Recruiting Office-Bearers in Challenging Times

Thank you for putting in the effort to help churches find and encourage officers of the church. As a pastor I sympathize with the anxiety our members feel when considering council elections. Many of your suggestions will certainly be helpful for people prayerfully considering serving their church council.

However, two passages of your document in particular will work against your program goals because they are not true and they are not representative of the work done throughout the CRC.

The two points I wish to address are both found under “Top 10 Things You Can Do When Signing the Covenant for Office-Bearers (CfO) Is a Challenge" The first section in question, Point 5 "Distinguish Between Core and Comprehensive Agreement" says:

Traditionally, the CRC has distinguished between core agreement (affirming the “system of  doctrine”) and absolute agreement on every point. The CfO emphasized  upholding the confessions and not teaching against them—not requiring enthusiastic affirmation of every line.

However, the post Human Sexuality Report (HSR)  environment has shifted this balance. In many places, there is now an expectation that Office bearers must affirm the denomination stance on sexuality, not just refrain from teaching against it. This has near of the field of who can serve.

Even so, councils can still clarify for nominees that signing doesn't mean you have to be without questions, yet does mean you are committing to uphold the teaching of the church during your term and not promote views that contradict it.

While many congregations may have had an unconfirmed tradition of not affirming the entirety of the Creeds and Confessions as fully agreeing with the word of God, that is exactly the language of the CfO:

We also affirm three confessions—the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons of Dort—as historic Reformed expressions of the Christian faith, whose doctrines fully agree with the Word of God.

– Covenant for Officebearers (2012), pargraph three

Even more so, officers of the church are not simply to avoid teaching against the word of God as affirmed by the Creeds and Confessions, but to actively promote this view of scripture. Officers of the church promise to be “formed and governed by them”, to “heartily believe” them, “promote and defend” them, and conform not only their teaching but their “serving” and “living” to them. This language is not a new development of synod, nor is it the ethics of a post HSR environment. It is the affirmation of what officers of the church were always, officially, expected to be.

Grateful for these expressions of faith, we promise to be formed and governed by them. We heartily believe and will promote and defend their doctrines faithfully, conforming our preaching, teaching, writing, serving, and living to them.

– Covenant for Officebearers (2012), pargraph four

In addition, Point 8, “Acknowledge and Respect Conscientious Objections” says:

Since Synod 2022 however, the CRCNA has identified the traditional view on sexuality, as articulated in the HSR, as part of the confessional teaching of the church. This means that office-bearers are now expected to not only uphold the Three Forms of Unity but to affirm the specific interpretation of sexuality found in the HSR as confessional.

Synod 2022 did not make the HSR a part of the Creeds and Confessions. However, in a response to officers rejecting the official and undisputed teaching of the CRC affirmed by synodical statements from 1973, 2002, and 2016, synod 2022 defined the word “unchastity” in Heidelberg Catechism Q.108 in accordance with the historic, Reformed hermeneutics of scripture. The “specific interpretation of sexuality” that is actually confessional is the one that has, for almost 3,500 years, been written and preserved by God for God’s people in the words of the prophets and apostles. If potential officers “love Scripture, the Reformed confessions, and the church” (pt. 8), then the body of what we believe, teach, promote, and defend is not dependent on the Reformed confessions but on the scripture which these officers love.

Being honest with our potential officebearers gives the church elders and deacons who can honestly and wholeheartedly serve God’s people in the CRC, and promote the gospel, justice, and equity effectively to people we evangelize and disciple. Giving  incomplete expectations to our potential officebearers will neither love God, the church, or those we proclaim the gospel to.