May 2021
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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These days, most Christians seem to have learned how to argue from Twitter rather than Scripture. That’s a problem.
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In our interconnected world, actions we take now affect not only our own backyards, farms, and cities, but also distant places and peoples extending centuries into the future.
News
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CRCNA executive director Colin Watson Sr. was one of 28 leaders to sign a March 8 letter to U.S. President Joe Biden addressing policy recommendations related to the Middle East.
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Two or three times each year, Christian Reformed churches send representatives to their classis, a regional group of churches. Here is the report of classis meetings of the past several months.
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In Phoenix, Ariz., a regional assembly of the Reformed Church in America and a classis of the Christian Reformed Church are cooperating to share resources and offer ministry in Orangewood Community Church, a joint church plant that hosted its first public worship service last June.
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Consejo Latino, an active network of Hispanic ministry leaders within the Christian Reformed Church and beyond, is connecting and training pastors seeking ordination in the CRC and helping interested churches to affiliate with the denomination.
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Coopersville (Mich.) Christian Reformed Church marked 100 years of ministry in October 2020.
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In January, Dordt University in Sioux Center, Iowa, launched the Thrive Center, a center for teaching and delivering ABA, a therapeutic approach “individualized to each client’s strengths, needs, and goals.”
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Recent reports about instances of bullying and threatening communication received by staff of the Christian Reformed Church’s Office of Social Justice have raised questions about what’s going on and why.
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Peter Boodt lived to preach and bring the Word of the Lord to any and all. He died Feb. 14.
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Peter Kang’s life as a longtime minister and missionary was marked by a passionate dedication to Jesus Christ. He died Feb. 11.
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Wheel House Cafe, operating in the covered front entrance of Christ Church of Davis in California, is a simple idea: offer “good coffee, good connections, as well as teaching young people employable skills along the way.”
Columns
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One of the things God designed trees to do is to affect the ground in different ways.
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In a sense, I had embraced All Lives Matter as a movement many years ago.
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In this riveting middle-grade novel, a 12-year-old girl and her 8-year-old brother are separated from their parents and escape North Korea in 1950.
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Discipleship is not merely about endorsing a set of propositions or confessional statements.
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My siblings and I can’t seem to agree on end-of-life decisions for our parents, and they do not have a living will. How do we find consensus, if not agreement?
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After 54 years of zestful living, the remainder of my brother’s life was now defined by this sentence.
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When my adoptive mother died, the process of mourning was short. In fact, half of the family, including me, didn’t even go to the lunch after the burial.
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Cuando reducimos con nuestras palabras a una persona hecha a imagen y semejanza de Dios a un objeto de burla en nuestras mentes y corazones, la hemos hecho menos humana.
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An African American who writes about the faith and family focus of African American characters.
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U.S. law generally allows for the ownership of firearms for purposes of self-defense (much less so in Canada). Whether we as Christians should exercise that right is a harder question.
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Our beliefs might change because of changes in knowledge and understanding in the world around us.
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My church expects parents to help in children’s worship once a month. Is that necessary? What do we gain and what do we lose?
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The unforgettable, inspiring story of a teenage girl growing up in a rural Nigerian village who longs to get an education so that she can find her “louding voice” and speak up for herself.
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Biblical womanhood isn't biblical, says Baylor University historian Beth Allison Barr. It arose from a series of clearly definable historical moments.
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God is not indifferent or uncaring, but perhaps his silence is there for a reason. Wilderness moments are important spaces that force us to shift our understanding of God and make us more conscious of him.
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Taking up my cross means accepting all the pain and injustice and misery life imposes on me as I attempt to be a faithful follower of Jesus.
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What Wanda of the Disney+/Marvel Studios series WandaVision can teach us about grieving well.
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When through our words we reduce a person made in God’s image into an object of derision in our minds and hearts, we have made them less human.
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When the man she loved years ago returns to town, one young woman’s complicated past rises again, threatening to expose her well-kept secrets.
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우리의 말을 통해서 우리가 하나님의 형상으로 창조된 사람들을 축소시키고 우리 마음 속에서 조롱의 대상으로 삼을 때, 우리는 그들을 사람보다 못한 존재로 만드는 것입니다
Our Shared Ministry
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The crash left Jenica with several life-threatening injuries, including severe head trauma. She remembers nothing of the several months that followed.
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Incluso con todas estas historias de éxito, sé que hay mucho más que podríamos hacer. Cada parte de nuestra denominación necesita una estrategia de crecimiento.
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As in many hospitals around the world, Momoru says the hospital where he works near Tokyo, Japan, has felt “more like a battlefield than a place of care.”
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Even with all of these success stories going on, I know there is a lot more we could do. Every part of our denomination needs a growth strategy.
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Worship Ministries continues to build up a small library of video sermons for congregational use.
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Whether it be age, ethnicity, culture, language, church model, how people connect to God in worship, or something else, it can be hard for people to find the right church fit.
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The students at Unity Christian School in Chilliwack, B.C., are committed to being good stewards of God’s creation.
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Hearts Exchanged is a learning and action journey that equips Reformed Christians to engage with Indigenous peoples as neighbors in ways that grow trust and transformation.
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이 모든 성공사례가 들리는 가운데에서도 우리가 더 많은 일을 할 수 있다는 것을 알고 있습니다. 우리 교단의 모든 부문은 성장전략을 필요로 합니다.