Gearing Up for Inspire 2022

Inspire 2022 — the binational celebration of ministry in the Christian Reformed Church in North America — will take place from Thursday, Aug. 4, to Saturday, Aug. 6, 2022, at the Tinley Park Convention Center in Tinley Park, a suburb of Chicago.

Featuring plenary speakers, many workshops, and worship, Inspire 2022 will be the third gathering of ministry leaders and volunteers from across the denomination. The first Inspire event took place in Detroit, Mich., in August 2017, and the second was held in Windsor, Ont., in 2019.

Inspire 2021, which was scheduled for this past summer in Chicago, had to be postponed till next year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the CRCNA did offer Inspire ‘Light,’ an online event, in August.

“Even with the pandemic, we wanted to give people a taste of what Inspire 2022 will be like,” said Kristen deRoo Vanderberg, communications director for the CRCNA. “It was on Zoom and we had quite a few people who watched. The material that speakers offered was informative, enjoyable, and helpful.”

Speaking at Inspire Light were Katie Ritsema Roelofs, a commissioned pastor and minister of music and worship at Washington, D.C., CRC. She also serves as a worship catalyzer with the CRC office of Worship Ministries.

Also speaking were Rick Zomer, executive director of the youth ministry Therefore Go Ministries; Reggie Smith, director of Diversity for the CRCNA; and Beth Fellinger, a commissioned pastor who works with people in her neighborhood and serves as a regional mission leader for Resonate Global Mission in eastern Canada.

“Each presenter brought strong and important messages — about worship, youth, diversity and neighborhood ministry — that we need to know about,” said deRoo Vanderberg. “We will also have an even larger group of speakers and workshop leaders dealing with even more topics at Inspire 2022.”

Stories about the plenary speakers and a look at the various workshops will run in coming weeks.

Registration for Inspire 2022 will open in January 2022.

Sign up for the Inspire 2022 email list to receive the latest news about speakers, special opportunities, registration, and more! You can also mark yourself as “interested” on the Facebook event page.