Daniel Zylstra

5 and a half years into my first pastoral ministry post these are the things I wish I had learned more about (in no particular order):

- How to be empathetic, compassionate and "pastoral" without losing yourself in other people's problems. I'm not talking about avoiding the thought that "I must fix everyone's problem's." It's been very clear to me for many years that I cannot and should not attempt to "fix" everything. Instead I'm talking about how to "care" very much about others' problems, but still put those problems appropriately at Jesus' feet and not to carry them everywhere as my own burden.

- What people mean when they talk about being "fed" in a sermon--some people seem to mean that they will have had a deeply emotional connection with the sermon, others people seem to mean that they've learned some new facts, etc.

- How to be humble, vulnerable, transparent, etc., without sabatoging your own leadership qualities. It's very important and good to be those things, but sometimes, if you're not careful, those things can turn around and bite you if you're not careful about how you communicate these things.

- How to disciple people, so that they can disciple others. I have been discipled, and have discipled others, but no one ever taught me how to disciple others in such a way that they would then be able to go out and disciple more people in their turn. In other words, I would've liked it if I'd learned how to make self-replicating disciples--not clones, but people who with spread discipleship to others.

Hope that is somewhat helpful.

Dan.

I'm leaning towards disagreeing with John and others on this. After having studied the Belhar and having led our congregation through it in sermons and in Council and other places, I'm left with the conclusion that the Belhar is very relevant to our Canadian and American contexts. Racial issues and social justice issues are huge for us. In Canada I think we have a tendency to say that we don't really have a problem regarding race, but I beg to differ. Where are the First Nations people in our churches? There are some areas in Canada where some First Nations people are present, but by and large First Nations peoples are still marginalized to a tremendous degree. They have poorer life expectancy, poorer educational and financial prospects, greater problems with drugs and alcohol and crime. Certainly they, like anyone else bear their burden of responsibility for their actions, but the fact is that the system here is broken and the church has not been a significant positive contributor to any solutions here.

I would venture to say that the problem is one that needs to be brought into great relief in our churches, and that the Belhar addresses these issues well. It would be extremely relevant to our congregation, classis, and denomination, I believe. 

Having said that, we haven't had to deal with the "controversy" that others are mentioning here. When we went through the Belhar together, no one seemed to have issues with it, that I was aware of, and the few comments that I have had since then expressing some concern have all been mild and easily dealt with. I'm very aware that heaping fuel on fires of controversy that may be present in other churches might indeed be unwise. That's why I'm only "leaning" toward disagreeing with the others.

All the same, I do believe that, if possible (using pastoral discernment), a discussion on the Belhar is important for us to have as a denomination.

Blessings all,

in His service,

Dan.

John,

Thanks for your response. I also appreciate your responses thus far, as I know that your concern is for the wellbeing of the church and, more importantly, for us to fulfill the command to Love.

I would certainly agree that at heart it is a love issue. Unfortunately, I think that our heart issues with love are sometimes most clearly seen when we take a good hard look at the "symptoms" of those heart issues. If you use a sickness metaphor, we often know we have a cold because our nose starts running, or we get a fever or whatever. But what happens if the symptoms are such that we either don't notice them, or cover over them with "medicine" that only masks the sickness. That is what I feel we have done with regards to love AND race. We have, in Canada at least, often pretended that there is no problem at all. That there is no sickness, and we ignore the symptoms of our sickness. In addition, the sad truth is that we DO treat different races in our countries differently. Why else would it be that some segments of our population have such radically different health, education, and wealth demographics? It's certainly not that those people are less gifted by God (not that you're implying that, of course). The fact is that there exist among us systemic, and societal, and personal racial issues.

An example that really struck me once was one that I experience when living in the U.S. for a brief time. When we lived there we were invited to a "block party". We thought that this would be a great experience. We were living in a primarily African American & Latino neighbourhood, and, having come from primarily white Peterborough, we assumed that our children would have the opportunity to meet and be friends with people from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. That was exciting to us. However, when we got there we found that ALL of the people there were white. After digging around a bit (discreetly) we found that the "block party" was sponsored by the neighbourhood homeowners' association. Thus, all the people invited were homeowners. The fact that none (or very few) of the African Americans or Latinos owned the homes in which they lived in that neighbourhood meant that none of them were invited to the block party. It got me thinking about how, in Canada, it's not even so much that we (unintentionally or otherwise) exclude aboriginals from things like block parties--we still all have the complicated baggage of how to deal with the "reservation" system and what was (and still is to some degree) essentially apartheid.

Now don't get me wrong. None of the people in the homeowner's association meant to be racist. For all intents and purposes they were not racist at all, in fact. BUT due to various systemic and societal things the majority of the people living in the neighbourhood were not invited, and NONE of the homeowners thought about changing the situation. The exclusion of two races who were the majority of the people in the neighbourhood was a symptom of a heart and societal issue that needed to be addressed. The Belhar has value at least (but I think more) insofar as it points out those symptoms, and directs us to the true sickness.

Those symptoms include (but are not limited to) race relations. We do marginalize certain segments of our own populations (or of the world's population), and then we turn around and ignore the very things that we're doing and pretend we don't have a problem. It would be like us all having a fever and pretending we didn't (let alone acknowledging that there must be some sickness driving the fever in the first place).

The Belhar helps us to give our heads a shake, by pointing out to us some of the symptoms that point to our sickness. To that extent I believe it is very important for us--it doesn't give us the option of pretending we don't have a fever. 

But I don't believe that it serves only that purpose. My reading of the Belhar is that it DOES go beyond just simply race, gender and/or social justice issues--that it clearly and explicitly points us to the very points you're making about the critical importance of loving our neighbours (wherever and whoever they are). 

I'm very sorry to hear that this is your impression of the CRC, Daniel W. My strong understanding is that part of what the church is called to do is to constantly re-examine herself in the light of the gospel (all of it, of course). Part of THAT process, in a confessional church, is for the church to re-examine the confessions that she holds as accurate summaries of that gospel. Whether that means we talk about the Canons of Dordt and whether or not they truly reflect the scriptures, or whether that means that in the light of a new potential confession we re-examine our actions and beliefs and consider adopting that new confession--whatever the circumstance of our discussion about creeds and confessions, the ultimate aim is for us to "grow into the fullness of He who is our head, that is Christ the Lord." 

This, of course, can only be done if creeds and confessions are never allowed to stand on their own, but are only expressions of faith that point always back to scripture. Even the early Reformers who advocated "Sola Scriptura" most strongly did not deny the value of creeds and confessions as summaries of the teachings of those scriptures. In fact, their cry of sola scriptura was, of course, historically one of decrying the idea of placing tradition or papal authority on the same authoritative leve as scriptures--it had nothing to do with whether or not people adopted creeds per se.

I hope, and believe, that actually the discussion around the Belhar HAS been one that has led us to dive into scriptures like Amos and Isaiah more thoroughly--one is almost irresistably drawn to prophetic literature relevant to social justice issues through the Belhar. 

Part of the beauty of creeds and confessions that come out of different cultural contexts and/or times, is that the writers of those documents have just a sufficiently different perspective on scripture that they challenge us and our presuppositions about what we have always assumed to be true. 

The Belhar, for example, challenges (I believe) many North American's assumption that consumer capitalism is wonderfully at peace with democracy and Christianity. I believe that the Bible expresses grave doubts about that kind of thinking, and that the Belhar can redirect us back to scriptures to analyze ourselves on those points and others.

Blessings,

Dan.

Hey all,

I think that this banner article is an interesting read, but I'm afraid I have to disagree with Harry on a couple of things.

1) I don't believe that the Egypt or racial metaphors are at all appropriate. No one is holding Canadian CRCs captive in any way, shape or form.

2) I don't think we will necessarily be stronger as independant partners for several reasons:

   a) The differences in our contexts does not have to get in the way of our work together-- in fact, there are many mutual benefits to working with people from a different culture. We, as Canadians and Americans should get this by now! Yes, Canadian issues are different in many ways (more on that later), but that makes it all the more important, to me, that we work with folks who have a different context and perspective. You don't marry yourself, you marry someone different from you.

   b) The agencies that we do have as a shared resource would be significantly poorer if we were trying to go it alone in the U.S. or Canada. There's a reason why big companies like Wal-Mart can out-sell, and undercut the (smaller) competition: pooling resources has advantages! 

   c) In a similar vein the publishing and studies and research and so on would all be poorer if we were trying to do it seperately. I have a complete set of Acts and Agendas of Synod from 1930-today sitting on my desk, partly as reference, but partly as reminder of what good can come of working collaboratively. My father-in-law who comes from a loose association of baptist churches often bemoans the lack of study resources like these. If we split ourselves up, we would loose the ability to do these kinds of studies on the same level -- a significant loss, even if you don't really like the outcomes of the studies all the time.

   d) Going away from a relationship based on negative things (like those in Harry's article) is almost always not only a bad idea, but counter to biblical mandates. When people come to my office agonizing about what church they should attend, or whether they should stay at our church, or come to our church, one of the things I always explore with them is why they're wanting to move. If they're wanting to move for negative reasons (bad relationships, poor preaching, no people to relate to, etc.), then I usually say to them, "Okay, those are important things to think about, and maybe you need a break from this community for a while, but the real question is: where is God calling you? The relationships need to be fixed, regardless, but you move from one church to another because of God's calling. Not because the preaching is better somewhere else, or the programs, or the people, etc.. 

        The same should be true for us as a denomination, if we're going to consider having a Canadian CRC (CCRC?), and a USCRC, we need to ask ourselves why. And the reasons proposed thus far are not clinchers. The ONLY okay reason that I can see would be that we, as a bi-national denomination, together determine that it is God's will for us to be independent.

As to the Canadian context, Meg, it is true that there are significant differences. We had folks come up from 3dm ministries to do a discipleship conference recently, and they were saying that something like 4% of 30 somethings are going to church. The reality in Canada is that there are only about 9% of Canadians going to church AT ALL! Significantly lower than the U.S. average. Yet, only 100 years or so ago, about 90% of Canadians went to church on a regular basis. Canadians also tend to have a weird mix of US and European values systems. We are heavily influence by both of these giants on our boarders. Additionally, the Canadian CRC, because it (still) is made up of largely post-WWII imigrants, has a VERY Kuyperian view on things, and is still somewhat culturally separate from larger Canadian society (Christian schools up here are still often called "Dutch schools" by other Canadians, and CRCs are called "Dutch Churches" often too).

The CRC in Canada is also in a slightly different space with relation to other denominations in Canada. The CRC is the only church in Canada to be both a member of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, and the Canadian Council of Churches (a more mainline church organization). We kind of stradle both the evangelical and the mainline church worlds up here. I know that this is somewhat true in the U.S. too, but my sense is that the U.S. CRC is slightly further into the Evangelical end of things.

We also struggle with different issues, as Harry mentions, regarding aboriginal relations (though there are significant similarities there too), environmental concerns, government and political relationsh, dwindling church numbers, how to evangelize the non-believers in our society, etc., etc. A lot of these differences, though, are matters of degrees, not of polar opposites.

I still believe very much that we have a great deal to offer one another across this friendly border, and I deeply hope that we will, with God's help, get through the "tough stuff" together and contribute to the visible unity of the church for many years to come.

Our church is currently working on becoming a "conflict friendly" church. We're working on this with the good people at the Shalem Mental Health Network, using their program "FaithCARE" (Communities Affirming Restorative Experiences). Their motto for this program is "Conflict is inevitable. The response is up to us.", and they have been very helpful to us as we seek to grow in this area. 

The truth is that you are both absolutely correct, Ron and Al: disagreements are not only inevitable, when carried on and dealt with effectively they can be a real benefit to all concerned. 

Of course, the key is learning how to deal with conflict effectively. There are several points, I think, that many of us need to learn in this area (we're discovering these as we walk along in the process of becoming a restorative congregation):

<ol>

<li>We need to learn how to truly <em>listen</em> to others. This means that we learn how to <em>not</em> be thinking of our response, or our next "point" in the argument as the other person is speaking, but that we really take the time to listen, and to reflect back to the other person(s) what we think we've heard so that we can be sure that we've heard them correctly.</li>

<li>We need to start from a perspective of being on the same "team" whenver possible. This is true in marriage, and it's true in the church too, I believe. Disagreements are far more effective in helping us if we all work from the same basis: that we're all on the same team. If I am on a team that is against your team, then I'll fight against you until we win. If you and I are on the same team against an outside problem, then we will work together till our common enemy is defeated.</li>

<li>We need to recognize that some of our societal structures are inherently adversarial and prone to emphasizing disagreements in an unhelpful way. Sometimes these structures are so unhelpful that they become exclusionary, especially to those who have a different cultural background to our own. For example, when we run all our meetings using "Robert's Rules", we are buying into an essentially western european adversarial/legal melieu. This framework is very difficult for people who come from a collaborative/consensus building culture to wrap their heads around, let alone for them to stick their necks out into what they feel is quite often a highly charged, risky, antagonistic setting.</li>

<li>We need to encourage transparency, humility, and vulnerability among all our people, but especially among our leadership. Not humility in the sense of false humility, or humility that immediately says "sorry" in order to avoid a confrontation, but humility that approaches the other with a willingness to walk alongside, and to learn, and to grow together.</li>

</ol>

If we can learn some of these key lessons, then I really believe that, though conflict will still be hard, uncomfortable, and something we'd rather avoid, we will learn to see the value in it, and we'll learn how to hear God's voice through it. Not only that, but we'll have healthier congregations, and a healthier witness of the Love of Christ to the world around us.

Blessings, all.