Synod 2026: Frequently Asked Questions

Synod 2025 instructed the CRC’s agencies and institutions to develop a  comprehensive ten-year plan for church planting. Similarly, Synod 2023 had requested a comprehensive plan to address church renewal and denominational membership decline.

The church planting plan was developed collaboratively between June 2025 and April 2026, and presented to the delegates of Synod 2026 by Resonate Global Mission's director of church planting, Tim Sheridan. This plan was adopted with unanimous support from the delegates. Sheridan said that what he presented shouldn’t be seen as a “church-growth strategy. That won't last.” Rather it must be rooted in deep conviction of the gospel and New Testament stories that embody what it means to make disciples of all nations and to “bear witness to this good news through the entirety of our lives.”

Synod 2026 also received a report about the five-year church renewal initiative. In presenting the plan, called Thriving Congregations, Thrive’s renewal consultant Elaine May said it strived to “help local congregations find their identity as a people on mission”. May emphasized that the Thriving Congregations pathway is not one-size-fits-all, but encourages congregations to be faithful wherever they are in a church's lifecycle. “Every congregation is unique” May said, and “every church has a purpose and a role to play in furthering the gospel and furthering the mission of Christ.”

This vision needs to be owned at the local level; Resonate has been tasked to steward this on behalf of the CRCNA. Church planting requires multiple partners to be sustainable – classes, local supporting churches, denominational agencies, and educational institutions. Getting to a place of denomination-wide clarity and shared ownership is vital, and that is why one of the main objectives aims for the following to be true in 12 months:

“The CRCNA will have designed and aligned an ideal church-plant journey, with clear ownership across denominational agencies, classes, and congregations for each stage from disciple to leader to church planter to launch, along with a funding plan to support implementation.”

Resonate’s plan starts with a plea for the church to begin by laying a foundation of prayer and fasting. From that foundation there are five other elements to prioritize: discipleship multiplication, leadership development, church-planting pathways, legacy (or closing church) pathways, and funding and capacity development.

For this strategic plan to be sustainable and have impact, every congregation in the CRCNA will need to participate in some way. This plan invites all of us into a culture shift of multiplication that will include the following shared efforts:

• a commitment to prayer and fasting as a denomination for God to raise up leaders and church planters in the CRCNA
• a renewed commitment to discipleship multiplication
• as disciples are made, an intentional commitment to develop leaders
• participation (as able) in classis church-planter pathways as they are developed, which may include supporting church plants emerging in the classis
• participation in the ministry-share covenant commitment as a congregation within the CRCNA

Every church is invited to start their Thriving Congregations journey today by inquiring at crcna.org/ThrivingCongregations.

Most churches begin with Thriving Essentials. Hosted in your own church and led by a qualified Thrive facilitator, Thriving Essentials helps church ministry leaders - both volunteer and staff - get on the same page about four core concepts of a healthy ministry: Mission, Discipleship, Discernment, and Leadership. Alignment and clarity on these key foundations can bring renewed energy to a church’s ministry.

From there, churches can continue the learning journey with Elder Essentials — a six-session course that looks at the key tasks of an elder, including overseeing worship, hospitality, faith formation, pastoral care, and gospel witness — and/or Deacon Essentials, also six sessions, which helps deacons see and steward the abundance of gifts in their church and community.

Churches can also enter into year-long processes of exploration and discernment. Thriving in Mission is a guided process to discover how God has uniquely gifted your congregation, discern where the Spirit is already at work, and find ways to join God's mission in your local context. Or churches can join one of the Thriving Practices cohorts, which bring a small group of churches together around a specific aspect of their ministry to learn from and encourage each other.

To learn more about these opportunities and to submit an inquiry for your congregation, visit: crcna.org/ThrivingCongregations.

Both plans emphasize that this is a denominational effort, not one that involves only “healthy” churches.

When it comes to church renewal, Thrive seeks to work with every congregation to engage God’s mission wherever they are currently as a congregation. Thriving Congregations is designed to be flexible to the local needs and context of each church, as all churches are uniquely called and equipped in God’s missional story. Thrive also has pathways designed specifically for congregations who are struggling and discerning whether they can continue. So no matter what stage of ministry your church is in, Thrive is eager to support you.

With regard to church planting, Resonate recognizes that not every church or classis is in a place right now to engage fully, which is why the plan includes an intentionally slow rollout. This plan invites every church and classis to prayerfully reflect on their current season of ministry and to pursue local vitality. Resonate’s plan gives opportunity for each classis to participate in some way – through prayer and fasting, making disciples, identifying leaders, supporting classis efforts in church planting, supporting churches engaging in the legacy pathway, and committing (as able) to financially support this plan. 

Discipleship is foundational to both plans. As disciples are made and multiplied, future leaders begin to emerge – particularly among people who demonstrate a pattern of discipleship multiplication. Among these future leaders will emerge future church planters and leaders who can support existing congregations.

Every congregation has leaders and potential leaders who God may use to bring about the flourishing of new and existing congregations. Resonate has already identified approximately 50 potential church planters across North America in some stage of their discernment journey. While identifying another 100 over the next five years will stretch us as a denomination, this goal is within reason if each church and classis will make intentional efforts in discipleship multiplication and leadership development.

Each year, synod’s agenda includes information about the CRCNA’s finances, including balance sheets and income statements for the various agencies and institutions as well as budgets for the coming ministry year. Overture 30 from Classis Georgetown requested more detailed information about denominational spending in order to assist councils with their own decisions about ministry-share pledges.

Primarily delegates asked for transparency in how ministry share funds are being spent, including reports on salary ranges and the number of full-time-equivalent employees by agency and the head count. Synod noted that having the information will help church councils to make decisions about their ministry-share pledges. It asked the Office of General Secretary to provide each classis financial statements along with explanatory materials by November, with the expectation that these will be shared with local church councils. Currently, consolidated financial reports for the denomination's various ministries are included each year in the agenda for synod.

Audited financial statements are available for all CRCNA agencies and ministries at crcna.org/welcome/governance/financial-statements. These statements include the majority of the information requested by Synod 2026, excepting details about staff and their salaries. The Office of General Secretary has committed to simplifying the information in these reports so that they are more easily accessible.

Synod reviewed the denomination’s support for mission causes and concluded that our current allocation of ministry share revenue is appropriate. Although ministry shares remain an important source of funding for our mission agencies, an increasingly significant proportion of funding for Resonate and ReFrame comes from direct giving, and this was not factored into the calculations of Overture 30. While we prioritize mission as a denomination, synod concluded that denominational leaders also need the flexibility to direct funds in ways that provide the necessary administrative and ecclesiastical support to the work God has called us to do together. So no changes were mandated to our current methods of allocating our ministry-share revenue.

Synod 2026 did not decide to go to a “two tier” system of ministry-share giving, but instead recommended that organized congregations give 6 to 12 percent of their annual operating budget as their ministry-share pledge, recognizing the different capacities of individual congregations. Churches that give more than 12 percent of their budget to denominational ministries are, of course, welcome to continue doing so. This range is intended to give churches not currently contributing to ministry shares a benchmark that would help them frame a reasonable starting place for their ministry-share commitment.

In 2022, Classis Hackensack overtured synod to “appoint a task force to develop Church Order procedures to discipline officebearers, including disaffiliation of a council or classis initiated by a major assembly.” The overture was deferred until Synod 2024, which approved a task force to address the question.

The primary question facing the Task Force to Develop Church Order Procedures to Discipline Officebearers had to do with the relation of the assemblies—how do broader assemblies (like synod and classis) address issues that are not resolved on a local level?

Although synod received some concerns about the potential for a classis to abuse this prerogative, the denominational offices are not aware of any situations in the past five years in which a classis initiated the removal of officebearers in a local congregation. Thus this task force report primarily addresses an issue of principle rather than current practice. 

Historically classes have stepped in to discipline officebearers in local churches in instances of schismatic behavior and abuse of leadership when local congregations refused to resolve them. However, the authority of classes in such cases was largely implicit rather than being spelled out in the Church Order or in synodical regulations. The task force saw its work not as proposing new ideas about discipline but clarifying processes that already exist.

Synod voted to approve the task force’s report. Because the report proposed changes to the Church Order itself, those changes will be proposed to next year’s synod for ratification.

The synodical advisory committee discussed potential legal concerns that might arise when an officebearer who is removed might also be serving as a board member of that church’s legal nonprofit corporation. Recognizing there is no “one-size-fits-all” answer to such a situation, the advisory committee noted that “because legal contexts vary across jurisdictions, each church and classis must assess” how any of these changes might be affected by local laws. This should include reviewing the church’s own bylaws on how board members are appointed.

The Council of Delegates, at its February 2025 meeting, approved the creation of a task force to consider ways to reduce governance costs, fund synod, and use time wisely. The  task force reported to the COD in September 2025 and provided several recommendations to synod, including the appointment of a synodical task force to review the current classis structure within the denomination and to make recommendations about potential classis realignment.

Though having fewer classes might result in some financial benefit to the denomination, a more significant need would be the long-term sustainability of increasingly smaller classes. The CRCNA currently has 49 classes, many of which have fewer than 15 congregations. Recent reductions in the number of churches through closure and disaffiliation of congregations has additionally made it difficult for some classes to function well. Synod noted that the primary goal of any restructuring should be to ensure a healthy classis, not to reduce expenses. Healthy classes strengthen the ministry of local congregations by sharing the work of leadership development, governance, and local and global mission such as church planting.

Synod has directed a task force to review the current classis structure and to report to Synod 2028, requesting that individuals from each of the six classical regions be represented on the task force. This group is expected to carefully consider what kind of restructuring might be needed and how to accomplish it, in close communication with leaders from the various classes. According to Overture 31 (and Communication 2 to Synod 2025), some classes have already begun conversations with neighboring classes about possible consolidation.

Our World Belongs to God is a contemporary testimony of the CRC that is currently referenced in the Covenant for Officebearers (a form that each officebearer must acknowledge when being ordained), along with the historic creeds and confessions to which the CRC holds. Although the Covenant for Officebearers identifies a different role for Our World Belongs to God than for the ecumenical creeds and Reformed confessions, synod observed that the reference to a contemporary testimony in the Covenant for Officebearers may cause confusion about which documents are binding upon CRC officebearers.

Because the change represents a substantial alteration in the Covenant for Officebearers, the final decision about removing the reference to Our World Belongs to God will be made by Synod 2027.

No. A number of delegates, including those who spoke in favor of removing Our World Belongs to God from the Covenant for Officebearers, expressed their deep appreciation for this contemporary testimony and intention to continue using it for liturgical purposes. The change is only intended to clarify the status of this contemporary testimony relative to the other creeds and confessions whose doctrines all CRCNA officebearers promise to affirm.

In response to a request from one of the classes, synod adopted changes to Church Order Article 52 to provide more specific direction about the way in which consistories should regulate the worship services, using wording from the Reformed confessions to express our shared expectations about worship. In addition, synod decided to insert a Supplement to Church Order Article 52-b, outlining the “principles and elements of worship” to which that article refers. These principles are drawn from previously adopted synodical reports on Reformed worship, and they highlight our understanding of worship as a dialogue between God and his people. 

Although these changes largely reflect an existing theology of worship in the CRCNA, they are being submitted to Synod 2027 for final approval because they comprise a significant alteration of Church Order Article 52.

Synod 2024 requested a theological reflection on the meaning of membership, particularly asking how the creeds and confessions apply to confessing members who are not officebearers. The report emphasized that membership in the church begins with God’s call on his people, as expressed in baptism, and leads towards an individual’s profession of faith in Christ and obedient participation in the Lord’s Supper. The local consistory has the responsibility of discerning how to invite believers to membership and disciple them faithfully. 

Synod encouraged churches to utilize membership materials that foster a deep commitment to the Reformed confessions. The report also noted the value of our liturgical forms in fostering a vocabulary around membership that is consistent across our churches. While acknowledging the uniqueness of various local contexts and the cultural diversity that shapes an understanding of membership in each congregation, the report ended with an invitation to deeper unity of witness and shared fellowship in Christ.

The CRCNA was a key member in the effort that led to the joining of the Reformed Ecumenical Council and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches in 2010 at an assembly that took place on the campus of Calvin University to form the WCRC. In recent years the CRC has recognized the challenges of being part of a large ecumenical organization whose theological positions have sometimes aligned unevenly with ours.

Synod 2025 had asked our Ecumenical and Interchurch Relations Committee (EIRC) to review our relationship with the WCRC. The EIRC report to synod this year recognized the tensions between the WCRC’s positions and our own on certain social and theological issues. Yet the EIRC also noted the presence of many denominations in the WCRC whose partnership we value. The EIRC recommended that we continue the relationship with the WCRC due to those valued partnerships and to articulate our biblical and theological understandings in this forum. Instead, synod decided that the theological gap between the WCRC and our denomination was significant enough to warrant withdrawing from the WCRC.

This does not mean that the CRC does not value its ecumenical relationships. Our denomination continues to be connected to other denominations and several other ecumenical networks. The EIRC can engage with denominations who retain their membership in the WCRC. A full list of the CRC’s ecumenical partners can be found on the EIRC website.

The EIRC had also been asked by synod to consider the status of our relationship with the Nederlandse Gereformeerde Kerken (NGK), a Dutch denomination formed in 2023 by the merger of two denominations that had separated from each other in 1967. The CRC had a church in communion relationship with one of the denominations but no prior ecumenical ties with the other. The two Dutch denominations have stated that they remain committed to the Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confession, and the Canons of Dort but have different understandings about the Bible’s teaching on homosexuality. The new NGK continues to consider this matter while also accepting decisions made by congregations in the prior denominations. Synod affirmed the EIRC’s request to continue in partnership with the NGK as a church in cooperation. This status allows the CRC to walk alongside the NGK in hopes of a deepening relationship based on a shared understanding of Scripture. See the EIRC’s ecumenical relationships webpage for descriptions about these relationships.

Synod also received word that the Alliance of Reformed Churches had accepted the CRCNA’s invitation extended last year to become a church in communion with the CRCNA.

Synod received overtures regarding the alignment of Calvin University faculty and board members with the confessions of the CRCNA. In discussions with Calvin University leadership, synod recognized that all faculty members must conform their teaching, conduct, and scholarship to the creeds and confessions of the CRCNA. With regard to concerns about the university’s position on sexuality, synod recognized that Calvin has been explicit with all faculty about its view on marriage and sexuality, and that it is committed to the creeds and confessions of the CRCNA, including the interpretation of “unchastity” in Lord’s Day 41. The university has further continued progress toward full confessional alignment for its board and is committed to disclosing to future synods any board nominees who take exception to the confessions before such trustees are approved by synod. Synod considered these actions a sufficient response to the concerns raised in the overtures.

The Dignity Team was formed in 2022 by the Council of Delegates and was endorsed by Synod 2022 as an independent body to provide support to individuals who experienced abuses of power within the CRCNA and to uphold the denomination’s core value of respecting the dignity of each person, as equally created and called by God to contribute to the life of the church. It was one of several actions that Synod 2022 took in response to the Abuse of Power Ad Hoc Committee Report. The Dignity Team was created as a means by which to support individuals who have experienced “less tangible and less clearly defined abuses of power that … fall between or outside the scope of [other] systems within the CRCNA.” Their mandate was to “offer direction [to individuals who] feel they have been victimized by abuse of power in the CRCNA.”

The COD’s 2026 review of the team recognized that the team’s work fulfilled its mandate and recommended that the team continue its work. Synod voted to dismiss the Dignity Team on the grounds that “its work duplicated the function of other groups within the denominational structures.”

With the conclusion of the Dignity Team, the CRCNA no longer has an independent body whose mandate is to provide this type of support. Thrive, a denominational agency, has staff in place to provide confidential advice to abuse survivors and to support councils and classes as they respond to allegations of abuse. Individuals with questions or concerns about abuse they have experienced in a CRC congregation may reach out to Thrive and, where available, to the safe church team coordinators in their classis.