By Sophie Vandenberg

Reprinted from The Banner. August 2005. Used with permission.

Sharing the truth of the gospel in world full of competing truth claims is like trying to see the stars at night in a brightly lit city, said Dr. George Vandervelde. “Our world suffers from light pollution. Lights that dazzle prevent us from seeing the real mystery of life.”

Vandervelde was the keynote speaker at a one-day Sustaining Pastoral Excellence (SPE) conference held at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto.

Church planter and workshop leader Rev. John Van Sloten stated that God reveals himself both in the book of the Bible and the book of creation. “It’s not so often we preach from that second book,” said Van Sloten, who searches for God’s revelation in creation and culture and then makes Scripture connections for his listeners, many of whom are strangers to the gospel. Van Sloten has preached on everything from the art of Vincent Van Gogh to the music of heavy metal band Metallica.

A $2 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to the Christian Reformed Church in North America in 2003 funds the SPE program, which includes opportunities for peer learning, mentoring, and continuing education. The Toronto conference was just one of 45 continuing education events funded by the SPE program this year.

“It was a good opportunity to ask colleagues, 'What are you doing? How can we learn from each other?'” said Steve Kooy, youth pastor at Ancaster (Ont.) CRC. Rev. Gary Van Leeuwen of Athens, Ontario, was one of the 36 church leaders in attendance. “This [conference] is theory we can put into practice tomorrow,” he said. 

See www.crcna.org/pastoralexcellence for more information.