From: Darrell128@aol.com Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 06:12:17 EDT Subject: NR 98035: CRC Synod to Consider Allowing Union Churches with RCA, Others NR #1998-035: Christian Reformed Synod to Consider Allowing Union Churches with Reformed Church in America, Others If the Christian Reformed Church's Interchuch Relations Committee and two small Christian Reformed congregations get their way this summer, the CRC will take a historic step toward repairing the 140-year-old rupture between the two denominations. The Reformed Church in America, America's oldest continuously- established Protestant denomination, dates back to 1620 when the Dutch founded the city of Nieuw Amsterdam as a crown colony, later taken over by the English and renamed New York City. The Christian Reformed Church began in 1857 when four of nine West Michigan churches in the RCA's Classis Holland seceded. Most communities with a sizable Dutch Reformed population have at least one church of both denominations. In some communities, however, once-large Dutch populations are in decline and one or both of the two local churches are in serious difficulty. The RCA has handled such situations for years by allowing union churches with other denominations such as the Presbyterian Church (USA), but the CRC has no provision in its church order for union congregations with any other denomination. NR #1998-035: For Immediate Release: Christian Reformed Synod to Consider Allowing Union Churches with Reformed Church in America, Others by Darrell Todd Maurina, Press Officer United Reformed News Service (May 25, 1998) URNS - If the Christian Reformed Church's Interchuch Relations Committee and two small Christian Reformed congregations get their way this summer, the CRC will take a historic step toward repairing the 140-year-old rupture between the two denominations. The Reformed Church in America, America's oldest continuously-established Protestant denomination, dates back to 1620 when the Dutch founded the city of Nieuw Amsterdam as a crown colony, later taken over by the English and renamed New York City. The Christian Reformed Church began in 1857 when four of nine West Michigan churches in the RCA's Classis Holland seceded. Classis Holland had itself been founded only a decade earlier under the leadership of Rev. Albertus Van Raalte by Dutch immigrants to what was then largely uninhabited woods and marshes along the Lake Michigan shoreline. Thirteen years before immigrating to the United States, Van Raalte had helped lead a secession from the state church in the Netherlands, but several years after fleeing state church persecution in the Netherlands, he decided the RCA wasn't as corrupt as its mother church in the Netherlands and joined its ranks. Not all of Van Raalte's followers agreed. Citing such things as the RCA's use of hymns rather than exclusively using psalms, the RCA's practice of admitting all professing Christians except Roman Catholics to General Synod communion services, and the RCA's belief that the split in the Dutch state church had been unnecessary, a number of the Classis Holland seceders themselves seceded from Classis Holland to form a body which eventually became known as the Christian Reformed Church. After his death, Van Raalte's own congregation, First Reformed Church of Holland, split during a second controversy over the RCA's admission of members of the Masonic Lodge and most of its members joined the CRC. Other members and churches followed, and by the late 1800's the CRC became a serious competitor for the loyalty of Dutch immigrants from the Netherlands. Today the RCA counts 311,000 members and the CRC counts 279,000. The original reasons for separation are less important today: exclusive psalmody and relations with the Dutch mother denominations are no longer issues, and the Dutch mother churches of the CRC and RCA are in the process of merging. However, other issues such as the Christian Reformed system of private Christian schooling continue to function as de facto separating issues. Most communities with a sizable Dutch Reformed population have at least one church of both denominations. In some communities, however, once-large Dutch populations are in decline and one or both of the two local churches are in serious difficulty. The RCA has handled such situations for years by allowing union churches with other denominations such as the Presbyterian Church (USA), but the CRC has no provision in its church order for union congregations with any other denomination. In its report to Synod 1998, the CRC's Interchurch Relations Committee proposes new procedures that will allow two ways of handling such situations. One involves two separate churches sharing a single pastor from one of the two denominations; the other allows a church to be a member of two denominations simultaneously. The proposed CRC policies are largely based on the existing RCA policies, with one key difference: the CRC would require shared-pastor and union church arrangements to be with denominations that have established formal eccesiastical fellowship with the CRC. The RCA has no such rule, and has union churches with United Methodists, the United Church of Christ, Lutherans, Baptists, and Quakers. While the RCA has a somewhat undefined "full communion" relationship with the United Church of Christ, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and Presbyterian Church (USA), there is no connection with the other bodies. In the past, informal arrangements allowing ministers of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and Presbyterian Church in America to pastor Christian Reformed congregations have led to accusations of "church stealing" when the congregations later seceded from the CRC. While the procedures could apply to any church that wants to use them and follows the proper procedures to do so, the rules were drafted with two congregations in mind: Luctor CRC in Prairie View, Kansas, and Maple Avenue CRC in Holland, Michigan. Luctor CRC is sharing a pastor with the local RCA congregation in Prairie View and Maple Avenue CRC is working with the much larger Christ Memorial RCA on a joint outreach project, Maple Avenue Ministries, which meets in the facilities of Maple Avenue CRC. "An aging Christian Reformed congregation, Maple Avenue CRC, found itself as many congregations do, in a different community," said Maple Avenue Ministries copastor Rev. David Sieplinga, himself a former Christian Reformed pastor whose last CRC congregation was the inner-city Immanuel CRC in Kalamazoo. "By the end of the 1980's it was clear that congregation was going to die, but it decided to die in a way that would bear fruit," said Sieplinga. "They made a covenant with Christ Memorial Church to bring forth a new church." Sieplinga said that pending synodical approval, the two churches will maintain separate governing structures but hold a union service on May 31 and after that combine most but not all of their activities. "The plan is to begin with a traditional Christian Reformed order of worship for the first half hour, and then move into a more charismatic, pentecostal, hispanic, African- American worship for an hour longer," said Sieplinga. "The older church will continue some of the traditional programs, discontinuing the evening service, and moving to a skeleton consistory of one elder and one deacon." The chairman of the Christian Reformed Interchurch Relations Committee said he didn't think the plans in Holland and Kansas would lead to a denominational merger anytime in the near future. "The initiative is of course with the local congregation," said Rev. Ed Van Baak. "Since a thing like that is acceptable to the local church we thought it would be well to create a template that would permit this type of thing. We don't expect there will be many instances of it; we think the issue is the survival of the congregation in the instances we have mentioned." Will the Kansas and Holland plans become more common? "We do have other joint ministries with the RCA, such as the campus ministry in Grand Rapids, but the Interchurch Relations Committee doesn't deal with things on the local level," said Van Baak. "This matter had come to us via one of the classes making an inquiry, and what we came up with was in response to their inquiry in Rocky Mountain." Regardless of what the Christian Reformed synod may do about establishing a procedure to handle similar future cases, the Kansas shared-pastor arrangement is already in place and the Holland plan is well along the way to completion. "I think we would probably move ahead after Synod 1998, but we really haven't thought about what would happen if the Christian Reformed synod didn't approve it." Cross-References to Related Articles: #1995-044: Reformed Church in America Overtured to Consider Merger with Christian Reformed Church by Year 2000 #1995-063: Reformed Church in America General Synod Replaces Proposal for Merger with Request for Closer RCA-CRC Cooperation #1996-033: Reformed Church in America, Christian Reformed Top Executives Explore Closer Staff Cooperation Contact List: Rev. E. Wayne Antworth, Director, RCA Stewardship & Communication Services 475 Riverside Drive, New York, NY 10115 O: (212) 870-2954 * FAX: (212) 870-2499 Rev. Paul Copeland, Pastor, Luctor Christian Reformed Church Rev. Paul Copeland, Pastor, Prairie View Reformed Church RR 1, PO Box 103, Prairie View, KS 67664 O: (785) 973-2793 Rev. Peter W. De Haan, Pastor, Maple Avenue Christian Reformed Church 427 Maple Avenue, Holland, MI 49423 O: (616) 392-1711 * H: (616) 394-5935 * E-Mail: dehaanm@macatawa.org Rev. David Sieplinga, Pastor, Maple Avenue Ministries 427 Maple Avenue, Holland, MI 49423 O: (616) 392-7475 * H: (616) 355-2665 Rev. Edward Van Baak, Chairman, CRC Interchurch Relations Committee 1518 Cambridge SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49506-3946 H: (616) 243-0796 ---------------------------------------------------------- file: /pub/resources/text/reformed/archive98: nr98-035.txt .