier

1. After you read a CC article, do you: a) Email the writer about a similar CBC storyb) Return the borrowed copy to your momc) Clip it out to save in a manila folderd) Post a link on Facebook 2. If you email me, are you more likely to: a) Recommend a new book we…