August Guillaume

In our church, the music leaders are responsible enough to choose songs - or alternatively to change words if necessary.

Fortunately they are all approachable for positive comments.. This saves the consistory from continually discussing hymns and songs in their meetings and avoids the time taken to draft directives to the music leaders. Consistory members are chosen for their spiritual leadership - not their musical knowledge.

Links to the story in National geographic are:

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/03/apostles/todhunter-text

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/03/apostles/todhunter-text/2

At our small church (100 prof members) we raise ministry shares as part of the budget and provide offerings on Sunday for organizations mostly but not all outside the ministry shares program. We have no problem filling up the 52 slots consisting of worthwhile organizations, both local and national. CRWRC is one of the mail such organizations.

The disks have some information, but I would be surprised if it was found to be an effective tool. It did show that Ministry Shares sometimes provides only a small part of a group's budget.

Our church allows communion by any baptized member. if they are below legal age, the parents would be responsible for such a decision.

Does this blog only concern church planting projects or does it cover all aspects of ministry including sunday school, worship planning, deaconal work, coffee break etc?

In any structure, Calvin Seminary, BTGH, Foreign Missions, some parts of Faith Alive would need to be supported centrally.  Home Missions for areas where Classis is very small in terms of membership would also need to be there to build a broader CRC presence. If these become financial stand-alone non profits like the CRWRC, each church would need to distribute funds to these organizations separately. 

I am not sure what savings would be possible. Organizations sharing resources and making decisions communally produce strong and vibrant organizations.

The financial group in Grand Rapids and Burlington seem to hold a tight grip. Directional decisions can easily be made by allocating finances in a certain way. However, it seemed to me, that such decisions, although made, were not made very evident to Synod. Classis too, can operate efficiently with an expert treasurer.

The proportion of budgets covered by shares seems to be decreasing each year. Not only are churches supporting local initiatives more and more, but the agencies are actively looking for and finding additional funding. 

Classis does not really behave as middle management.  Churches have direct access to CRC agencies. The only middle management function they perform is to discuss overtures to Synod and to select its representatives. 

August Guillaume

Even if change is for the better, I would hope it proceeds gradually. In this case, I believe that as bonds between Christian Churches in our neighborhood or town become stronger and stronger and we learn how to deal with differences in interpretation in a better manner than proceeding to create new church denominations, we can then slowly remove those denominational services which are better done locally. 

Before most organizations started to use the Internet, I found reports at Classis very useful, and was impressed with the organizations.  I am now volunteering for our church to read all the mail and e-mails we get. The last Classis I was at, I found most reports to be very poorly done due to the information I had before Classis.

However, many elders or even ministers may not have time to read all the e-mails and mail every church gets. I think it is very difficult to check whether all the people who go to classis read all the mail and even the reports to read before the Classis starts.

A good type of survey at a classis may be beneficial to see whether the representatives already knew the information (and how?) and whether the report was useful for them or not.

Each year, The CRC yearbook asks each church how many members in a church are not looking like a  'white' person. From that information, you can ask how many people who are not called 'white' are at Classis, or Synod? If the % are different the majority 'white'? person should check how we choose our delegates. Classis Alberta has a way to choose: One minister gets a chance to go to Synod, irrespective of his/her colour via a list. the other minister and the two Elders delegates gets a chance by voting.   If a classis has lots of non-white members, and a few non-white elders gets to classis, and they never get enough votes to go to Synod, Classis can change it a bit by making a list like the ministers have with once in a while, a non-white elder gets a chance to go to Synod in relation to the % people who are non-white.

Where I worked, for 35 years, each year there was a check how many people thought they were in a minority. They could then check how many 'minority' people were managers at each level, including the highest levels. If the % is equal from every manager level, the company could think they are moving in the right direction.

In churches, one can not check with the % in the community, as there may be many reasns why the %'s are different. However, once the 'minority' people are members, the same process can be used to check whether we are going in the right drection.

At our last Cruise, Christians gathered for a service as well as a daily bible study together. We never asked each other's church background but had a good discussion and found unity in Christ.

At Synod, we wondered sometimes what keeps us together as CRC family, but that question sometimes means; what keeps us from worshiping with other Christians??

"Dutch Culture" for fifth generation americans with a Dutch surname may mean nothing else than  peppermints, tulips and wooden shoes; church wise, whatever the Dutch church was like when the first generation left Holland in the late 1880's. 

Each new generation who came to NA, will have a different Dutch Culture to think above.

Dutch Reformed churches as any North American Reformed churches do: Change slowly from generation to generation.

Dutch churches change differently that NA churches since the society where the churches are are different. In Holland, there are only other reformed churches and Catholic churches. In North America, we have a lot of other denominations to compare and copy.

Rather than use the word 'Dutch' to explain something, please be more specific.

Obviously this is not as important as to see where the Lord is leading His (one) church.

If I were to move to the US, and naturalized how would I be identified or would it be up to me or is it some arbitrary label friends and associates use to identify me?

American (because of my citizenship)

Canadian (I had lived there for 58 yrs and taken up citizenship)

Dutch ( I was born there and some of my ancestors can be traced back to somewhere in Holland)

French (6th generation back on my dad paternal side - my last name is French)

German (5th generation on my mom's dad's side - my first name is German)