Churches Express Neighborly Love
Older congregations across the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) are clarifying their visions for ministry as the neighborhoods and communities, and the people living in them, continue to change.
In large part, these well-rooted congregations are developing approaches that make sure to include and show love to a wide range of believers.
They are churches practicing what Jesus commanded — to love your neighbor as yourself — and in the process are turning themselves around, according to an in-depth article just posted on the website for the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship.
Lee Street CRC in Wyoming, Mich., is one of the churches.
Worship planner Rachel Bouwkamp, for instance, blends new and different songs with varied instrumentation at Lee Street CRC.
“It’s good for us, because it helps us feel what a guest would feel like with something new,” she explains.
Lee Street CRC was founded in 1926 by Dutch immigrants who wanted to worship in English. Back then most people walked to church. Now most members drive to church, and the local school district publishes all of its newsletters in both English and Spanish.
In the article, Bouwkamp says that singing in Spanish about “heartfelt adoration of God’s holiness” reminded her how much the congregation “as a whole has shifted to being open to the multi-things.”
Englewood CRC is another example of a long-time congregation that has been making changes.
Englewood began in 1895 at the outskirts of Indianapolis, Ind.
Many years later, the church neighborhood had become urban and was decaying. Church membership and finances plummeted, and the people who remained didn’t agree on a way forward.
Englewood CRC’s story is told in a new, new, 36-page ebook titled The Virtue of Dialogue: Conversation as a Hopeful Practice of Church Communities.
A description of the book says, “Englewood was once a thriving mega-church, but like the neighborhood surrounding it on Indianapolis' east side, the church spiraled downward for decades in the face of widespread economic decline.”
About 15 years ago, the church took stock of itself and began conversations among church members on how they wanted to address mutual concerns about the future.
To be sure, Englewood’s turnaround was slow, but grew because of weekly Sunday night discussions at church. People still speak honestly in these ongoing conversations.
“This story of recovery is about moving away from status symbols of success and finding a new path to strengthening and deepening community ties and creating contexts for human flourishing,” says the description of the ebook.
Now Englewood has a sports ministry, Hispanic congregation, and a church-driven nonprofit that provides daycare, jobs, and housing.
The church covenants each year to use its resources for the common good, says the article on the website for the Calvin Institute for Christian Worship.
As a result, Englewood is today a 200-member church that has turned itself around and, according to the ebook, is “having an impact that far outweighs the church’s numbers …”
