Blogging from the Floor #5

Well, Synod 2008 is over... we finished Thursday night around 9:30 p.m. It was good to finish the week of business and talking (and talking and talking) with a time of worship and prayer together. But before we got to the finish line there was a bit of a long sprint...

We had a lot of business to cover, but the officers thought we could get it done by Thursday. We did a bunch of house-keeping items throughout the day - like ratifying the work of the synodical deputies. One interesting note - since last year 2 became ministers via article 7 (exceptional giftedness), 25 via article 8 (other denominations - mostly Korean) and 43 became ministry associates (which is a wide range from evangelists to youth pastors to music directors).

There was an overture requesting that an option be provided at the synodical worship service for delegates to receive the elements from males only. Interestingly, the first recommendation from the Advisory Committee was not to accede to the overture, yet their second recommendation was to urge the convening church to show sensitivity to both views on women-in-church-office - which, as the overture's author stated, was what they were asking for. I'll tell you, when an Advisory Committee does their work clearly and thoroughly, there is little discussion. But when they try to muddy things up - the flood gates open... which is what happened here. We spent much more time talking about the whole women-in-church-office issue than the agenda would have led us to believe. But it needed to be done during this "historic" synod. I believe the point came across that we still officially believe the historic biblical position on this is valid. It seems many people had forgotten that.

Other things we did were to adopt a resolution to challenge the president of Zimbabwe on his treatment of the people there. Both the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa and Reformed Church of Zambia representatives pleaded with us for our prayers and action. Sounds like just an awful situation there - so if you know any political representatives in the U.S. or Canada, give them a call.

We also recommitted the Abuse Victims Task Force report back for another year of fine tuning and further study. This issue is too big - spiritually, emotionally and legally - to rush into.

The most tenuous issue for the day was the revised recommendation from the Interchurch Relations Advisory Committee regarding our relationship with the Protestant Churches of the Netherlands (PCN). Like I said earlier, we, in what they thought would just be procedural housekeeping, ended up completely severing our relationship with the PCN and couldn't find a way to approve re-establishing it within our current ecumenical charter. So the Advisory Committee came with another muddy proposal - the PCN won't be in full ecclesiastical fellowship or in ecclesiastical dialogue (our only two categories currently) - it will be somewhere in between or something completely other or who knows. The recommendation kind of left it up to the Interchurch Relationships Committee and Peter Borgdorf. Many of us weren't comfortable with that, but I think the Synod was "smelling the barn" - to quote Jerry Dykstra - and didn't have the energy to go through another lengthy debate. This was approved - but I don't think many really know what it means.

We approved a new Form of Subscription revision committee - looks like a good slate. We'll just have to wait for what they come up with. Mark January 1, 2010 on your calendars!

The Advisory Committee for the Candidacy Committee responded to overtures regarding Article 8 and 23 by basically saying, "Let's wait and see how the new director of Candidacy does." I think this is probably a good approach. There is a tension between the centralization of the process and grassroots development of leaders. I received the impression that the new director, David Koll, has received this message. So nothing has changed in regard to these routes to ministry. Just a note - the Candidacy Committee is engaging in some discussions about article 23... so give them your input!

As I was walking back to the dorm to pack up my things and head home I bumped into the pastor of a Samoan congregation in California. He joined the CRC just a few years ago and is actively working on drawing ten other Samoan congregations into the CRC. He came to the CRC, he said, because He loved our theology, our creeds, our confessions - our love for the Word of God. He loved our high standards (and is insulted by the talk of minorities needing an easier route to ministry). He said, "Don't lower your standards and never give up on the truth." Of everything that happened at Synod I don't think God could have encouraged me more than with this wise man's words. Why is God blessing us by drawing men & women like him and congregations into the CRC? I don't dare presume to know God's eternal decrees, but could He through them be calling our attention back to our first love - Him... His Word... His Son, our Savior? Let's pray that He does.

Chad Steenwyk
delegate from Classis Holland - signing off...