Doing Justice
Black History Month and Racism in Canada
In Canada, February is Black History Month, an event that has existed since 1995 to celebrate the achievements and contributions of Canadians with African or Caribbean heritage. At DMC, we thought it would be good to interview someone with Caribbean heritage. So, we approached Bernadette Arthur, Race Relations Coordinator for the Office of Race Relations…
Read MoreA Conversation with John Schuurman
“Shalom is the first thing that comes to mind,” he says, in between bites of potato leek soup. “When I think of justice, I think of the Lord’s shalom, especially as it relates to those who are oppressed—including creation.” John Schuurman says these words with a quiet confidence, not realizing how profound they sound off…
Read MoreLGBTQ+ Christians and Your Church: 5 Steps Towards Hospitality
The above photo, “Reykjavik Pride”, is copyright (c) 2009 Lars Lundqvist and made available under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 license. “Responses to the question ‘Do you ever hear comments from church members that you believe would be offensive to people in your congregation who are attracted to the same sex?’ were . . . alarming: 61…
Read MoreVisualizing Restorative Justice (Part Two): An Infographic
While brainstorming for my next post on restorative justice, I ended up taking some time to create this infographic based on an appendix in Howard Zehr’s The Little Book of Restorative Justice. Take some time to look through it, and feel free to print it off. I think that this list provides some excellent reminders on…
Read MoreThe Freedom Climb: Getting Uncomfortable for God’s Precious Children
In July 2014 I had the privilege of travelling to Colorado from my home province of Saskatchewan. There I joined about 70 other women, from 6 different countries, for “The Freedom Climb”! We summited 7 mountains, each of them over 14,000 feet elevation, in 4 days. We were dizzy from the altitude, with aching muscles…
Read MoreVisualizing Restorative Justice (Part One): Tapestries, Spider-webs, and Doilies
“Restorative justice” is a phrase that sounds very nice. It likely conjures up images of people smiling, of sunlight pouring through windows, of trees swaying in the wind—the stuff of daydreams. On the other hand, some might think of courtrooms, prisons, prisoners, lawyers and judges. Yet still others might think of “talking circles”, victim-offender conferences,…
Read MoreResponding to God’s Call to “Do Justice”
“I was listening to the Lord and to my heart.” This is how the Safe Room along the Highway of Tears came about. A simple tugging on the heart and, as Bart Plugboer would testify, when you listen, God will use that to do good. Bart Plugboer is the Diaconal Coach (formerly called Diaconal Ministry…
Read MoreThe Refugee Crisis and the CRC Response
The following was sent out by the CRCNA Communications: With the refugee crisis on many people’s minds, questions have come in to various agency and ministry staff about what the CRC is doing to help. A number of communication items have recently gone out from our office to address the refugee crisis and how churches…
Read MoreMeet DMC’s new Justice Mobilizer!
I’m Dan Galenkamp, the new Justice Mobilizer for DMC. As a recent graduate of Redeemer University College in Ancaster, Ontario, I’ve been eager on finding work that incorporates my faith and my enthusiasm for helping others. I have a real passion for justice and reconciliation. From the humble beginnings of a high school law class—where…
Read MoreSummer Reading
If there’s one book that you might want to read on charity, I recommend Robert Lupton’s book Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help. Lupton’s 40 years of experience in community development in Atlanta have led him to claim that charitable giving is “either wasted or actually harms the people it is targeted…
Read More
