The sheer joy folks got out of doing something silly in order to show solidarity with friends and families of those afflicted with ALS was truly wonderful. But once the challenge took off and started garnering not only attention but serious money, questions and hackles were raised.
On a late winter’s evening in March, church members and guests gathered at St. Andrew’s, Ottawa, to hear familiar messages shared by unfamiliar preachers: youth and young adults of varying ethnicities, colours and styles, with piercings and tattoos, hijabs and dreadlocks, conservative and bohemian all in the mix.
It is no easy task to mentor me. I don’t consider myself very teachable or malleable. After observing me during 23 years of marriage, my wife has identified and diagnosed my condition, which she has labelled “Youngest Child Syndrome.”
From time to time some earnest soul will ask me, “Are you saved?” There is a biblically correct answer to that question.
I am renowned for what is technically known as a “low coolness factor” and normally people sedulously keep me away from anything having to do with youth; but if you are elected moderator, they have to invite you to events like Canada Youth 2014.
September, for many of our churches, is a month of ministry startups for the school year. So there is the challenge of calling people back into our activities and programs.
The spiritual practice of silence is simple, but it is one of the more forbidding disciplines for our day. It is a prophetic practice because it challenges our cultural way of being.
When you’re tired out from walking, fed up with scrounging for food, weighed down with your few belongings and your growing children, you can actually forget the feel of the whip on your back. All you want is a full belly, a night’s rest, and a day off the road.
My brother – in – Law, John, loved Afghanistan. He loved the people. He loved the pace. He loved the culture. He loved it so […]
Behind the beauty of this story is a thief, cheat and liar who gets what he wants. Genesis makes a hero out of Jacob, a seriously flawed hero, but a hero nonetheless.
The 140th General Assembly appeared to have an increasing level of frustration as the days went on. It was likely different for each commissioner, but somehow as the assembly was drawing to a close, there was a similar feeling that not much had changed and expectations were left unrealized.
Individuals have a natural life span. We are also becoming accustomed, with pain, to a parallel notion, that congregations have life spans. It may be time to ask whether denominations—in fact, our denomination—might have a life span also.
What made us leave the assembly divided and without a clear direction at this pivotal moment in our history?
While discussions about Sabbath have a history of joy-sapping legalism, the practice is one of the more prophetic habits for Christians living today.
For better or worse the fastest way to force change upon a church is to burn the building down.
When I began with the fellowship, I made the commitment to visit every presbytery at least once. It requires some creativity, and a lot of encouragement and help to accomplish this goal.
Our focus on the pages of scripture, its grammar and syntax, can blind us to the simple reality that the word, written and read, was first a word of God, spoken and heard. The aim in reading the book is hearing the voice.
The first virtue on the list of the fruit of the Spirit is love. Some suggest that it is first because it contains all the other virtues.
Most preachers who follow the lectionary will probably go with the reading from Acts 2 for Pentecost. Maybe the gospel. I think the reading from Numbers 11 has a word for us today. A word or two about whom we should pay attention to.
Once upon a time there was a country church that was called by God to do remarkable things. People on the outside did not realize it was remarkable; people on the inside did not know any different.