What next?

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 each other and said, ‘we’re going to have to leave’,” recalls De Jonge. Synod had just set in motion the Human Sexuality Report (HSR). The committee’s task was to present biblical and theological evidence in support of the CRC’s traditional definition of marriage, as outlined in a report from 1973. The conclusion was predetermined.

Over the next six years, De Jonge helped her congregation, Westside Fellowship CRC in Kingston, Ontario, have conversations about their wide range of views on human sexuality. But she felt the pressure, as a leader, to maintain a neutral posture, even while privately working her way towards an affirming theology. “In the end, it became a matter of knowing I needed to leave, but not knowing where to go. What pace do I need to go? How quickly? And how do I do that well?”

Letting go of ordination

In June 2022, she left parish ministry and in September 2024, she was released from her ordination in the CRC. These days, De Jonge juggles four part-time ministry roles, none of which are tied to the CRC. She serves as a chaplain at a long-term care home, a restorative practice practitioner and trainer for Shalem Mental Health Network, a trainer for the Colossian Forum, and a chaplain at Queen’s University. Her dad, a retired CRC minister, calls her a “worker priest.” Heidi says she’s embracing the freedom that comes with “un-reverending,” although she does miss raising her hands while giving a benediction.

“I do think that ordination is significant,” says De Jonge, “but what it means to me is changing. I’m not necessarily able to articulate exactly what that shapeshift is, except that my feelings about the loss of my ordination are not feelings of anger or sorrow. Primarily, they’re feelings of curiosity and compassion.”

Daniel Zylstra, pastor at Meadowvale CRC in Mississauga, Ontario, is still ordained in the CRC, but not for long. His congregation voted in December 2024 to disaffiliate from the CRC. They are an affirming congregation and have refused to repent and come into alignment with the CRC’s traditional definition of marriage. The vote was unanimous and he’s decided to leave with his flock. Like De Jonge, Zylstra says, “it was becoming more and more clear that my personal theological convictions were not going to have room in the CRC.”

Peter’s story

While both De Jonge and Zylstra decided to leave the CRC for theological reasons, Peter Rockhold, former pastor of New Life Fellowship CRC in Red Deer, Alberta, who left the denomination in November 2024, says his theology of human sexuality was in alignment with the CRC. Nevertheless, he too felt forced out.

In a recent interview with Erik Delange on a podcast hosted by 1Life, Rockhold said serving on the Synodical Advisory Committee dealing with the Human Sexuality Report in 2022 was the breaking point for him: “I agreed with the theological positions that the majority group was making. My name is on the majority report. But even signing that, I was just so sick to my stomach just knowing the comments that some people made that my name is next to.”

Rockhold gave a speech to Classis Alberta-North and reluctantly published an exit interview in The Banner explaining his decision to leave. He thanked his congregation for the acceptance they showed him after he came out as gay, yet outlined his reasons for leaving anyway. He names the hateful and derogatory things some people in the CRC were saying about him and other gay people. In the speech, Rockhold balances both empathy and honesty: “I kept on trying to remind myself that these things were often stirred up by cultural debates and media, but it left painful marks.”

Sorting through the options

Once Rockhold and De Jonge realized that they couldn’t stay in the CRC, they both initially looked to Presbyterian denominations since their doctrines are similar to the CRC.

“But I ran into a problem,” recalls Rockhold. “I had to be called by a Presbyterian church first and then go through the process of being ordained.” That would mean leaving his CRC congregation and heading into a state of limbo for a year or two while the Presbyterian church processed his ordination.

De Jonge spent a year navigating deadlines and waiting periods with the Presbyterian Church in Canada (PCC) before giving up on the tedious process in part because the PCC doesn’t ordain ministers to the type of non-parish part-time work that De Jonge does now. De Jonge believes the process is smoother now that the PCC has noticed an influx of transfer applications from CRC ministers. Christian Courier contacted the PCC to find out more.

“In a best-case scenario a CRC minister could expect the process to take between six months to a year,” explains Tim Purvis, Associate Secretary for Ministry and Church Vocations for PCC. Pastors who apply for a transfer must satisfy 12 requirements, including providing a letter stating that they are an ordained minister of the Word in good standing and an endorsement from the appropriate PCC presbytery. They are not guaranteed to be received as a minister, but exceptions are made on a case-by-case basis when a minister has lost their good standing for a reason like divorce or for being affirming.

Purvis added, “As our own denomination recently made major decisions on human sexuality, we recognize the strong feelings and difficult challenges ahead for the CRC and many of its clergy and congregations as they enter into discernment about their future.”

In November 2024, Rockhold began pastoring an Evangelical United Church of Christ in Marysville, Kansas. Theologically, the progressive mainline denomination wasn’t a perfect fit for someone who professes his love for the Canons of Dordt and the Belgic Confession, but at least they would allow him to continue serving his church in Red Deer while completing a fast-tracked approval process (that still took nine months). He was surprised to discover that some United Church of Christ congregations have reformed roots, a rigorous ordination process and similar theology to the CRC, although adherence to it varies dramatically from congregation to congregation. “When I went through the process of joining the United Church of Christ, they had the same standards that I went through joining the CRC. When it comes to at least the church that I’m at, they rely on scripture just as much as, if not more than what I’m used to in the CRC. Because they follow the Revised Common Lectionary pretty strongly, they have more scripture in the services than what you would see in a CRC church [. . .] I assumed ‘this is a liberal denomination, and they don’t use the Bible,’ and I couldn’t be more wrong.” His new church also follows the Heidelberg Catechism, Apostles Creed and Nicene Creed. For Rockhold those ecumenical ties have been an anchor.

Money and the messy side of moving

The decision to leave one denomination and join another isn’t simply a matter of spiritual discernment; for a pastor, it’s also a career move that comes with an array of practical considerations. Zylstra and Rockhold had to move to new communities and De Jonge’s family had to start church shopping. The CRC has an agreement with the Reformed Church in America (RCA) that allows pastors to move (almost) seamlessly between the two denominations, but to move to other denominations, it can take years instead of months. For pastors who are the primary breadwinners for their households or are carrying significant student debt, they might have to choose whichever prospective denomination has the clearest and quickest path. For pastors in Ontario who are likely to officiate weddings, they also have to keep in mind that their province requires religious officiants to be ordained in a Canadian denomination.

These sorts of issues are frequent discussion topics on the “CRCNA Disaffiliation Information” Facebook group that Zylstra launched in June 2024. It now has more than 1,000 ordained and lay members. A group known as the First Wave Steering Committee has also sprung up to offer pastoral care and resources for pastors navigating all of these practical details. Christian Courier reached out to this group for help setting up interviews, but most pastors leaving the CRC are reluctant to go public.

“I want to be anonymous because I need the CRC until I can go through this process,” explained one pastor who is currently working toward transferring their ordination to the United Church of Canada (UCC). The UCC only accepts incoming ministers from other denominations who are ordained and in good standing. Like the PCC, the UCC does make exceptions on a case-by-case basis when a minister has lost their good standing for a reason like divorce or sexual orientation. However, the UCC admission to ministry process is currently paused indefinitely (except for those already in the system) due to an overabundance of qualified ministers currently seeking calls.

Grief and hope

Pastors who leave the CRC are oftentimes thrown into a season of uncertainty – a loss of community and belonging and an unsettling spiritual homelessness while still going through the motions of ministry and trying to figure out which denomination to call home next. De Jonge says she’s just “constantly blessing people to make their own discernments [. . .] Every person is going to have to make a different decision depending on their age, how long they’ve been in the ministry, how far away they are from retirement, depending on the context of their congregation, how conservative that congregation is, depending on their own personality makeup and how comfortable they are with varying levels of publicity or privateness. There are just so many different factors.”

When asked what he would look for in a denominational home, Zylstra says, “I’m looking for a place with room [. . .] a denomination or network or affiliation or a local church that doesn’t say ‘my way or the highway,’ but a church that says: ‘Look, we know that we are not going to get it all right and we welcome questions. We’re happy for people to explore. We know that the primary requirement to receive salvation is not believing the right doctrines. It is receiving the love of God, the love of God that’s always been there.’ That’s what Meadowvale is like.”

Rockhold has one big piece of advice to pastors or lay people alike: “Don’t leave the CRC in anger. This isn’t a reason for anger. It can be a reason for sadness and grief. But to leave in bitterness and anger will cause a lot of pain for everybody. It’s not helpful. I don’t think it’s biblical.”

For each of these pastors, there may still be some uncertainty, but there’s hope too beyond the CRC. “We make all these distinctions with the different denominations, and we tend to think that the divides are much bigger than what they actually are,” Rockhold adds. “Leaving the CRC doesn’t separate me from the love of God.”