ADVOCATE

By: Karen DeBoer I have three vivid memories from a church picnic I attended as a child—hearing the adults laugh, seeing the minister wearing shorts, and watching my normally no-nonsense Sunday school teacher compete in a sack race. It was a stark contrast to the...

By: Jan Snell When we look outside our windows, it is clear that our creator is a big fan of diversity. Yet in 2013, a cereal commercial has generated hate mail to the company that produces the cereal. Why? Because the commercial depicts a little girl, her Caucasian...

By: Hye Jin Hwang One night, when I was young, I shook my mother awake in the middle of the night “Mom, I have a stomachache. I can’t sleep!”. “Oh my dear, where does it hurt?” My mother’s hands were already on my stomach though her eyes were still closed. “Let’s pray...

By: Rod Hugen The French have a lovely saying, “Vive la différence!” It is a delightful reminder to celebrate what makes us unique and inimitable. Nowhere should our differences be more celebrated than in the church. In the last chapter of Romans, Paul sends his...

By: Alex Bisset The title says it all. For so many people in our churches and in the world today, family is a loaded word. It serves to remind us of the father who abused us, the mother who abandoned us, the marriage that fell apart, or the children who refuse to...

By: Mary E. Speedy 99 Ways to Raise Spiritually Healthy Children by Kathleen Long Bostrom. WJKP, 2010. Bostrom offers fun, practical, and thought-provoking ideas for nurturing the spiritual lives of children, parents, and families. Each of the 99 entries includes a...