Joel Vande Werken New Director of Ecclesiastical Governance

Rev. Joel Vande Werken has been named by the council of delegates as the new director of ecclesiastical governance for the CRCNA. 

“Governance is one of those things I’ve always been interested in,” Vande Werken said as he was interviewed at the council of delegates meeting. “Over the years, I’ve come to see that when church order functions well it isn’t about hoops to jump through or boxes to check off. It is wisdom literature that provides guidelines from the past on how to do the business of church well.” 

Vande Werken was ordained as a minister of the Word in 2007 and served as the pastor of Sussex (N.J.) CRC for 10 years before relocating to serve in his current role as the pastor of Fairlawn CRC in Whitinsville, Mass., in 2017. 

Earlier this year, while continuing as pastor at Fairlawn CRC, Vande Werken took on a role as interim associate director for synodical services following the unexpected death of Rev. Scott DeVries. His duties in this interim role primarily focused on the effective preparation for and running of Synod 2024. He concluded that role in August. 

Since that time, a leadership team considered what was needed to fill the synodical services position in the long-term. They decided to shift some of the responsibilities for the logistics of synod to other staff and to replace the role of director of synodical services with a new position, director of ecclesiastical governance.

“The CRCNA leadership recognizes that our ecclesiastical assemblies have been and will continue to deal with weighty and difficult governance matters,” said Zachary King, general secretary of the CRCNA, about this shift in job position. “Now, more than ever, these assemblies need resourcing and support to help shepherd and guide the congregations that have delegated them with authority. Good governance empowers mission and ministry. That's what this position is all about.”

Vande Werken brings a great deal of experience with him to this role. He has been involved in classical business and denominational matters in a variety of ways since the start of his ministry. He has also served as a delegate to synod several times, and he chaired the Church Order Revision Task Force that reported to Synod 2024.

“While I've been at synod before as a delegate, it's different to see how the pieces come together behind the scenes,” Vande Werken said after this year’s event. “Being at synod this summer reaffirmed for me the importance of the work done to coordinate the conversations that happen in these assemblies, and the way that good process can take the focus off how we're going to navigate the discussion in front of us so that we can discuss what God may be doing to lead us in whatever issue we're addressing.”

Vande Werken went on to explain that church governance has a fundamentally relational dynamic to it, since the church is a group of people connected to one another because of a shared connection to Christ.

“One of the great privileges of being a pastor is that I get to see the rich tapestry of relationships that God has created in the church,” he explained. “I look forward to the opportunity to support the frameworks the denomination has created to facilitate our cooperation in the body of Christ.”

He also said that one of his goals as he steps into this role is to “find ways to resource other church leaders and to provide the support and structures that enable them to help ministry relationships flourish in their local contexts.”

Vande Werken will begin his role as director of ecclesiastical governance in mid-November and plans eventually to move to Michigan with his wife, Brandie, and their five children.