Episode 202: Authentic Church Community—Love, Truth, and Genuine Fellowship—Willem de Vries (Part 1)
"If God has a plan for you and you're trying to resist, it's going to be a losing battle." — Willem de Vries
This week on the Messy Reformation, Jason is joined by Wim (Willem) deVries, pastor of Moline CRC a little south of Grand Rapids in Michigan. He has served there since 2022 after pastoring Ebenezer CRC in Jarvis, Ontario for the first six years of his ministry. Jason shares how the two of them met when they were visiting Calvin Theological Seminary (CTS) and got to know each other through and following a providential middle-of-the-night fire alarm. Despite taking different paths in seminary, they remained close friends especially during Jason’s intensives.
Wim shares his journey to pastoral ministry. To his own surprise, he expressed wanting to be a pastor back in fifth grade, but through high school and post-high years, he kept returning to his family’s farm in southern Ontario. He did undergraduate studies at Reformed Bible College (now Kuyper) and Redeemer University before eventually attending CTS. He’s been in Christian Reformed churches all his life, and remembers the preaching being central as he grew up and having discussions in his family about how the message could be applied to life. He valued that and Catechism classes.
Something he’s been reflecting on recently, which spurs quite a bit of discussion in this episode is not hearing the role of the Law as a response of gratitude for what God’s done for the redeemed. Jason noticed something similar in the church he grew up in, which had gotten rid of confession of sin and assurance of pardon in the regular liturgy. He sees a correlation that “...regular…confession of my sin wasn’t even a part of my life at the time because I hadn’t been shaped and formed by the worship service in that way. It took me a long time to [change that].” In his current context, who also haven’t been used to that, Jason’s experienced pushback because of nervous assumptions that talking about the Law and expectations of it leads to legalism. Yet he acknowledges one of the beautiful aspects of traditional worship practices is “...the formative nature of liturgy…I realized…there’s a reason all of these elements were put in our typical liturgy to…form and shape us.”
From there, Jason invites Wim to share about his experience at CTS, which flows into sharing about Wim’s connection to Trinity CRC in Sparta, MI–a congregation known for having an impact in shaping a number of confessionally Reformed ministers. Despite differences that Wim experienced in some seminary teaching with his own beliefs, his seminary experience was a good one. A friend had encouraged him to check out Trinity while he lived in Grand Rapids for seminary. Upon worshiping there one Sunday, he met Rev. C.J. denDulk, who’s been (and enjoyed being) the pastor there now for over 30 years. Jason affectionately titles him “The Father of the [CRC’s] Reformation.” Even before knowing Wim was a seminary student, C.J. expressed genuine interest in him and the rest is history. In terms of C.J. as a person and pastor, he’s tended to stay out of the politics of the denomination, but he has a genuinely infectious personality and smile, a sincere love for the Lord, a contagious desire for the truth. He truly cares about his flock. Wim experienced him living out, “People don’t really care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
Wim has taken that as a lesson into his ministry: it takes personal connection and interest to have an impact in peoples’ lives. Jason agrees and highlights how part of he and Willy’s ministry philosophy is built around Acts 2:42. What is central or essential? The Word of God and fellowship, which encapsulates also the breaking of bread and prayer. “If we get those two things right, then we have a healthy church, and healthy churches are attractive in the right ways. People want to be part of that.” More next time about the catechism class model and takeaways that Wim witnessed at Trinity.