Global Team Seeks Input
Synod 2024 discussed and adopted a Global Vision Team report from the Council of Delegates. As part of this conversation, synod unanimously approved several recommendations aimed at strengthening relationships between the CRCNA and churches outside North America, including the creation of a Vision Implementation Team. That team is now up and running and wants your help.
“The Global Vision Implementation Team was mandated by Synod 2024 to do two things,” said John Medendorp, the team’s chair.
“First, we’ve been tasked with making an inventory of resources that churches and classes can use as they navigate conversations with churches outside North America that are interested in affiliating with the CRCNA. And, second, we have become aware that some denominations outside North America want a closer relationship than is currently provided through our ecumenical structure. Some of these relationships have grown out of the same CRC family through mission work.”
Both of these tasks are large. Currently the CRCNA has formal ecumenical relationships with about 40 denominations around the world, plus additional partnerships through the work of World Renew, Resonate Global Mission, and ReFrame Ministries. The CRCNA also has memberships in several ecumenical organizations.
In addition, the CRCNA recognizes that its congregations are becoming more and more diverse, with members who have linkages all over the world. For example, in 2022, 38 Venezuelan churches began the process of affiliating with the CRCNA. In 2005, a Haitian church planter left Haiti to start planting congregations in Florida. And in Canada the CRC recently launched an intercultural church network to better support multicultural churches.
Synod indicated that the CRCNA wants to better understand what these and other existing linkages look like, and how the CRCNA can better engage in global relationships.
Toward developing a list of resources – its first task – the Global Vision Implementation Team has produced a short survey and is looking for congregational and classis input.
“We are having conversations with key leaders and would love for classes to let us know whom we should be talking to,” said Medendorp. “We are also streamlining and translating documents that outline the processes for congregational affiliation, and we are looking for other tools that congregations and classes are in need of.”
For the task concerned with deepening relationships, Medendorp said, “some of the churches we are in contact with in other countries are eager for a deeper relationship and a stronger engagement” than we currently provide for churches that are in communion with the CRCNA.
In communion is the term that the CRCNA uses to designate its highest level of relationship with other denominations. Churches in communion may be engaged in joint ventures with the CRC, send guests to each other’s synods, welcome each other’s members at the Lord’s Supper, and invite each other’s pastors to preach. Too often, however, the relationship exists with little engagement.
“We are not looking to create a global denomination or an alternative to the global Reformed ecumenical networks that already exist,” said Medendorp. “But we will be exploring what it looks like to deepen these closer denominational relationships toward collaboration at the global level.”
This task will include exploring whether changes are necessary in the CRC’s Church Order, governance, or structure to facilitate better relationships. These recommendations are expected to be presented to Synod 2027, with final recommendations regarding any global/multidenominational network to be presented in 2028.
The Global Vision Implementation Team consists of eight members: Rev. John Medendorp (pastor at New Era [Mich.] CRC and chair), Rev. Eric Sarwar (a church planter amid the Indian and Pakistani diaspora in Artesia and Fresno, Calif.), Rev. Stan Kruis (former missionary in the Philippines and China and currently minister of missions at LaGrave Avenue CRC in Grand Rapids, Mich.), Rev. Harold Caicedo (pastor at Iglesia Cristiana El Sembrador CRC in Fontana, Calif., and president of the CRCNA’s Consejo Latino), Rev. Mario Matos (pastor from the CRC of the Dominican Republic), Rev. Daniel Kang (pastor at Modesto [Calif.] CRC), Rev. Ahnna Cho Park (coordinator of Korean studies at Denver Seminary), and Rev. David Cheung (retired pastor in Richmond, B.C.). They are supported by Rev. Zach King (general secretary), Rev. Susan LaClear (director of Candidacy), and Melody Van Arragon (executive assistant).
In addition to completing the form, anyone with advice or ideas for the team is encouraged to reach out to Medendorp at [email protected].
