This list is ranked based on my perceptions of importance, newsworthiness, and the interests of this audience. Every Supreme Court case is significant. I just think these will be the most significant for a reading of in all things to know.
Answering Your Question: Horrible Decree or Doctrine of Hope
To what extent is it helpful for twenty-first century Reformed Christians to endorse a theology of election? Is predestination simply a “horrible decree”? Or is it potentially a doctrine of hope?
Reflections From the Day Before Today
Sometimes, we encounter something senseless, and we don’t know what to do, or how to feel–like the ‘big’ and ‘small’ events of life. What happened yesterday was singular and unique and troubling and spirit-raising and confusing. But maybe every day is singular. And unique. And troubling. And spirit-raising. And confusing.
Living Business as Mission
Jesus showed up in extraordinary ways in the ordinary rhythms of life. Of our waking hours over 50% is spent in the marketplace. Do you view work as your primary mission field?
Seek Justice, Encourage the Oppressed
Many of us can easily be convicted to be compassionate in these ways; to give food, money, clothing and even our time. We know that we are doing what God calls us to. But is this all that God is calling us to in our response to the poor and vulnerable?
Answering Your Question: Elder and Deacon Training
What training or teaching can be provided for emerging leaders in the role of elder and deacon in the church?
Vulnerability, Discipleship and Community
It may be more or less socially acceptable for us to express our feelings, or to let it be known that we have feelings, depending on our gender, age, social position and the like, but this doesn’t negate the creational reality: we are created with emotions.
Handiwork of our Creator
In chemistry we see a means of praising a creative, sustaining, and redeeming God and are able, as God’s creatures, to share in this work in a small way.
Top 5 books on ministering to millennials
How do you talk about Jesus with those who have heard about him their entire lives but now want nothing to do with the church? Does ministry to those in their 20’s look the same as it did 15 years ago? Here are five books on ministering to the millennial generation.
Shame, Vulnerability, and Faith
It sounds simplistic, but we cannot love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and love our neighbors as ourselves if we don’t believe we are valuable, worthy of love and belonging, from God and from others.
Answering Your Question–Leadership and Power
How can churches and Christian leaders be better at actually enacting servant leadership rather than hierarchical, top-down leadership?
Or does it explode?
How Langston Hughes’ poem “Harlem” still gives us a lens through which to understand racial relations in America.
Two posts that caught our eye this week
Should the doctrine of grace equal humility or elitism? How does good theology get twisted from the inside out? How do we have faith in Jesus in our work and in our lives? How do we find meaning in what we do? Good questions asked by two webpages that caught our attention this week. What caught your eye on the web this week?
Acceptance by whom?
Who or what are you trying to be accepted by? How can you shift your focus of acceptance from humanity’s acceptance to God’s acceptance?
All of Life
We all know that the Church is a people not a place, yet Christians across the globe go to church on any given Sunday. Similarly we gather for worship when in fact, for the Christian, all of life is meant to be worship.
In spite of hardship
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to truly be so grace-filled and encouraged that ‘there are no needy persons amongst yourselves?’
Serving others
Serving others. For 25 years I’ve been living these words as I serve in the maintenance department here at Dordt College as campus electrician and chief boiler operator.
Everything is Related
Creation is the ultimate act of divine revelation. And that revelation requires both the ‘natural’ world and the products of human culture. Humans are not (just) the audience to whom God is revealed, we are part of the very picture of revelation itself. Humans are necessarily and essentially part of the created realm.
To Engage Creation
As creatures made in God’s image, we have been tasked to represent the Lord in His creation.
A Song of Harvest
Sometimes (most times?), especially when we’re thinking of God, our lives seem to be in a bad place.
Sphere Sovereignty
This is the idea that different parts of creation have legitimately different rules, tasks, and duties, given them by God for the proper functioning of the world.
Meeting Her
She walked into the room, dressed simply, dressed beautifully.
In All Things…
There’s a scene in the 2006 Will Ferrell movie Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby in which Will Ferrell’s character, Ricky Bobby, is saying grace before a meal. He addresses his prayer explicitly to “baby Jesus.”
More than a Number
Applying for college can be one of the most confusing and stressful times in a young person’s life.
Criminal Justice as Ministry
The Criminal Justice System is designed to protect the flourishing of society.