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CRC Ministry Cares for MSU Students After Campus Shooting
03/31/2023

Campus Edge Fellowship has been providing extra support for Michigan State University students affected by a Feb. 13 shooting on campus since the day of the incident. An outreach to graduate students situated on the edge of campus in East Lansing, Mich., Campus Edge’s weekly Bible study was meeting

A Christian Field Guide to Technology for Engineers and Designers
03/31/2023

On good days, the CRCNA is a community in relentless pursuit of faithfulness in every square inch of our lives and all of creation. One needs only to look at the strange and beautiful questions we ask. For example: “How do engineers and computer scientists design technology Christianly?”In their rec

Mission: JOY
03/31/2023

A Buddhist and a Christian walk into a bar. Normally, this is how a good joke starts. However, this setup is not for a joke, but the basis of a documentary about a unique friendship between the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu. Rather than a bar, they walk into a studio to talk about their deep and joyfu

If Mama Ain't Happy: Why Minding Healthy Boundaries Is Good for Your Whole Family
03/31/2023

Author Rachel Norman knows what it’s like to be a busy mom; she and her husband had five babies in five years. As Norman juggled the demands of marriage, motherhood, and running a household—she was an only child and unused to family chaos—she found herself ignoring all her own needs and always putti

Weeping in Nashville
03/31/2023

As I Was Saying is a forum for a variety of perspectives to foster faith-related conversations among our readers with the goal of mutual learning, even in disagreement. Apart from articles written by editorial staff, these perspectives do not necessarily reflect the views of The Banner. The Banner h

‘Catfish Navy’ Feeds Survivors After Mississippi Tornadoes
03/29/2023

The Banner has a subscription to republish articles from Religion News Service. This story by Bob Smietana was published on religionnews.com March 27, 2023. Paragraphs 16-18, with context for the Christian Reformed Church, have been added.When volunteers show up after a disaster like last weekend’s

Expressing Faith in Jesus
03/29/2023

Rosanne Eising came to the Disability Concerns booth at the Inspire conference last summer eager to share about her son Elijah’s recent profession of faith. Elijah,18, is one of the newest members of Fellowship Christian Reformed Church in Big Rapids, Mich. Because he lives with autism and Dandy-Wal

The Spirit Is Alive and Well
03/29/2023

Over the past year I have had the privilege of a bird’s-eye view of what God is doing through the witness of our congregations and the work of our ministry agencies. I can report that the Spirit is in fact alive and well and is far ahead of us in the mission into which God has invited us!When I read

If I Were a Tiger
03/28/2023

Young Tim is afraid of almost everything. In fact, he says, “Beyond the cave / of my cozy bed / there lies a world / that gives me dread.” He sees the shadows of fearsome animals where no such creatures exist. He’s scared of the moon, an owl, a typhoon, his running shoes, big kids, drama class, rece

A Night of Worship
03/28/2023

The world-renowned and beloved Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir proclaims God’s goodness, faithfulness and worthiness of praise with its latest recording, “A Night of Worship.” “A lot changed in Brooklyn during the pandemic, and the need is even greater now to shine our light for Jesus ” said choir directo

Mixed Media Roundup: April 2023
03/27/2023

The Blackout Book Club By Amy Lynn Green Reviewed by Sonya VanderVeen FeddemaWhen Avis Montgomery’s brother, the local librarian, leaves to serve in Europe in 1942, he asks her to promise to keep the library open. Avis, who doesn’t like to read anything but magazine articles, assures him that she w

Excavating Wikipedia for Fun and Profit
03/27/2023

This whole “social-media mogul” thing started with Annie Rauwerda being captivated by a Wikipedia entry about cow tipping—“the purported activity of sneaking up on any unsuspecting or sleeping upright cow and pushing it over for entertainment,” according to the internet’s massive user-curated encycl

Always Be Ready
03/27/2023

To be a Christian means to follow Jesus into the world as an ambassador of God’s reign. This involves our lifestyle and our language. There will be times when we will have to explain our ultimate allegiance to Jesus rather than to the many idols others are infatuated with. So what does it mean to al

What Is It About the Country Church?
03/27/2023

My memories lie somewhere between sleepiness and wakefulness. Many came back to me on a recent visit to a country church. I wandered through the old sanctuary and the Sunday school rooms. I found the pastor’s office near the altar. The door was open, its absent tenant unconcerned about intruders. I

What Does It Mean to Speak the Truth in Love?
03/27/2023

What does it mean to “speak the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15)?There are important context clues to help us understand this phrase. First, just a few verses earlier, the apostle has celebrated Christ’s gift: church leaders “to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be buil

‘Be Kind, Love Big’: A Young Girl’s Family Shares Friendship in Her Name
03/24/2023

Tables draped in bright pink tablecloths along the sidewalk of South Division Avenue in Grand Rapids, Mich., hold hot cups of coffee, bottles of water, hot dogs and containers of chili. It's a “Feed Your Neighbor” event, the main outreach of “Be A Ruby,” a nonprofit organization started by Harry and

Increase in Religion-targeted Crimes in Canada Spurs Think-tank to ‘Face Down Religious Hate’
03/24/2023

A brief released March 16 by Ottawa-based Christian think tank Cardus presents a serious increase in police-reported incidents of hate crimes targeting religious communities in Canada. An increase that “is occurring against a backdrop of increasingly negative public attitudes toward the contribution

The Youngest Disciple
03/24/2023

Authors Eric and Meredith Schrotenboer’s catchy, rhyming verses and illustrator Tyson Ranes’s emotional artwork flesh out the apostle John’s experiences from when he first became Jesus’ disciple until he was an old man, penning the gospel story for future generations of Jesus’ followers. As a fishe

Finding Calm in Nature: a Guide for Mindful Kids
03/24/2023

There are many books on the market encouraging mindfulness in children, but this one is deserving of extra attention. Finding Calm in Nature begins with an invitation to a “fresh start” from wherever you are. Just as a seed needs to begin its task anew each spring, so we are invited to have a beginn

First Responders
03/24/2023

Maybe you’re old enough to remember Emergency (I’m not, but I watched it in reruns). Every week our heroic firefighters saved the residents of Los Angeles while hardly batting an eye, and they didn’t seem to exist when they were off-duty. While the stories they told were true (with the names changed