This is a public forum to share ideas, ask questions, and reflect on being a pastor in the CRC.
Worship 
Phillip 
Pastor Church 
Vibrant
Staci
If willing to share, I'd love to hear what your Advent theme is this year. I'm also curious, what are some of the ways that you are engaging your Advent theme beyond the sermon?
A mentor told me that good preaching was like a good BBQ. You’ve got to take your time on the prep work. This summer I’ve been brought back to that image as I’ve worked my way through A Little Handbook for Preachers.
I am intrigued by the repetitive act in the Old Testament where God’s people would erect stone monuments. They served as a visual way of reminding themselves (and sometimes future generations) about God’s acts of faithfulness.
As summer approaches, I've been reflecting on a subtle language shift around summer plans. Can we recover a glimpse of creational goodness by altering our language from summer vacations toward summer "holy-days"?
February marks the 25th anniversary of when I started to follow Christ. Though I was raised in a Christian home and my parents afforded me the opportunity to attend Christian schools, I had deliberately walked away from God.
I have been making my way through Pope Francis’ exhortation: Evangelii Gaudium, The Joy of the Gospel. This document is a call for Christians everywhere to re-engage the biblical call of evangelization.
I wonder what it would look like to be a church without a budget, or a pastor, or even a building. What insights do you have about discovering what it means to be a church when you don’t have one or more of these resources to rely on?
"I love you more than my need to be right." I’ve been thinking about those words in the context of this verse – “Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry” – and have wondered what difference it might make to those standing on the margins of the church. What if their experience of church was marked by people who listened well to them and each other...
In our enthusiasm for missional living, do we too often encourage people to “go all the way” without taking the time to first build a relationship with the neighborhood?
“How far is too far?” I’ve been asking myself that question a lot lately. It’s normally a question we ask while attempting to navigate the sexual desires and angst of relationships before (and regrettably, sometimes outside of) marriage. That question has been in my heart and mind lately, only in a very different context...
We have this beautiful mission statement that expresses a common commitment that we exist to serve our community. The challenge is that we too often take that statement for granted. We have been out of the habits of listening to our neighbours, of spending time with them, of inviting them over, of simply being present in our neighborhood. When a situation comes up, we struggle with what it means for us to serve our neighbors...