Paul VanderKlay
For me the CRC has always been a place of diversity. I grew up in an urban church plant while attending Eastern Christian in New Jersey. I got my BA in History at Calvin College and an M.Div from Calvin Seminary. After Calvin I worked with Christian Reformed World Missions in the Dominican Republic.
After the DR I took a call to the Living Stones CRC in Sacramento CA and have been busy with my buddy Kevin Adams and others helping to plant churches, do a Leadership Development Network and wreak as much havoc as I can in Classis Central CA. I've was a member of the Board of Home Missions for almost ten years.
Posted in: Distinguishing Forgiveness from Reconciliation
Nice piece Rich! Thanks for this.
Posted in: Talking About Privilege and Justice With Kids
The proper response to original sin is to embrace the teachings of Jesus, although one will remain always a sinner nevertheless. The proper response to White Privilege is to embrace the teachings of—well, you can fill in the name or substitute others—with the understanding that you will always harbor the Privilege nevertheless. Note that many embrace the idea of inculcating white kids with their responsibility to acknowledge Privilege from as early an age as possible, in sessions starting as early as elementary school. This, in the Naciremian sense, is Sunday school.
Think of it. A certain class of white person, roughly those who watched 30 Rock and Mad Men, lustily pumps their fists at the writings of a Coates who says that he is surprised that white people—i.e. ones like them—are interested enough in black people and racism to even bother reading his work. Coates is telling these people that they are sinners, in a sense, and they are eagerly drinking in the charge, “revering” him for it. This, ladies and gentlemen, is worship, pure and simple.
from http://www.thedailybeast.com/antiracism-our-flawed-new-religion
Posted in: Every Pastor in the CRC Should Hear This
I'm just trying to follow the thread here. Yellowbox Church uses Orange, the negative example from the article. https://communitychristian.org/resources/kidscityparentresources/
So the point of this comment contradicts the posted article's point.
I'm just trying to understand. pvk
Posted in: Our Confessional Crisis
Thanks Jeff for your comment.
When I talk about confessional growth and development you're very much on the same page with your metaphor. In the Karin Maag article she pretty clearly illustrated how the Belgic confession was forged as a way to communicate and defend the Reformation to their Roman Catholic overlords. The document reflects that purpose.
Our present Form of Subsription tried so give latitude for this by having us subscribe to the doctrines, not necessarily the wording of the doctrines found in the actual documents. It's an interesting distinction really in that it gives leeway but what it doesn't necessarily do is create a path to improve our confessions.
Even though at this point we're not facing a threat like Guy De Bres did, we still have a vital need to communicate our profession to the world and attempt to do so as a community. This has been expressed more recently in the Contemporary Testimony of course.
Confessions are in a certain sense a way of crowd-sourcing our witness. We probably can't crowd-source writing, but the Christian church has long been about the community figuring out its faith together.
The recent push for the Belhar has activated this because now the church is being asked to do this work again, and in some ways we're still stumbling around as in a sleepy stupor. We haven't done it for 400 years and the world has changed considerably.
I'd like to have us find a way to make this a regular part of the church and do so in a healthy way.
Two Calvin profs were recently "dismissed quietly", like Joesph tried to do with pregnant Mary. The issues they raised are real and have confessional implications. The issues don't go away just because they do. We need to figure out how to process these hard questions over long periods of time just like we've done with Women in Office.
The church is a very long term project, theology sometimes takes hundreds of years to sort through and come to consensus on. This is difficult to do with a community of persons who live less than 100 years, but this is our calling. We are stewards of the message and when applied there is real work to do. pvk
Posted in: Our Confessional Crisis
On my personal blog I created a page of links to blog posts on this debate that I've discovered to date. You can find the post here: http://paulvanderklay.wordpress.com/2012/05/11/link-list-of-the-blog-discussion-on-the-crc-confessions-and-form-of-subscription/
Posted in: Begging, Borrowing—But Not Stealing
I think I've read this article before... :) just kidding
Posted in: Faith Modeling
Nice piece. I think we also have to calibrate "it will be OK" by the cross and the resurrection. "It will be OK" is a common refrain in most American movies and that means some emotional settling or something vague like that. "Success" in the Christian life easily slides into the shiny, happy faces deal.
The core message of the gospel is that following Jesus is designed to lead us to the same places it led him, to the cross, tomb and out again. Christianity wasn't designed to sit next to all of the other self-help books offering good advice in "making life work" but rather to be the only path that actually results in Creation 2.0. This reality is best communicated as you said through watching people actually do it and it won't usually look like a script about adopting some poor child who will grow up to be an NFL millionaire.
Thanks for your piece. pvk
Posted in: Pastoral Care, Homosexuality and the Elder
Neil I think this is a very helpful post on a very difficult subject. Thanks for taking the time to write and to help lead the church.
Posted in: Pastoral Care for Those "Living Together"
Excellent excellent excellent! If the network continues to put out stuff like this I think it should become a very valuable resource for the CRCNA and the broader church as well. Thanks for taking the time to treat this subject with wisdom and credibility. pvk
Posted in: What are your thoughts on the Title of Commissioned Pastor?
I think it's the right choice. the RCA West has been using the term and I think it's worked well for them. This will help us collaborate more closely with them. Dual terminology has been frustrating.
Posted in: How has the Article 7 change affected those seeking to become Ministers of the Word?
I abbreviated the process in my description. Another key piece to this was a synodical study committee that proposed "alternate paths to ministry" that tried to employ some of the thinking you just articulated. What came out of that was the Candidacy Committee that oversees the process by which people enter ministry through Articles 6, 7 and 8. What came as a result of all of these conversations was ironically (in my opinion) a more restrictive approach to the office of Minister of the Word. It's easy to imagine people's motivations in that but unhelpful generally. The result I think has been more focus on Article 23 (ministry associates) and how and whether they should be able to lead congregations without a supervising local Minister of the Word. I know of at least one overture that will come perhaps to Synod 2012 working from that angle.
I believe that all parties involved want the CRC to have the best equipped and gifted leadership it can have. Given the bubble of retiring ministers and the need to plant new congregations there is a shortage of ordained leadership. It will take all of our best efforts and wisdom to address these challenges. I hope we are not fearful but rather creative and dilligent in pursuing these goals. pvk
Posted in: How has the Article 7 change affected those seeking to become Ministers of the Word?
Thanks Dave, that's a very helpful answer. pvk