Culture and Context

Viewpoints and commentary on our contemporary culture

Columnist Kendra Mohn

Beautiful Day

by Kendra Mohn

It was tempting to sentimentalize the whole thing because it was so beautiful, so poignant.

It was a bright spring day, sunny and warm. I was presiding at the funeral service for a woman in her nineties who had lived long enough to see not just her great-grandchildren but great-great-grandchildren. She had died peacefully in her sleep, her daughter at her side. After a memorial service in her beloved church down south, she returned home to Wisconsin to be buried next to her husband. Her children and grandchildren spoke of the faith she had lived and passed on to them. If one has to die, it's a pretty good way to go.

 

Charting the Culture

Sacred or Secular or Both?

by Tim Coltvet

As ministers in the church, we are called to be witnesses to the creative and redemptive work of God for the sake of the world, are we not?

And yet, the humbling part of our work is that sometimes, this witness can come from unlikely sources outside of the community of faith. I have wondered about such things since discovering that God used an "outsider," namely Cyrus the Persian King to accomplish God's purposes. He was an unlikely human agent for God in that he existed outside of the covenant community of Israel (for more about Cyrus, check out Isaiah 44:28-45:13). If God would use him to accomplish God's purposes, why wouldn't God use, say, the Fray, John Mayer, or other voices of secular music today?

 

Our Take

10 Things I Learned at Confirmation Camp

by Jennifer Lathrop

Two weeks ago I helped out a friend by acting as the second female chaperone at a week-long confirmation camp.

The camp is on an island and I had met several of the staff when I went to New Orleans earlier this year. I've never been to church camp and I've never chaperoned camp before, so I thought this would be a great learning opportunity. Well, I learned many things that week, but not quite what I expected. Here is my list of what I brought home from camp: