Episode 212: Church Renewal Through the Ordinary Means of Grace — Caley Meza (Part 1)

“I think that we are a unified body that has what we call the Three Forms of Unity and…those things…unite us, and this is what we say…we believe, and this is how we do church…I think it’s a denomination that, unfortunately, lost its vision for what particularly matters for the mission of the church.” — Caley Meza

Summary of this Episode

This week on the Messy Reformation podcast, Jason is joined by Rev. Caley Meza, pastor of Plainfield CRC in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. Prior to being called by Plainfield, Caley attended and graduated from Westminster Seminary California (WSC) near where he and his wife grew up. His connection to the CRC has been short as he shares that he grew up in the Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA), in which he sees Calvinistic-leanings but it’s not confessionally Reformed. His journey towards the CRC really started when he accepted Reformed theology while attending an online program with Moody Bible Institute. He worked with youth at a Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) congregation, which connected him with WSC graduates. While he felt strong pulls into either the PCA or Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC), the CRC came on his radar through an internship at Orland Park CRC. Caley admits the reputation of the CRC at a place like WSC is not great. It’s known as a liberal-going denomination, and one that you’re not seriously thinking about going into permanently. 

He’s a pastor in the CRC, in part, because he fell in love with the people and staff of Orland Park CRC, and Rev. Derek Buikema asked him to consider coming back as a church revitalizer for the Plainfield campus. Him and Jason spend some time talking about differences between church planting and church revitalizing. While Caley enjoys the resources available through the Orland Park, he shares how it’s like “...You’ve got these two really heavy suitcases of yesterday’s baggage that are…strapped to both your hands, and so you can’t really run as fast as…a church plant…because you’re doing a lot of triage and trying to move past…a lot of peoples’ expectations or…some of the hurt that happened in the past.” Jason notes in revitalization work, you can also run into pillar members who have been exhausted because of their ongoing efforts.  

As a newcomer to the denomination, he recognizes a long-time reformation happening. We are now in “this goofy era…that’s actually a very small chapter in a very long history of conservative, gospel-centered, confessionally-Reformed ministry…” Having that mentality has allowed him to keep in mind, “how can we continue to move the denomination in a good and faithful direction, bringing renewal where those things need to be…” That doesn’t mean it’s always easy to stick around, which Jason agrees with–”To change culture…take forever, and in a church, in a denomination…it’s going to take a while before [the] decisions start to change the actual culture of the CRC.” 

Caley pushes back some on the characterization that the CRC has an identity crisis, arguing that we actually do know who we are. “I think that we are a unified body that has what we call the Three Forms of Unity and…those things…unite us, and this is what we say…we believe, and this is how we do church…I think it’s a denomination that, unfortunately, lost its vision for what particularly matters for the mission of the church.” Jason speculates if that’s more true of pastors and those in the pew, but if there is still an identity crisis in the institutional leadership. Caley closes out the episode sharing that how we handled the human sexuality report and disagreement in recent years shows that we do trust the confessions and point to them as telling us what Scripture says and what we should agree on.