Christian Reforming

Friday I had the privilege of meeting two of the top dogs in the Christian Reformed Church - the financial director and our new executive director, Jerry Dykstra. Most people who read this blog will be familiar with the CRC, but for those of you who aren't, we're a blip on the Christendom radar. The way I think about it, the CRC is to world Christianity what Pamida is to the retail world.

Granted, the CRC has her strengths to duel with the denominational big boys (see CRWRC), but we'd be kidding ourselves to think that we are a major player with a membership around roughly 275,000. An interesting point to be made is that there are more Catholics in the Grand Rapids area than there are CRC members nationwide.

To me, comparing denominations to retail chains isn't that far of a stretch. The only three entities who are able to saturate major and minor markets to a high level of efficiency are fast food restaurants, retail chains, and churches. The common denominators? Easy duplication of processes, efficient distribution (of products & ideas), strong internal structure and communication of a unified vision. This is why you don't have a chain of Bob's Bars or Sack's Fifth Avenue in every podunk town over 5,000 across the Heartland. But Wal-Mart, McDonalds, and the Catholic Church can pull it off quite well.

That is why it was strangely reassuring to see possibly the two most powerful men in the CRC standing in front of me in business suits with cell phones on their hips. It reminded me precisely of the retail corporate types I'm used to seeing in my own store. Why was this reassuring? Maybe its because I'm too prone to using a business model in the church because of its efficient nature, although Bill Hybels pulls it off quite well. Maybe its because I like having the confidence that the ministry shares which contain my tithes are being well-handled. Maybe its because like most evangelicals, even the Calvinists, I am an Arminian in practice while being a Calvinist in thought because the hands and feet of Calvinism make the least sense to me of the whole scheme.

Dykstra did have some good things to say. He communicated that the CRC needs to minister to this generation. That is a far cry, I'm ashamed to say, from what goes on in the vast majority of CRC's today. That doesn't mean we need to break our backbone or be simply more "hip", but it does mean encountering today's culture where its at instead of waiting for Calvinism to conquer post-modernism like a knight on his steed. Then some good business principles. First, he talked about communicating the vision. In three days, he had been in Albequerque, NM, St. Paul, MN and Grand Rapids, speaking to some 60 pastors about communicating a denominational vision for change. Second, he is realistic about fault lines. Instead of just letting older ladies pray for the church to fix itself, he has real ideas for helping hurting churches. Thirdly, and probably most transformative, he argued for making our ministries "ministries of choice". There is a realization in the denomination that simply labeling ministries CRC does not bring in guilt-laden Dutch people anymore. To that end, our programs must be some of the best out there, our materials must be some of the best out there, and our approach to ministry must be excellent. Whew, what a breath of fresh air!

Does all this limit what power we believe the Holy Spirit to have in growing the church from the inside out? The question is valid. But if we are willing to let the denomination die at the hands of the very culture we are supposed to be reaching, then we haven't done our job. A balloon inflated by the breath of the Holy Spirit does not lose air quickly. I'd like to sit down sometime with Dykstra and just ask him how hard it is to balance a business model growth mentality with a spirit-led growth mentality.

Who knows where the CRC will be in 50 years. Watch out, Wal-Mart.