Peter DeHaan’s haiku, “Why I Write,” was selected as a finalist for the literary publication Imagine This! An ArtPrize Anthology. But you don’t need to buy the book to read it. Here is Peter’s award-winning poem: Why I Write Linking letters andwielding words to create artfor God, my patron The anthology adds the written word as […]
Physical Worship from a Pure Heart With our journey of visiting fifty-two churches over, I can reflect more on the complete experience. Today, I’ll add to my thoughts about Church #27. I thoroughly enjoyed the worship time at this church. The worship of the song leaders was pure and ushered me into the presence of […]
Embrace Active Worship With our journey of visiting fifty-two churches over, I can reflect more on the complete experience. Today, I’ll add to my thoughts about Church #26. Beyond their worship of God and approach to him, two other things stood out about this minority congregation. First, the kids were an active presence during the […]
A Lesson for Today from Zephaniah A too-common practice in the United States (and perhaps around the world) is to take parts from different religions and philosophies, mashing them together to form a personal belief system. Doing so is a consumer-centric mindset. People keep the parts they like, and they ditch the rest. They grab […]
A Traditional, Friendly Congregation With our journey of visiting fifty-two churches over, I can reflect more on the complete experience. Today, I’ll add to my thoughts about Church #24. The people at this traditional church were friendly, much friendlier than most. The message was good and gave me something to contemplate, but it was the […]
Don’t Hold a Church Business Meeting After the Service With our journey of visiting fifty-two churches over, I can reflect more on the complete experience. Today, I’ll add to my thoughts about Church #23. It’s challenging to get members to attend a church business meeting during the week, as it requires an extra trip to […]
Sounding the Shofar at Church With our journey of visiting fifty-two churches over, I can reflect more on the complete experience. Today, I’ll add to my thoughts about Church #21. Of all the 52 churches we visited, this one deviated the most from current church practices. It was a unique church service and a memorable […]
Embracing a Service in Mandarin With our journey of visiting fifty-two churches over, I can reflect more on the complete experience. Today, I’ll add to my thoughts about Church #20. Although I’m uncomfortable in situations where language differences make conversation hard, if not impossible, something about this church draws me. Despite not knowing Mandarin, I […]
Liturgical Church Services With our journey of visiting fifty-two churches over, I can reflect more on the complete experience. Today, I’ll add to my thoughts about Church #18. We’ve now been to three churches with liturgical services (Church #5, 17, and 18), two of them Roman Catholic. I’ve struggled with the liturgy at all three. […]
A High Church Experience With our journey of visiting fifty-two churches over, I can reflect more on the complete experience. Today, I’ll add to my thoughts about Church #17. This high church experience gave me much to contemplate about worshiping God in a more formal, liturgical manner. In contrast, most all of my church experiences […]