The Banner

I muffle my cries in the pillow so my children will not hear me: “Jesus, Jesus, Lord, please help me!”

In these pages you will find the annual presentation of candidates for ministry in the Christian Reformed Church.

In this Banner you will read about Synod 2009, starting on page 30.

Just months after the CRC’s director of Race Relations was made a voting member of the Ministry Council, the voice of ethnic mino

March 10, 1946 – January 22, 2009

While working for an organization that delivers lunches to elderly shut-ins, a mother often took her 4-year-old daughter on her afternoon

Last July 4 weekend I came across the following church announcement:

If I had to choose only two concepts from John Calvin’s vast theology to teach my spiritual heirs, I’d choose piety and relig

As I lie awake each night in Iraq, I ache with homesickness for the abundant water, the evergreen trees, the peaceable mountains, the lus

What are your favorite spring and summer smells? Lilacs? Freshly-cut grass? Rain? Grilled hamburgers?

Creation Care

Q Every time I hear about environmental issues I feel guilty and unable to

“Nathaniel Van Denend is fasting from Facebook. See you when the Son comes up.”

Recently The Banner asked Rev. Ken Baker and Rev.

Failure to Create Safe Churches

“How We Fail to Create Safe Churches” (IMHO, May 2009) suggests that churches and cou

We have a son, Mark, who is gay and was a confessing member of the Christian Reformed Church.

It is early yet,
only the first inning,
and he stands so tall and sure.
He’s a lefty
with confident eyes,
and he w

As an impoverished college student I gratefully accepted my Dad’s hand-me-downs. He gave me his coat.

If reading is to do anything, it is to delight us and to enlarge us.

More than 20 years of patient work, coupled with some timely interventions by God, have led to the blossoming of the Christian Reformed C

As a campus pastor at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Ed Laarman faces a daunting challenge: how to introduce the gospel to students

Being born female shouldn’t mean having less access to healthcare, education, or safety.

Rev.

Félix and Adela had been hearing for weeks about a big rally planned for Bangui in the Central African Republic and wondered what