All Posts By

Steve Mathonnet-VanderWell

Blog

The Dutch and John Wayne

The United States Post Office in Pella, Iowa is a little jewel. The small but stately red brick colonial structure sits just off the town

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Blog

Christmas Changes Everything

On occasion my sermons take the form of “Tales from New Heidelberg” — stories centered around Pastor Branderhorst and old First Reformed Church in New

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Advent Gloom

Advent: Discipleship in DarknessAn original work of poetry by moi Darkness. The dreadful darkness. The dismal darkness. The dreary darkness. The very, very, dark darkness.

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Morning Routines

Morning routines. We all have them. Unless you’re like Pentecostals and contemporary worship folk who say they have no order of worship or liturgy. They

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Trouble in Providence

Someday I’m going to compile a list of “Christian words” which need a 200 year time out — mothballed until they can be brought out

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Get On the Bus!

Back in the day when I was a faithful mass transit rider, the best bus route for me dropped me about ten blocks away from

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Bonnemaman’s Ladle, Progress, and Hope

The soup ladle pictured above is from Bonnemaman’s girlhood home. Bonnemaman was my wife’s lovable, buoyant grandmother whose life came up a few months short

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My Mom, Fear, and John Wayne

Don’t try to figure out your own life. That’s too much. The most we can hope for is to try to figure out our parents.

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