Daniel Zylstra

[quote=Chad Werkhoven]

Our Confessions ought to determine the essential tenents of our faith.  It's puzzling that ministers and elders in the church can signify their agreement that the Three Forms of Unity "fully agree" with the Word of God in their summaries of scripture's teaching on fundamental issues of the faith, yet still come to such contradictory conclusions on core issues such as baptism or Sabbath rest.

As a denomination, we've agreed that we have clear, concise answers to nearly every hypothetical question listed in this post.  These answers are listed in a logical, orderly fashion complete with scriptural references so that the context and rationale for each answer is plain to the reader. 

Officers in our churches who don't like these answers have an obligation: convince the rest of us that we're wrong by using the prescribed means, or refrain from teaching their differing views.   Why is there such a desire to create disunity in the body by continuing to debate issues that are so clearly settled?

[/quote]

I hear your points, Chad, but I'd like to follow up with a couple other questions, if I may:

1) Even within our confessions there is a tacit (and sometimes explicit) admission that some doctrines are more "essential" than others. As a very simple example we just have to look at the fact that we hold the Bible to be more authoritative than the creeds and confessions, which are in-turn, more essential than the Contemporary Testimony. Just because we believe that the Creeds and Confessions "fully agree" with the Word of God, does not mean that we believe that everthing held within those creeds and confessions is of an equally essential nature. Our doctrine teaches us that the Bible is most essential, the creeds and confessions next, and then other things. So, my question is, then: HOW do we know which of the doctrines WITHIN those creeds and confessions are more essential, and which less?

2) Even when we totally agree with our denomination's doctrines (which office bearer's should, seeing as they've committed to that), there's the question of ecumenical relations: and I guess that's the more important question for me here: HOW do we know WHICH issues/doctrines are important enough to break fellowship with others who claim to be Christ followers? 

Just a couple of other thought-provokers, I hope.

Blessings, all.

Thank you, Chad, for your thoughtful responses! I think so far, we're actually pretty much on the same page. Certainly I have no qualms with agreeing with everything you've said in your last comment, but here are my follow-up questions:

If we believe ecumenical relations should be significantly rooted in the clear marks of the true church, so-far-so-good. BUT what should those relationships look like? Should we be constantly trying to "merge" with other like-minded denominations in an attempt to undo hundreds of years of schisms? Should we strengthen existing associations like the World Alliance of Reformed Churches-- if it still exists), so that they're almost like a meta-denomination? Should we work extra hard at building relationships in local ministerials--even to the neglect, perhaps, of closer ties with the CRCNA? Should we be working at abolishing denominations altogether?

Should we be "making room" for the increasing number of folks coming into our churches who believe almost as we do, but not quite (like those whose only issue is with infant baptism)? If so, what would that look like? How would it not look?

All questions that boggle my mind, at least. If you have insights, I'd seriously LOVE to hear them!

Blessings, all!

Chad, I very much like a lot of what you say here, and totally recognize that the questions that I've asked can't really be addressed in such a short-form type of way. 

I very much appreciate your talk of distinctiveness, I think it can be, as you say, true "iron sharpening iron" material when we recognize, embrace, and even possibly celebrate that in the midst of our diversity we can work together. My strong tendancy would be to say that the best method for bringing more visible unity to the church would not be through mergers or anything like that. As you said, it hasn't worked very well for mainline churches, but it would also lose us some of that opportunity to sharpen each other.

However, if we shouldn't merge with each other, how can we do the following:

1) Heal rifts between churches where schisms have occured (both denominationally and with individual churches)?

2) Maintain theological rigour while making that rigour "friendly" as opposed to antagonistic?

3) Create "room" for one another, not in the sense of compromising our theology, doctrine, or life, but in the sense of saying, "It truly is okay for you to believe differently on this than I do. It's even okay to participate in our church life in the following ways, believing what you do."...?

I guess a good example of this might be the case of infant baptism: Imagine a new young couple comes to our church. They hang around for a while and eventually express an interest in becoming members. Our elders interview them, after they've done their new members' (or profession of faith) classes, and all is good except that they just can't get past the whole infant baptism thing... they just believe the bible more clearly points towards believers' baptism alone. They have good company in this, as about 500 years' worth of theologians have come to the table on this and the debate still rages on. Still, we, as a church also have good company on this too, as there's even more history of theology on infant baptism.

So, what do we do? Do we say, "you can be members, as long as you're willing to totally buy in to infant baptism, but otherwise, no, sorry, you'll have to just stay an adherent." Do we say, "you can be members as long as you keep your beliefs on this to yourself?" Do we say, "you can be members, but you can never be on council, because you can't honestly sign the Covenant for Officebearers." Do we say, you can be members, but you can't teach any of our children, because you might teach them the wrong things."?

To me, then, this whole question has two major lenses attached to it: the macro (our big-picture relations with other denominations), and the micro (our pastoral/theological/doctrinal life with an increasingly diverse and non-mono-theological local church bodies).

<p>

<p>By the way, I'm sorry about the "<p>" tags. I don't know why they keep showing up--I'm not writing them in there!

For what it's worth, I thought that the rap was great!

Certainly, this seems to have turned into a bit of a discussion, though, hasn't it? I just thought I'd weigh in with a couple little comments, if I might.

<ol>

<li>The question of whether the CRC/RCA is "moribund" or relevant, or part of the revitalization of the reformed movement that's happening in the US and Canada is really, to me irrelevant. Here's why: There's always a temptation for a church and/or denomination to want to be "relevant" to the world and to be up on the latest trends--even better--to be part of those latest trends, but the truth is (in my opinion) that being "relevant" in the sense of keeping up with popular trends (in or out of the church) is highly overrated. Jesus instead calls us to focus on the weak, the ostracized, the outcast, the poor and the oppressed--and that (to most of the "popular" world most of the time) is profoundly irrelevant. Personally, I could care less if we're on the cutting edge of anything, to be blunt, unless it is on the cutting edge of ministering to the poor, the needy, the outcast, etc., in both words and in deeds. I'd rather have our church and denomination be totally unknown to most of the popular world, but have them do "closet" service to those who really need it (again in deeds <em>and</em> in words.</li>

<li>You mentioned that the CRC is moving towards more mainline churches in Canada, and frankly I don't see that at all. The CRC in Canada has always been a denomination (one of the very few, if not the only) that is a member of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, and is a member of the Canadian Council of Churches. That is because the CRC in Canada has always been on the "middle-ground" between churches that have a tendency to emphasize deeds (social justice, etc.,--like some of the "mainline" denominations) sometimes to the detriment of sharing the gospel in words, and the churches that have a tendency to be more "evangelical" (focusing on sharing the gospel in words--sometimes to the detriment of the deeds). I personally think this is a very good place to be--grasping both the ministry of the gospel in words and in deeds--and though we're no where near perfect at it (far from it) ideologically, it's great to be here, and I personally don't see any real movement away from that stance.</li>

<li>Last, you mention, Dave, this revival of the reformed movement as if it is something that is really reaching into the heart of the lost and those who have not heard the gospel, in contrast to the CRC/RCA which you claim does not. But the truth is that statistics (a la George Barna and others) indicate that there are very few churches at all that are truly reaching totally "new" people for Christ. There is a very limited demographic that almost all churches seem to be able to reach in this day and age, and these churches of the new reformed movement are no different, for the most part. What we really need to do as Christ-followers (and not just reformed people), in my opinion, is to recognize that Christ's ministry, and the ministry of the early church, and almost all other successful "revivals" in history were movements that ministered in words and in deeds to the poor and outcast. That's not a comfortable place to be, but it's the truth. All other attempts at revival that focus on marketing, or celebrating and/or repackaging a particular faith (or branch thereof) will be destined to "fail" in the sense that they only suck Christians, or nominal Christians from one group to another, for the most part. If we truly want to revitalize the CRC (and the Church as a whole) we need to be missionaries where we probably least want to be.</li>

</ol>

Anyway, I'm sure I've said more than my share, and I apologize for all the run-on sentences, and so on. I also want to emphasize again, that this is only my opinion as a young (36) pastor with very limited experience (only been ordained for 2 years-ish). 

I really do wish God's blessings on you all.

in His service,

Dan

THANKS for your suggestions, guys! :-)

Truth be told, we've been pretty disappointed with SongSelect. We very much are a "Blended Worship" congregation and we've been consistently disappointed on a couple of levels:

• We have musicians who either: 1) Can only read chords, or 2) only can read traditional sheet music. We've been disappointed to find that many, many times we have not had both available to us.
• Because we try to be blended, we've had many times where hymns that we wanted to use were not available at all, or not in chord sheet form

.

Anyway, I guess that's a bit beside the point (and I'm not really a musician, so I'm probably not describing the issues properly anyway!).

I do appreciate all your suggestions, especially the GoogleDocs & Calendars ones.

Questions for you: Is there a way that I could look at your church's set-up for using these things so I can get ideas for organizing our own "bundle" (at least the Google stuff)?

Also, we'd like to be able to coordinate not just praise teams, but Sound and A/V people, Ushers, Greeters, Nursery Workers, Coffee servers--in short: everyone involved in a Sunday service. Do you do that? If so, how's that working for you? If not, why not?

Thanks again. I'm already appreciating "The Network" big-time!

Dan.

Thanks for the comments, everyone. I do think this should perhaps be moved to a new thread, seeing as it doesn't have much to do with what we want to see on the website anymore, but is rather doing what we wanted to do instead of just talking about doing it (what a great problem!).

I will talk to our worship people tonight about this thread and hook them into this website. I think the advice to make sure that there's no "doubling", as you call it, and to make sure that there's one strong lead vocalist carrying the melody line is fantastic.

All very helpful. Thanks so much.

By the way, I would agree wholeheartedly that enjoying, or not, worship in a more "concert-like" fashion is mostly a matter of perspective. My tendency, however, is to say that there's a bit of a theological perspective that needs to be considered beyond just doing what people like (I know that's been said already). My take on it, though, is that:

1. Loving God is the number one thing
2. Loving others is the number two thing
   • But, figuring out just how to love people is the tough thing. We want to love those who come as guests (seekers, or whatever other term you use) but honestly church worship services are not, I believe, the place where people first come in contact with the gospel generally. Instead worship services are for glorifying God, refreshing and renewing the people, proclaiming the Word, being in fellowship with His people, etc.--in short, I think worship services should be mostly targeted to the "believers", while each believer should be a "missionary" in their own setting outside of the church. So, if that's the case, then worship services should help to bring believers into worship--not be attractive marketing for "seekers" (to put it crassly).
   • So, that means that worship services with traditionalists and contemporari-ists (for lack of a better term) ought to be designed to welcome and draw people into worship, whatever their "flavour". Not meaning that we ought to please everyone all the time (not possible, as was mentioned before, but...
   • Our people (and we're trying to work on this) must learn to see worship as something more than individuals gathering together in one place to worship God in their own individual way. Instead we must see worship as something we do together, as the body of Christ. This means letting go of personal tastes and embracing compassion and love fore each other.
3. But then back to honouring God. If we're the BODY of Christ, called together to worship Him, then surely there's some value in the participatory nature of corporate singing. Many of our people complain that if the instruments are too loud they are overwhelmed, can't hear themselves (or anyone else other than the worship leader) singing, and so they just stop and listen. Bonhoeffer thought that singing in parts was bad because it broke up the unity of the church as the body (along with being a temptation to some to show off). I don't agree with Bonhoeffer to the full extent of wanting people to only sing in unison, but isn't he getting at something valuable there?

Anyway, that was a tangent too, I guess. What I really meant to say when I started all this was just "Thanks! You've all be soooooo helpful! I will definitely take this back to the worship folks to see what they think.

By the way, I've been checking out http://worshipplanning.com and I think it will maybe suit our needs for coordinating ALL our Sunday morning worship people.

Thanks again!

Dan.