What I Learned This Summer, Part 3
Earlier this summer, the Synod of our denomination – the Christian Reformed Church in North America – met in person at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, from June 12–18. Every Synod is a unique, one-off mix of delegates from around the USA and Canada tasked with providing leadership and oversight for the nearly 900 churches in our denomination.
I was last there as a delegate in 2021 along with one of our deacons at the time, Jennifer Stolzenbach. This year, Erin Pacheco’s husband, Moe, was a delegate representing our region in Northern Illinois.
The most interesting and potentially impactful decision made by this year’s Synod was to adopt a 10-year strategic plan for church planting (For the very curious, you can peruse the plan HERE.) Why church planting? Two big reasons readily occur to me
1. Our denomination is - and has been - in decline for decades. There are 189k members of the CRCNA today; down from a high water mark of 316k in the early 1990’s when we had the grand vision of growing to 400k by Y2K!
2. More importantly, our denomination has struggled to implement the essential Christian behaviors of identifying emerging leaders and practicing a form of relational discipleship (think, “What did Jesus do? How did he train leaders?”) that inevitably leads to the red hot spiritual center that grows and multiplies churches.
In his address at Synod 2026, General Secretary Zach King outlined four "pivot points" to help the denomination embrace this audacious church planting mission. He noted these shifts mirror the spread of the gospel in the book of Acts, especially as it was modeled by the early church in Antioch. The four pivot points are:
A. Embracing Communal Prayer: A shift toward prioritizing prayer and spiritual practices to drive transformation.
B. Intergenerational Discipleship: A move toward connecting younger disciples with older, more mature believers to grow leaders.
C. Reforming Mission and Vision: Updating the church's vision statement to clearly emphasize the work of the Triune God and reflect its Reformed identity.
D. Focusing on Ministry and Mission: An overall shift toward outward-facing ministry, sending people out to carry the love of Jesus Christ directly into their communities. Specifically, adopting a church planting goal of starting 1,000 new congregations in the next 10 years.
I offer my personal “Amen!” to all four of these. In fact, we are striving locally at ECRC to make progress along parallel tracks. We’re just about to open a new prayer room (pivot A) on September 13 and introduce a prayer workshop, and our Strategic Planning Team (pivot C) has been diligently working behind the scenes for months now.
The goal of pivot D, to plan 1,000 new congregations is an audacious one. Is that even possible? So glad you asked! Come back next week to this same space as I attempt to tackle that very question.
Pastor Gregg