Opening Service for Synod 2014 Approaches

In just over a week, the Christian Reformed Church’s Synod 2014 and the 2014 General Synod of the Reformed Church in America will open with a joint worship service at Third Reformed Church in Pella, Iowa.

Set for 7 p.m. on Thursday, June 12, the service will begin a time in which the CRC and RCA meet separately to conduct business on the campus of Central College in Pella and yet also gather jointly for the first time in their history. The denominations have been separated for more than 150 years.

The synods will hold an officially convened session on Saturday evening, June 14 to discuss the "Resolution of Relationship Between the Reformed Church in America and the Christian Reformed Church in North America." Delegates from the two synods will vote together on the resolution.

The resolution asks churches to "reflect on the costs of the lack of faithfulness that have marked the history of separation of our two denominations" and asks churches to "celebrate the new realities being created through expanding initiatives of partnership between the Reformed Church in America and the Christian Reformed Church in North America."

Denise Kingdom-Grier, pastor of Maple Avenue, a union church in Holland, Mich. belonging  to both the CRC and RCA, will be preaching at the opening worship service at Third Reformed. Her text will be 2 Corinthians 1.

Carl Boersma, president of the RCA synod, and Ryan Faber, pastor of Faith CRC in Pella and president-pro tem of the CRC synod, will be presiding over the opening communion.

Charlie Koopman from Third Reformed and other local musicians will be leading the music.

A community-wide Synodical Service of Praise, with members of  area Christian Reformed and Reformed churches invited, will be held Sunday, June 15, at 5 p.m. at the Vermeer Pavilion in Pella.

Dee Recker, the CRC's director of Synodical Services, says the denominations held a joint worship service in 2011 that coincided with the CRC closing worship service and the RCA’s opening worship service.

"It was very well done," she says, adding that the 2014 joint worship services do not "promote the ministries/mission that we do together — they are strictly for worship."

There will be a joint session on Monday morning, June 16, that will celebrate the shared ministries between the RCA and CRC, hearing from six of these ministries, she says.