James Dekker
I've been a Christian Reformed pastor since 1977, raised in Chicago. In 1978 I first dragged my wife Rose and two children to Costa Rica for language training for work in Latin America. It didn't take too long for Rose to very seriously hear her own call. I thank God for that and for her daily. After serving for ten years as Refugee Coordinator for the CRC in Canada, working for World Renew in the Burlington, Ontario office. She is also a trained spiritual director.
We have three grown daughters, scattered from Ottawa, Ontario to Grand Rapids, now one in Washington, D.C. Missiouri.
Erika is a pastor/chaplain/mother. Her husband Tim Postuma works with CRCNA. Erika and Tim have twins, Lucas and Ella, plus Caleb JAMES!
Middle daughter Anna lives in Ottawa, now, She is lawyer working for the Department of Justice after delivering Adele during law school at the University of Western Ontario in December 2007. In September, 2011 she took maternity leave--a year in kindly socialist Canada--after giving birth to Japheth Adrian. Husband Jason Grootenboer teaches part-time at Redeemer Christian High School in Ottawa to take care of the children while Anna turned to full-time work early in 2013.
Youngest Jessica is a splendid knitter, ex-barista, English major (Calvin College, 2005) and dog lover. Her partner Sean works for a professional association/college of physics professors, though he claims to know zero about physics. Jessica still exports samples of warm goodies to family and friends regularly. Her adopted dog Darby is almost as lovable as was my German Short-Haired Pointer Dakota, but half the size, though Dakota shrank some over her last three years because of diabetes AND a hyper-active thyroid. (We put more $$$$ into that dog than into most cars I've driven.) Dakota now rests until Resurrection Day bundled in her pillow under an apple tree in our backyard, as a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary (wearing a colourful rosary) holds a permanent vigil.
I retired at the end of June, 2013 as pastor of Covenant CRC in St. Catharines, Ontario. So now, I ride my bike around the Niagara Peninsula more often than before, long to cross-country ski, which happens only rarely here. Canoeing happens regularly with hand-made double-bladed paddles, sometimes in wood-canvas canoes I've restored but haven't sold yet. My daughters are getting restored canoes when I get around to them.
Posted in: Mockery? OR a Lesson in Gospel Translation?
Thanks, Colin, for your comment. It has been a while since I've been able to spend time reading all the comments and keeping up, but yours grabbed my attention. We're actually doing something similar to you next week at our Christmas service. We're placing "Songs from Around the World" near the end of the service with "Ere zij God"/"Glory to God" following a presentation by a group of Korean grade school students who have been worshiping with us (different groups) for four years now.
Two years ago an earlier group of Korean kids moved forward to sing a Korean Christmas song, all dressed in their cool red "Port Weller Public School" sweatshirts and wearing reindeer antlers; their twenty-something sponsor (more like drill sergeant!) directed them wearing a Santa Claus hat. Shoulda seen the looks on the faces of LOTS of folks who'd never seen that one before! But they love the contribution of the kids to the culture of the congregation that blessings abounded where several years earlier there would have been griping.
Hurray for multi-culturalism in Christ!
Posted in: Let's Keep Thinking about the "Second Service"
Thanks, Randy, Gary and Jeff for prompt, thoughtful responses. I'll make some comments about all of your contributions,
Neerlandia can probably do some things and expect some things from members because of the relative isolation of that fascinating hamlet. Though there are, if I'm not mistaken, three different Reformed churches there, the whole community holds a pretty strong sense of responding in lifestyle and sacrifice to Gospel imperatives. Bible and theological education were always pretty high values there, regardless of differences in interpretations and sad scuffles. They've had a number of pretty fine pastors and preachers--including the current incumbent. I don't know why in more urban areas the habits of education first and worship second can't be developed, but maybe here it's because there are so many choices that there is a sense (I'm being a bit judgmental) of getting one's ticket punched before doing whatever one wants for the rest of Sunday. In any case, I still miss Neerlandia, having preached there any number of times in the late 80s and earlier 90s and still staying in touch with old friends there.
Gary: It looks like your church is in some kind of transition in figuring out how most faithfully to use the hours of Sunday. Some years ago Fellowship CRC in Edmonton held its education time mid-morning on Sunday, called "Solomon's Porch." After that the people had a simple weekly potluck lunch, shared generously with visiting preachers and others; I was always happy to preach there. Perhaps Fellowship is still known Edmonton-wide as "The Lunch Bunch." After that lunch the creative, liturgical worship service was held, celebrating communion every week. Most attenders took part in both education and worship stayed the whole time, though some took part in the first and lunch, then left, while others came for lunch and attended worship. I haven't heard lately it these patterns continue. But there are patterns and examples for study and reflection.
Jeff: It's interesting that some folks are coming to Lebanon for evening worship. For my first five years in St. Catharines I taught through The Contemporary Testimony, Heidelberg Catechism, Canons of Dort (5 lessons only) and The Belgic Confession in evening worship. Attendance held pretty strong. When I started going through the books of the Bible, giving overviews of entire books each service, attendance started to flag. Some really loved it and said they''d never gotten broad perspective of Scripture before like that. I was larglely using a "Creation-Fall-Redemption" reading. Others simply found it too challenging. That might be my problem as much as anyone else's.
In any case, now in our combined afternoon services colleague Rich Loerop and I have begun preaching through 1 Kings, chapter by chapter. Among other things, we're looking at broad theological/doctrinal themes in those narratives. For example, the theological perspective on those narratives shows God works with or permits violence, betrayal and treachery in succession of kings, forging of alliances and so on--all in some way pointing to the King of kings. As you know, it's not always pretty reading, but it does show how God works with grays often his mysterious ways, our blunders to reform. We'll see how that goes.
Meanwhile, let's keep responding.
Posted in: Let's Keep Thinking about the "Second Service"
Colin and Verlyn and others: Thanks for your significant engagement wth this topic. The range and number of comments and reflections on this continues to surprise me. Noting the great differences in social conditions between the 1500s and the 2000s is an important, though almost obviously, corrective to Rev. Engelsma's wholesale accusation of apostasy. (yes--spelled wth a second "s"!); wish I'd anticipated it, but kudos to you, Colin.
Ever since living in Latin America for about nine years and returning every couple of years for weeks or months over the last 25 years has continued to impress on me that our "immense wealth and ease we North American Christians live in in the face of large scale suffering and poverty would be a far greater indicator of apostasy in the church." Thanks for putting those clear words to it.
Part of our trouble is, though, that we take that for granted or as unconditional blessing. Worse, though, many of us blithely assume everybody can live "like us." Fact is, of course, only very few can live "like us." And--contributing to the damage of the apostasy--not all want to live "like us" because they understand the spiritual, physiological and ecological peril of living "like us." In your terms, living "like us" does, in my opinion, very little, if anything, to contribute to the development of a "Reformed world and life view." Living "like us" may, in fact, contribute to its very opposite--the continuing development of an un-reformed, anti-biblical world and life view.
Some within our narrower and wider circles within North America have for years been writing, speaking and warning about that. I think of Loren Wilkinson, Calvin De Witt i. a. and further out, Wendell Berry, Edward Abbey, David Suzuki and more just in North America. Yet, we seem captive to living "like us" and hard-pressed for workable alternatives beyond recycling of the garbage we accumulate while not reducing its sources . Of course, to get the message of apostasy out, we use consumptive means--blogs, press, mass communication--all and more of which is living "like us." I don't like it, but I don't know what to do about it. It seems to do little more than raise more guilt, but then, as that famous theologian Garrison Keillor has said, "Guilt is the gift that keeps on giving."
Somehow, though, I DO think all this has profoundly to do with the topic that I first blogged about--namely the "second service." Not that NOT holding the second service is along an indication of apostasy. Rather--as Ron Rienstra nicely put it in Matt Vande Bunte's Grand Rapids Press article--we lose a sense of God framing all days and every day if we worship only once a week merely to get a ticket punched for our spiritual dose of Sunday living. Worship doesn't become a lifestyle; it too becomes consumption. Which is maybe one reason why lots of people flock for a time to the church du jour nearest them for a few months or years and then find another one for a time. Funny thing, some of those churches even have well-attended afternoon or evening services. Go figure.
Posted in: Pastors as Career Counselors?
Thanks for your reply. I think we help each other in this way! We think about our conversations, write them up, ask questions, promote discussion. I STILL want to know how to keep helping my own kids (WHEN they ask!), but they help me keep my head screwed on straight too. In a perfect world, "career" and "vocation" would overlap significantly. Sometimes, though, that doesn't happen. But even a partial overlap can be God-pleasing and not personally wearying.
Posted in: Going to the Mall for Christmas?
OK! How many THOUSANDS of views can we get from Network??!!
Posted in: Bird's Eye View
Thank you so very much for this heartfelt and candid blog. Not to cater to stereotypes, but rather to express a feeling that I believe is accurate and fitting here, I offer this grateful comment: Your touching memories and hopes profoundly exemplify what I have come to love and respect in many women's contributions to the CRC and many other confessions all over the world. That is, you write with an emotional and spiritual engagement that I see as one of the very finest traits of feminism--tenderness, love, tempered lament and above all Hope. Simply put, that is not how many men in church leadership in every nation where I have lived and work understand and practice "church life."
Rather, we have seen, as you note, a deepening and widening polarization and a rationalizing method of interpreting Scripture and running synods that have tried to make life simple, though it never was, isn't and won't be. The Holy Spirit doesn't have room to work in such a rigidly closed headspace.
You, though, have lovingly reached back into your long history of service and education in the CRC to remind us of when we were more truly the Body of Christ than it seems we are becoming. I pray that your memories and experiences of different ethnicities, varied worship within the CRC's culture and a recognition and acceptance of all those and more differences might shake up all readers and spread to all leaders members within the CRC to open our arms and sanctuaries widely and lovingly. That needs Spirit-breathed imagination, creativity and love--which has become sadly more and more absent in our fight to be right. Thank you again.
Posted in: The Three Minds and the Third Way
Thank you for this detailed article. I'm not really keen on Better Together, except that I believe it is significantly better--morally, spiritually--than one more denominational schism. I am "cautiously affirming" after lots of study and experiences with LGBTQ people as a pastor in three Canadian CRCs.
I believe those who voted for Synod 2022's decisions did so from deep conviction and are honourable servants of God. I don't know, however, if they weighed the cost of sending painful messages to gay people and the cost of trying so hard to be pure and right that they never thought of dozens of musicians and artists who are gay, Christian, married and in other churches or in none at all. Do those faithful Christians really believe God will condemn them eternally--unless they repent of who they are and how they live trying to be faithful to Christ? Perhaps Synod 2022 made a hasty judgment that was also dubious procedurally.
The biggest problem with Synod '22's decision on retroactive confessionality based on a very stretched re-interpretation (more precisely addition) to the Heidelberg Catechism is that it played fast and free with Church Order and thus tried to prevent further decisions on ratification in the following year. Synod's C.O. expert's advice was flouted several times during the two-day debate. The 2023 Agenda is filled with overtures for and against 2022's decision. I'm no longer any good at real or metaphorical ecclesiastical ping-pong, but do believe it's better to play ping-pong for some years than split again into every tinier churchettes; there's more pain in schism than in continuing to talk as sisters and brothers in Christ. We are unfortunately better known for our meanness and not our love and winsome presentation of the Gospel of Christ.
Lost in so much of the last years' arguments and print is that the issue of sexuality has become the crazy, powerful tail that wags the ever-weaker dog. Being declared an issue of salvation, sexuality--to mix metaphors--has turned CRC theology upside down, trying impossibly to dance and balance the whole on the head of the tiny, tiny pinhead of sexuality.
I grieve what might well happen and how many more people of all genders will run from the CRC because of this obsession that borders on heresy.