Episode 231: Synod 2025 — Slow, Steady, Faithful Reformation

“I’m choosing to leave encouraged…The ship is being steered rightly, but…the ship steers slowly. I think a tendency for myself, maybe for my colleagues as well, is to want to see everything happen right away, and that’s not how the kingdom of God [or] the gospel works. What faithfulness looks like is ‘I planted, Apollos watered, and God gives the growth.’ A sower went out to sow and he scatters seed along the path and he goes to bed…and he wakes up and it has produced by itself. How he does not know…Our call is to do the work that God’s given us to do and go to bed…” —Willy Krahnke

Summary of This Episode

On this episode of the Messy Reformation podcast, Willy and Dan offer an initial reaction wrap-up to Synod 2025. As Synod concluded, Willy felt good even with the busyness and heavy work involved in the week. The conversation starts out by looking at some of the significant things. Willy shares, “[Rev.] Scott VanderPloeg had his day in the sun again.” Scott was the driving force behind a motion at Synod 2023 to instruct the Office of General Secretary to work across the denomination “...to develop a comprehensive unified strategy and plan to arrest and reverse the trend of decline and bring about a positive trend of membership growth…” Gather, which was reported on this year, was the CRC’s first wave of response. This year, Scott pushed more explicitly for a vision, plan, and strategy for church planting that was discussed passionately on the floor and adopted. Willy also briefly touches on the recommendations around our connection with the RCA. Synod adopted a bold proclamation towards repentance or else the need to reconsider the relationship over the next five years.

Dan shares one of the things he appreciated, which came out of the advisory committee Willy was serving on, was cleaning up language around gravamen/gravamina in the Church Order Supplement, Article 5. Synod got rid of ambiguous language, and the result is there are only two types of gravamina recognized. This effectively closes the door on so-called “confessional submission gravamen” that have been proposed. Ideally, this is another step enabling us to move forward in mission together.

Dan points out a theme on social media as well as on the floor has been the concepts of trust, compliance, and heavy-handedness, and asks how that felt in the room. Willy isn’t sure there was more trust in the body of Synod 2025 compared to other synods he’s been at, but the word “trust” was heard more than any other. He shares how while he hopes more people are acting in accordance with their conscience, the question is out there, “How many more mechanisms do we need to implement in order to actually have proper trust again?...Trust was broken. Covenant was broken…Now the question is, how do we move forward? I think there were some…who said, ‘Part of trust is being allowed to be taken advantage of again…You make yourself vulnerable.’ Some people…are saying, “No, I don’t actually think enough time and mechanisms have been set in place in order for me to adequately trust you again.’ This is likened…to an adulterous relationship…You say…‘Honey, I’m very sorry that I cheated on you, but I don’t want you looking at my phone quite yet’...Time is actually something that is used to build trust.” That is how he saw this Synod, “a Synod of trust.” He also mentions that part of holding grace and truth is that we need to trust the One who doesn’t have blindspots when we’re getting impatient with the slowness of reformation and rebuilding.

From there, they turn to the final day. The main business left was in regard to The Banner, our denominational magazine, which it and other publications have long been a source of division or strife. Willy shares a difficult conversation that needed to play out was allowed to, and the editor Chong got some back and forth. Willy is hopeful that Synod’s decision to rein in the mandate to have The Banner be about the CRC’s views will hopefully be lived into “with joy and faithfulness, because that, I think, is going to be the greatest way The Banner can start building trust with its subscribers.” He really appreciated Rev. Stephen Terpstra’s work throughout the week and rather than summarizing it, encourages listeners to check it out for themselves. 

Willy gives his final thought on Synod 2025: “I’m choosing to leave encouraged…The ship is being steered rightly, but…the ship steers slowly. I think a tendency for myself, maybe for my colleagues as well, is to want to see everything happen right away, and that’s not how the kingdom of God [or] the gospel works. What faithfulness looks like is ‘I planted, Apollos watered, and God gives the growth.’ A sower went out to sow and he scatters seed along the path and he goes to bed…and he wakes up and it has produced by itself. How he does not know…Our call is to do the work that God’s given us to do and go to bed…”