Michelle Van Loon

Author: Michelle Van Loon

  • A Labor Day prayer

    —

    by

    Michelle Van Loon
    in

    Creator of all, before the words that transformed work into a a curse, you gave labor to man and woman as a gift full of dignity and meaning. And even after the great rent in the relationship, but immediately before Man and Woman were sent to make their way in the world in pain and…

  • Sign of our times, Round Lake edition

    —

    by

    Michelle Van Loon
    in

    Based on my July 11 post at the Christianity Today her.meneutics blog entitled “Would Jesus Walk Away From A Mortgage?”, you can imagine that this red notice that appeared this morning on my next-door neighbor’s front door did not bring joy to my heart. In case you can’t read it, it is a final notice…

  • Review: Reluctant Pilgrim

    —

    by

    Michelle Van Loon
    in

    The subtitle this 181-page spiritual memoir is “A Moody, Somewhat Self-Indulgent Introvert’s Search for Spiritual Community”, which perhaps may feel as though the book’s cover information gives away the proverbial ranch. But Reluctant Pilgrim (Fresh Air Books, 2010) is far more than the story of a solitude-craving woman’s church search. Author Emuna Okoro tells it…

  • Laps

    —

    by

    Michelle Van Loon
    in

    One foot in front of the other. Again. The tracks their feet had made during the silent marches of the days before today were beginning to wear a rut in the sun-baked ground surrounding the walled city. Fully-armed men marching, the only sound the heavy cadence of their footfalls. They’d been instructed to carry their…

  • Review: With

    —

    by

    Michelle Van Loon
    in ,

    “Christianity isn’t a religion. It’s a relationship.” If you’ve spent any time at all in the evangelical world, you’ve probably heard some version of those words. In his book With: Reimagining the way you relate to God (Nelson, 2011) Pastor and author Skye Jethani explains that most of us settle for an erzatz version of…

  • Women can. Should they?

    —

    by

    Michelle Van Loon
    in ,

    I am currently reading Carolyn Custis James’ thoughtful call to action entitled Half The Church: Recapturing God’s Global Vision For Women, which is an invitation for kingdom women to respond with kingdom intelligence, passion and action to the injustice in our world. And then yesterday, I read this this fairly detailed description of men’s and…