Author: Michelle Van Loon
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What’s a nice egalitarian woman like you doing…?
What’s a nice egalitarian woman like you doing in a complementarian church? When we started attending this church a year and a half ago, a friend said to me, “You know they’re Gospel Coalition people, right?” Yes, I did know. In fact, during our decision/discernment process about whether this church would be a good fit…
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Review: The Seraph Seal
I’m not much of a fiction reader, but when I saw Leonard Sweet’s name on the cover of this book, I decided to give it a spin*. Co-written with Lori Wagner, The Seraph Seal (Thomas Nelson, 2011) is a genre-blurring book the authors have dubbed “engaged fiction”. The meat of the book is an apocalyptic…
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The taste of daily bread
“Our driver is running a few minutes late. Is that O.K.?” The voice on the other end of the phone waited for my answer. What was I supposed to say? I’d been sitting in an office with nothing much to do except wait for the guy from the office equipment company to come pick up…
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At The Table: A Reading For Two Voices
Once upon a time, I used to write a lot of readings for use during church services. Some of the pieces were meant to tell a story in a unique way, other readings were simply a creative division of a Biblical text that would allow a congregation to listen to familiar words with fresh ears…
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Trying to look on the sunny side
“My husband reads your blog, and he commented that you seem to have a lot of complaints about the Church,” a friend told me recently. A number of responses came to mind, mostly of the “Well, yeah” and “No duh” variety. There are lot of voices offering criticism of the church around the blogosphere. A…
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The electric fence
“I’m wondering if you and your husband have run into issues of sexual sin among any of the leaders in your congregation.” My query paused the conversation while my friend reviewed her experiences in the last year or so since her husband had become an elder in a mid-sized, non-denominational congregation. The fact that she…