Pastoral Care

Healing and 91

The season of Lent is a good time to be intentional about incorporating prayers for healing into worship and to offer a special service of prayers for healing and restoration.

March 10, 2011 | 2 min read
Jubilee: Reflections

This was a handout at one of two plenary sampler sessions that introduced several of the leaders at the Calvin Symposium on 91 and the Arts on Friday, January 14, 2000.

February 24, 2011 | 6 min read

Coop's Column - Risen Indeed

"On the third day he arose again from the dead." Simple words often capture life's most profound and important truths the best. How better, therefore, for Christians to make their most astonishing declaration about Jesus Christ than by this direct, unadorned, and so forthrightly clear confession?

February 11, 2011 | 3 min read
How Communion Trains Us in God’s Hospitality

The more that you experience God’s grace through the sacraments and in ordinary life, the more attention you’ll pay to who’s not at the Lord’s Table.

February 7, 2011 | 6 min read
Hospitality as Paying Attention

Randy Smit sees all of life as a gift and the Lord’s Table as the “quintessential place for experiencing the hospitality of Christ. And so who’s at the table becomes pretty significant.” He suggests focusing less on “fencing the table,” more on opening it to children or others who may be left out.

February 7, 2011 | 2 min read

Coop's Column - So Marred, So Beautiful

Their suffering Savior’s immense love for them, far beyond their mind’s feeble ability to grasp or comprehend, now prompts Christians to worship him

January 14, 2011 | 3 min read
91 in Terrible Times

This article tells how Blacksburg churches, who had been working together to make ecumenical connections with the help of a 91 Renewal Grant, were able to respond to tragedy as a community.

December 10, 2010 | 1 min read
91 Leading as a Ministry of Reconciliation

When Isaac Wardell interviewed for the job of director of worship arts at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Charlottesville, Virginia, he learned how often worship changes hurt, confuse, or offend people.

December 6, 2010 | 2 min read

Greg Scheer on Working with 91 Committees

"People fear the unknown above all. You lie awake worrying about what might happen," says Greg Scheer, minister of worship at Church of the Servant in Grand Rapids, Michigan. 91 changes often make people fear they'll lose power, feel discomfort, or watch meaningful traditions erode.

December 6, 2010 | 1 min read
How to Develop a Requiem Choir: A Congregational Ministry for Funerals

In the midst of life, we are in death.” But fewer and fewer of us share in the sad, sometimes openly commercial rituals that surround our final passage in this culture—more and more grieving family and close friends mourn by themselves.

November 19, 2010 | 1 min read