Synod Welcomes Colin Watson to Executive Staff
Colin Watson, Sr., director of ministries and administration for the CRC.
Karen Huttenga
Synod 2015 welcomed Colin Watson, Sr., who was appointed by the Board of Trustees earlier this year as the director of ministries and administration for the Christian Reformed Church.
“This has been quite a journey for me,” said Watson. “I’m an immigrant from the former British Guiana [now Guyana]. I was born in a place smaller than Sioux Center, and the town was called New Amsterdam. God has a sense of humor.”
Watson proudly introduced his wife Freida to synod. Since 1985, the couple has worshiped at Madison Avenue CRC in Paterson, N.J., where he led the men’s ministry and she led the women’s ministry.
Watson was executive minister at the church for five years. Previously he worked in senior leadership at several large companies and he became a senior vice president at Keyspan, a major natural gas distributor.
Since retiring in 2005, he has given leadership to many corporate and nonprofit boards and committees, including as head of the CRC’s Diversity and Inclusion Working Group and board president of the Christian Reformed World Missions board.
Watson said his new task will be “ensuring that we [staff] support every [CRC] church throughout North America.”
“I love the diversity that I see when I look out on this group,” he told the delegates. “The history of our church is the history of each and every individual, each and every people group represented. God calls us to unity.”
“One of my favorite passages in the Bible is Jesus’ final prayer,” he continued, “...that we will be brought to complete unity to let the world know that Jesus has been sent by the Father and that Jesus is the son of God and Lord of all.”
For continuous coverage of Synod 2015 including the live webcast, news, video recordings, photos, liveblog, social media links, and more visit www.crcna.org/synod.
