Episode 156: Reformation Training - God Works Through His Word - Seth Atsma (Part 1)
“In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle…There exists in such a case a certain institution or law…a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, ‘I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.’ To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: ‘If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.’” -GK Chesterton
Summary of this Episode
This week on the podcast, Jason and Willy are joined by Rev. Seth Atsma. Seth is ordained as a minister in the CRC, but currently serves on-loan to Chandler Reformed Church in Chandler, MN. He has a unique background coming out of a not very Dutch area of rural northwest Oregon. He grew up surrounded by Catholics and Lutherans, while his family drove about 45 minutes to the nearest Reformed church, which was a CRC. He loved the learning and intellectual aspects of the faith, and had encouragement to pursue ministry from a young age, but did not initially plan to do that.
Seth shares about his time serving in the Navy as a significant part of his shaping and call. While being away from his wife and her not near to family, they relied more on their church family, seeing the value of that. This also gave him a greater appreciation for pastors, but also some trepidation of what this call involves when dealing with the complexity with people. He shares the turning point was a God-moment on the way home from a pastor’s retirement celebration when he felt a tap on a shoulder and being told it was time for him to go into ministry; God had made him ready. He was willing, but it became clearer when a World War II veteran in his church invited him to help with encouraging the congregation to write encouragement cards to hospitalized veterans. He saw the preparation God had been doing in him and how he could connect, not just with those serving, but their families as well.
Jason and Willy both pick up on how often what God does in the lives of his people is offer reminders and prod the ordinary parts of our lives. Sharing from 2 Peter 1, Jason highlights that reminders help us to recall what God has said and done, but they also serve to stir us up. He also shares insight into how world-class athletes are often set apart because of their willingness to do the boring and mundane over and over as discipline. Willy reminds us it’s in such ordinary means of grace that we are called to that God not only works but has promised he will work through them; they are where his power will be. Seth highlights how that’s an important part of our weekly worship habits. It is at church that we’re learning what we need and need to put into practice on a daily basis.
From there, the conversation turns briefly to Seth’s academic process to ordination. Being in Oregon and working, he planned to stay out there and do seminary. He spent a year at Goerge Fox Seminary and getting into the EPMC program before doing a year of distance-learning with CTS and then moving to Grand Rapids to finish in-residence for two years. His time at George Fox continued to expand his ecumenical understanding and how folks outside of the Reformed tradition (Anabaptists in particular) still respectably ground their views in Scripture.
Seth mentions encountering the Grand Rapids bubble when he moved to Michigan, which Jason prods him to expand on. He means the West Michigan prevalence of Reformed Churches. To have grown up in a place where a like-minded church was distant and classes were geographically large, to find towns and cities where you could have multiple CRCs and a Christian school at one intersection, multiple classes in a single town, and the ability to insulate from other Christian traditions was new and foreign to him.
As they talk about differences and divisions and how they can be useful to further God’s kingdom, Jason highlights the importance of really knowing who we are and living into that. For the CRC, we have a structure described in our Church Order and that’s been historically practiced but in classes and at the denominational level, we’ve gotten away from some of that. Part of the future of the CRC is getting back to our covenantal roots and doing what we’re supposed to be doing. As they’re wrapping up, he offers a paraphrased quote from G.K. Chesterton’s “The Thing.” The longer quote is, “In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle…There exists in such a case a certain institution or law…a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, ‘I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.’ To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: ‘If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.’” The road forward is not to destroy and throw away the old things we don’t do, and which we have no idea what it’s about. Going forward, we have to go back to our biblical, theological, and ecclesiological roots—being reminded of who we are and why we have done what we should. As Seth says, innovation has been tried. “We need to dust off these old tools [and] put them into practice again.”