Thank you so much, Scott, for pointing out the painstaking efforts that Seminary and its professors take in teaching, training and mentoring potential pastors.
I am particularly impressed by the work of the Center for Excellence in Preaching and for the amount of 'traffic' that the website receives. It is my hope and prayer that pastors continue to use the excellent resources that the Center offers, both online and in person.
The pulpit continues to be the single most effective way to disciple, teach and grow the congregation. Within an hour on a Sunday morning, the pastor is able to reach hundreds of men, women, young adults and children with a message that reveals God's grace, holiness, covenant relationship and love for his people. That is an incredible responsibility and opportunity.
Thanks, folks, for your varied responses and for the interesting tangents that this discussion took. I do understand that congregations are fickle and that a pastor can fit in wonderfully in one congregation but not in another. I also understand the pain of churches and pastors in conflict and the growing need for transitional pastors and specialists to deal with that pain.. I do think that you've missed the fundamental point of the initial question: Why do we have pastors who preach poorly?
Your natural reaction as a pastor is to blame the congregation for being stressed or anxious or finicky. You've got to protect your own. I think it was Peter who mentioned that "the quality of preaching can never be measured." I beg to differ. When a church loses it members because of what those members describe as poor preaching, that's measurable. Maybe, just maybe, a more appropriate term is 'lazy' preaching. When one sits in the pew and hears a sermon that lacks substance and that clearly hasn't had much thought put into it, that's lazy preaching. When pastors are more prone to exegete a TV show or the latest newscast, that's lazy preaching. Granted, perhaps those pastors consider their preaching 'relevant'. Is it being old fashioned to expect a pastor to 'preach the text'?
I am delighted that Seminary's Center for Excellence in Preaching regularly puts on touring workshops across the denomination. Their very existence underscores the need for excellence in preaching.
And perhaps Seminary should create a Centre for Excellence in Discerning, Listening, Tolerance for those of us in the pew who are at the receiving end of that solitary Sunday morning sermon.
I don't envy today's pastor/preacher. He/she has a tough audience. Preaching isn't for the faint-hearted, nor for the lazy, nor for the person who is looking for a soft job and a fat cheque (check). Congregations not only deserve excellence in preaching; it's crucial in equipping the saints for the working world and the battles that exist in the trenches.
It's confession time, and this is only a slight digression from the topic. I will come around to Roger's comment about 'Spirit-filled preachers'.
I was asked a while ago to offer my personal testimony to a large gather of Christian media folks.
I began by saying that I always knew God: I grew up in a Christian home, attended Sunday school, the requisite Christian schools, and had a deep passion for the church. I owned a Christian newspaper, then worked in the national offices of three different Christian denominations -- Christian Reformed, Presbyterian and Anglilcan (Episcopal). I knew God, but it was a theoretical knowledge. I spoke the church language, served several terms as elder (usually chair of council) in several different locations.
It was only after I left my last 'church' job and spent a few months at home in prayer and 'letting go', that I finally began to 'experience' God. It took 60 years to move from my head down to my heart. For the first time in my life, I began to depend on God .. for everything. I finally realized what it meant to walk with God ... after mouthing those words for decades.
Roger concludes his latest piece with an interesting and pointed question: "Is the absence of this anointing by the Holy Spirit what makes CRC ministers poor preachers?" I would never, ever dare question a pastor's faith, especially as it relates to 'poor' preaching. I do recall an incident many years ago when a parishioner asked to meet with her pastor. When they sat down in his office, she asked him: "How is your spiritual walk with God?" He was deeply offended. How could she dare ask him -- the pastor -- about his spiritual walk? She was, and still is, a godly woman who was genuinely concerned about the pastor's spiritual life.
Maybe we need to ask that question more often of our pastors. After all, it is regularly asked as part of the traditional family visit ... if we still do that. And perhaps those who are concerned about the proverbial 'poor preaching' should sit down with that pastor and ask that pointed question ... without causing offense.
When a preacher truly experiences God, that is bound to profoundly affect the content of the sermon.
To clarify, I mentioned 'dozens of conversations' with folks in CRCs across Canada. No, there isn't a mass exodus of Christian Reformed members leaving the denomination.
Granted, we have many excellent preachers across the denomination and those churches are thriving.
As a life-long member of the CRC who was privileged to have had a few leadership positions, my heart aches for the church ... especially for those congregations that have struggled with pastors who simply don't preach well. And it is proverbial slap in the face to suggest that things would change if the congregation simply prayed more. I have seen church leaders agonize over this issue.
I also recognize that Calvin Seminary has a stellar reputation for its theological and scholarly work.
This wasn't mean to be a finger-pointing exercise but to simply raise the issue and the concern. To put it crassly, some of our pastors preach poorly. Then again, I am sure that no pastor intentionally plans and preaches a poor sermon. There's the rub: is a sermon's quality in the ears of the beholder? I don't think so. One can quickly spot a sermon that has been thrown together without little exegetical thought: a few anecdotes here, a quote from Tim Kellar there.
It makes me wonder -- speaking broadly -- if we have pastors who don't spend enough time exegeting a text, digging into scriptures, spending hours chewing on the text during the course of the week. Is it possible that we have pastors who would rather do a lot of the usual pastoral/administrative work instead of searching scriptures for next Sunday's sermon.
The church today needs excellent preaching. That is how we grow, numerically and spiritually.
Your comments make a lot of sense. In fact, I regularly come across employers who approach most of their decisions this way. I am the executive director of the Canadian Christian Business Federation and I regularly connect with about 3,500 Christian business leaders across the country, from small operations to multi-national corporations. Our membership also includes a half dozen Christian universities and 15 Christian non-profits.
Hundreds of Christian business leaders meet monthly over breakfast to deal precisely with the kind of issues that you raise. But why stop at hiring practices? Why seek God's will only when we're hiring an employee ... whether that's in a church or in a business?
We claim that God owns everything ... even the church!
I regularly come across men and women who live and breathe their faith at their work. When they develop long range plans for their companies, it's a prayerful process, balancing THEIR plans with God's will.
When they create their corporate budgets, they include a set amount for 'kingdom causes' ... rather than simply giving God 10 per cent of their net profits ... if they have any.
They responsibly value their employees, providing mentoring environments and appropriate maternity and paternity leave.
Your suggestion to employ the spiritual disciplines when hiring staff and appointing volunteers seems to me to be a foundational practice that every church should employ. Certainly this should all be done prayerfully and pastorally.
Here's one more tip when it comes to the appointment of volunteers to head up various church ministries. Pay them a dollar a year. They're now considered 'paid' employees and the appropriate church body now has the right to 'fire' an employee if he/she isn't doing a good job. It's virtually impossible to fire volunteers. After all, they volunteered. If nothing else, it conveys a message to the volunteers that they're accountable and that they can be released from their responsibilities if there are valid reasons.
The Church can learn a few things from their members who genuinely reflect Christ in their business.
... I need to add something. There is a recurring refrain among the Canadian Christian business community (and they're a broadly ecumenical lot): If you're involved in business, you're involved in ministry.
I know hundreds of men and women who feel 'called' to their ministry in business, and who refer to that same sense of calling when they hire CEOs, managers or sales people.
Here's a digression: I recently spoke to a group of Christian multi-millionaires and billionaires. They told me two things: they're lonely (their friends want their money) and they have left the organized church (the church just sees them as walking ATM machines or, at best, a potential chair of a capital campaign).
They don't seem to be valued for their leadership skills or their spiritual needs. When's the last time you appointed a very wealthy member to the Diaconate or used his/her gifts as Sunday school teacher?
It was something that Harry said that caught my eye: The need for a sunset clause on some of the ministries and/or committees.
I occasionally facilitate strategic planning sessions for Christian non-profits. One of the first questions I ask is: "If you had to begin this ministry from scratch, would you?" That question caught one particular group off guard and the said that, no, other organizations do it better than they do. So they folded.
What about a sunset clause for every local church; especially every church plant. Are they effective in spreading the gospel to the community? Is there another church that can do ministry more effectively?
_______
And now a point about this most recent synod. It seems to have ended rather quickly, with very few substantive issues that required much debate. Take away the bureaucratic appointments and the drivel over The Banner's editorial integrity, and there is nothing that couldn't be held over for another year or two. The CRCNA is one of a very few denominations to hold annual assemblies. The cost savings might fund an overseas missionary or two.
There was a time when CRC campus chaplains were seen as on-campus babysitters for our tender CRC teens who headed off to college or university. It was quickly discovered that the vast majority of CRC freshmen on the 'secular' campus simply wanted to discover life, perhaps even skip worship, and not become immediately connected to the campus chaplain's office.
Today's campus chaplain is, firstly, a Christian presence on campus for the broadly ecumenical student body. The campus chaplain's office is the place where students (re)discover their spiritual identity and become engaged in meaningful discussions as they try to connect their Sunday faith with their university campus setting.
You pose the question: Are CRC campus chaplains mostly ministers to Christians on campus or mostly evangelists on campus? The answer is Yes! ;o)
I think that chaplains provide a nurturing environment for Christian students who want to continue to grow in the faith but they also provide a nurturing environment for not-yet Christian students who are searching their own spiritual direction.
Should chaplains be sidewalk evangelists on our university campuses? I certainly hope not. That's not our Reformed style.
Students expect to become engaged in an intellectual discourse ... whether it's their area of academic interest or their own spiritual journey.
I suspect that the campus minister's life is a very lonely one. It is my hope and prayer that he or she has a strong support group within the local church communities and among clergy peers.
There seems to be an illusion that The Banner is the 'official' voice of the CRCNA. That designation disappeared from the cover of The Banner back around 1980. I am not sure if that took place towards the end of Les De Koster's tenure as editor, or early on in Andrew Kuyvenhoven's reign. But I recall the discussion clearly. By being the official voice of the denomination, it could only spout official denominational policy and regurgitate synodically-approved decisions.
To be clear, The Banner is not the official voice of the denomination. It was designed as a CRCNA-supported publication designed to educate and to spark debate about issues relevant to the church today. I personally bemoaned the decision of The Banner to become a popularized, church-bulletin publication that reflected cute news stories about how some high school's basketball team made it to the state finals. We witness the result of that theological 'pulp' today: we become upset whenever The Banner dares to bring some serious, thought-provoking debate to its pages.
The Banner needs to return to longer articles and debates that will lead to critical thinking about the important issues of the day. Challenge our faith, help us question why we believe what we believe about Genesis and infant baptism and, aghast!, gun control. The Banner needs to return to its roots. More importantly, CRCNA members need to return to critical thinking. We have been fed church trivia for a decade or two. It's time to put some flesh to our faith and to what we believe.
I couldn't help but be struck by the fact that our CRC and RCA synodical delegates will be 'singing from the same hymn book' this summer in Pella.
I can't recall the last time that I picked up a hymn book. They sit, virtually new and unused, in our church pews. Most of the time we are gazing upwards at the overhead screen, trying to put music to the lyrics of the latest obscure praise ditty.
The hymn book used to be the symbol of all that is good and 'common' when it came to worship. Once could travel from city to city, and certainly from church to church within the same city, and sing from the hymns that we had in common. That is no longer the case. Each congregation has developed its own selection of praise songs ... most of them with questionable (ie unReformed!) theology.
While I love the notion of having one common hymn book for CRC and RCA denominations, I suspect that it will have precious little impact upon local congregational singing. I almost long for the time -- almost -- when church councils will treat the hymn book as the approved 'menu' of hymns to be sung in worship. Period.
While the denomination celebrates the arrival of this new, joint Book of Praise, local congregations are still determined to sing anything but those wonderful, theologically correct psalms and hymns from the Book of Praise. Pity.
... and there's the rub. Yes, those pastors who are 'caught' being addicted to pornography are dealt with in a pastoral manner, as are all church members who are 'caught' being addicted to pornography.
But what about those who have not been caught, those who are struggling with the temptation? There needs to be a safe place to seek help and to share their struggles. That, it seems to me, is the challenge.
Should this become a task of a classis' Safe Church Committee?
The most logical place for such a discussion is within a local congregation .... provided you have a healthy, open, pastoral, honest congregation.
The church is full of hypocrites: members who sin. The pastor serves among them as one of them.
Very few churches have the intestinal fortitude to deal with these kinds of struggles, much less confess them to each other.
The notion of having missionaries -- or anybody involved in Christian ministry -- raise the majority of their support is apalling. It is valid to have folks seek prayer support and even a bit of personal support from friends, local church or family. That is tied in to an affirmation of the sense of 'calling' to the ministry.
That's the point: being called. Firstly, we're ALL called to the ministry, and for some that ministry is the pulpit; for others it is business or carpentry or teaching or collecting garbage.
Why is it that when a seminary graduate is called to the ministry, he/she is given at least a modest salary and a house or housing allowance. When a seminary graduate is called to serve as missionary ... and has the gifts of teaching, leadership, cultural awareness, we suddenly expect that person to have the gift of fundraising.
Fundraising is a specific talent. Some are very good at it; many cringe at the thought of having to ask for money.
World Missions has a highly qualified staff in the denominational office: men and women gifted to serve in administration, leadership development, communication, etc. Hire an employee who feels called to raise funds. That allows those who feel called to serve on a mission field to use their God-given gifts in preaching, teaching,leadership, etc.
If there is a World Missions missionary who regularly delights in asking for an increasing percentage of fnancial support every year, peraps he/she is called to that task. My hunch is that most overseas staff cringe at the thought of having to raise tens of thousands of dollars. They may even be paralysed by the notion and it may severely impact the effectiveness of their ministry.
I have had the privilege of working in the denominational offices of a few mainline denominations where those missionary staff were expected to raise a good portion of their own support. The CRC was always held up as an ideal model: If you feel called, the Church sends you. No strings attached.
Well, today, missionaries must feel the burden of that financial chain around their necks.
The CRC has always avoided that archaic notion of having to raise your own support for ministry. We don't do it for pastors, college professors, worship directors. Why do we pick on mission staff, domestic or overseas? Are they not worthy of denominational support? Why do they need to 'affirm their sense of calling' by raising their own support? Try that with our next crop of Calvin Seminary graduates: If you can raise $50,000 then we'll consider you for our pulpit. Nonsense!
If you feel called to serve as a missionary, the Church needs to send a strong message of encouragement: Go! No strings attached.
Posted in: Our Biggest Problem: Poor Preaching
Thank you so much, Scott, for pointing out the painstaking efforts that Seminary and its professors take in teaching, training and mentoring potential pastors.
I am particularly impressed by the work of the Center for Excellence in Preaching and for the amount of 'traffic' that the website receives. It is my hope and prayer that pastors continue to use the excellent resources that the Center offers, both online and in person.
The pulpit continues to be the single most effective way to disciple, teach and grow the congregation. Within an hour on a Sunday morning, the pastor is able to reach hundreds of men, women, young adults and children with a message that reveals God's grace, holiness, covenant relationship and love for his people. That is an incredible responsibility and opportunity.
Posted in: Our Biggest Problem: Poor Preaching
Thanks, folks, for your varied responses and for the interesting tangents that this discussion took.
I do understand that congregations are fickle and that a pastor can fit in wonderfully in one congregation but not in another.
I also understand the pain of churches and pastors in conflict and the growing need for transitional pastors and specialists to deal with that pain..
I do think that you've missed the fundamental point of the initial question: Why do we have pastors who preach poorly?
Your natural reaction as a pastor is to blame the congregation for being stressed or anxious or finicky. You've got to protect your own.
I think it was Peter who mentioned that "the quality of preaching can never be measured." I beg to differ. When a church loses it members because of what those members describe as poor preaching, that's measurable.
Maybe, just maybe, a more appropriate term is 'lazy' preaching. When one sits in the pew and hears a sermon that lacks substance and that clearly hasn't had much thought put into it, that's lazy preaching. When pastors are more prone to exegete a TV show or the latest newscast, that's lazy preaching. Granted, perhaps those pastors consider their preaching 'relevant'.
Is it being old fashioned to expect a pastor to 'preach the text'?
I am delighted that Seminary's Center for Excellence in Preaching regularly puts on touring workshops across the denomination. Their very existence underscores the need for excellence in preaching.
And perhaps Seminary should create a Centre for Excellence in Discerning, Listening, Tolerance for those of us in the pew who are at the receiving end of that solitary Sunday morning sermon.
I don't envy today's pastor/preacher. He/she has a tough audience. Preaching isn't for the faint-hearted, nor for the lazy, nor for the person who is looking for a soft job and a fat cheque (check). Congregations not only deserve excellence in preaching; it's crucial in equipping the saints for the working world and the battles that exist in the trenches.
Posted in: Our Biggest Problem: Poor Preaching
It's confession time, and this is only a slight digression from the topic. I will come around to Roger's comment about 'Spirit-filled preachers'.
I was asked a while ago to offer my personal testimony to a large gather of Christian media folks.
I began by saying that I always knew God: I grew up in a Christian home, attended Sunday school, the requisite Christian schools, and had a deep passion for the church. I owned a Christian newspaper, then worked in the national offices of three different Christian denominations -- Christian Reformed, Presbyterian and Anglilcan (Episcopal). I knew God, but it was a theoretical knowledge. I spoke the church language, served several terms as elder (usually chair of council) in several different locations.
It was only after I left my last 'church' job and spent a few months at home in prayer and 'letting go', that I finally began to 'experience' God. It took 60 years to move from my head down to my heart. For the first time in my life, I began to depend on God .. for everything. I finally realized what it meant to walk with God ... after mouthing those words for decades.
Roger concludes his latest piece with an interesting and pointed question: "Is the absence of this anointing by the Holy Spirit what makes CRC ministers poor preachers?" I would never, ever dare question a pastor's faith, especially as it relates to 'poor' preaching. I do recall an incident many years ago when a parishioner asked to meet with her pastor. When they sat down in his office, she asked him: "How is your spiritual walk with God?" He was deeply offended. How could she dare ask him -- the pastor -- about his spiritual walk? She was, and still is, a godly woman who was genuinely concerned about the pastor's spiritual life.
Maybe we need to ask that question more often of our pastors. After all, it is regularly asked as part of the traditional family visit ... if we still do that. And perhaps those who are concerned about the proverbial 'poor preaching' should sit down with that pastor and ask that pointed question ... without causing offense.
When a preacher truly experiences God, that is bound to profoundly affect the content of the sermon.
Posted in: Our Biggest Problem: Poor Preaching
To clarify, I mentioned 'dozens of conversations' with folks in CRCs across Canada. No, there isn't a mass exodus of Christian Reformed members leaving the denomination.
Granted, we have many excellent preachers across the denomination and those churches are thriving.
As a life-long member of the CRC who was privileged to have had a few leadership positions, my heart aches for the church ... especially for those congregations that have struggled with pastors who simply don't preach well. And it is proverbial slap in the face to suggest that things would change if the congregation simply prayed more. I have seen church leaders agonize over this issue.
I also recognize that Calvin Seminary has a stellar reputation for its theological and scholarly work.
This wasn't mean to be a finger-pointing exercise but to simply raise the issue and the concern. To put it crassly, some of our pastors preach poorly. Then again, I am sure that no pastor intentionally plans and preaches a poor sermon. There's the rub: is a sermon's quality in the ears of the beholder? I don't think so. One can quickly spot a sermon that has been thrown together without little exegetical thought: a few anecdotes here, a quote from Tim Kellar there.
It makes me wonder -- speaking broadly -- if we have pastors who don't spend enough time exegeting a text, digging into scriptures, spending hours chewing on the text during the course of the week. Is it possible that we have pastors who would rather do a lot of the usual pastoral/administrative work instead of searching scriptures for next Sunday's sermon.
The church today needs excellent preaching. That is how we grow, numerically and spiritually.
Posted in: Hiring: A Practice in Spiritual Discernment
Your comments make a lot of sense. In fact, I regularly come across employers who approach most of their decisions this way. I am the executive director of the Canadian Christian Business Federation and I regularly connect with about 3,500 Christian business leaders across the country, from small operations to multi-national corporations. Our membership also includes a half dozen Christian universities and 15 Christian non-profits.
Hundreds of Christian business leaders meet monthly over breakfast to deal precisely with the kind of issues that you raise. But why stop at hiring practices? Why seek God's will only when we're hiring an employee ... whether that's in a church or in a business?
We claim that God owns everything ... even the church!
I regularly come across men and women who live and breathe their faith at their work. When they develop long range plans for their companies, it's a prayerful process, balancing THEIR plans with God's will.
When they create their corporate budgets, they include a set amount for 'kingdom causes' ... rather than simply giving God 10 per cent of their net profits ... if they have any.
They responsibly value their employees, providing mentoring environments and appropriate maternity and paternity leave.
Your suggestion to employ the spiritual disciplines when hiring staff and appointing volunteers seems to me to be a foundational practice that every church should employ. Certainly this should all be done prayerfully and pastorally.
Here's one more tip when it comes to the appointment of volunteers to head up various church ministries. Pay them a dollar a year. They're now considered 'paid' employees and the appropriate church body now has the right to 'fire' an employee if he/she isn't doing a good job. It's virtually impossible to fire volunteers. After all, they volunteered. If nothing else, it conveys a message to the volunteers that they're accountable and that they can be released from their responsibilities if there are valid reasons.
The Church can learn a few things from their members who genuinely reflect Christ in their business.
Keith Knight
Posted in: Hiring: A Practice in Spiritual Discernment
... I need to add something. There is a recurring refrain among the Canadian Christian business community (and they're a broadly ecumenical lot): If you're involved in business, you're involved in ministry.
I know hundreds of men and women who feel 'called' to their ministry in business, and who refer to that same sense of calling when they hire CEOs, managers or sales people.
Here's a digression: I recently spoke to a group of Christian multi-millionaires and billionaires. They told me two things: they're lonely (their friends want their money) and they have left the organized church (the church just sees them as walking ATM machines or, at best, a potential chair of a capital campaign).
They don't seem to be valued for their leadership skills or their spiritual needs. When's the last time you appointed a very wealthy member to the Diaconate or used his/her gifts as Sunday school teacher?
Posted in: Advisors and the Collateral Benefits of Synod
It was something that Harry said that caught my eye: The need for a sunset clause on some of the ministries and/or committees.
I occasionally facilitate strategic planning sessions for Christian non-profits. One of the first questions I ask is: "If you had to begin this ministry from scratch, would you?" That question caught one particular group off guard and the said that, no, other organizations do it better than they do. So they folded.
What about a sunset clause for every local church; especially every church plant. Are they effective in spreading the gospel to the community? Is there another church that can do ministry more effectively?
_______
And now a point about this most recent synod. It seems to have ended rather quickly, with very few substantive issues that required much debate. Take away the bureaucratic appointments and the drivel over The Banner's editorial integrity, and there is nothing that couldn't be held over for another year or two. The CRCNA is one of a very few denominations to hold annual assemblies. The cost savings might fund an overseas missionary or two.
Posted in: Are CR Campus Ministers mostly ministers to Christians on campus or mostly evangelists on campus?
There was a time when CRC campus chaplains were seen as on-campus babysitters for our tender CRC teens who headed off to college or university. It was quickly discovered that the vast majority of CRC freshmen on the 'secular' campus simply wanted to discover life, perhaps even skip worship, and not become immediately connected to the campus chaplain's office.
Today's campus chaplain is, firstly, a Christian presence on campus for the broadly ecumenical student body. The campus chaplain's office is the place where students (re)discover their spiritual identity and become engaged in meaningful discussions as they try to connect their Sunday faith with their university campus setting.
You pose the question: Are CRC campus chaplains mostly ministers to Christians on campus or mostly evangelists on campus? The answer is Yes! ;o)
I think that chaplains provide a nurturing environment for Christian students who want to continue to grow in the faith but they also provide a nurturing environment for not-yet Christian students who are searching their own spiritual direction.
Should chaplains be sidewalk evangelists on our university campuses? I certainly hope not. That's not our Reformed style.
Students expect to become engaged in an intellectual discourse ... whether it's their area of academic interest or their own spiritual journey.
I suspect that the campus minister's life is a very lonely one. It is my hope and prayer that he or she has a strong support group within the local church communities and among clergy peers.
Posted in: What Do We Want from The Banner?
There seems to be an illusion that The Banner is the 'official' voice of the CRCNA. That designation disappeared from the cover of The Banner back around 1980. I am not sure if that took place towards the end of Les De Koster's tenure as editor, or early on in Andrew Kuyvenhoven's reign. But I recall the discussion clearly. By being the official voice of the denomination, it could only spout official denominational policy and regurgitate synodically-approved decisions.
To be clear, The Banner is not the official voice of the denomination. It was designed as a CRCNA-supported publication designed to educate and to spark debate about issues relevant to the church today. I personally bemoaned the decision of The Banner to become a popularized, church-bulletin publication that reflected cute news stories about how some high school's basketball team made it to the state finals. We witness the result of that theological 'pulp' today: we become upset whenever The Banner dares to bring some serious, thought-provoking debate to its pages.
The Banner needs to return to longer articles and debates that will lead to critical thinking about the important issues of the day. Challenge our faith, help us question why we believe what we believe about Genesis and infant baptism and, aghast!, gun control. The Banner needs to return to its roots. More importantly, CRCNA members need to return to critical thinking. We have been fed church trivia for a decade or two. It's time to put some flesh to our faith and to what we believe.
Posted in: We Are the Church Together
I couldn't help but be struck by the fact that our CRC and RCA synodical delegates will be 'singing from the same hymn book' this summer in Pella.
I can't recall the last time that I picked up a hymn book. They sit, virtually new and unused, in our church pews. Most of the time we are gazing upwards at the overhead screen, trying to put music to the lyrics of the latest obscure praise ditty.
The hymn book used to be the symbol of all that is good and 'common' when it came to worship. Once could travel from city to city, and certainly from church to church within the same city, and sing from the hymns that we had in common. That is no longer the case. Each congregation has developed its own selection of praise songs ... most of them with questionable (ie unReformed!) theology.
While I love the notion of having one common hymn book for CRC and RCA denominations, I suspect that it will have precious little impact upon local congregational singing. I almost long for the time -- almost -- when church councils will treat the hymn book as the approved 'menu' of hymns to be sung in worship. Period.
While the denomination celebrates the arrival of this new, joint Book of Praise, local congregations are still determined to sing anything but those wonderful, theologically correct psalms and hymns from the Book of Praise. Pity.
Posted in: A Support Group for Ministers Dealing With Pornography
... and there's the rub. Yes, those pastors who are 'caught' being addicted to pornography are dealt with in a pastoral manner, as are all church members who are 'caught' being addicted to pornography.
But what about those who have not been caught, those who are struggling with the temptation? There needs to be a safe place to seek help and to share their struggles. That, it seems to me, is the challenge.
Should this become a task of a classis' Safe Church Committee?
The most logical place for such a discussion is within a local congregation .... provided you have a healthy, open, pastoral, honest congregation.
The church is full of hypocrites: members who sin. The pastor serves among them as one of them.
Very few churches have the intestinal fortitude to deal with these kinds of struggles, much less confess them to each other.
Posted in: Synod World Missions: Missionaries to Raise 90% of Their Salaries
The notion of having missionaries -- or anybody involved in Christian ministry -- raise the majority of their support is apalling. It is valid to have folks seek prayer support and even a bit of personal support from friends, local church or family. That is tied in to an affirmation of the sense of 'calling' to the ministry.
That's the point: being called. Firstly, we're ALL called to the ministry, and for some that ministry is the pulpit; for others it is business or carpentry or teaching or collecting garbage.
Why is it that when a seminary graduate is called to the ministry, he/she is given at least a modest salary and a house or housing allowance. When a seminary graduate is called to serve as missionary ... and has the gifts of teaching, leadership, cultural awareness, we suddenly expect that person to have the gift of fundraising.
Fundraising is a specific talent. Some are very good at it; many cringe at the thought of having to ask for money.
World Missions has a highly qualified staff in the denominational office: men and women gifted to serve in administration, leadership development, communication, etc. Hire an employee who feels called to raise funds. That allows those who feel called to serve on a mission field to use their God-given gifts in preaching, teaching,leadership, etc.
If there is a World Missions missionary who regularly delights in asking for an increasing percentage of fnancial support every year, peraps he/she is called to that task. My hunch is that most overseas staff cringe at the thought of having to raise tens of thousands of dollars. They may even be paralysed by the notion and it may severely impact the effectiveness of their ministry.
I have had the privilege of working in the denominational offices of a few mainline denominations where those missionary staff were expected to raise a good portion of their own support. The CRC was always held up as an ideal model: If you feel called, the Church sends you. No strings attached.
Well, today, missionaries must feel the burden of that financial chain around their necks.
The CRC has always avoided that archaic notion of having to raise your own support for ministry. We don't do it for pastors, college professors, worship directors. Why do we pick on mission staff, domestic or overseas? Are they not worthy of denominational support? Why do they need to 'affirm their sense of calling' by raising their own support? Try that with our next crop of Calvin Seminary graduates: If you can raise $50,000 then we'll consider you for our pulpit. Nonsense!
If you feel called to serve as a missionary, the Church needs to send a strong message of encouragement: Go! No strings attached.