Spring is nomination season, that time of year when church councils thank retiring members and count empty seats to see how many new officebearers are needed. This spring, however, it might be harder than usual to find members ready to take on a leadership role at church – at least if Christian Courier’s survey results…
When the motion for Edmonton’s Fellowship Church’s disaffiliation from the Christian Reformed Church of North America (CRCNA) was approved at the March 8 Classis Alberta North meeting, members of Fellowship met the news with murmurs, joined hands, smiles and tears. The motion didn’t take long: a unanimous vote, a farewell letter, a blessing and a…
Wander into Roy’s Place, a restaurant in the southern Alberta town of Claresholm, and you might find an informal gathering of Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRCNA) leaders, some from hours away, deep in conversation. For the past few years, they’ve been convening here periodically, drawn not only by the food but by a…
My friends said that we should have a name for our coffee club, so we decided to call ourselves the Young People of Yesteryear (YPOY). Douwe, smiling, said, “The Y P bothers me a little. It’s more like how to P today.” We all laughed at that. “In the past, it was a stream . . .” he paused for a few seconds, until Broekie shouted, “of iniquities!” and without missing a beat, Douwe said, “Yes, now it’s more drops of blessing.”
I am the son and grandson of Dutch immigrants to Canada who arrived shortly after the end of the second world war. They took a “kist” across the Atlantic, a large crate containing their modest household possessions. Along with their kist, many Dutch immigrants brought their Reformed Christian tradition. This tradition, sometimes referred to as…
Perhaps it was inevitable, and a long time coming. To many Institute for Christian Studies (ICS) supporters, perhaps it does not come as a great surprise. On February 18, ICS President Dr. Ron Kuipers and Chair of the ICS Board of Trustees Daniel Beerens wrote a letter to the Synod Secretariat of the Christian Reformed…
As a delegate to the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) Synod last June, I experienced first-hand many of the difficult implications of Synod 2024’s decisions currently consuming the agendas of local church councils and regional classes. I find that I cannot now, in good conscience, re-sign the Covenant for Officebearers, as Synod 2024 has instructed all…
Heidi De Jonge, a former Christian Reformed Church (CRC) minister and chaplain, still remembers the night when she realized she would have to leave the denomination in which she was born and raised. She and her husband Tim were brushing their teeth before bed, listening to the proceedings of Synod 2016. “We just looked at…
Gretta VanGorkum immigrated to Canada with her family at age seven. She grew up in the Chatham, Ontario area and began her working days at the Bank of Montreal. She soon started dating Bill Heyink, whom she knew through church and youth group. They fell in love, were married and were blessed with a daughter…
I grew up in the Netherlands in an era when the organ played a prominent role in worship. In many households, including mine, families would gather around the pump organ to sing together. During worship services and on special days, people would sing, sometimes raucously, accompanied by the organ. Not without reason it became known…
On one of the last days in June, we sneaked into church five minutes late. The Grade 12s looked resplendent in their dark blue gowns, cap tassels swinging jauntily with every movement. We waved at Emerson, a close family friend, and got ready to cheer our hearts out for his moment on stage. It was…
This Reformation Day, I’m thinking about reformation as a form of deconstruction. “Always reforming” can too easily feel like it’s about re-shaping something, renovating it, giving it a make-over. It sounds too clean, maybe even bureaucratic — like a policy change. But “deconstruction” suggests that reformation first requires some division and a little subtraction. It…
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