Top 10 CRC News Stories of 2025
Looking back at the news for the Christian Reformed Church in North America for 2025, we see a mix of stories—some full of hope and others describing challenges for the present and the future. Here follows a top-10 list of the most-read stories in 2025. Included are articles on church leaders, important issues of the day, and the ongoing work of the church. In all, they reflect the scope and focus of the CRCNA as it moved through this past year.
1. Topping the list was the announcement in late June 2025 that Shiao Chong resigned from his role as editor-in-chief of The Banner after nearly nine years of service.
Chong’s resignation followed a robust debate at Synod 2025 that resulted in changes to The Banner’s mandate. As a result of those changes, Chong, a commissioned pastor, said he felt his specific calling to lead the magazine editorially was no longer a good fit for the magazine’s future.
In November, Lora Copley was appointed as interim editor of The Banner starting Dec. 1, 2025.
Copley, an ordained minister of the Word, will continue serving as director of Areopagus Campus Ministry at Iowa State University, though in a lesser capacity, as she steps into the half-time, interim-editor role.
Copley is the first woman to be appointed to The Banner editor’s role in the magazine’s 160-year history. She is also taking over at a time when the publication is clarifying how it will function in support of the CRCNA as it moves into the future.
2. The second-most-read story came in the form of a pastoral letter addressing tensions that arose in 2025 due to political changes in the United States. The letter was signed by Rev. Zachary King, executive director of the CRCNA; Al Postma, executive director-Canada; and Dan DeKam, director of U.S. ministry operations. Together, they noted that they had “received many notes of concern and pain from CRC members regarding recent statements made by the U.S. government administration.” These statements, the letter reads, were “detracting from the national sovereignty of Canada. Other expressions of concern and pain [were] shared regarding threats of a potential trade conflict coming from U.S. leadership.”
The threats caused uncertainty, and the letter goes on to state: “As brothers and sisters in Christ, we lament the brokenness we are experiencing in our cross-border relationship. We feel the hurt that is being experienced by comments that belittle one country at the expense of the other. We urgently desire a relationship of justice, peace, and mutual respect.”
3. In another letter, Zachary King comprehensively addressed the topic of immigration. Both personal and instructive, this letter notes that the issue of immigration, because of moves by the U.S. administration, “has come to the fore in the United States and, to a lesser extent, in Canada. In both of our countries, many of our CRCNA congregations have historically been, and continue to be, made up of immigrants.”
Helping to put his letter in perspective, King goes on to write, “Some of our brothers and sisters have reached out to CRCNA leaders in recent weeks to express the fears they now have in everyday life.”
In this letter the CRCNA executive director also provides a view of the multicultural nature of many CRC congregations and how immigration is a significant part of the denomination’s story from its inception many years ago. In all, he presents a big-picture view of how God, as well as his church, keeps all immigrants close to the heart.
4. At Synod 2025, Calvin University, in highlighting its long-term relationship to the denomination, expressed its gratitude “for its covenantal partnership with the Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRCNA), reaffirmed that the theological standards and interpretations of the church are the university’s theological standards and interpretations, and emphasized its deep commitment to serving the church through Christ-centered teaching, learning, and scholarship.”
Calvin took time to share its sentiments after synod delegates “engaged in a thoughtful and collegial conversation that recognized the university’s efforts to respond faithfully to Synod 2024’s guidance on confessional alignment and sought to understand differences between the university and the church.”
5. The fifth-most-read story of 2025 brought sobering news that the Board of Trustees of Trinity Christian College in Palos Heights, Ill., “voted to close the 66-year-old private institution at the end of the 2025-2026 academic year.” The school was founded in 1959 by local families who wanted to provide Christian higher education in the Reformed tradition. It continued to have a foundational relationship with the CRC, including hosting its synod on several occasions. Unable to weather the challenges facing many schools of higher education, Trinity will hold its final commencement ceremony on May 8, 2026.
6. A handful of Synod 2025 news stories can claim this spot, including an overall look at how 188 delegates gathered at Redeemer University in Ancaster, Ont., to pray, discuss, deliberate, and discern together about matters related to the denomination. During the annual synod meeting several important topics were discussed, including virtual churches, medically assisted suicide, the appropriateness of handguns at church assemblies, the CRCNA’s unity as a binational denomination, and the need for church planting and church renewal.
Also included in stories on Synod 2025 were articles about the run-up to the annual gathering, the materials available for the meeting, and Zachary King’s state of the church address, in which he cast light on the future: “In 2027 we will be celebrating the 170-year anniversary of the CRCNA denomination. In 1857, a very small and struggling community of congregations began near Holland, Mich. And as we can see today, God has maintained his covenant love to our denomination through the generations.”
7. Coming in next was a sad but meaningful story on the life and legacy of Rev. Leonard Hofman, a former general secretary of the CRCNA who passed away at the age of 97 in April 2025. In this remembrance, family members described Hofman as a respected churchman with a genial smile and an approachable manner and said he will be missed not only by his family but also by the scores of people who knew and worked with him in church life over the years.
8. Also drawing readers was an article that took a look at Korean pastors currently serving in top roles in what once were mainstream ethnic-Dutch congregations in the denomination. One of the pastors was Victor Ko, who in 1999 became one of the first Korean ministers to serve as the senior pastor of a large, formerly Dutch-immigrant congregation when he began leading Third CRC in Kalamazoo, Mich. Several Korean pastors are featured in this story, and some offer thoughts on what they hope the future will bring to the changing ethnic fabric of the church and on ways in which Korean leaders can help shape the church in the future.
9. The multicultural nature of the church’s future was also a main topic in a story in which Thrive announced a $2 million initiativeto expand its congregational renewal work, aligning with Synod 2023’s call to prioritize renewal in the CRCNA. Over the next five years, this initiative will devote resources to support church renewal amid ongoing societal and ecclesiastical shifts.
In particular, Thrive will provide assistance to the fastest-growing ethnic and multicultural groups in the CRCNA, including Korean, Latino, Southeast Asian/Pacific Islander, and Chinese congregations.
10. Rounding out the top 10 was a profile of Bert Adema, who retired after 32 years of ministry with the Indigenous Christian Fellowship (ICF) in Regina, Sask. Keeping in mind the transformational ways in which the church is being reshaped by so many cultures, the story highlighted how Adema’s decades of service have left a lasting legacy of compassion, creativity, and reconciliation — not only in Regina but also across the CRCNA and its Indigenous ministries.
