Merely Reformed

There’s been a lot of drama in the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) these past few years. I could use a break; maybe you too? 

The CRC has suffered self-inflicted wounds. We’re losing churches and pastors. We’re short on trust, and all we have left is procedure. We haven’t found ways to give and receive forgiveness, and we are acting in ways that produce harm all around. We’ve traded too much in the surrounding antagonisms and lost the habits of cooperation. And most significantly, we’ve failed to discern a shared purpose and mission for our time and context.

Whether you lament or celebrate the decisions of recent synods, what’s done is done. The CRC we’ve known is a memory. But I’m foolish enough to believe there is still an opportunity to gather together the scattered pieces, foolhardy enough to hope for a renewed but different future. 

The prophet Jeremiah offers us this hope: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls” (Jer. 6:16).

I perceive a good way on offer in the history of the Church and the CRC. Here’s my foolish hope, a modest experiment for the Reformed community in Canada: I’m praying for a Reformed order to arise in Canada. Call it the Order of the Merely Reformed or the Collective of Reformed Christians. Whatever its name, it would be a redemptive community called to centre its common life on devotion to our faithful saviour Jesus Christ and to steward forward a shared Reformed legacy.

What is an order? 

An order is a form of focused Christian community where people commit to a shared vision for following Jesus together. The participants typically center their lives on a shared set of practices and adopt a common set of postures for living out the gospel together. Some communities live together, others don’t, but the idea is to support each other in following Jesus more truly. 

In seasons of cultural shift and church breakdown in history, ordered religious communities (like monastic communities) have risen up and become agents of renewal. They carried forward the Christian tradition by accenting neglected aspects of what it means to follow Jesus and transposing faithful living for new conditions. The genius of these orders was their leavening effect on the church, a reformation within the Church, serving the unity, health and mission of the larger Church.

Historically, religious orders were first and foremost communities of prayer. Their common life was centred in a shared life of prayer, generating spiritual renewal and growing people of discernment and wisdom. They were communities of hospitality, welcoming those who were not part of their order, demonstrating a picture of life with God. They were also communities of mission and reformation in society. Missiologist David Bosch, writing about monastic orders, notes that their life with God flowed outwardly in response to social needs, growing to be centers of culture and education, “a hive of activity for the benefit of the entire surrounding community.” An ordered community is focused on cultivating a way of life of belonging, worship and mission.

Grow trust

Thankfully, these patterns are nothing new in the Reformed tradition. Let’s not forget that our strength is not a set of circumscribed historic confessions but a path of grace and belonging, a good way of mission lived locally in homes and jobs, in congregations through songs and prayers, witnessed in local and shared ministries.

A few years ago, Richard Mouw noted that some form of re-monasticization of the church was needed. His call was not for a cloistered community but rather “the clear and radical witness of a smaller body within the church, calling the entire church to a clearer and more radical witness.”

In the context of the CRC, I’m thinking this would be an interim community, a landing place and gathering community for, say, three years. This holy experiment would exist in parallel with current church structures but independent of its strictures. It would be a community focused on prayer, discernment and local ministry. I imagine a hospitable space for those with a shared history in the CRC, including churches or individuals who have left the denomination, those eyeing the doors, those staying (but awkwardly so) and those quite comfortable to remain.

We need to relearn what theologian Stanley Hauerwas calls the first task of the church, “to exhibit in our common life the kind of community possible when trust, and not fear, rules our lives.” That will require a highly relational community. It will be smaller and more locally organized.

God has always used small redemptive communities to do his work because genuine revitalization requires risk, which involves trust, and trust only grows within the relational soil of love.

Get tiny

Andy Crouch, in Culture Making, observes that it’s always a small group that changes the world. “No matter how complex and extensive the cultural system you may consider, the only way it will be changed is by an absolutely small group of people. . . .” Crouch suggests the ideal size for something like this is roughly the number of people that can fit in a Mini Cooper – a small, intimate space conducive to deep collaboration. There’s your picture for a Reformed order – the Canadian CRC in a Mini-Cooper.

As a community of prayer, a Reformed order would give itself to organizing each day around prayer, ideally three times a day. This community would also be organized in the fundamental unit of a group of three – a trio of people who meet weekly for friendship and discipleship. The only way forward for the church is a renewal of discipleship – disciples who make disciples. 

Nuts and bolts

Each month, members of the Reformed order would meet for a Commons gathering. Four local trios (12 people) gathered over a shared meal for prayer and dwelling in Romans 12, allowing the vision of this new community to find fresh expression for what embodied life together might look like. Over the meal, they would tell stories and ask questions. What are the assets and strengths of our churches and ministries? What is the Reformed legacy we want to carry forward? What gifts does the CRC have that our neighbours need? Perhaps some of those stories could be curated and shared more widely via a digital channel or platform, so that different parts across Canada can listen to a larger conversation.

And then, twice a year, regional clusters would gather together. This likely would be a leadership group, perhaps representatives from the commons groups, gathered to ask: What is the Spirit saying? Where do we see God at work? Is there a new thing God is inviting us to do together?

In 2 Chronicles 15:12, a time of revival and covenant renewal in Judah during the reign of King Asa, we read that God’s people “entered a covenant to seek the Lord the God of their fathers with all their heart and soul.” What if, for the next three years, we commit to living together as a Reformed order in Canada, worship in our local churches, gather together regionally, listen to what God is doing and patiently trust God to give shape to a renewed future for the CRC in Canada?

This moment of a damaged institutional church calls out for a different container to renew the life of the church. Perhaps it was something of the Spirit’s wisdom that overture 28 was firmly defeated and with it the formation of a Canadian CRC denomination. We don’t need more of what we’ve had. I believe the Spirit is calling us to reset and reknit a shared way of life within a fellowship different from what has been before. No one is looking for the ideal community, but rather for a community of humility and hope.

For a deeper dive into this idea, check out Phil’s substack post: “A reformed order?“