Author: Michelle Van Loon
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Your Husband May Not Be a Preacher – But Are You a “Preacher’s Wife”?
After I got engaged in 1979, I went to the Christian bookstore in search of marriage preparation advice, and had a visceral reaction to all of the books written by women with giant teased blonde hair telling me in very specific terms how to be a sweet Christian wife. As I recall, most of the…
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Stranger In A Strange Land: Church Search, Part 137
We’ve been here in Sarasota for three and a half months, and not too long ago, someone asked me how the church search was going. “It feels like we’ve been looking for a church for the last four decades,” I answered. Maybe because we have. Between moves and various unhealthy situations that often served as…
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At the end of the spiritual tether
A couple of high-profile people in the Evangelical ecosphere have recently released statements explaining that their faith is changing and they no longer identify as Christians. These announcements from author-turned-pastor-turned-seminary-student Josh Harris and pop worship songwriter Marty Sampson have provoked plenty of discussion in the circles in which I travel. Their stories echo ones we’ve…
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Uprooted
In varying degrees, we humans live as moving targets, trying to escape the existential grief of separation from God and others. This reality is at the heart of our wandering. Even if we have a relatively healthy family story, we all still experience the painful disconnect that comes from our uprootedness, our exile from Eden.…
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The Church should ________
The Church should ________ – Assist the poor. It’s should be our job, not that of the government. – Take care of victims of abuse. We can do better than a secular social service agency will. – Fight the darkness and anti-Christian orientation of our culture. We need to return to our Judeo-Christian roots. –…
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Sitting Shiva with Jesus
I’ve always liked the Jewish practice of sitting shiva (shih-vuh) for a week after a funeral instead of cramming all of the goodbyes into a wake and memorial service or funeral. Shiva.com has a good working definition: Shiva begins immediately following the burial and lasts for seven days, ending after the morning service on the seventh day.…