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Both church planters and established congregations can explore spiritual histories of their church neighborhoods. This helps them better communicate the gospel in the places where God calls them to serve.
Prayers of God’s People during COVID-19 written by Rev. Larry Doornbos
Calvin University professor Chad Engbers prayed this prayer on March 12, 2020 during the daily chapel service. This was one of the last chapel services conducted before the campus closed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Rev. Cornelius Plantinga, Jr. wrote this prayer in March 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Noticing and celebrating Palm Sunday’s allusions to Advent can enrich your congregation’s understanding of Holy Week and how Palm Sunday reflects both Christ’s humble first coming and his glorious return.
Yvette Lau explains how Christian & Missionary Alliance churches in Hong Kong are deciding whether or how to do virtual worship or even virtual communion. In this edited conversation, she suggests that worship planners consider what will be communal, hospitable, and beneficial to the whole community—during and after COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.
A Palm Sunday prayer during COVID-19 written by Cornelius Plantinga, Jr.
In this edited conversation, Jaewoo "Jay" Kim says that Proskuneo Ministries "deeply holds to theological convictions and practices of embodied worship." Stay-at-home pandemic orders have upended their typical worship gatherings, but virtual worship doesn't fit who they are as a multicultural worshiping community.
Kathy Smith, Adjunct Professor of Church Polity at Calvin Theological Seminary, reflects on the administration of sacraments in the unique context of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. She advises Christian Reformed churches to practice pastoral flexibility while still abiding by church polity, and provides a historical example from World War II, related by her predecessor Henry De Moor.
In an age of social distancing and remote, online worship due to COVID-19, churches are figuring out how to honor copyrights in entirely new ways, and companies are giving special allowances during this time.
This topic showcase highlights resources to help churches use trauma-informed practices in church worship and congregational life. Faith communities are more effective when they become more aware of adverse childhood experiences, collective trauma, and other tragedy.
Archbishop Mark L. MacDonald speaks and writes about gospel inculturation in Indigenous ministries, especially among First Nations Anglicans in Canada. Churches everywhere can learn from the Indigenous Gospel-Based Discipleship model for worship, governance, and community life.
