Episode 164: Embodied Worship Is Essential In All of Life - Victor Laarman (Part 1)

"I think what the Christian-informed church also excels at is understanding worldview. And the way I've always seen it, Abraham Kuyper’s part of that, there's not a square inch in all of creation over which Christ does not say mine. This idea of the whole world under Christ's dominion. And the idea of the priesthood of all believers, you can serve Christ in all different professions, doing all kinds of different things. I wasn't, you know, serving Christ less, working for Indwell than I am as a pastor." -Victor Laarman

Summary of this Episode

On this episode of the Messy Reformation podcast, Jason and Willy are joined by Rev. Victor Laarman, pastor of Collingwood CRC in Ontario on the southern shores of Lake Huron’s Georgian Bay. He grew up not far from there in Stratford, ON, and from a young age the idea of being a pastor was in his mind. As he went through high school, he added the potential path of being a medical doctor, but a mix of external call confirmation and participating in Facing Your Future with Calvin Seminary helped him discern and choose pastoral ministry. After attending Redeemer University, he attended Tyndale Seminary in Toronto, in part because he wanted preparation for ministry in particularly the Canadian context and it allowed him and his wife to continue being involved in the church that they were in.

As has been the case with several pastors on the podcast who did not go to Reformed seminaries, Victor found himself to be “the Reformed guy” in his classes. He really enjoyed his time in seminary and the variety of Christian traditions that he was trained with. His sense of call and skills for ministry continued to develop after seminary, before pastoring in Collingwood, in his work with Indwell, as an apartment support worker who came alongside tenants on a variety of needs from mental health issues to affordable housing and others.

Willy brings the conversation back to looking at the CRC and what Victor sees as its strengths. For him, it's a lot of what he saw growing up in the denomination. He is proud of its solid confessional foundation, which he received as being a central part of evening services. He greatly appreciates the understanding that the whole world is under Christ’s dominion as well as the priesthood of all believers. He also sees our historic commitment to Christian education as being a core strength, and appreciates how that allows the spread of the creation-fall-redemption-consummation worldview.

He and Jason expand on how the development of worldview comes through Christian day schools as well as from our pulpits. There are advantages to young people being formed with a Christian perspective in a school setting, but there's also a place for Christian young people to be salt and light in public schools. An essential part of this is the training that happens at home and the church. Jason again references Keller’s idea of counter-catechesis, and they both agree there is a need for preachers to help their congregations analyze what they hear and see in culture, society, or the world, and to recognize what's wrong and why. From there, we can help direct them back to the goodness of the truth that comes from God alone with the help of the Holy Spirit.

This episode wraps up as they start to discuss a topic that came before Synod which Victor is very passionate about—a solely virtual (or online) church is not a church. The three had been talking before this about how part of the act of preaching is knowing who you are preaching to, and thinking about how the Word and the message are going to specifically impact those individuals in the congregation. God can work in ways that we don't know or expect, but there is a personal aspect to preaching. Virtual church does not allow for knowing who is being reached. It neglects that worship isn't just a sermon, but it is assembling with one another, it is worshiping in all aspects of our services. It is communal and participatory, not consumer-oriented. Jason also points out the beauty of Reformed worship is its dialogic nature and structure. We, the congregation, are interacting with God. Virtual church is not able to offer that in the way in-person gatherings do. More to come next time.