Reader satisfaction with The Banner has gone up over the past three years, according to data from reader surveys in 2020 and 2023.

A pastor and professor with a gentle demeanor and respect for others as God’s image bearers, Phil Holtrop was a trusted confidant and mentor to many. He died June 12, aged 89.

Two men with a heart for Haiti are working to build up leaders and plant Haitian churches in southern Florida.

Yeshiva University in New York has launched a master’s degree program intended specifically for Christian students who want to learn more about Judaism. It’s part of a growing number of interfaith academic collaborations at U.S. Christian and Jewish schools.

David Zandstra, 83, living in Marietta, Ga., is charged with “criminal homicide, murder of the first, second, and third degree, as well as kidnapping of a minor” in connection with the 1975 murder of 8-year old Gretchen Harrington in Marple, Penn.

Got Bibles? An ad placed in The Banner caught the attention of a Grand Rapids, Mich., reader. With no Michigan drop-off for the Neoga, Ill.-based Project Bible Runners, she decided to offer one.

In February 2021, Classis Chicago South commissioned a team to promote racial reconciliation. They hosted a unity service May 21 at Chicago Christian High School.

A pastor “passionate about welcoming everyone and their stories into the family of God,” Harvey Brink died May 26. He was 78.

An active pastor of the Indonesian Christian Reformed Fellowship in Dover, N.H., Michael Lapian died June 25. He was 61.

Playing pickleball with church members and neighbors “brings down barriers” says Philadelphia pastor and pickleball enthusiast Gabriel Wang-Herrera.

Unity Christian High School in Hudsonville, Mich., won the Michigan High School Athletic Association Division 3 girls soccer state championship June 16.

At its general assembly in June, the Christian Reformed Church reiterated directions that the Grand Rapids, Mich., congregation come “into alignment with the biblical guidelines affirmed by Synod 2022 regarding same-sex, sexual relationships.” Now the church has to decide how to proceed.

Diane Wendt has led the Coffee and Comfort grief group at Orland Park Christian Reformed Church since 1980. As long as God can use her, she says, she’ll keep doing the work of walking with people through their grief.

Many U.S. religious minorities said the ruling was a much-needed corrective to the challenges they face in balancing their work with their sincerely held religious practices.

Prompted by numerous recent sexual abuse scandals in American churches, a faith-based nonprofit shifts its education and support focus to North America.

A 17-foot paper-sculpted tree is the focal point for a Bellflower church’s “Tree Tales” Summer Family Nights, a five-week event that kicked off June 28.

While volunteering with a ministry in Greece in 2022, Christian Reformed pastor Peter Armstrong produced a teaching documentary around Acts 17.

Delegates affirmed a decision to expel two Southern Baptist churches, including Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church in Orange County, Calif., because they employed women as pastors.

Synod 2023 took several significant actions that did not incur much discussion amid the larger impact of debates over last year’s synodical decisions.

“Even as we leave this place with much of the brokenness we came in with still all broke, let’s leave with rejoicing on our lips, because that’s always directed toward God,” Paul DeVries, president of Synod 2023, said.

Seeking to earn a Servant Leader Award in Stratford (Ont.) Christian Reformed Church’s Cadet group, 14-year-old Nathaniel led six other cadets in building doorway ramps for several local businesses.

Synod did not sustain an appeal by Neland Avenue CRC to Synod 2022’s order to “immediately rescind its decisions to ordain a deacon in a same-sex marriage.”

After having decided to stay with Synod 2022’s view that including homosexual sex as ‘unchaste’ has confessional status, Synod 2023 debated how to speak love and urge prevention of harm to LGBTQ+ people in the church.