Is there hope for pastors and churches in conflict?
♪I have been involved in church life for nearly 70 years, half of those years as a pastor. I love the church except for one thing: churches and pastors don’t seem to know how to disagree agreeably. Too often when a church and their pastor cannot agree on how well he is doing, separation results. But must it be this way?
Are church and hockey at odds?
♪The NHL playoffs are finally upon us, and for many of us Canadian hockey fans this is the most wonderful time of the year. Teams are now finally prepared to push all their chips and truly do whatever it takes to get sixteen wins and hoist Lord Stanley’s glorious cup.
Why this young theologian was drawn to Reformed evangelicalism
♪At one point the title to Collin Hansen’s 2008 book Young, Restless, Reformed would have described me quite well. I was young (in my early 20s), restless (in many ways) and Reformed (drinking regularly from the well of the three Johns: Piper, Edwards and Calvin).
Dabbling to greater fulfillment
I love to dabble in different creative projects. Whether it’s carpentry or gardening or cooking or painting—it all brings me great fulfillment.
Sculpting a journey: art, life and faith
♪Hello there, my name is Andreas Huebert. I am a contemporary artist—a sculptor. I was born in Central Asia, in Kyrgyzstan 51 years ago. I started to sculpt at a very young age, but unfortunately, stopped doing it when I became a teenager.
Trusting God in loneliness
♪Loneliness can be a time of being depressed and feeling sorry for oneself or it can be regarded as a gift from the Lord to get closer to him. So much of life is in the attitude we have.
Heavenly citizenship: living as Christ’s ambassadors in a divided world
♪“You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
On not getting things done: a new measure of time
♪ Every Christmas Eve my children look forward to my purple plum torte. Along with roasted turkey and Walter C. Scott’s A Christmas Carol, the simple yellow cake crowned with plums and sprinkled in cinnamon sugar is tradition. Every year the challenge remains the same—in December plums are not grown in northern climes.
Where is your next pastor now?
♪ An era is ending. See if this agrees with what you’re seeing. For the last several generations, when our churches needed a new pastor, we assumed there was a group of moveable pastors “out there” looking for a church. “Out there” were unknown pastors trained, experienced, and ready to move their families across the continent to pastor our church.
Rediscovering gentle persuasion
♪ A recent article by James Wood recounts his evolution from a fanboy of Tim Keller to a critic (www.firstthings.com, May 6, 2022). His argument sparked a flurry of responses, both positive and negative (from David French at frenchpress.thedispatch.com and Rod Dreher at www.theamericanconservative.com, for example).
How are we connecting
♪ Each Conference Council is an opportunity for delegates to speak—on behalf of their churches about the items on the agenda, and especially after lunch during roundtable discussions. This year the discussion focus was on connecting.
Art and the kingdom
♪ Who created art?
I always begin my lectures with this question. Perhaps you already have an answer in mind. However, the truth is that the question is not so simple to address.
Poem: Where is the peace on earth?
sleepless she slumps in tears
on the couch peers
through the blinds
a street lamp her only light
where is the light for her soul?
where is forgiveness?
A morning on the train tracks
It’s Saturday morning: What should we do? For a family like mine, with young children, there are many options on a weekend. But one Saturday, we decided to try something different after a train whistle reminded us of what God calls us to do.
Memories of a ‘CHRISTSAM’ past
Always first were the grade ones and twos who did the Christmas acrostic. Margaret was first and she boldly held out the C. “C is for the Christ child, born that morn so long ago,” she said crisply. The concert was off to a fine start. Harold was next, and during practice, he had had some difficulties with his line which was simply, “H is for King Herod who slew the Hebrew boys.” Harold looked confident.
Co-pastoring in EMC: does it work?
“Sometimes when there’s something new, everyone looks at it to see if it can work, [but] all sorts of churches … have done well [or] have failed with single pastor hires or multi-team hires.… Things go wrong all the time.… If [co-pastoring] fails, it doesn’t mean it always is going to fail, and if it works, it doesn’t mean it’s always going to work.”
Two kings, two kingdoms
The Pax Romana was a phrase coined by perhaps the most successful authority figure in world history. Directly translated it means the “Roman peace,” and it was a phrase dreamt up and made common by Caesar Augustus, the first and by most considered the greatest Augustan emperor of the renowned Roman Empire.
Stories of tragedy and trust: honouring the legacy we started with
♪ “We came in 1875,” my father tells me. Dad is 94, and a trip to the ER is giving him a sense of urgency to pass on the stories his mother shared.
The untold stories of returned missionaries
♪ You’ve been back in this country for a little less than three months and you’re just wrapping up another talk at one of your sponsoring churches. People walk up to you after the service and shake your hand to welcome you. “You must be so happy to be home!” they proclaim earnestly as they insert words into your mouth before you can even open it in protest.