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Finding the Heart of COP29

Baku is a city of 2.5 million people, halfway around the world from my home in Michigan. What would my knowledge of tree names in the Midwest bring to this global gathering of professional negotiators from 198 countries? What did I know about global politics, or the formalities of United Nations policy making? What’s more, this COP was being called “the finance COP,” another issue that doesn’t often make its way into the woods, and which I therefore know very…
December 16, 2024
Featured Articles
Featured

Present in Every Season

Most days I walk the loop through the cemetery of the First Reformed Church in Pompton Plains, N.J., where my wife Stacey is the Co-Pastor. I read the headstones, which tell a variety of stories. The oldest headstones, dating to the 1700’s when the church was founded, are no longer legible. The beginning of the loop, which is predominately 19th century and replete with many Dutch names, eventually gives way to a more inclusive community. The varied names make me…
Featured
December 2, 2024

Alf’s Story: An Advent Meditation

On a Damascus Road of sorts, seeing beyond the proof text, I’m able to say to myself and anyone who’ll listen, “Yes, really!” Come cancer, depression, or roulette wheels, we are never alone. Emmanuel. God is with us.
Featured
November 25, 2024

Paul McCartney and Me

Aging and retirement are distinct concepts, of course, but they frequently intersect. For clarity’s sake, let’s agree that aging is a natural biological process that occurs over time, involving physical, cognitive, and social changes. It’s a universal experience that affects everyone. McCartney and I are both aging, whether we like it or not. And we are both old, according to actuarial tables.
Featured
November 18, 2024

Big Red, Job, and the Power of Remembering

Job hopes that God will long for him and come calling. In short, he hopes that God will remember him. In the life and ministry of Jesus, this is exactly what God does. Christians believe that in the person of Jesus, God remembers our fragile existence in a fragile world. In Jesus, God and the world were reconciled. Call it atonement; call it ransom; call it victory over the forces of evil. By whatever name, God remembers us.
Featured
November 11, 2024

The Means of Grace: An Invitation to All

He opened our eyes to what we all knew but had forgotten: that prior to the Reformation, the Catholic Church had devalued the sermon in public worship; the Protestants, in their zeal for the recovery of the scripture, now in their own languages, made the sermon the new focus of public worship, and thereby relegated holy Communion to a secondary place, offering it only once a month, or even, in some cases, just four times a year.
Featured
November 4, 2024

Loaded Language

Words are absorbent. Used often enough in partisan slogans or ad campaigns, or by certain religious groups or by "influencers" (itself a word with a troubling history), or spun into new usages by disaffected teens, they can be diverted from their broader purposes. They become contaminated by association or overdetermined by repetition, and so less usable for more neutral efforts to identify or describe. As words are turned into trademarks or code language, they become harder for speakers outside the…
Featured
October 28, 2024

Palestine and Israel: Come and See

My journey to Palestine and Israel began 20 years ago. A Palestinian Christian, Claudette Habesch, then the Secretary General of Caritas Jerusalem, spoke at a luncheon at our church. She described what life was like for her and other Palestinians who were living under the Israeli occupation—checkpoints, roadblocks, excessive use of military force, imprisonment, land confiscations, home demolitions—and especially its effect on Palestinian children. At the conclusion of her talk, I asked, “What can we do?” “Come and see,” she…

Latest from the Blog

Daily blog by our regular bloggers & guest contributors.

  • Testimony
    Listen to a Christmas story podcast, written and read by James C. Schaap. An arrogant artist agrees to narrate the church's Christmas program.
    December 22, 2024 James C. Schaap
  • Built for Wonder
    When was the last time you experienced wonder in a church sanctuary? I can remember one of the first times...
    December 22, 2024 Blaine Crawford
  • Forgetting Jesus
    A Christmas story podcast, written and read by James C. Schaap.
    December 21, 2024 James C. Schaap
  • Controlled Burn
    I wonder what needs a controlled burn in our culture right now, in our churches?
    December 21, 2024 Debra Rienstra
  • Longest Nights
    Tomorrow evening is the longest night of the year, the winter solstice.
    December 20, 2024 Bethany Cok
  • Darkness
    I can only see 100 yards or so into the fog and it consumes me, envelopes, covers, holds, me.
    December 19, 2024 Tim Van Deelen
  • Here, Now, in Hope
    Busy. Stressed. Overwhelmed. What’s your synonym for December? For even the most mindful among us, this month is just filled...
    December 18, 2024 Jennifer L. Holberg
  • In the Beauty of Holiness
    I want to share some thoughts about what we need from the church now, looking to the Psalmist for guidance.
    December 17, 2024 Marilyn McEntyre

Poetry

Poetry
December 17, 2024

Near Death

We drove nails into His wrists, air reeking of animal remains and criminal bodies piled next to the horse trough ...
Poetry
December 3, 2024

Make a Joyful Noise

meaning click tongue when crossing the street for joy of having legs ...
Poetry
November 19, 2024

November Cold

Ice crusted sheets over November puddles bespeak more of the future than this cold day ...
Poetry
November 5, 2024

5th Commandment

Among the earliest of sins ...
Poetry
October 15, 2024

The Writer

Half-court. Dad said our perch from steep bleachers allowed us a good view of the players.
Poetry
October 8, 2024

Let the Party Begin

It's not always easy to carry good wishes and admiration in a see-through bag ...

Latest Podcasts

Podcast
December 17, 2024

“Near Death” by Zoie Jones

In this episode of the poetry edition of the Reformed Journal Podcast, Rose Postma talks with Zoie Jones about her poem “Near Death.” Jones lives in the greater Los Angeles area where is pursuing a degree in English Literature. Her fiction has been published in Does it Have Pockets? and is forthcoming in Vestal Review. You can read this poem at Reformed Journal.
Podcast
December 3, 2024

“Make A Joyful Noise” by Abigail Carroll

In this episode of the poetry edition of the Reformed Journal Podcast, Rose Postma talks with Abigail Carroll about her poem “Make A Joyful Noise.” Carroll is author of three poetry collections: Cup My Days like Water, Habitation of Wonder, and A Gathering of Larks: Letters to Saint Francis from a Modern-Day Pilgrim. Her poems have been anthologized in How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope as well as in Between Midnight and Dawn: A Literary Guide to Prayer for Lent, Holy Week, and…
Podcast
November 19, 2024

“November Cold” by Dave Warners

In this episode of the poetry edition of the Reformed Journal, Rose Postma interviews Dave Warners about his poem “November Cold.” Beginning in 1997, Warners has been teaching Botany and Ecology at Calvin University. Since 2009 he has directed Plaster Creek Stewards (PCS), a faith-based watershed initiative based at Calvin. Dave also teaches at Au Sable Institute in Northern Michigan and with the Creation Care Studies Program in New Zealand and Belize. In 2019 Dave and colleague Matthew Heun published…
Podcast
November 5, 2024

“5th Commandment” by James Ryan Lee

In this episode of the poetry edition of the Reformed Journal Podcast, Rose Postma interviews James Ryan Lee about his poem “5th commandment.” Lee received an M.F.A. from the University of California, Irvine, where he studied under poets James McMichael, and Michael Ryan. His poems have appeared in Aethlon, The Minnesota Review, Juked, Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, Ordained Servant and Christianity and Literature. Duke University Press republished a section of his poem, “Bee Suit: Spring Chores with Grandfather,” for National…
Podcast
October 15, 2024

“The Writer” by Olga Dugan

In this episode of the poetry edition, Rose Postma interviews Olga Dugan about her poem “The Writer.” Olga Dugan is a Cave Canem poet. Nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart prizes, her award-winning poems appear in many literary journals and anthologies including Ekstasis, Spirit Fire Review, Relief: A Journal of Art and Faith, The Windhover, Agape Review, ONE ART, Litmosphere (forthcoming), The Write Launch, Ariel Chart, The Sunlight Press, Emerge, Kweli, Sky Island Journal, evolution: The Red Moon…
Podcast
October 1, 2024

“After the Thirteenth Shock Treatment” by Jack Ridl

In this episode of the Reformed Journal Podcast, the poetry edition, Rose Postma interviews Jack Ridl about his poem “After the Thirteenth Shock Treatment.” Ridl is an American poet and former professor of English at Hope College. He is the author of several collections of poetry, has published more than 300 poems in journals, and has work included in numerous anthologies. You can read the poem on at Reformed Journal.