Meeting Oct. 16-18 at Cascade Fellowship Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Mich., the denomination’s Council of Delegates welcomed new members, discussed the One Family Conversation approach to classis leadership, received updates on tasks from synod, appointed a new director of ecclesiastical governance, reviewed some sobering financial numbers, and more.

The Council of Delegates, which serves as the ecclesiastical governance board for the Christian Reformed Church in North America, meets three times a year, acting on behalf of synod in between meetings of synod. It’s made up of one delegate from each of the denomination’s 49 classes (regional assemblies) and some at-large members, appointed by synod to three-year terms.

At the October meeting Council of Delegates’ chair Michael Ten Haken, U.S. at-large, welcomed nine new delegates, including one interim appointment for classis Eastern Canada, with the Council recommending that synod make the appointment in 2025. Two seats are currently vacant.

Thrive staff Reggie Smith and Lesli van Milligen reintroduced delegates to the One Family Conversation, an approach approved by the Council in 2023 to help classes move toward having leaders of different ethnicities leading as one family and not “insiders and outsiders.” Smith saw the need for and helped to develop the approach based on stories shared with him from ethnic minority leaders—even those in churches for 20 years—who expressed feeling isolated at classis. Smith and van Milligen challenged delegates to get up and move around, converse with people they didn’t already know, while discussing three different case studies with a guiding document “Three Stages of Building One Family,” put together by former senior leader for intercultural ministry, Pablo Kim Sun. Smith said, “It’s not necessary for us to have everything put together, but it’s all about relationships.” Van Milligen said, “Sometimes we have to feel awkward because it reminds us that many of our brothers and sisters feel awkward.” She said these ways of experimenting can help to replicate that feeling of what it’s like to be the newcomer.

General Secretary Report

General secretary Zachary King reported on progress on tasks set by synod, including the following:

• a refresh of the Our Journey ministry plan that synod extended to 2030
• a delay on the work of the global vision implementation team in favor of prioritizing a review of CRCNA agency support of ethnic minority groups, “to better connect them with ecclesiastical governance”
• published resources for churches and classes regarding Synod 2024’s discipline decisions
• expected reports from the Virtual Church Team and Assisted Suicide Task Force in February
• work begun by the Multisite Church Task Force, Team to Clarify the Categories of Synodical Pronouncements, and a team to provide theological reflection on church membership

King noted staff were working at or just over capacity to accomplish all of these assignments. Lloyd Hemstreet, Classis Zeeland, asked, “If we are at capacity for task forces that synod has stipulated, should the COD consider communicating that to classes? That they consider putting off requests for more task forces?” Melissa Van Dyk, Canada at-large, suggested it “hasn’t always been welcome to tell people ‘hey your issue might not be all that important right now,’” but the denomination should instead “actually resource according to the needs that come from classes to synod and get tasked.”

The Council of Delegates is recommending that Synod 2025 forego the creation of a separate legal entity to house the Office of General Secretary. In May 2022 the COD recommended “a new ecclesiastical corporation … be established for the office of the general secretary” as part of the restructuring proposals involved in the Structure and Leadership Taskforce report. The Council said that step is not necessary at this time. “It seems prudent to wait until the need is evident before adding a legal layer of complexity to our environment,” the recommendation said.

The Council of Delegates approved a prayer and worship theme for Synod 2025 and approved starting Synod 2025 and future synods with a virtual convening to elect officers.

Money Matters

Synod 2024 requested a clearer mandate for the synodical advisory committee assigned to financial matters “about its role with respect to the denominational financial reports” (Acts of Synod 2024, p. 901). The Council of Delegates accepted a proposed mandate for the oversight of finances and is sending the report to Synod 2025 as the response to that request.

The consolidated financial records, reports on adherence to policies, and annual budgets are all to be “received for information” by this advisory committee, the proposed mandate says. The committee does have oversight of the ministry share system—pledges received from member congregations to contribute to shared ministry of the denomination—and can “make recommendations to the COD regarding ministry share revenues, projections, and budget process for the upcoming year if needed,” according to the proposed mandate.

The CRC’s chief administrative officer, Shirley De Vries, reported to the Council of Delegates, giving a high-level view of some sobering numbers. “All areas of giving (to the denomination) are being affected over time,” De Vries said. Compared to the first quarter of the previous fiscal year (July to June) ministry shares are down 3% (combined U.S. and Canada), and while there are a fair number of unknowns “finance staff are monitoring and communicating with leadership” about the trends they see, De Vries said.

De Vries said six churches have said they are in a disaffiliation process between the end of September 2023 and end of September 2024, representing a likely loss of $127,000 loss in ministry share giving and $45,000 in above ministry share giving. She also said, “A number of churches are having conversations about starting or increasing ministry shares.”

Related: Pastors, Churches Leave CRCNA Following Synod’s Ruling on Traditional Sexual Ethic (Oct. 3, 2024)

De Vries said it could take “24-36 months to figure out where we are.” She encouraged Council of Delegates members to “speak up” in their contexts; “don’t wait to be in front of classis,” which typically meets two or three times a year, but, crediting advancement director Jeff Bolt and his ‘challenge of three,’ she suggested, “Every time you are at a church-related event tell three people something about the ministry share program.” De Vries said, “Ministry shares is a way we go together, and it lets us go a lot further than we could on our own.” She compared the contributions to denominational programming to “dial tone” on a phone line—“it has to be provided all the time so that when churches do need something it is there for them.”

The Council reviewed an updated Policy on Reduction of Program and Staff and voted to include it among its policy documents. Henry Eygenraam, Canada at-large, chair of the Council of Delegates’ finance committee, said “We hope a well-developed process for how we look at staffing changes that are dictated because of a lack of finances shows that due care and attention is given to how decisions are being made.”

For part of the three days of meetings, the U.S. and Canada Ministry Boards met individually to cover their own more operational agendas specific to ministry in each country. Canadian board members heard that a process to hire a new director of intercultural ministry is nearing completion. Dan DeKam, director of U.S. ministry operations, announced the completion of the sale of the former denominational property at 1700 28th St. SE in Grand Rapids, Mich., which, after covering the purchase and renovation of the new ministry support center at 300 East Beltline Ave. NE in Grand Rapids, clears about $1.7 million that the U.S. Board agreed to invest as a building maintenance fund for the new property.

Updates from Ministries and Affiliated Institutions

Directors of the CRC’s ministries—Resonate Global Mission, Thrive, and ReFrame Ministries— gave reports to the Council of Delegates, and Jamie McIntosh, executive director-Canada for World Renew presented as part of the rotating schedule to hear from one of the CRC’s partner agencies or institutions at each meeting.

ReFrame, which operates media outreach ministry in 10 major world languages, will release a French-language version of the popular Seeking God’s Face devotional resource during Advent. The ministry also anticipates the retirement of director of administration Louise Wing at the end of the year. It’s preparing for the transition.

Resonate Global Mission is looking to spend more than $4 million less than the $21.8 million it spent in 2023-24—reducing its 2025-26 budget to $17 million to be in line with projected revenues. This is a change from carrying deficits over the past few years, designed to spend down the ministry’s reserves. “The shift to a balanced budget where revenues are equal to or greater than expenses is Resonate’s top priority when it comes to financial sustainability,” the Council of Delegates’ Resonate committee recorded in its Oct. 1 meeting minutes. “These are obviously very significant reductions to Resonate’s budget and will undoubtedly mean difficult decisions and reductions to key ministry programs.”

Resonate director Kevin DeRaaf said measures Resonate is taking to decrease expenditures include “a strong discernment process in place for any new hires that we’re doing, evaluating and restricting things like travel, and asking our staff to really look hard at ways in which we can streamline and be efficient about our spending.”

Lesli van Milligen, now the sole director of Thrive since the departure of Chris Schoon, talked about the ministry’s working with Candidacy (the group that oversees the process of ordination in the CRCNA) to address the challenge of churches facing longer vacancies—periods without a pastor—and maintaining pastoral staff. Van Milligen said they’ve “adjusted the material for churches to be a map to provide what they need” when in a search for a new pastor and that “regional connectors will check in with churches quarterly” to assure churches don’t feel alone. “We can’t assume that what worked even 10 years ago is going to work anymore. What we will do is support those churches that are searching,” van Milligen said.

General secretary King said Thrive and the Office of General Secretary want to find ways to share the learning that Candidacy director Susan LeClear presented at synod about the landscape of leadership in the CRCNA. The Candidacy Committee’s report, pp. 299-311 of the Agenda for Synod 2024, presented results from a leadership landscape survey it conducted. There are notes on vacancies, classis support for leadership development, and the various pathways to ordained ministry.

The Council of Delegates accepted one updated guideline of the advertising policy for The Banner, to be up-to-date with a change Synod 2023 made to no longer maintain a list of non-denominational agencies approved for financial support. The Council’s Banner advisory committee did not accept another proposed change that would have given The Banner “greater flexibility and a wider pool of advertisers … (to) gain more advertising revenue” in order to meet the financial goal of being free of ministry share use by 2027. Instead, the Banner advisory committee minutes say editor Shiao Chong “is free to bring the recommendation to the next meeting after more information is processed regarding conflicts.”

Future Meetings

The next meeting of the Council of Delegates is Feb. 5-7, 2025, via video conference followed by an in-person meeting May 7-9, 2025, in Grand Rapids, Mich. The Council decided to reschedule its October 2025 meeting to Oct.8-10 in order to accommodate Zachary King’s attendance at the general council of the World Council of Reformed Churches in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Because this change of date would also avoid meeting the week after Canadian Thanksgiving, the Council of Delegates has made it a permanent change to move the October meeting to the first full week in the month. (Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving on the second Monday of October annually.)