Serving and Learning in Classis

After 23 years of serving Classis Atlantic Northeast as treasurer, Glen Bloem is retiring, handing over the ledgers and accounts to someone new. A highlight throughout his years of service, he said, has been seeing God work in and through church plants in the classis.

“I came from a traditional Christian Reformed Church background and family,” said Bloem. When he was young and his family traveled from their Brookings, S.Dak., home, noted Bloem, they would take along the CRC Yearbook (directory of CRC churches and ministries) and find the nearest CRC for Sunday-morning worship. At the time, most CR church services were very similar in style and format. “I’d look around and think, ‘Yup, this is a CRC,’” said Bloem with a laugh.

Bloem and his wife, Helena, became members of Fairlawn CRC in Whitinsville, Mass., when it began in 1958, just three months after they were married. Together, they served a time as youth leaders, and eventually Bloem became a deacon. He attended his first classis meeting in 1979. He served as an elder several times and attended synod (the annual leadership meeting of the CRC) in 1994.

Glen and Helena Bloem both hoped to serve God in some form of ministry after they retired from their career of running a business. When their sons took over the family stationery business in 1996, one of those opportunities came when the stated clerk of Classis Atlantic Northeast approached Glen and asked him to consider taking on the role of classis treasurer. He stepped into the role and found it to be a good fit.

Part of his role included attending meetings of the Classis Ministry Team, which focuses on developing and supporting church plants. Finance is important in starting a new ministry, and Bloem’s input helped in determining how classis funds could support the efforts of church planters and emerging congregations.

As part of this committee, Bloem said, he came to appreciate the young churches and the diversity they bring to the denomination. He helped in the search for new sites for potential plants, interviewed possible planters to lead them, and served as treasurer for six of the new church plants over the years, keeping the books for two or three years to get them started before handing off the books to a member of the new church.

Because of his involvement with the emerging congregations, Bloem and his wife often traveled throughout the classis to visit the various church plants. “That was no hardship,” he joked. “New England in the fall is beautiful!”

Helena Bloem shares Glen’s enthusiasm for walking alongside new churches, he said. “My wife has been a great partner, very supportive. She has enjoyed visiting and encouraging the church planters and their families as much as I have.”

On these visits, he said, the Bloems saw a new side of the CRC. He reflected, “I became very aware of how God works in nontraditional, unconventional ways.” For example, many of the New England church planters today are bivocational, supporting their ministry work through another career at the same time. Seeing how hard they work in ministry, Bloem said, he was happy to be able to support them with administrative help.

In a number of the church plants, many of the members did not come from a church background, so there was no “tradition” to lean back on or carry forward. “It was so neat to see the vibrant worship and the joy of worshiping and serving together as the churches matured,” shared Bloem. “That’s what we’ve appreciated most, learned most, and grown most [from observing]. God is working here — it’s exciting!”

Of the nine or 10 church plants Bloem helped to get started, three closed their doors without becoming fully “organized” churches. That shocked Bloem at first, he said, but he has learned that it’s a reality of church planting that some won’t make it. Even in cases like those, said Bloem, God was still at work; it’s not a complete loss because some people have come to know Christ through the efforts and ministry of the church planter.

Another concern for Bloem has been that membership numbers for the classis as a whole have gone down over the past 23 years. As treasurer, working with numbers and ministry shares, Bloem said, he was probably more aware of the decrease than most other CRC members. Despite the drop in numbers, though, Bloem noted that by God’s providence the churches together met their classical ministry share needs each year.

Another joy of classis work, said Bloem, has been the fellowship within classis and knowing that you are part of something meaningful. Classis Atlantic Northeast usually meets for an evening and a day at a retreat center in Massachusetts. Time outside of the “business” of the meeting allows delegates to get to know each other; to have time in small groups to share ministry stories, highlights, and concerns; and then to pray together.

Now 83 years old, Bloem says he can see God’s faithfulness through the years of his life. He has enjoyed his time as classis treasurer, and he encourages others to get involved in classis work. “Not all of us are called to be pastors,” he said, “but God does allow all of us to use the gifts he has given us to serve him.”

Retired minister Bill Vis will take on the role of treasurer for Classis Atlantic Northeast going forward. Bloem plans to stay on until the end of 2019 to help with the transition and with completing the year-end report in January.