At a workshop Sunday evening, almost 100 delegates and visitors to Synod 2015 (the annual leadership meeting of the Christian Reformed Church) learned how their churches could participate in a pilot program on faith formation.
Syd Hielema, team leader of the CRC’s new Faith Formation Ministries, is testing a model for understanding how people come to faith. The “Building Blocks of Faith” model includes four blocks: belonging, knowing, hoping, and calling/equipping. The team is looking for 20 churches to join its pilot program “to aid in a congregation’s self-reflection and ministry planning . . . while still leaving room for the messiness and unpredictability [of following] the Holy Spirit.”
“This is our way of ‘trial and erroring’ into developing tools to walk alongside congregations,” said Hielema.
Synod 2015 also received a presentation from the CRC’s new Worship Ministries team. Leaders of that team reported to synod on progress toward their goal of “networking, strengthening, and resourcing.” Delegates heard that the Worship Ministries invited 12 churches to a networking event where they discussed the joys and struggles of worship. Later, the team hosted a training session on sound and visual technology for 10 churches. The team is providing the recordings of the training sessions online so other congregations can benefit from these sessions.
Congregations interested in the Building Blocks pilot program should contact Hielema at shielema@crcna.org. The team’s website is crcna.org/faithformation.
Synod 2015 is meeting at Dordt College in Sioux Center, Iowa, from June 12-18. For continuous Banner coverage, please follow The Banner Magazine on Facebook or @crcbanner on Twitter. You can find more tweeting by following hashtag #crcsynod. News stories will be posted at thebanner.org several times daily. For CRC Communications releases, webcast, and live blogging, please visit crcna.org. Unless noted otherwise, all photographs are by Karen Huttenga.
About the Authors
Roxanne VanFarowe is a freelance writer who claims both Canadian and American citizenship and grew up in the Christian Reformed Church. She is a member of Blacknall Presbyterian Church in Durham, North Carolina.
Julie Jansen Synod intern for The Banner
