Postma Post: I'm Not Asking You to Trust Me

A Bit About Me

Earlier this year I started my role as Executive Director for the CRC in Canada. This came at the completion of just under two years serving as Transitional Executive Director. Prior to this, my role was to support the health and function of the forty-nine classes across the denominational community.

This involved everything from helping classis chairs lead meetings  well to rethinking classis structures, to supporting an understanding of the role of classis in the churches, etc. I still believe that how classes function is key to a healthy denominational community. 

I cut my teeth in ministry by pastoring Bethlehem CRC, a wonderful small community in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Of the many lessons I learned there was just how personal pastoral ministry is. It is never about a system or a process. It is about the people learning to be a community of believers together.

Trustworthiness

Trust has become a core of ministry for me. Trust, and the lack of it, is something I learned a lot about in ministry, both personally and by watching and listening to fellow pastors and church leaders. 

Along the way, I decided never to ask anyone to trust me. 

Asking someone to trust us actually short circuits trust. When you have to ask someone to trust you, it is a recognition that you have not yet actually earned their vulnerability but are asking for it anyway. Trust cannot be demanded; it can only ever be received, as a gift freely given. 

Instead of asking for trust, my commitment is simply to be as  trustworthy as I can be; as a pastor, church leader, executive director, parent…all relationships, really. To always try to speak and act in a trustworthy manner, and to do so with as much consistency as possible. And then, to simply wait to see if trust is received in response and to celebrate if and when it is. 

Trustworthiness as a denomination

I’m convinced that particularly  in a low trust environment, actively cultivating trustworthiness is non-negotiable. And, friends, we are in a low trust environment. So this matters not just personally but also as a denominational community and with our shared denominational ministries. 

I can speak for myself when I say that I have not always been as worthy of trust as I wish I was. And I know that we have seen times where our denominational community and ministries have not been worthy of our trust as well. I don’t believe that we are anywhere near bankrupt regarding trust, but we have work to do. 

The Postma Post

This is part of why  “The Postma Post” was started. Trust does not develop in a vacuum, and silence does not generate trust in moments of crisis. 

In fact, the general quiet of myself and our Canadian ministries board responding to many of the questions and concerns that we’ve been hearing across Canada could be seen as an indirect way of you being asked to simply “trust us.” 

So instead, my hope is to share things that give you a reason to trust, with the hopes that trust might be received. And, to have an open invitation for you to share when you are not experiencing trustworthiness so that we can be attentive to it. 

I want to be available in this space, responding to questions I’ve been hearing. Share joys and challenges from across Canada. To raise up stories where our community, our ministries, and our leadership is acting in ways that warrant our shared trust. So please, reach out by replying to this email with questions you have, things you’d like to see highlighted, stories to share, etc. 

In the meantime, let me encourage you all to consider your own trustworthiness. It’s easy to look around at others who are or are not acting in a trustworthy manner. But it all starts with each one of us committing to being received as trustworthy. How will you celebrate trustworthiness when you see it?

With gratitude,

Al