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Evangeli-mainline-icalism
I grew up in the heart of Michigan’s “Bible Belt,” in an evangelical subculture where people often asked me if I had accepted Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior. When I went to seminary, I joined a mainline (but related) denomination. I wholeheartedly embraced my new mainline identity. I read and studied (almost exclusively)…
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The Spirituality of Public Transportation
There are many reason why I like public transportation, and why my wife and I refuse to buy another car, making me rely heavily on public transit to get around. Many of these reasons are common ones: it helps the environment, it is more cost-effective than the costs associated with an additional vehicle, and it…
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Reflections on my faith and the Church
I have been reflecting on reasons why people leave the church, stay in the church, or return to the church. This also began making me reflect on why I am still a part of the church, and why I am a pastor of a local church. I have been connected to a church ever since…
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My Un-Cool Church
I enjoy reading the blog of Rachel Held Evans (rachelheldevans.com), and I was particularly impacted by this post: http://rachelheldevans.com/blessed-are-the-uncool Her basic argument is that our churches should be the places where everyone is welcome, people who have a lot of money as well as people who live on the street, people who have physical or…
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“Lord, teach us to pray…”
The title of this post comes from Luke 11:1. This is the point in the Gospel of Luke where Jesus gives his disciple the words, which will become known as The Lord’s Prayer or the Our Father. It is always interesting, because Matthew and Luke give slightly different versions of this prayer. The version that…
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Pastoral Imagination
One thing, I will call it a spiritual discipline, that I am working on practicing is that of imagination. In order for me to minister effectively and to be an effective pastor, I need to have a vivid imagination when I view my world. It is very easy to look around my church and see…
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The Most Important Task of a Minister (Part Two)
In part one, I looked at the function and role of a minister by looking at the Book of Church Order, the Liturgy of the Reformed Church in America, the Belgic Confession, and the Ecclesiastical Ordinances of the church in Geneva, Switzerland. The two tasks that continued to recur in each document are preaching of…
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The Most Important Task of a Minister (Part One)
I, of course, speak from a Reformed context where “Minister” is an office, not a role and where pastors are ordained Ministers of Word and Sacrament. However, not all Ministers are pastors of churches, some are in other specialized ministries (i.e. chaplaincy, counseling…), and therefore I use the broader term of Minister. Ever since I…
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Why a Reformed Presence is Important in the City
I am a Reformed minister through-and-through, and I feel very strongly about the Reformed theology. I do not think Reformed theology is the only way of being a Christian, I simply think that it is a good way. I think that is Biblically sound, and I think that it speaks to our world in a…
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Stewardship in the Inner City
At our church, we have a board inside the narthex that has the register of attendance and offerings. This board has numbers on it: our attendance the previous week and the attendance to the corresponding week last year, it includes our weekly giving goal, and our offering from last week. This is, of course, not…
Matthew van Maastricht
Shepherd of Souls | Spiritual Director | Psychotherapist
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Matthew van Maastricht 