Episode 103: Conversation with Jesse Walhof (Part 1)

https://youtu.be/WgQkGZX-xQ8

About Jesse

Jesse is a diamond in the rough.  His journey isn’t what you would call straight and narrow.  He grew up in Le Mars, IA and spent most of his adolescence choosing alcohol, drugs and fights.  Jesse turned his life around in college and became an unstoppable force for the Kingdom of Heaven.  He has worked with at-risk youth and inner city ministries around the country.  Soon he felt the call to be a pastor and enrolled in Sioux Falls Seminary.  Jesse started out as an outreach pastor is Sioux Falls and joined the Living Water staff in the fall of 2016.  Jesse loves having honest raw conversations with people, enjoys going to concerts, playing drums, hates onions and wears some sweet chains.  You should ask him about them if you get the chance.

Summary of Episode

Jesse Wahlhof is a pastor at Living Water Community Church and has been in ministry since 2013. He grew up in the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) and has seen the denomination go through many changes, especially in the last few years. He believes the CRC's identity is found in its three forms of unity and the majority of the CRC is conservative and confessional. He believes that the CRC should always be reforming, but not in a way that goes against the creeds and confessions of scripture.

The CRC has failed to take a firm stance on many issues since the 1950s. This has lead to a culture of relative acceptance and an inability to take a stance when it came to the question of women in office in the 1990s. This has caused a slippery slope, leading to the current situation where 30% of the denomination stands against an orthodox position of human sexuality. Clarity and belonging are not mutually exclusive. Clarity can actually help people feel like they belong and have the freedom to speak.

Clarity and belonging are not mutually exclusive. Clarity can actually help people feel like they belong and have the freedom to speak.

The CRC has had difficulty taking a stance on issues due to a faulty understanding of Kuyperianism, which is the desire to engage in the culture while also being respectable. This has caused a form of relativism to spread within the denomination. The decisions of Synod 2022 pushed back against that relativism by providing clarity about what we believe and how we should live. It is important to be bold and truthful about what is right and wrong, and to not be swayed by the culture. The gospel should be engaging culture, not the other way around.