Reviews
Alone: More Than a Weight-Loss Show
Alone provides an interesting and subtle contribution to a broad critique of the American dream.
Doug Brouwer
December 17, 2025
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Alone provides an interesting and subtle contribution to a broad critique of the American dream.
In an era when social justice movements often burn bright and fast, leaving exhausted activists in their wake, Wes Granberg-Michaelson offers something desperately needed: a
The opening words of Lanta Davis’ Becoming by Beholding: The Power of the Imagination in Spiritual Formation led me to expect a much different kind
I wonder about this precious time together. I suspect that we could be doing something more.
Life change, if it happens, usually occurs when we’re lost or disoriented or sick or somehow dependent on the kindness of people who don’t look
If I had wanted to become a fluent German speaker, I should have started before I was ten years old, which seems to be the
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
My 96-year-old mother entered hospice care a few months ago. For a while, it seemed as though she would go on forever, even though we
I’ve been working on a writing project, and an unexpected theme has emerged. Fear. The book isn’t a memoir – not really – but it
On 9/11 last year I was living in the Hague, Netherlands and serving a congregation founded several decades ago by Reformed Church in America pastors.
On March 18, 2002, the sanctuary of the St. Michael Catholic Church was destroyed by fire. St. Michael is a Roman Catholic church in Wheaton,
Tell me, why do we send the ushers around with offering baskets during worship – when most members have already given electronically, either through automatic
“Regret,” says author Brené Brown, “is a tough but fair teacher.” The idea, she writes, is that regret gives us the opportunity to grow, to
I have new respect for interim pastors. More often, these days, they’re called transitional pastors, but whatever we call them, I now see in a
My first-ever sermon feedback came from my wife on a Saturday afternoon in Iowa City, Iowa. She was sitting in the living room of our
I retired a few years ago, said goodbye to my last congregation in Zürich, Switzerland, moved to Holland, Michigan, and started a new life. I
I am an American who happens to have a Dutch last name. That’s one of the surprising things I’ve learned while living in The Hague
Nearly ten years ago, I traveled to South Africa with a dozen or so members of the church I was serving at the time. Several
When is the right time to leave a relationship, a job, or a church? I’ve thought about that question often over the years, and I’m
I never thought much about the life of a guest preacher until I became one. Once, twenty years or so ago, I invited a friend
Last week I wrote something about Pentecost for the Reformed Journal, my first-ever Sunday contribution, and I thought it was touching and clever. Just now
It’s Holy Saturday, the day before the Big Event, also known as Easter. I am with my younger daughter, who asks me over morning coffee
I baptized my older daughter, Sarah, when she was three months old. She was not my first baptism, though she was among my first. I
The last time I had lunch with my mother had been fifteen months ago—in other words, before the pandemic. A few months after the pandemic
I heard one of the editors of this impressive volume say at a recent worship conference that Psalms for All Seasons was “not born out
Sarah DeYoung Brouwer was baptized on a beautiful spring day in Central Pennsylvania. At only three or maybe it was four months of age, she
I am delighted that this book came to be written; I worry that it will not be read as widely as it should be. As
MAY 2007 by Douglas J. Brouwer Early on the morning of August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina, the sixth-strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic, came
The first time I read Barbara Brown Taylor’s new memoir, Leaving Church, I was disturbed. The problem was not with the writing (she’s a gifted
One of my colleagues retired this spring. It was a sad day both for me and for the congregation we served together. I saw more
Last summer I moved from Wheaton, Illinois, to Ann Arbor, Michigan, from a city with no synagogues and a nearly invisible Jewish population to a
We’re coming to the end–at least I hope we’re coming to the end–of a series of scandals involving America’s corporate leadership. CEOs, corporate boards, top