News from SBCRC

Rev. Ron VanderGriend, an associate pastor of our church who works with missionaries in India, has offered to lead a group from a church along the Exodus route.  The dates have yet to be determined but there is a flier at church containing what will likely be the itinerary of the nine day trip.  One [...]

I had intended to write a series of four posts related to pastoral care.  I got two completed.  However it became clear that what was needed was something more formal, something which had the insights and approval of council.  There are two versions of “Pastoral Care at SBCRC,” a shorter and longer one.  This is [...]

This was published yesterday here:
Portland-based indie folk band Horse Feathers is one of those bands you really should know. They stopped in South Bend Friday to play a concert at Subkirke, the South Bend Christian Reformed Church’s concert venue, for a small but enthusiastic audience. They are currently on tour promoting their newest album, “Thistled [...]

While I have no intention of throwing music videos into sermons regularly, I am grateful for the freedom to be able to trying something like this.  Thank you to all of you who expressed your appreciation for it.  I’m sure not of you felt this way.  Thank you to you for being gracious.
The video used [...]

According to the recent article in the Elkhart Truth,
Mark Roeda, pastor of SBCRC, and David Banga, director of worship and arts at the church and artistic director of Subkirke, conceived the idea of the venue last summer [in response to discussions revolving around] where the church was going in [...]

On the surface, these are two very different bands.  Nomo is an afro-beat jazz outfit composed of over a half-dozen members from the east side of Michigan.  Horse Feathers is a folk trio out of Portland.  One’s funky.  The other is hauntingly beautiful.  One thing they have in common is critical acclaim (both have received [...]

I’m glad that people appreciated the intercessory prayer yesterday. There is something about placing headlines and images like that within the context of prayer that moves us to see it as something more than just news and information. It generates those “sighs too deep for words” that Paul talks about. It [...]

This is the second of four posts on the subject of pastoral care here at SBCRC.  As in the last post, the focus here is on “pastoral care” in a broad sense, on efforts made by church leadership (i.e. the pastoral staff and council) keep in contact with individuals and families within the congregation and [...]

WHAT “PASTORAL CARE” REFERS TO HERE
We should begin by recognizing that there are different levels of pastoral care.  My focus in this post is on pastoral care at a more basic level– the process whereby the leadership (i.e. the council and pastoral staff) keeps in touch with the individuals and families within the congregation and [...]

Each semester I have been here something about our Sunday evening programing has been different from the semester before. We’ve changed the name, changed the order, changed the times. We’ve probably implemented more changes to Sunday evenings in this time span than this church did in its first forty years of existence.