December 2005
Download a full pdf of this issue below or find links to every feature, news, column, review, and Our Shared Ministry article included in this edition. Not the date you wanted? Find issues back to January 2016 here or use the search function at the top to find articles going back to 2005. To find something even older, The Banner archives are maintained at Calvin College's Hekman Library.
Features
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I first saw the Tree of Hope during the 2003 Christmas season. At that time I worked at the World Financial Center in Lower Manhattan.
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Christmas is a wonderfully glorious season.
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This play is intended to be used in informal settings—maybe around the dinner table or in front of the fireplace with your famil
News
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Several hundred neighbors of First Christian Reformed Church in Ripon, Calif., flocked to the church’s California Cruizin’ fa
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Two central California Christian Reformed churches are once
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Calls Extended
From First Christian Reformed Church, Oskaloosa, Iowa, to Rev. Warren H.
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At the end of Edmonton, Alberta’s Candy Cane Lane, past all the lights and glitter, you’ll find shepherds, wise men, Mary, Jo
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Classis Chicago South paired its fall meeting with a conference at Trinity Christian College, Palos Heights, Ill., to offer delegates an
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Peter Bosscher and nine students brought water to the Rwandan town of Muramba this past summer.
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Members of eight Christian Reformed churches from South Dakota, Iowa, and Minnesota team up each year to help Alfred and Shirley Old L
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Bert Adema, director of the Christian Reformed Church’s ministry to aboriginal people in Regina, Saskatchewan, has been awarded the
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The youth group at Fuller Avenue Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Mich., traveled all the way to Porto Velho, Brazil, following
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This fall 100 members of the GEMS girls’ club at Rosewood Christian Reformed Church in Bellflower, Calif., worked on an extra-speci
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The 1959 MGM blockbuster Ben-Hur has been released in a new four-disc DVD set, complete with a study guide for using the movie w
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Entering Ordained Ministry
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Rev. Bruce Adema has been appointed the new director of Canadian ministries for the Christian Reformed Church in North America.
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Two or three times each year, Christian Reformed churches send representatives to classis (a regional grouping of churches).
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Redeemer Ranch in Center, Colo., hosted a good old-fashioned hoedown for about 60 members of the Alamosa Christian Reformed Church.
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Two years ago Rehoboth (N.M.) Christian School set out to celebrate its centennial, little knowing that the anniversary would flower into
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For Mike and Sophie Nagtegaal, members of Bridge Community Christian Reformed Church in Langley, British Columbia, a 25th wedding anniver
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It was a high-flying summer at Bethel Christian Reformed Church in Acton, Ontario.
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Christian Reformed church planter Jeff Hough is not shy about promoting Christian day school education.
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Every single night, children of northern Uganda walk miles to sleep in safe houses in the town of Gulu and elsewhere.
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Africa and the Appalachian Trail may seem light-years apart, but Lou Haveman, 60, brought them together in a unique way.
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Bishop Mvume Dandala, general secretary of the All Africa Conference of Churches, said the Bush administration’s funding guidelines
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The Pacific Southwest region of the American Baptist Churches USA says it will leave that denomination over the issue of homosexuality.
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Religious groups stepped up pressure in September on the Bush administration and the U.S.
Columns
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Last December I invited Banner readers to join me in placing just a single item on our Christmas wish list: a goat.
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If thoughtful gifts are what you’re looking for, here’s a list of ideas that are guaranteed to be the right size and add a li
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Getting ready for Christmas is kind of like time traveling.
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In a recent classroom discussion I asked my grade seven and eight students what kind of gifts they were hoping to receive this holiday se
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Total Depravity?
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Times Square in New York City. Seconds before midnight on December 31. A giant ball drops to usher in the New Year.
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Fighting Disappointment in Narnia
The concept of a “traitor” looms large in C.S.
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Keo Phommarath met his wife, Bounchan, at a party.
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OK, so it’s not as important as sending a letter to or on behalf of persecuted people (you read the editorial, didn’t you?),
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Q. What is the ministerial stance on
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We were out of town. Not long. Five days. But when we returned, the restaurant near the corner was gone. It disappeared! Like magic!
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“It is better to give than to receive,” says Scripture (Acts 20:35). But receiving is important too.
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In my humble opinion, all paid ministry staff who work with children and youth in Christian Reformed congregations should function as if
Our Shared Ministry
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When Synod 2005 delegates visited the Back to God Hour’s International Communications Center in Palos Heights, Ill. a
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After the deadly tsunami swept across South Asia, CRWRC was one of the first relief agencies on the scene.
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If you need directions, just ask.
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The mission of the Back to God Hour is to spread God’s Word and make disciples of all peoples through electronic media ministry.&nb
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Over the Past year we’ve heard a great deal about the suffering of the Indonesian people after the terrible tsunami tragedy last Ch
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In July I attended the National Gathering of United Methodist Men at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind.
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By the time you read this issue of The Banner, Thanksgiving will be past—long past, for those of you who celebrated the ho
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Flash back to the early 1990s: Coffee Break, a ministry of Christian Reformed Home Missions, is drawing women by the hundreds to small gr
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After a time of home service, it was my first Sunday back as a missionary in the Dominican Republic.
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Changes in the Master of Divinity degree program at Calvin Theological Seminary will make it possible for students to complete the degree
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Waxing floors, sorting folders, hammering nails, and stocking food pantries are a few of the projects that occupied more than 100 student
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Heather Rosema has a plan to bring racial reconciliation into her life.
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The Back to God Hour’s message goes out through radios, televisions, computers, and cell phones.