Josh Dykstra
I grew up in the CRC, listening to the Word of God and learning the promises of God to His people. I am a graduate of Mid America Reformed Seminary and seeking to serve in the CRC as a Minister of the Word. I seek to teach the next generation of Pastors and Christians the wonders and Beauty of the Word of God as summarized in the 3 Forms of Unity and the Ecumenical Creeds. I pray that we, as a church will stand for the Word of God in all arenas of life and seek first the kingdom of God, looking to the Day he shall return. We are called to extend the call of God to the ends of the world and bring his Word to those living in the brokenness and darkness that this world shrouds them in. The Word shall not bow to men, nor shall it waiver to the wind of will, but the Rock stands firm and shall build His church upon Himself.
Posted in: License to Exhort -- May a council use an approved lay person lead in worship, including preaching?
See Article 23 and 24, and their suppliments. The denomination makes exception for special circumstances under the title of "Ministry Assistant." Specifically look at pages 40 and 41.
Here is the link to a pdf of the church order:
http://www2.crcna.org/site_uploads/uploads/resources/2011_churchorder.pdf
Posted in: Is it about the % we give away, or the $ we spend?
There is a book out about short term mission trips, but I can see many of the same principles in regular giving. The book is titled "When Helping Hurts."
It forces us to think about what we are doing. Are we just throwing money at things to make them go away? Is this done for some therapuetic reprieve for our guilty souls? Money is a very dangerous thing. Is our giving truely cheerful?
Posted in: If an elder resigns, can the council appoint his replacement or does the congregation need to vote?
In the CRC church order (Article 4) it states that:
"In calling and electing to an office, the council shall ordinarily present
to the congregation a nomination of at least twice the number to be
elected. When the council submits a nomination which totals less than
twice the number to be elected, it shall give reasons for doing so."
The language of the above article is very vague and therefore almost anything could be justified under the clause, "it shall give reasons for doing so." But traditionally, and the church order shows this through the supplement 4-a and subsection 4-c, the congregation is to have a voting voice in the selection of elders and other offices.
I can, however, tell you that his is not uniform throughout the denomination. There are churches that do not abide in the spirit of this Article, but have taken liberties that could be justified under the wording of the Article.
Posted in: Young, Restless, Reformed, and ... Disgruntled?
A good book on this topic is Donald Van Dyken's "Rediscovering Catechism." I had to read it for a chatechetics class this past week and I am very appreciative of the perspective he gives, and the reasoning for why we do catechism, or why we should be doing catechism.
Posted in: Don’t Say No Yet (An Encouragement to Future Office-bearers in the CRC)
The issue with the original post, and the resource listed (the HSR FAQ's), is that both fundamentally change how the process of gravamen works according to the Church Order Article 5 Supplement. A confessional-difficulty gravamen is to request clarity in a confessional or interpretative matter that a member does not have a strongly held belief. This clarification can be issued at a more local level than Synod, but cannot be given outside of the bounds of Synod's decisions. This should either lead to acceptance of the Denomination's understanding or interpretation of the Scripture or the confessions; or this leads to upgrade the disagreement to a confessional-revision gravamen.
If a strongly held belief is present and a person is not seeking clarification, but rather a change in the confession or interpretation of the church to come in line with their own. This calls for a confessional-revision gravamen. This can only be adjudicated by a body that can revise the confessions, namely Synod.