Paul VanderKlay

Thanks for the help Jerod! pvk

Hmmm. Are you saying that churches can get free corporate accounts? Many pastors I know simply use personal accounts and so use all of the services for free anyway. What benefits are there to getting a corporate account? Where would you go to sign up for it? 

I'll add my own comment to this. I was pleased to read John's note because in my experience his experience isn't unique. I often try to get church leaders to attend classis even if they are not a delegate and I've found his response to be common. "I didn't know all of these things were happening. That was very inspirational!" The most positive aspect is usually the report from the church planters. 

So, if you want to spruce up classis, make the meetings better, more enjoyable, have your classis plant more churches. :) pvk

Yeah, and we want it. And we want it when we call it. And we want it because we like it and we need it and our church needs it. 

Abram wanted a son. Abram needed a son. A son would have been a blessing. God promised a son. Abram did all he could to try to prime the pump of God's promise to him. Abram sinned much in his priming. 

Unfulfilling worship, just like unfulfilling anything good is a reminder of how we are fundamentally recipients in this relationship with the Almighty. That reminder is of grace itself because when we forget that foundation we are very difficult to relate to, even for an Almighty God. 

One of the ways I spot mature Christians is their ability to find pearls in the swine slop. I remember leaving a sermon thinking "that was a pile of huey" and hearing a dear saint find something of value in it. I still believe the sermon was poorly done, but a saint is easy to bless. pvk

The reason I agreed to take a turn at being the Classis guide was for the vision found in this posting. 

The church in North America faces some enormous challenges today. They are not just structural, in fact I suspect structural stress is mostly only a symptom of the other stresses the church is under, we're just feeling it in the structure because structures can be obvious. We have theological challenges, pastoral challenges, cultural-placement challenges, etc. Structural and financial challenges exhibit less visible realities that are at play. 

I too believe that of the three levels in the church the classical level in fact is the spot where there is the "lowest hanging fruit" in terms of how much relative gain we can get for a certain amount of effort. Local congregations obviously have their own flexibilities and opportunities but generally speaking unless they get very large in size and mindshare with a dynamic leader (fill in the high profile pastor/church names that grip you) their impact tends to be less broad. A classis can impact a city or a region and help lift a region. I'm seeing some of these kinds of dynamics in our quasi-classical-KEZ experiment right now. 

If we are able to significantly change 5 classes a year and put them on an incremental improvement trajectory you would likely positively impact 20 to 40 churches in a half dozen cities or city-clusters. 

Again, no magic bullet, but most of us who have worked in church long enough know that the kingdom mostly creeps like a vine rather than leaps like a deer. 

Part of the beauty of the Internet (and therefore this Network) is that it helps us find others who feel similarly to encourage one another and given the many negative comments and experiences I find and hear from clergy pertaining to classis I can sometimes use the encouragement. 

So thanks Karl. pvk

I think the network is an ambitious undertaking and I'm very impressed at what you've been able to accomplish so far. I think many people who have never attempted to develop any online tools probably have little idea how difficult this undertaking really is and in my opinion what you've managed to do has so far exceded my expectations of what I thought you could do. I think it is a strategically important goal and like many ministry undertakings requires determination, support and prayer. 

I have been impressed by the quality of some of what has been generated in this effort. There are wise and godly servants of the church and you have managed to gleen some of what they have to offer. Penetrating the din of information is a challenge that multi-billion dollar media companies work at every day. We just imagine "write good CRC stuff and people will find it." That's simply not true. Your task is not unlike that of starting a church, because you are really developing a community or at least trying to support one. 

So good job on your start. I hope those who are evaluating this effort understand both the challenge and the importance of the undertaking. pvk

It is very difficult to positively and productively impact a community that you don't know and are not a part of. I think the incarnation of Jesus is God's validation of this observation. God could do a lot through angels, but when the real work needed to be done incarnation was the way to begin. 

In every corner of the age of decay our capacities are always tiny compared to the need. We shouldn't be discouraged by the size of our potential impact, sometimes our best deaconal works are sacramental in nature rather than consumational. 

I think it's vital to empower those within a community to have as much decision making power as possible. Our council looks like the community we serve in many ways, this is a huge asset when it comes to making benevolence calls and program decisions. 

I know that given the specific ethnic history of our denomination there are a number of congregations that don't feel as seemlessly connected to their communities yet both want to serve and bridge that difference. I think good words would be perserverence, patience and partnerships. This all takes time but if in the long run the congregations understands its cruciform calling to pour itself out for the needs around them, and if the desire is genuine in time the partners will arise, bonds can be formed and progress can be made. 

Wow, that's a helpful observation. 

In the 90s taking a "customer service" approach usually involved trying to solicit "user input". I think many of us stumbled into a lot of this without much thought or expertise. Thanks for helping refine what should be a helpful component of healthy community. pvk