Episode 239: The Physical Church Matters — Brittany Clark (Part 2)

“We need to be dependent upon [Jesus Christ], and looking to him for our marching orders, and not any certain place or people. [We need to rely] on the Holy Spirit to give us that guidance and empower us to live out those marching orders in each of our specific contexts.” —Brittany Clark

Summary of This Episode

This week on the Messy Reformation, Jason and Willy are joined again by Brittany Clark, an elder at Gold Avenue CRC in Grand Rapids, MI, who also served at Synod 2025. After sharing a bit more about the positive aspect of the unity and shared direction that she experienced at synod, we get to hear her biggest discouragement–the conversation on virtual church. She, too, sensed confusion in the body about what was being talked about; some grasped that it was about an online-only “church” while others took it to be about digital ministries.

She doesn’t think more time is needed. “I think Scripture gives us a clear indication that the physical gathering of the body is essential for the church. Another aspect of that conversation…I think was frustrating in light of the conversation we had…on medically-assisted death…we, multiple times, brought up how people being isolated and only functioning online is to peoples’ detriment…I feel like that needed to enlighten the conversation…It was brought up multiple times in the virtual church conversation that individuals have different social anxieties and fear of coming to in-person gatherings…so people were speaking in favor of virtual church, but it’s the physical gathering of the body and people being Christ’s hands and feet to people and wanting to seek their healing. We don’t want to just leave them…in that place and just accept that they’re not able to meet in-person.” 

Willy points out, “...We’re not encouraging incarnational living. We’re essentially saying these online things can actually exist in a functional way, but in reality, who has an online exclusive marriage? Nobody, at least no one in any meaningful sense…When you meet together, being in incarnational, covenantal gathering is part of who we are and…who God created has created us to be.” Brittany adds, “God created us as embodied beings for a reason…I think this conversation leads to the significance of our bodies and…who we are as people.”

Jason invites Brittany to share what she learned through the synod experience. About the CRC, she says it helped show her the variety of contexts that the CRC exists in outside of west Michigan. It also helped fill in some of the pieces of how things function at the denominational level. For herself, she learned that she really enjoyed Synod and found herself consistently engaged in the conversations. She confirms she has been labeled as a “synod nerd.” 

The three spend some time talking about moving forward, and the excitement around church planting and solidifying our gospel foundation. They also talk about the benefits of the human sexuality report and how that’s an important tool we have to offer the church. Brittany closes the episode sharing some thoughts she had after watching a recent Paul VanderKlay episode. He was offering a proposal for the future of the denomination, seeing what’s happened over the last few years as a cutting off the “denominational head”--leaders who were out of alignment with the broader denomination. She agrees we’re at a pivotal point, but encourages us to locate our true head in Jesus Christ! “We need to be dependent upon him, and looking to him for our marching orders, and not any certain place or people. [We need to rely] on the Holy Spirit to give us that guidance and empower us to live out those marching orders in each of our specific contexts.”