Inspire 2017 Registration Opens
Melody Van Arragon, worship director of First Christian Reformed Church of Detroit,
Mich., is hoping leaders involved in all aspects of ministry in their CRC congregations will consider taking part in this summer’s Inspire 2017. Registration for the event is now open.
Being held Aug. 3-5 in downtown Detroit, Inspire 2017 will offer presentations, seminars, break-out sessions, worship, and a chance to take part in a prayer walk along the city’s waterfront and to visit areas undergoing transformation and development.
But, above all, it will give participants a chance to get to know one another and share their ministry experiences with a goal of coming away refreshed and with new ideas for how to do God’s work in their communities, said Van Arragon.
“Inspire will be an opportunity to connect and be encouraged by people who are doing what you are doing, whether you are involved in sound and projection, working in the nursery, visiting people, or doing parking lot duty on Sunday,” she said.
Van Arragon and her husband, Ben, pastor of First CRC, Detroit, are featured in a video that is part of the newly posted Inspire 2017 website that describes this event; provides information on registration, a line-up of speakers, and workshops; and offers the chance to download an app to connect people to the event.
Standing in front of their church, located in a neighborhood in Grosse Pointe Park on the edge of Detroit, the Van Arragons take the opportunity in the video to ask people to think about coming to Detroit. They describe what will go on and how it offers new opportunities.
“I hope people who might be on the fence and are reluctant to take time off to make the trip, will give it a chance,” said Ben Van Arragon. “This is not like synod, where you do business and get the job done. And this is not focused on one community or area of ministry.”
Inspire 2017, he said, “is a gift that the CRC is offering, and our hope is that people receive and will be blessed by it.”
The Van Arragons themselves say they feel blessed to be part of the CRC and to have had the chance over the past few years to serve their more than 150-year-old church.
Like so many congregations today, theirs is in a changing community that is a home to a growing variety of people.
On the one hand, they are in one of the most wealthy suburbs of Detroit, although where they are located is right near parts of Detroit that have been afflicted by blight and crime, said Ben Van Arragon.
“We are at the crossroads of the city and the suburbs,” he said. “We have been experiencing growth [in membership], especially from people in our neighborhood who are within walking distance. We are seeing young couples with growing families and people of different ethnic and socioeconomic statuses.”
First CRC offers a preschool and a program to help people find work. It is also connected to a number of ministries that serve the area. They hold a block party in the summer and open their sanctuary to chamber recitals put on by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
Some members of their church, said the pastor, will likely work as volunteers at Inspire 2017, perhaps helping during the final worship service, which will include communion.
From their vantage point, they have seen Detroit undergo many challenges and start in the past two or three years to become stronger economically.
“I invite people to come to Detroit and to catch glimpses of renewal and new life,” he said.
“We love the idea of the CRC meeting here at the border between the U.S. and Canada,” added Melody Van Arragon. “We see this gathering as emblematic of coming together around a common mission and kingdom renewal.”
