Author: Michelle Van Loon
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After A Leader’s Sin Has Been Revealed
When a church leader chooses sexual sin, the effects of that sin are like a boulder dropped into a still pond. The ripples engulf everything in its path. Though my husband and I have enjoyed a faithful marriage of nearly 39 years, the sexual sins of our church leaders have been like a series of…
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Nurturing the Spiritual Life of Older Adults
I’ve been writing about faith at midlife since…well, since I hit that life stage more than a decade ago. I discovered that when I sought support and encouragement from my local church as I was facing a string of disorienting changes and losses directly tied to this stage of my life, the answer I received…
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Faith Conversations Recipe: “Skyline” Chili
I’m a guest on this week’s Faith Conversations podcast. Host (and conversationalist extraordinaire) Anita Lustrea and I talked about a bit about Born To Wander, and then we spent some time talking the way we pass on family stories through food. I referenced one of my family’s traditions, what we call “Skyline” Chili. It doesn’t…
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Review: Venus & Virtue
We in the church are being discipled by our culture in the area of sexuality, whether we believe it to be true or not. In response, we’ve either chosen to adopt those values in the name of relevance or have presented a reactive “no” as an alternative narrative. Before I came to faith in Jesus…
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Born To Wander
Born To Wander: Recovering the Value of our Pilgrim Identity (Moody Publishers, 2018) Why are we so restless? All of us have a little wanderlust—a desire for that next thing, that new place, but this competes with our longings for security, control, and safety. We don’t like how it feels to be unsettled and uprooted.…
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Newsletter, March 2018
Shalom, friend!J.R.R. Tolkien said, “Not all who wander are lost”. I’d go one step further and say Jesus’ call to follow him is meant to make wanderers of every single one of us who respond with a ‘yes’ to his invitation. In recent years, a rapidly-shifting culture has left many disoriented. That sense of disorientation…