In mid-March I had the opportunity to travel to Indonesia with a group of faculty from Calvin University. Indonesia is an archipelago made up of over 17,000 distinct islands and with a population of 250 million people, it makes up the fourth most populous nation in the world. Its people represent a variety of faith…
“Many Canadian churches are battlegrounds today between camps with opposing views.” So begins a Christian Courier editorial by Robert Vander Vennen published on January 11, 1991. Vander Vennen’s words could accurately describe this present moment in the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) too, as the denomination fractures over differing definitions of sexuality, chastity and sin. In…
After answering over a dozen questions and providing thousands of additional explanations for their responses, hundreds of Canadians who participated in Christian Courier’s survey of members of the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) still had more to say. Close to 300 took advantage of the invitation to respond to the final open-ended query: Is there anything…
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…
Recently, I wrote about the all-too-common tendency for Christian organizations to delay action. Excuses are made, like “needing to pray,” “waiting upon the Lord” or “forming a committee.” Ultimately these excuses prevent Christian communities from taking action. How different it is from God who “sees” and then “provides.” God takes action! To provide a practical…
All people will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. (John 13:35) For many years, I taught a course at The King’s University called Introduction to Teaching. A major topic covered in the course textbook was “classroom discipline.” To introduce this topic, I asked my students to call out what they…
When members of the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) in Canada showed up in digital droves to say they are concerned about the future of their denomination (see pages 1,2 and 4), they also told us why. Survey participants had the option to provide context for two questions (4 and 5), and close to 500 of…
“This would give me hope for the Canadian CRC.” That comment was one of hundreds sent in to Christian Courier as part of our recent survey, specifically regarding two key questions gauging interest in a distinct Christian Reformed Church (CRC) in Canada. Though at first glance the numbers seem to be overwhelmingly in support of…
When CC decided to run an independent survey on how Christian Reformed churches in Canada were responding to decisions made at Synod 2024 by its binational denomination, we knew it would garner interest. But we had no idea just how much! As a uniquely Canadian publication with roots in the Reformed tradition, CC has been…
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…
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