All Posts By

Steve Mathonnet-VanderWell

Essay

The Dutch and John Wayne

The United States Post Office in Pella, Iowa is a little jewel. The small but stately red brick colonial structure sits just off the town square. It was built in 1937, as part of the New Deal, long before Pella’s…
Second Reformed Church, Pella, IA
Essay

Christmas Changes Everything

On occasion my sermons take the form of “Tales from New Heidelberg” -- stories centered around Pastor Branderhorst and old First Reformed Church in New Heidelberg, a fictitious little Dutch enclave on the North American prairie. Think poor-man's Garrison Keillor.…
Second Reformed Church, Pella, IA
Essay

Advent Gloom

Advent: Discipleship in DarknessAn original work of poetry by moi Darkness. The dreadful darkness. The dismal darkness. The dreary darkness. The very, very, dark darkness. Four feeble candles on a wreath is all I have to hold back the bleak…
Second Reformed Church, Pella, IA
Essay

Morning Routines

Morning routines. We all have them. Unless you’re like Pentecostals and contemporary worship folk who say they have no order of worship or liturgy. They just do the same things in the same order every week.My morning routine includes looking…
Second Reformed Church, Pella, IA
Essay

Trouble in Providence

Someday I’m going to compile a list of “Christian words” which need a 200 year time out -- mothballed until they can be brought out again, fresh and new. Words that aren’t necessarily untrue, just exhausted, exploited, stretched almost beyond…
Second Reformed Church, Pella, IA
Essay

Get On the Bus!

Back in the day when I was a faithful mass transit rider, the best bus route for me dropped me about ten blocks away from work. From there, I had to walk. Most of the time that was okay, even…
Second Reformed Church, Pella, IA
Essay

Bonnemaman’s Ladle, Progress, and Hope

The soup ladle pictured above is from Bonnemaman’s girlhood home. Bonnemaman was my wife’s lovable, buoyant grandmother whose life came up a few months short of a century, 1900-2000. Bonnemaman and her family lived in northern France, near the Belgian…
Second Reformed Church, Pella, IA
Essay

Names & Power

The first football game I ever attended in Iowa pitted the Dutch against the Norse. Who knew such strong ethnic sentiments still persisted? Team names like Highlanders, Celtics, and Vikings express similar ethnic heritages. Last month, after years of pressure,…
Second Reformed Church, Pella, IA