Sharing the Learning

This was going to be a simple story. I had heard that Classis Hudson had engaged in a prayer initiative that led to significant growth in the number of its ministries, and I had hoped to share that storyline with you and other CRC News readers.

Normally that would mean an interview or a series of emails to get the details right. But instead I was invited to a meeting between James Lee, a leader in Classis Hudson, and Jon Hoekema and Matthew Lanser, both of Classis Northern Illinois, who wanted to hear more about the prayer initiative with the hope of implementing a similar strategy in their classis.

The wide-ranging conversation ended up being a beautiful example of how church leaders at all levels can learn from each other and share ideas that will build up the church.

Lee, a pastor at Christ Community Church of East Islip in the greater New York City area, is the classis interim committee (CIC) chair for Classis Hudson. He explained that Classis Hudson’s story from the past 10 years is one of renewal and revitalization, and he emphasized, “We’re a work in progress – we’ve still got a long way to go. We’re not a perfect model.”

Classis Hudson has grown from having 14 to 26 ministries since 2014. And this growth has come through various means: first, a number of existing Korean congregations affiliated with the Christian Reformed Church; then several churches planted new churches; and then a couple of formerly Reformed Church in America congregations moved to the CRC. Ten years ago 12 congregations in the classis were English speaking, while two were Korean speaking. Today the ratio is 13:13.

Classis leaders have been intentional about creating and keeping good channels of communication going between congregations in the region. “We’re trying to tag along to what’s happening, trying to stay a bicultural, bilingual classis because we think we can learn from each other quite a bit,” said Lee.

Lee became the CIC chair of Classis Hudson in 2022, joining a relatively new stated clerk, Jeremy Mulder, who took on the role in 2020. They stepped into a challenging situation, said Lee. There was a lot of conflict, and it was difficult to find delegates willing to represent their churches at classis meetings. They dealt with the main source of conflict and then focused on changing the atmosphere of the classis meetings.

The classis meets three times per year. While there is business to attend to at these meetings, the leaders try to keep them relatively short. “We thought, let’s try to find efficient ways to do meetings, but let’s always set the tone with worship, with prayer, and with communion. So that kind of changed the atmosphere of classis like night and day. Soon people actually wanted to go to classis,” said Lee.

As church leaders came together for the work of classis, they also shared ideas. Pastors of English-speaking congregations learned that Korean pastors within the classis had created a peer-learning group that met regularly, in addition to classis meetings, for mutual support, prayer, and learning. “That has resulted in other Korean immigrant pastors in the area now lining up to affiliate because they want to be part of that,” shared Lee.

Seeing the success of the peer learning group, English-speaking and other pastors in the classis have begun exploring the possibilities of a new classis-wide prayer initiative that would meet monthly through online conferencing. “We’re seeing a lot of things happening organically,” said Lee. “Jeremy and I have been leading the classis – not in a proactive manner but in a responsive manner – as God has been laying things out.”

In addition to a focus on prayer, Lee noted, the classis has noticed and absorbed a tendency in Korean churches to focus on pastors’ spiritual-emotional health. Western churches are often church-focused, he said, but in Classis Hudson they are learning that pastors need to be healthy, which in turn helps to shape the church for good. Healthy pastors are equipped to lead healthy churches, and healthy churches can lead to organic growth.

At the same time, the Korean pastors and churches in the classis say that they too are learning from other churches in the classis and from the wider denomination. One of these areas of learning, said Lee, has to do with navigating the post-immigration generational shift.

“Many of the Korean churches or Korean-American churches in our denomination, as well as people that are being drawn into the CRC through them, [are attracted to the CRC] because the Dutch Reformed churches back in post-World War II days went through what Korean churches are going through today: transitioning from [their native-language] services to English-language services,” he explained.

Hoekema and Lanser, from Classis Northern Illinois, appreciated hearing about Classis Hudson’s journey. They also asked specific questions related to their desire to foster church plants and church growth in their region. 

Lee encouraged them to keep in mind the need to take care of pastors first. “Church plants can happen naturally, organically if the pastors are fed, if the church planters are fed,” said Lee. He added, “You can’t focus on church plants if the church is not healthy. Classes don’t plant churches. Churches have to plant churches. So sometimes, rather than trying to grow the classis . . . you have to get the churches healthy first. I think it’s okay not to focus [right away] on church planting but to focus on making sure the current ministries are healthy and vibrant and growing.”

“That’s very much in keeping with the milestones [in the Our Journey ministry plan] and the picture of what we’re trying to do as a denomination,” agreed Hoekema, who also serves as the CRCNA’s prayer shepherd. “That’s why ‘prayer and spiritual disciplines’ is listed first in our milestones; you’ve got to have healthy pastors leading healthy churches before . . . the sharing and [spread] of the gospel and the kingdom can go forward.”

It’s also important, said Lee, to look at the context when choosing a location or neighborhood for a church plant. There are different needs in different areas. He described a situation in which a church started a Korean congregation as a church plant in their area, but growth was very slow. The church plant was in close proximity to a very large and thriving Korean church of a different denomination. If they had started a church plant maybe 50 miles away in a neighborhood with a lot of Korean professionals living in it – but where there are no Korean-speaking congregations – they may have had more growth, suggested Lee.

Lee added that if pastors are well supported and leading healthy churches, then when God brings someone to the classis who wants to plant a church, the pastors and churches will be ready to support the church planter and help form a launch team that can assess needs, offer resources, and commission families to be part of the new church.

Pastors in relationship with other pastors within a classis and within their neighborhood are also well positioned to learn from each other and to partner on opportunities that come up, said Lee. For example, maybe a church is small but would like to send some members on a learning trip in a mission area, or on a service trip. They can team up with a few members of another congregation to form a team. Churches can also work together on other shared projects, suggested Lee. 

He added, “Let’s do a joint men’s retreat. Let’s do a joint women’s retreat. Let’s reinvigorate our congregations in different ways. [Projects like this] don’t take away from each church but infuse new energy into each church.”

Another element Korean pastors have told Lee they appreciate about the CRC is the solid Reformed theology and the willingness of CRC leaders at all levels to engage in and wrestle with it. Two delegates from Classis Hudson who went to Synod 2024 were impressed, they said, by the mutuality of respect and candor during dialogue on matters that involved intense disagreement.

Lanser brought up a question about the identity of the CRC. Our numbers are down, he said; there is some discouragement, and many members are not sure about where we are as a denomination. “It’s interesting to see what people who are coming into the denomination see as the values of the CRC. I think a lot of people who grew up in the CRC don’t appreciate some of those things. You’ve lived with it forever, you don’t see the value of it. I’ve never seen people who grew up in the CRC being as excited about the Heidelberg Catechism as people who have first encountered it as adults,” he noted.

Lee agrees that the CRC is at a crossroads, but he suggested that we may be picking up where we should have stayed years ago, engaging our faith and each other in serious dialogue. “A couple of years ago a delegate from our classis asked, ‘How in the world can you debate one single word for that long?’ – but he was actually proud of it. It was refreshing to him that we would take the time to dig in. I think that’s our Reformed identity. To be firm, to be held to a higher standard – to always be wrestling but held to a higher standard,” said Lee.