CRC Congregation Takes a Journey with Our Journey
Ken Krause, pastor of Fellowship Christian Reformed Church in Big Rapids, Mich., used the CRC’s new ministry plan, Our Journey 2020, to help church members assess where they are and where their church is going in the coming years.
Starting in January, Krause led a small group of men and women through the ministry plan during weekly, Sunday night discussions. He used the Our Journey 2020 stories, videos, and other materials to describe how the denomination is responding — and how individual congregations can respond — to the challenges posed by the fast-paced changes in today’s churches and society at large.
“I’m going on a sabbatical this summer, and leading up to that I thought it would be a good time for us as a church to think about our mission and the future -- where God would have us go,” said Krause.
Krause will be taking three months to visit the Holy Land, to study, and to spend time with his family. He also will be assessing the future of his work in ministry, and he thought it might be a good idea for the church to do the same during his absence. Our Journey 2020 provided the perfect catalyst.
Krause said he especially likes how Our Journey emphasizes what are called “desired futures,” the goals a church can set for itself in different areas. These include:
- Church and Community: Churches Flowing into Their Communities
- Discipleship: Churches Nurturing Disciples
- Leadership: Churches Cultivating Leaders
- Identity: Churches Telling Our Story
- Collaboration: Churches Working in Partnership
The church in Big Rapids looked at each of these desired futures. They watched the short videos and discussed Our Journey materials suggesting how their church could get a better sense of the needs in their community, make disciples, build leaders, share their story, and create partnership with others.
“Going through this really helped us to connect with one another,” said Krause.
As they met, the Sunday night small group realized that, for one thing, they weren’t working very closely with other CRC congregations in the area.
But they also took the time to count up all the ways in which they were connected to their local community. Fellowship is involved in a local soup kitchen, offers a Bible study, supports a chaplain at Ferris State University in town, and is connected to a local pregnancy resource center.
“It was encouraging to all of us as we got together and brainstormed all of the different ways our church and church members are ministering in our community. . . . We also had a fruitful conversation about roadblocks or hindrances to working together, such as church competition, egos, geographical distances, and so on.”
Looking ahead, church members considered how having a seminary intern work at the church could help the congregation grow spiritually and in mission. They also discussed the idea of contacting other CRCs in the area and planning a joint Vacation Bible School.
“It was good to get people talking and looking forward and thinking about how our small congregation is being blessed and how we can be a blessing to others,” said Krause.
The Our Journey ministry plan came from an initiative that began more than four years ago when the CRC’s Board of Trustees established the Strategic Planning and Adaptive Change Taskforce (SPACT) to meet with church leaders and members across the United States and Canada to learn about the challenges their churches are facing.
The task force also sought to understand how the denomination can help churches develop their ministries in order to respond to the issues and needs they expressed.
The SPACT process revealed that churches across the U.S. and Canada are struggling with many of the same challenges. The ministry plan addresses those, said Steven Timmermans, executive director of the CRC.
Given their experience at Fellowship, Krause said, he encourages other CRC congregations to use Our Journey as a way to sort through its strength and chart a path for the future.
“This process was certainly helpful for us, and I think it would benefit other churches, not just CRC churches, who want to take a look at theselves, ” he said.
