John van de Laar

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK And so, we reach the start of a new year in the Church Calendar – Advent Sunday. The word "Advent" means "arrival", and in the [...]

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK This week is the last of the Church Year. Next week a new cycle begins with Advent Sunday, but before we get there, we take [...]

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK How do we respond to the ways of power and dominance in our world? The most natural response is to retaliate, using force to overcome [...]

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK After last week’s focus on love, it is appropriate that the theme for this week is faith. Faith, or trust, and love always go together. [...]

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK This week the focus is on the Great Commandment. We know Jesus’ words so well: “‘And you must love the LORD your God with all [...]

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK Although it does not remove the scars of Job's suffering - he would always carry the grief of his dead children, and the emotional residue [...]

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK We live in a world where the quest for greatness has become almost obsessive. Reality television offers the promise of fame and wealth to anyone [...]

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK Two words come together in the readings from the Revised Common Lectionary this week: compassion and suffering. You may read about Job's feeling of being [...]

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK This Sunday, if one of the Lectionary readings was used in your worship, it may have struck you how concerned God is about relationships. This [...]

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK We love to make faith about who is "in" and who is "out". We love to believe that we know how God works, and that [...]