News

Forty-two years since the Indigenous Family Centre opened in Winnipeg, Man., an Indigenous person, Shannon Perez, will serve as director of the organization.

Michelle DePooter-Francis, a commissioned pastor with the CRC and chaplain to the Ministry to Seafarers in the Port of Montreal, describes changes in the ministry and difficulties faced by those who work at sea.

As people deal with the impacts of the pandemic and civil unrest, many Christian leaders, organizations and churches are providing resources to care for members’ mental, as well as spiritual and physical, health.

Youth Unlimited adapted its annual summer mission trips due to the COVID-19 pandemic. About half the usual number of churches signed up for SERVE@Home, but even some of those plans had to change.

Two pastors in Ontario and one in Wisconsin talk about the experience of reopening their churches for in-person worship after widespread closures to keep people socially distanced during COVID-19.

Immanuel CRC members Mike Earls and Gerry Gysbers in Hamilton, Ont., often take their band Deservedly So into local nursing homes to perform for residents. During COVID-19, they’ve kept the sing-along going with an online concert.

For two weeks out of every winter, Ann Arbor (Mich.) CRC hosts additional shelter space for the Shelter Association of Washtenaw. This year, their second week of hosting turned into 12 weeks, benefitting the church and the men.

In a 7-2 decision July 8, the Supreme Court of the United States carved out a broad ministerial exception to workplace discrimination rules that allows religious schools to include lay teachers as among those subject to an exemption from civil rights laws.

A June 30 decision by the U.S. high court has sparked debate over church-state separation.

Restrictions on the use of the Christian Reformed Church’s office buildings in Grand Rapids, Mich., and Burlington, Ont., have been updated and continue to be in place.

A 15-year-old after-school ministry program in Wyoming, Mich., is launching new programs to serve students.

A pilot program has brought together an intergenerational group of graduate students, social justice and policing consultants and senior pastors to determine what to do before, during, and after crises of racial injustice arise.

Two cases—Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru and St. James School v. Biel—that involve a “ministerial exemption” to civil rights protections will be decided on this month.

Berny Niemeyer, a church planter and pastor who lived for more than a decade with Alzheimer’s Disease, died May 20.

Jim Versluys, who served for 33 years as pastor to several Christian Reformed congregations, died May 15.

A gentle, wise servant of God, Bill DeJong died May 30 at age 90.

Thirty-three people signed a public post accusing author Chris Heuertz of  “spiritual and psychological abuse." The Christian publishing company Zondervan responded by halting a documentary project and suspending promotion of two of his books.

Religion News Service reports that a June 18 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court is receiving praise from faith groups across the religious spectrum. The ruling temporarily halts  efforts to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which grants legal protection to undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children.

For the first time in its 163-year history, the Christian Reformed Church canceled its annual synod due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Council of Delegates met to deal with matters from the Agenda for Synod 2020 that couldn’t wait.