Search Results

Advent is a season inspired and guided by the Bible’s many apocalyptic texts—texts that candidly describe tribulation and gloom, prophesy stunning reversals and vindication, and evoke unsentimental hope and sturdy joy. These texts tell of stars beginning to fall, plead for the heavens to open, and portray choirs of angel armies singing. 

Lombard Christian Reformed Church in metro Chicago used to have both a traditional service and a contemporary service. Now everyone attends a single, Sunday-morning service. It’s not blended worship. Instead, the worship renewal results from slowly and yet actively responding to the Holy Spirit.

Worship that is faithful to the whole Bible must include lament. A worship renewal grant on making lament a normal part of worship brought together eight churches in metro Birmingham, Alabama. It yielded ideas and practices that can be adapted to any church tradition and context.

Thomas Long makes a case for classic Christian funeral traditions. Howard Vanderwell and Leonard VanderZee offer pastoral considerations for planning funerals and memorial services. A feature story exploring the planning for Christian Funerals and Memorial Services.

Focusing on simple phrases helps develop worship habits that affect our whole lives. Vertical habits expand how people talk with God during church worship and school chapels. A feature story exploring relational words that expand worship language.

In this episode, David M. Bailey, executive director of Arrabon, an organization dedicated to equipping and empowering organizations for reconciliation, talks with John Witvliet about righteous anger that directs people on a path of formation and Christian discipleship.

The fourth service plan in a series entitled "Chapters of Life." This service focuses on singleness--those who are unmarried--and aims to keep them and their needs in front of the entire worshiping community.

Technically, the Troubles in Northern Ireland ended in 1998. But just as trauma didn’t end after the passage of the US Civil Rights Act or the work of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, pain still lingers in Northern Ireland. Karen and David Campbell composed a new set of lament songs to help Christians voice protest, pain, and hope during worship.

A service plan focused on Philippians 4 and the assurance and peace we can have in times when life requires great strength and courage. This is part of a series called "Great Chapters of the Bible."

God calls us into a relationship that is intensely personal, but never private. This is an important distinction, yet one that many Christians miss. A feature story exploring our Worship as the people of God.