Grants from CRC Help Form and Sustain Leaders in Red Mesa

Pastors and ministry leaders in Classis Red Mesa have received help with leadership training and a range of other opportunities as a result of assistance from the Sustaining Congregational Excellence (SCE) and the Sustaining Pastoral Excellence (SPE) programs.

"This is the first time in the 10 years that these grants have been offered that an SPE funded peer group and an SCE funded ministry project have intersected enabling them to work together to bless ministry leaders and congregations," said Lis Van Harten, director of the SCE and SPE programs, which provide grants to church members and pastors to help them in their ministries.

SCE grants are for ministry projects that individual churches want to engage in, said Van Harten. And SPE grants are for pastors who desire to gather for learning and mutual support.

“In this particular situation, both an SCE grant and an SPE grant were awarded to those exploring the same issue [leadership development] — to a classis and to a group of pastors within that classis."

With the help of a grant from SPE, a group of pastors in the New Mexico area have been able to meet for a series of retreats at which they pray, worship, and take time to get to know one another better, as well as to share and discuss the joys and challenges in their churches.

And then with the help of a grant from SCE, coordinators of the Leadership Development Network (LDN) serving Classis Red Mesa congregations in New Mexico have been able to help pay for gas and meals for leaders driving long distances to attend monthly classes.

The Red Mesa LDN, which began in 2008 as a way to train leaders in the classis and now has nearly 30 graduates, offers a twice-monthly, three-year curriculum of Bible knowledge, spiritual formation, and ministry skills to men and women — of whom some go on to earn their license to preach in the CRC, while others have prepared to become commissioned pastors.

“Our program really focuses on training people to become ministry leaders in our classis, where some of our churches are without shepherds,” said Rev. Lora Copley, a coordinator of the LDN.

The Leadership Development Network focuses on the ministry readiness and formation of the whole person, addressing head, heart, and hands — or, as they call it, “Content, Character, and Competence,” said Copley.

During the recession that began in the late 2000s, said Copley, Navajos living in the area have been especially hard-hit; many who have wanted to attend LDN classes have been forced to pawn items or sell food to pay for fuel to get back and forth to classes that are held one Saturday per month in Shiprock and then on another Saturday in Rehoboth.

“Just the simple provision of a lunch meal and gas assistance encouraged students and our leaders — we added five first-year students (and two millennials among them!)” said Copley.  For more information on this project, read this story from The Banner.

Copley said they have also been able — as they have grown — to extend the program to offer a preaching course to LDN alumni.

“We learned what an expressed ‘felt need’ there is among our alumni to keep learning and coming together in community to collaborate over sermons and ministry issues,” said Copley.

At the most recent session of LDN, she said, students met with a linguist/Bible translator who helped them sort through issues related to needing to use two Bibles in their work -- the English New International Version translation and the Navajo Diyin God Bizaad.

Also in the 2016-17 school year, three students from the Apache Reformed Church of America in Apache, Okla., joined the program remotely with the help of CRC video conferencing.

Moving into the future, Copley added, the network wants to find ways to “reach out to the young people in our Native communities — a painful lack of youth in many of our churches — this is a huge issue for future discussion.”

Copley is also included in the SPE grant in which a group of Red Mesa pastors, some graduates of the LDN, have so far met twice for two-day retreats and for a long working lunch.

“This grant has helped us gather to take time to listen to one another,” said Rev. Joseph Kamphuis, coordinator of the peer-learning group and a Red Mesa pastor.

“We are able to create space for discussion for open, honest sharing of both joys and struggles present in the life of a pastor.”

After they listen to one another, said Kamphuis, they pray for one another, asking that God will be first in their lives and show them the plans he has for them. They also pray for their families, he said, asking “that they will know how much we love them.”

The most recent retreat was held in late August at Glorieta Camps near Santa Fe, N.Mex. There were nine participants and Rev. Ben Yazzie, one of the participants, shared information from his research in facilitating the discussion.

Yazzie is the son-in-law of Rev. Paul Redhouse, who served as a pastor in Classis Red Mesa for many years with the congregation of Four Corners CRC in Teec Nos Pos, Ariz.

Yazzie spoke about aspects of and issues related to Navajo culture, ranging from the external, which relates to people’s food, clothing, housing, etc.; the relational, which is about behavior and social connections; the traditional, which deals with customs, values, norms, and teachings; and the foundational, which deals with the metanarratives that shape a culture’s worldview.

“The great thing about this retreat is that the Anglos were outnumbered by the Navajos,” said Kamphuis.

“We Anglos listened, learned, and dreamed about how a better understanding of the Navajo culture could lead to greater gospel engagement across the reservation.”

Since Yazzie is Navajo, it was clear, said Kamphuis, that “our Navajo brothers and sisters were much more engaged in the discussion and made it a great priority to attend this retreat.” This experience, he said, “challenged us to begin to rethink Classis Red Mesa meetings to encourage greater Navajo and Zuni participation.”