Just months after the CRC’s director of Race Relations was made a voting member of the Ministry Council, the voice of ethnic minorities at the denomination’s most senior levels has been removed.
In March 2008 the director of Race Relations was granted full voting privileges on the Ministry Council, a group made up of the senior executives in the denomination’s administration. Rev. Jerry Dykstra, executive director of the denomination, recommended the move, stating that granting the Race Relations director voting privileges “will give his advice appropriate status and communicate a clear commitment to minority voices at the table.”
However, since the new Ministries Leadership Team was formed by the CRC’s Board of Trustees just six months later (see “Is CRC Decision-Making in Too Few Hands?”), the minority voice has no longer been at the table.
“The makeup of [those groups] is based not on specific people but on the position those people hold within the senior leadership of the organization,” said Dykstra. “I have been greatly disappointed that the CRC has not yet appointed ethnic minorities to senior leadership positions. I personally do not believe that placing people on the [Ministries Leadership Team] or the [executive director’s advisory team] based on their ethnicity is the best or even the most appropriate way of accomplishing denominational diversity, but we must and will find other ways to do so.”
About the Author
Gayla Postma retired as news editor for The Banner in 2020.
