I stepped out onto the tiny porch of my sister’s second floor apartment and settled into a chair nestled among a handful of potted plants. Palm branches flanked the porch, creating a tiny urban sanctuary in the South L.A. neighborhood where she lived. […]
Magazine
The Camp Factor
I loved going to camp when I was young. Heading up to Covenant Pines Bible Camp in McGregor, Minnesota, every year was a great adventure into a land where games and candy mixed with worship and messages. […]
Asking the right questions
In the winter of 2015, I decided I wanted to be more intentional about reading and decided to treat myself to a subscription to The Atlantic. My first issue arrived one month later with a provocative cover story by Peter Beinart titled “Why America Is Moving Left.” […]
Life Giving
Zaya Gilmer had been attending New Life Covenant Church in Palatine, Illinois, for just one month when
she noticed John Moon’s name on the prayer list in the bulletin. Diagnosed with renal failure at age twenty-six, John had been on the national registry for a kidney donation for three years. […]
Will Evangelicalism Die with Billy Graham?
American church historians trace the beginning of the evangelical movement to the early ministry of Billy Graham. His evangelistic crusades were transdenominational and open to anyone open to his proclamation of the gospel. […]
That’s Life
Life.Church pastor Craig Groeschel and ECC president Gary Walter recall the beginnings of a Covenant church plant in 1996 that has become the largest multi-site network in the U.S. Walter was director of church planting at the time, and Groeschel a twenty-eight-year-old associate pastor in Oklahoma City just finishing seminary. […]
A Gospel Opportunity
Every year I see something that reminds me of the divide. I call it the gospel bifurcation; people in American society use the word “gospel” in two distinct ways. […]
Big Q: What is your favorite saying or advice from mom or dad?
To celebrate parents, we asked readers for their favorite momisms and dadisms. Check out their wise, poignant, and sometimes humorous responses. […]
Lockdown
On the morning of March 14 hundreds of thousands of students across the United States walked out of their classrooms for seventeen minutes to protest gun violence in schools, specifically memorializing seventeen students who were killed a month earlier in the school shooting in Parkland, Florida […]
Compass Bearings: Billy Graham, Lon Allison, and You
I was invited to attend the private memorial service for Billy Graham. Well, as private as it can be when millions of others join by television. […]
Who do you say that I am?
In the midst of theological, cultural, political disagreements and differing worldviews, how can we love each other well as members of Christ’s body? We asked Covenanters with a variety of experiences and perspectives to help us see beyond the labels that we place on each other—sometimes without even knowing it. […]
Stories from Appalachia
J.D. Vance’s much talked-about book has been on my reading list for a year now, and it was definitely worth the wait. I wanted to read Hillbilly Elegy primarily for two reasons. 1) It explores the challenges blue-collar America is facing in our post-industrial context, and as a woman from a blue-collar town in western New York, I felt drawn to this theme. […]