ADVOCATE
Questions about Sex from the Pickle Jar
By: Ron DeBoer The day the pickle jar was scheduled to appear on my desk at the front of the classroom was the day no one even considered skipping class. It was the only day of the school year when 30 boys could sit shoulder-to-shoulder in a tiny classroom and make...
Teaching from Your Own Brokenness
By: Jim Kok Mark Van was a young pastor successfully building a new congregation in a middle-class suburb. He was highly regarded for his well-crafted and enthusiastically presented sermons. Then he was knocked down by a stroke. Several years later, Mark said, “As I...
Who is My Neighbor? Thinking Theologically about Immigration
By: Cathy M. Kolwey You walk with us in deserted places And show us the way to the Promised Land. Guide us through the thorny thickets that entangle us, the arid refuge of serpents and scorpions that puncture our resolve. That our determination to continue in your...
Dealing Christianly with Political Differences
By: Katherine Baker I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things...
Healing and Reconciliation: A Canadian Perspective
By: David Phillips Why are we in the situation we are in today in Canada in respect to our First Nations and Métis? The answer is found in large part in the system of residential schools established in Canada. These schools, in many cases, were a joint venture of the...
Age, Culture and the Church
By: Henry Simmons Why do older adults—not individually but as a whole—evoke negative reactions? Our personal stories of deeply loved and admired individual older adults cannot overcome the hard fact that most of us—myself included at age 74—cannot answer the...
We Wish You Had Never Come
By: Jan Brooks Far too often it is easier to let the past stay in the past and try to forget it ever happened. But all too often the hurt and pain go so deep that they are carried across generations. Many cannot forget. Many will not forget, lest it happen again. In...
Life Achievement Recipient Mary Speedy
By: Mary E. Speedy Finding a playmate is rarely a problem when you grow up with six siblings. Neither is it a problem finding a book to escape with when you live in a Presbyterian manse with the church library next door. Add to that two parents who encourage both play...
Facing the Twinge of Anxiety
By: Forrest Palmer I greet you as a disciple in Christ, now serving as the president of the Association of Presbyterian Church Educators (APCE), a five denomination partnership with the mission goals that APCE exists to “connect, enrich, empower and sustain persons...
Life Achievement Recipient Tom Malone
By: Tom Malone served the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for more than 41 years as a Christian educator and pastor. Born and reared in South Carolina, Tom attended Florida State University (B.A. in English) and Columbia (M.Div.) and McCormick (D.Min.) seminaries. The...