Six Streams for the Canadian National Gathering

The Canadian National Gathering creates space for Christian Reformed churches in Canada to pause, listen, and learn together. It is a time to notice where God is already at work and to pay attention to the questions rising within our congregations and communities. One of the primary ways this shared listening will take shape in 2026 is through six focused streams that participants will engage with throughout the Canadian National Gathering.

The Canadian National Gathering is May 28-31, 2026, at Redeemer University in Ancaster, Ont. Held every three years, the Gathering brings together Christian Reformed churches from Canada to discern and explore what God’s call is for the CRC as a community of churches.

The steering team identified six streams that will give shape to the discussions at the gathering: Leadership Ecosystem, Conflict Navigation, Faith Formation for Children and Youth, Discipleship Pathways, Community Outreach, and Building Authentic Community. 

“These streams are not meant to represent everything the church is or does,” said Al Postma, Executive Director of CRCNA in Canada, “They are giving some intentional focus to areas where we’ve seen churches across Canada experiencing both opportunity and tension, hope and complexity. They point toward places where thoughtful conversation, prayerful discernment, and collective wisdom are especially needed right now.”

Each participant at the Canadian National Gathering will be asked to join one of the streams, bringing their own experience, questions, and wisdom into the conversation. The approach is that “the experts in the room are those around the table,” shaping spaces where learning happens through shared insight and lived experience. 

Together, these six streams will create space for leadership and learning, challenge and care, formation and mission. Each one contributes to a fuller understanding of how the church can live faithfully in this moment.

The goal is to have ten people from each of the Canadian classes who have something to contribute to these stream conversations. At the same time, we hope that the conversation will go well beyond the Gathering. 

We’re currently inviting nominations for participants across Canada. Do you know someone who listens well, engages thoughtfully, and has a heart for the church’s future? Nominating someone is a meaningful way to affirm their gifts and invite them into shared discernment. Please make a nomination using this form.

As the 2026 Canadian National Gathering approaches, these streams call us into reflection and prayer. Which of these areas feels especially urgent or hopeful to you? Where do you see your own congregation longing for clarity, courage, or renewal? What stream are you most excited to see the CRC in Canada engaging with together?

Learn more about the six streams:

• The Leadership Ecosystem stream will reflect on how leadership is cultivated and supported within the church. It asks how churches can create environments where people are invited into responsibility in healthy, accountable, and sustainable ways. It explores how leadership is shared, how gifts are recognized, and how communities can challenge, nurture, and raise up new leaders for the harvest locally, regionally, and in the denomination!
• Conflict Navigation will explore the roots of church conflict, reframe conflict as an inescapable dimension of renewal and growth, and present conflict as an opportunity for deeper understanding and connection. This stream also offers leaders practical skills for navigating conflict in a way that strengthens community and clarifies kingdom vision.
• Faith Formation for Children and Youth will focus on reflecting on the experiences that have shaped faith across generations. Attendees will be invited to consider their own histories with faith formation, including the influence of mentors, teachers, pastors, and program ministries, have had in nurturing their faith during childhood and youth. These reflections will serve as the starting point for conversation, helping participants imagine together how churches can continue to support meaningful faith formation for children and youth in the years ahead.
• Discipleship Pathways will turn attention to lifelong formation. It asks how adults are invited into deeper relationship with Christ and into lives of service and witness. This stream will examine how Jesus made disciples, how the CRC has formed disciples, and what is needed today as we seek to understand how to form disciples who respond to God's invitation to participate in his redemptive mission in the world. 
• Community Outreach will focus on the church’s intentional partnerships and presence within the community it is called to serve. Participants will share where and how they are hearing the Spirit’s invitation to join God’s mission in the world He loves. This stream holds a vision of the church as a community that is discipled as it makes disciples.
• Building Authentic Community will invite communities to reflect on the stories that have shaped them, and to live out the gospel through relationship, service, and shared life, intentionally creating spaces of belonging where people from diverse cultures and backgrounds can grow and engage together. This stream imagines a church that nurtures connection and care, celebrates diversity as a gift, and remains rooted in Christ while staying attentive and responsive to the realities of the world around it.