Shannon Jammal-Hollemans
Rev. Shannon Jammal-Hollemans serves as Racial Justice Team Leader for two ministries of the Christian Reformed Church: the Office of Social Justice and the Office of Race Relations. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree at Grand Valley State University (Allendale, Michigan) and her Master of Divinity at Calvin Theological Seminary (Grand Rapids, Michigan). She is ordained to her position by Oakdale Park Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Posted in: Discussion Guide for "Born a Crime" by Trevor Noah
Thanks for your question. We don't have any other guides available yet, but we are working on developing them. Let us know if you have suggestions to pass along!
Posted in: Discussion Guide for "Born a Crime" by Trevor Noah
I will Get working on that. Thanks for the recommendation!
Posted in: We Need to Talk About Abortion
As this piece states, "We owe it to everyone to educate each other about reproduction and abortion. We also need to create spaces in our ministries to extend the love, mercy, and grace that we have in Christ." This is why this piece concludes with a request for recommended resources that speak the truth with mercy and grace.
Posted in: We Need to Talk About Abortion
Thank you for sharing this story. Too often our conversations about abortion are about an "issue" and not real people, made in the image of God, who have been victimized.
Posted in: We Need to Talk About Abortion
Thanks for your comments, Beth. I added the note about the study in JAMA Psychiatry because it got quite a bit of news last week. Like you, it contradicts most of my experiences with post-abortive men and women.
Posted in: Families First
Thanks for this helpful post, Angie!
Posted in: Unbalanced Power
Thanks for sharing these thoughts, Robin. I really appreciate Pastor Arbogast's sermon. I have been researching for a Bible study that I am leading this summer on women in Scripture, and have been astounded by the number of commentators who depict many of the women in Scripture as seductresses. While there are some like that, most of the women in Scripture are not. I am grateful for other pastors who are faithful to the text in pointing that out. The gospel is good news for both men and women!
Posted in: Youth
This is great! Thanks for sharing.
Posted in: Seamless Faith: Simple Practices for Daily Family Life
Thank you for sharing this, Laura! I like the idea of honoring the small occasions in our family's life. Our oldest child recently graduated the eight grade, and her school doesn't have a ceremony or anything to mark it, but I have been wondering how our family might mark, even in a small way, this milestone in her life as she sets of for high school. I am eager to check this book out.
Posted in: Family Devotional?
When my children were young, we used Making Time for God: A Devotional for Children and Families to Share by Susan Garrett and Amy Plantinga Pauw. I’d recommend it!
Posted in: How do you fundraise for an intergenerational trip?
This isn't specifically for intergenerational trips, but our church recently sent it's high school youth group to Mexico on a mission trip. The youth director paired all of the students going with prayer partners, older folks in the church, many of whom were very generous in supporting the kids financially to go. She also had the kids in Wednesday evening children's ministries make cards for the youth going on the trip (6 weeks before they left). This got the younger kids interested in the trip, too. So when the youth director was thinking of a fund raiser, she put together a dinner at the church, that the youth sold tickets for. The price was a bit steep for many folks ($20/adult, $10/kid, and 5 and under free), but more than 100 people showed up, and it was an intergenerational group, from young families to seniors. Many people paid more than the ticket price to support the trip.
The meal for the dinner was prepared by a few of the boys in the youth group, interested in cooking and baking, under the shepherding of a man in the church who loves grilling. There were ribs, beef brisket, pulled pork sandwiches, homemade rolls, coleslaw, and macaroni and cheese. The rest of the youth group pitched in with set-up and tear-down and serving, and everyone pitched in to promote it. The whole church really took ownership of the fund raising. It was good to see!
Posted in: It’s Time to Stop Talking About Justice
This article highlights how this move hurts the Christian community in Jerusalem. Particularly, these lines:
"Taken at face value, this new policy suggests that if in the past Israel viewed the material well being of Jerusalem’s churches as a vital Israeli interest, the same view no longer holds sway. Indeed, this new tax policy, if it is not changed, will severely undermine the viability of many of the Christian communities in the city. Many of these are vulnerable communities, struggling to maintain the Christian presence in Jerusalem under daunting circumstances."