All of the struggles of these past six months seemed so small — the pain of leaving a church, the incessant theological pushback. None of these things really mattered in comparison with knowing him.
Sometimes I wonder if the struggles the CRC is facing are meant to kindle our imaginations so that we’ll be able to see a new thing that God has for us.
Every night I put God’s name on my son. And every night he puts God’s name on me. Such a beautiful blessing.
We’ve all had moments where we’ve empathetically suffered with others to the point where it really did feel like we’d suffered the loss ourselves. What if Jesus empathized like this all the time?
I’ve got to think that the hours spent with those two guys last night, engaging God in what they are most passionate about, on their turf, may have a more lasting impact than years of Sunday services.
The moment I have to tell someone that their voice isn’t good enough, or that they’re not called to preach or teach children, my confidence ebbs. Who am I to make those kinds of calls?
Just how much should we engage with culture? For many in the class who come from a holiness tradition that keeps church and world quite separate, the question of lines is a very important one.
I understand that seminaries cannot fully teach all of God’s truth in all of the scientific spheres to their students. But by choosing to focus solely/primarily on just one or two of God’s revelatory spheres – the Bible and church tradition – are they not risking a ‘closed shuttered’ isolationism that could lead to idolatry?
What if the Christian Reformed Church is meant to be a church that connects the Jesus of the bible to the resurrected Jesus today? What if our calling is to tie what he said then to what he’s saying now?
Van Gogh once wrote, “I prefer painting people’s eyes to cathedrals, for there is something in the eyes that is not in the cathedral, however solemn and imposing the latter may be – a human soul, be it that of a poor beggar or of a street walker, is more interesting to me.” I will never forget the day I experienced Van Gogh’s truth for myself.