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Magazine, Past Issue

July/Aug 2025 issue

WHAT'S INSIDE: Screen-fast, sports betting, & environmental stewardship

Our 10-day screen-fast challenge that we presented in the last issue is getting traction. Marty VanDriel has a story that shares how the fast went for him and others who gave it a try.

But that was just the start. Some generous supporters have recognized how important this issue is, so they are offering up a little extra motivation for us all. They have pledged to donate $100 to two fantastic kingdom causes – Word & Deed and Reformed Perspective – for every person who commits to and completes a 10-day fast from their screens from July 21 to 30 (to a maximum of $20,000 split between both causes).

Screens aren’t evil, but as the cover illustrates so well, screens can keep us from seeing reality – from seeing God’s loving hand upholding creation, this world, and our lives. Here now is your opportunity to join with some family and friends and maybe your whole church community to put screens aside and see the rest of the world unfiltered. Check out page 19 for more details or click on the QR code above to sign up.

Since sports betting was legalized in 2021, it has taken Canada by storm. If you watch any hockey you’ve noticed a lot of betting ads, and they bring with them a growing temptation for Christians to make some money while enjoying their favurite teams. But as Jeff Dykstra explains, we have good reason to steer clear of sports gambling.

In this issue we also do a deep dive into the topic of environmental stewardship by sitting down with two Christian women who work for an environmental group in the middle of a logging community in northern BC.

If you are an adult who tends to skip over the Come & Explore kids’ section, we encourage you to give this one a read. It will be sure to make you smile.

Click the cover to view in your browser
or click here to download the PDF (8 mb)

INDEX: Are you still able: A nation-wide challenge to experience life without screens / Creation stewards in a logging town / Who do you want to be? RP's 10-day screen-fast challenge / We took the no screens challenge... and now we're changing our habits / What can I do anyways? 35 screen-alternative ideas / Is TikTok the ultimate contraception? / How to stay sane in an overstimulated age / Defeated by distraction / How to use AI like a Christian boss / Who speeches were they? On AI, and others, writing for us / The Way / Who is Mark Carney? / What if we said what we mean? - the political party edition / Am I lazy or just relaxing? What does Proverbs say? / Get out of the game: Christians need to steer clear of sports gambling / Man up: ARPA leaderboards and the call to courageous action / Christians don't pray / Our forever home / Calvin as a comic / The best comics for kids / Fun is something you make: 11 times for family road trips / Come and Explore: Mr. Morose goes to the doctor / Rachel VanEgmond is exploring God's General Revelation / 642 Canadian babies were born alive and left to die / 90 pro-life MPs elected to parliament / Ontario shows why euthanasia "safeguards" can't work / RP's coming to a church near you



News

Canada’s population almost shrinking

The latest population estimation from Statistics Canada is revealing a startling change: Ontario, Quebec, and BC all saw population declines in the first quarter of 2025.

The country as a whole grew by only 20,107 people, which, as a percentage, amounted to a 0.0% increase, the second-slowest growth rate in Canada since records began in 1946. The record prior was the third quarter of 2020, when border restrictions from the Covid-19 pandemic prevented immigration. The decrease has been attributed to announcements by the federal government in 2024 to decrease temporary and permanent immigration levels, with targets of 436,000 for this year, which is still well above the 250,000 level prior to the Liberal government taking office in 2015.

So, in the first quarter of 2025 we lost 17,410 people via emigration to other countries, and there was also a drop of 61,111 in non-permanent residents – people on temporary work or student visas, along with their families. The data also shows that there were 5,628 more deaths than births in the first quarter, largely due to Canada’s quickly declining fertility rate. That’s a collective loss of population of 84,140 people.

Then, going in the other direction, we had 104,256 people immigrate to Canada, for that small net increase of 20,107.

While it is a blessing that people from other countries are still willing and able to move to Canada, it is sobering to note that two-thirds of the world’s populations are now below replacement rate and the world’s population is projected to start declining later this century.

God’s first command to humanity was to “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28). Imagine what the world could look like in a few generations if Christians fulfilled this cultural mandate with enthusiasm while the rest of the world continued on its course.


Today's Devotional

July 11 - Fellowship in the truth (II)

“If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father.” - 1 John 2:24 

Scripture reading: 1 John 2:24-27; 1 Corinthians 2:6-16

As we were reminded of yesterday, fellowship with God outside of the truth that is Jesus Christ is impossible.  Thankfully, we have been given two wonderful aids to bring us to >

Today's Manna Podcast

Manna Podcast banner: Manna Daily Scripture Meditations and open Bible with jar logo

Creation: In His Presence

Serving #900 of Manna, prepared by D. VandeBurgt, is called "Creation" (In His Presence) and is based on Genesis 1.











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Assorted

The destiny hermeneutic

We confuse ourselves focusing only on the here and now ****  What in the world is a hermeneutic? You might be familiar with the term if you took any classes at a seminary or if you study the Scriptures with commentaries. But hermeneutics isn’t a discipline that should be reserved just for academic Christianity. No, hermeneutics is something we all use in our everyday, street-level walk with God. So, what in the world is a hermeneutic? In a word: interpretation. Hermeneutics is the science of interpretation. We each carry around our personal life hermeneutic; that is, our particular way of making sense of life. Most significantly, our hermeneutic is what gives direction and motivation to our behavior. For example, if I believed that achieving X led to happiness, then I would pursue X. If I concluded that consuming Y resulted in cancer, then I would avoid Y. “I was envious of the arrogant” In Psalm 73, we discover that the writer Asaph has a defective hermeneutic. It’s a dysfunctional perspective that you and I carry around sometimes, too. Everywhere Asaph looked, it seemed as if the bad guys were winning. The arrogant, proud, and lawless appeared to thrive, living with wealth, health, pleasure, and ease. It didn’t make sense. How could a just and holy God allow the wicked to prosper and the righteous to suffer? Asaph began to wonder if it was worth obeying the Lord. He became so embittered that he was like a beast before him (read the entire Psalm, but see verses 21-22 specifically). Yet Asaph had made a devastating interpretative error - one that you and I are prone to make as well. His everyday life hermeneutic had no destiny included in it. Without eternity, Asaph would have been right. If our present, physical world is all we have, then all of life should be about what we can experience, acquire, and enjoy in the here and now. If this life is all that there is, then you would expect a good God to immediately and obviously bless those who follow him and curse those who mock him. “But God is…my portion forever” But this life is not all that there is. So, you and I must live with a preparation mentality - and with a destiny hermeneutic. You can’t interpret personal suffering and societal brokenness without remembering that God is not satisfied with the world as it is. The Creator – who made this world and rules everything in it and who is the definition of goodness, wisdom, love, and truth – has promised to one day make all things new. Your street-level hermeneutics must also include this essential interpretative perspective: the fallen world is meant to drive us to the end of ourselves. It will take us beyond our autonomy and self-sufficiency. It will push us beyond our righteousness, strength, and wisdom. Why would God allow us to be frustrated in this world? Why would he leave us here to groan? Because in so doing, he’s molding and preparing us for eternal glory. This broken world was never meant to be our paradise ≠ it’s a preparation for our final destination. So today, if you look around and believe that those who have defied God are experiencing blessing, apply your destiny hermeneutic and look again. If you think that God has forgotten about you by allowing you to experience frustration and suffering, revert to your preparation mentality and think again. Grace has given you something better than they are now experiencing. Grace has given you eternity - a destination so glorious that the most eloquent words on a page couldn’t do it justice. God bless. REFLECTION QUESTIONS How often do you consider the amount of interpretation that you do every day? Or do you move through life without much reflection? Why is it beneficial to regularly review your street-level hermeneutics? How would your interpretation of life change your behavior? Apply this to at least one specific example. Look at the evidence of your everyday life: what are you pursuing and what are you avoiding? How does your interpretation of X and Y lead to this behavior? In what ways have you neglected to apply “the destiny hermeneutic” to your everyday life recently? What desires, words, and actions have resulted? How can you view this broken world as a preparation for a final destination this week? How will that be spiritually helpful to you? This article first appeared on PaulTripp.com and is reprinted here with permission....





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Adult biographies, Book Reviews

Only When It’s Dark Can We See the Stars: a father’s journal as his son battles cancer

by John van Popta 2022, 194 pages Why Lord? That’s the question 12-year-old Julian van Popta, his parents, and his siblings had to contend with when this young man was diagnosed with leukemia. Only When It’s Dark Can We See the Stars is an account of the four years that followed, as written by his father, Pastor John van Popta. The chapters are made up of the regular updates Rev. van Popta sent out to friends and family during the rounds of Julian’s treatment. What’s striking, and what makes this such a valuable read, is the trust the author demonstrates in God, even as the van Poptas struggled with why God would bring such sickness. As the author shares, it is one thing to face cancer as a pastor comforting parishioners, and another thing to do so as a parent seeing their child too weak even to eat. The question Why Lord? is made all the more urgent when, during Julian’s repeated hospital stays, they meet other children also battling cancer, and the van Poptas share in these families’ hopes and their losses – Julian does eventually recover, but many others do not. While this is a deeply personal account, the struggle to trust God in the face of death is one that we’ll all have to face, and this then is an example of how to struggle well. It is a father writing, but there’s no missing this is also a pastor who wants to feed the sheep with what he knows we need: to understand that my only comfort is that I am not my own but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ. That truth, powerfully delivered, makes this not simply a good book, but an important one....