Today the word reconciliation doesn’t so much bring me hope as it does hurt. Over the summer, we have awoken to numerous gruesome discoveries on the grounds of former Canadian residential schools. How can we as a country reconcile hundreds of years of inflicting pain and suffering on the Indigenous people…
August 2021
The more I ponder the negative impact of the pandemic on the church, the more deeply I am convinced that the church suffered its greatest blows not from outside forces but rather from internal conflict. Most churches witnessed divergent pockets of stakeholders anchoring themselves to convictions around defining the pandemic…
I know, everyone who serves in a pastoral role has been a pandemic pastor for a while now. But I am a sucker for a strong opening line. And I feel like I can say it a little more emphatically than most. You see, I am pastoring a community I have never known outside of the pandemic.
Samir Menassa remembers when his convenience store used to attract many customers. Located among pubs and restaurants in Beirut, Lebanon, the store was a convenient place for people to purchase a few things they needed as they strolled through the area.
That memory blew up along with a massive explosion of ammonium nitrate…