I got chatting with a fellow mom at a parent-and-tot drop-in in my neighbourhood recently. She asked me casually what I do for a living. I took a deep breath, smiled and answered, “I’m a pastor. Like, at a church.” She gave me the same confused look I’ve seen many times by now. Rest assured,…
Wander into Roy’s Place, a restaurant in the southern Alberta town of Claresholm, and you might find an informal gathering of Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRCNA) leaders, some from hours away, deep in conversation. For the past few years, they’ve been convening here periodically, drawn not only by the food but by a…
When the motion for Edmonton’s Fellowship Church’s disaffiliation from the Christian Reformed Church of North America (CRCNA) was approved at the March 8 Classis Alberta North meeting, members of Fellowship met the news with murmurs, joined hands, smiles and tears. The motion didn’t take long: a unanimous vote, a farewell letter, a blessing and a…
I spent time with a crying woman at the bank the other day. She is what I imagine Mary, the mother of Jesus, was like. As we got out of our respective cars, she recognized me. She wanted to talk “church.” We weren’t in the conversation for more than 60 seconds when tears filled her…
When Liz Straiton, a member of Redwood Park Church in Thunder Bay, Ontario, was asked to make reusable communion cups to replace the disposable plastic ones in use, she accepted the challenge. She glazed and fired over 500 dishwasher-safe cups over eight weeks. Each individual cup is small and lightweight, similar in size to the…
For the past three years, I have been on a journey of deconstruction – disillusioned by the command-and-control nature of denominations and the modus operandi of the local church. At times my questioning has felt perilous. Should I be feeling this way? What would the faithful generations in my family tree think? Am I losing…
What is it about church that makes some people more apt to “check their eyelids for leaks,” as the father of our minister, Rev. Heather Malnick, used to say? And how do those in church leadership feel when they observe congregants dozing? Rev. Michael Barnes, retired Presbyterian minister, remembers the difficulty he had attending night…
The Church is in a catastrophe. I could quote the statistics, but if you’re paying attention, you don’t need them. You know that church attendance is in a historic downturn unlike any other time in Western history, that our sacred spaces are being converted into luxury condos, and that our denominations (seemingly across the board)…
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