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I just returned from 3 days of brain-packing, earnest-praising, body-and-soul-exhausting time at the 2006 Worship Symposium at Calvin. Since I was a semianry student, this has been the one of the top three most important things in my own ministry formation. It usually takes me weeks to unpack everything that I bring back from this [...]
I spent a huge chunk of time on Thursday sitting at my Presbyterian church desk and typing away e-mails to two female Christian Reformed women about being a Christian Reformed minister and being female. Both were stuggling with questions they shouldn’t have to struggle with–both feel called to ministry, but are sorting through questions they [...]
Add this to the list of things I never thought I’d say: Praise God, my tooth got pulled this morning! I’m not taking God’s name in vain here, either. I am truly grateful for the providential cancellation of an appointment this morning, allowing me to slip in for a tooth extraction. Eating was becoming hazardous [...]
Last week, I officially announced my pregnancy to the staff at church, and later to the session, making it as public as it can be in a 4,000+ congregation when I am not at all visibly pregnant. I am incredibly grateful for the kind reception of the news, but a little sad that the church [...]
Who knew granola could be so dangerous? While I was chomping away at breakfast, contemplating the possibilty of dragging Erik away from his books so that we could start our new year swimming regimen, my much abused molar cracked right in half. Fortunately, that abuse included a root canal 5 years ago, so it wasn’t [...]
I just tried to tackle an article in the January/February 2006 Books and Culture written by my friend Craig Mattson. Craig is incredibly smart, and during my internship at Hope CRC gave me some of the best sermon feedback ever, which makes perfect sense since he is an associate professor of Communication Arts at Trinity [...]
Here’s something to think about: Every minister in every faith is like a jazz musician, keeping traditions alive by playing the beloved standards the way they are supposed to be played, but also incessantly gauging and deciding, slowing the pace or speeding up, deleting or adding another phrase to a prayer, mixing familiarity and novelty [...]
Dinner at the top of the Hancock Building? Party at Union Station? Nope. I’m settled in on the couch with my husband and a happy cat, watching TV and salivating over the scent of a perfect pot of chili. We are staying in, and cooking “Chicagoland ChiliMac” from Jane and Michael Stern’s Chili Nation (a [...]
Friday, my regular day off, has been frittered away on the couch. Although, I suppose it counts as good spousal bonding time since Erik was sitting next to me. Erik chose to watch James Bond movies. I read through several months’ worth of a blog by a woman who placed her child in an open [...]
This afternoon, Erik and I picked up 5 organ pipes,wood flutes, that we purchased on Tuesday. My parents alerted us when they saw them for sale at Architechtural Artifacts. A few years ago, they bought several pipes at another architechtural salvage place in Chicago and hung them as a series of wall-mounted shelves in their [...]