Episode 140: The Power of Discipline: Transforming Individuals and Denominations (Part 1)

"I think that's probably one of the reasons why we're in the position that we're in [as a denomination], is because we haven't been doing this work…We're a denomination, we're a bunch of churches who have covenanted together to work together. Yet, for a long time, we've been functioning as a congregational denomination where everybody's doing their own thing. We need to get away from that and we need to get back to this covenantal understanding of what it means to be part of this denomination." -Jason Ruis

Summary of This Episode

This week on the Messy Reformation Jason and Willy sit down to talk about Synod 2023’s response to overtures 56 and 59. If you don’t know what that refers to, it’s the instruction that “…all classes…guide into compliance the officebearers of their constituent churches who publicly reject the biblical guidelines affirmed by Synod 2022 regarding same-sex relationships.” It also includes the reminder to classical church visitors “…of their authority and responsibility to, in a spiritual of love and grace, guide officebearers into alignment with the biblical guidelines, including but not limited to all areas of human sexuality” (Acts of Synod 2023, p. 1029-30). As the fall Classis meetings cycle gets underway, how might different classes deal with this? 

Willy shares how in Classis Lake Superior, Rev. Steve Zwart (reporter for Advisory Committee 7) will be chairing the meeting and the inclusion of a Synod report will mean this gets shared and hopefully a conversation can happen. Especially given different tensions across the U.S.-Canadian border, the sole binational classis would likely do well to discuss this.  

Jason sees that as a good starting point, but recognizes there may be (and likely are) classes that fear confrontation and conflict altogether. There’s the potential in those classes that the Classical Interim Committee (or similar functioning committee or team) may sweep over synod’s instruction. If that’s the case in your classis, it would be appropriate to offer a classical overture at a winter or spring meeting. While that may feel unusually and/or unnecessarily forward, Willy reminds us such a move is really intended to increase trust, compliance, and integrity. This is the mindset of the CRC right now, and if we will share it, we’re able to better care for the purity of the church. Jason acknowledges if the conversations haven’t already begun from the grassroots level, then classical instruction needs to affect the congregations and councils. 

Jason then brings up the second part of Synod’s response regarding the work of classical church visitors. The reason they are named for doing some of the work is what we find in Church Order Article 42b, “…[The church visitors’] task shall be to ascertain whether the officebearers of the church faithfully perform their duties, adhere to sound doctrine, observe the provisions of the Church Order, and promote the building up of the body of Christ and the extension of God’s kingdom…” He shares how the present reality in the CRC is that the work of church visitors relative to Church Order’s provisions is relatively weak; in fact, some classes have completely gotten rid of church visitors. He wonders if perhaps this is part of why we are in this position in the first place. 

For the rest of the episode, the guys tend to accountability and reflecting on the verse Jason paraphrases in the closing of every episode: “Keep a close watch on yourself [your life] and on the teaching [your doctrine]. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.” While Jason noted earlier there’s the opportunity for synod to speak to classis and now classis to speak to its churches, he recognizes here that spiritually healthy churches can help form spiritually healthy classes and denominations—if we’re living in line with true doctrine. Willy shares how the two pieces, life and doctrine, affect each other. We must keep a close watch on both, because unsound living will impact even the most doctrinally sound person, and so too, if your doctrine is loose, it will impact however sound one thinks their life may be.

Jason points out keeping watch on our doctrine is where the CRC needs to focus right now. Where we’re wrong, we must repent. Willy gives a nod to Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his concept that the Christian life is a life that is lived from the cross, which prompts Jason to share another Bonhoeffer quote, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him to come and die.” That may be in the form of literal death, but it also applies to the mortification of the sinful flesh, the dying away of the old self.