Synopsis of the Synod Reports

TROWEL & SWORD

• Rev. Alan Douma & Rev. Bill Wiersma

It is that time again! Every three years the Christian Reformed Churches of Australia send four Classis delegates to the national assembly called Synod. This time it is hosted by the Christian Reformed Church of Redlands opening with a worship service at 5pm on Sunday 7th May,2006. What does Synod do? Well the following summary of the Reports and Overtures provide an overview of the work of Synod.

Firstly, Reports are generated by committees appointed by Synod, either as a standing committee (ongoing from synod to synod) or specifically appointed committees (to look at a particular matter and report back to synod)

Report 1 deals with providing advice on Bible Translations. This committee was formed at last Synod to offer advice concerning the various Bible translations currently available. For some thirty years our churches have been using the NIV as the pulpit Bible and the NASB (New American Standard Bible) as a study Bible. The committee recommends we keep the status quo. They do make a point that we should be discerning about the Todays New International Version with its strong use of gender-neutral pronouns; for example, Father is rewritten as Parent.

Report 3 is a lengthy report from the Trowel and Sword Committee. The Redlands Synod marks the fifth year that current editorial / producer team from Western Australia has been producing the denominational magazine. It has been a long journey. The main issue is the battle for support for the magazine on the local scene. The editorial / producer team have indicated that they do not have the time nor the energy to struggle for every subscription every year. The task of producing the magazine is big enough. After a denominational survey and meeting with ministers and elders from various Classis resulted in support for Trowel and Sword to continue in some form: either over the web or a hard copy. The T&S Committee recommends the magazine be distributed to every household financed through the Ministry Share (Denominational Quota) for the next three years and that a survey be held in 2008 to gauge the outcome of this decision.

Report 4: Intentional Ministry Formation
The focus of this report is that every Believer is called to Kingdom ministry (as different from the Ministry of Word and Sacrament) having been granted gifts and being renewed unto Christ for works of service. It is encouraging the churches to be more intentional about the TASK Christ has called us to: to make and nurture disciples as the Lord works through His people. In the inter-synodical period a survey was undertaken from the churches as to how they approached the whole matter of ministry formation. It revealed a lack of unanimity in what people understood ministry formation to be so a paper “Biblical Foundations” was produced. The Report places before the Synod a Statement of Vision (what we want to be), Mission (what we need to do) and Strategy (how we will do it) that it is asking the churches to adopt and be committed to. The report then goes on with some eleven pages detailing how this is to work. It should be noted that the ROAD report (Report 9) makes its recommendations following this model. So Synod is being presented with a whole package deal. The IMF committee is also asking to become a standing committee.

Report 5: Abuse
Abuse is part of the brokenness and corruption of sin. Statistics reckon that 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 9 boys will have experienced abuse by the time they are 18 years old. Our churches are not exempt from this phenomena – as the media has highlighted in recent times. It is also now mandatory for every organisation working with children to have a Children’s Risk Management Plan (Child Care and Protection policy) which includes workshops with their Children ministries leaders. This committee has been working for years to help bring an awareness of abuse issues in our churches and help establish Sexual Abuse Complaints Committee in each Classis. This is to function as an independent committee when allegations are made (especially against church leadership) as there is a conflict of interest when leadership tries to deal with it. The Committee also provides relevant material and resources for churches through the denominational website (www.crca.org.au) For Justice and Healing; The Protection and Safety of Children and Young People; Healing a Broken Trust; and , MoU between DOICS and Churches in NSW. This committee has also provided training for the various Classes.

Report 6: Deacons, Sessions and the Belgic Confession
The previous two Synods have been considering the issue of women serving as Deacons. Synod 2000 approved that women could serve as Deacons and separated the Deacons from the Ruling Session. The Deacons being seen as function not an authoritative office. Synod 2003 received appeals against this decision. These appeals were not sustained. However the question arose whether we were acting against the Belgic Confession Article 30 & 31. So a study committee was formed and they are now presenting Synod with their conclusions: they are divided about what the Confession teaches about Deacons as part of the ruling body of the church so Synod has to decide between contrary recommendations.

Report 7: Committee for Ecumenical Relations. (CER)
The Church is much wider than our local church or even denomination. It is good for us to broaden our horizons and view of the world as we interact with other churches; especially churches in the Third World. The REC (Reformed Ecumenical Council) papers help us to see the issues others churches are battling with. And so this is a report on all the churches we have ecumenical relationships with (Reformed Churches of New Zealand; Presbyterian Church of Australia; Presbyterian Church Eastern Australia; Churches in South and South East Asia; Churches in North America; Churches in South Africa; Korean Churches; and the Churches in the Reformed Ecumenical Council). Worthy of note is the comment that while we are together in striving to be Biblical and reformed, as denominations we can have different backgrounds and streams of focus.

Report 9 – R.O.A.D.
ROAD is an umbrella Committee having broad oversight, encouragement and unifying work over the various workgroups that make up its membership, which includes: World Development and Relief Workgroup, Solomon Islands Workgroup, Home Missions Workgroup, and GOSPEL. The ROAD committee oversaw the appointment of a part time Promotions Officer for WDRW and encouraged WDRW to produce a Christmas Gift Catalogue, initiated a Strategic Planning Review with the Solomon Islands Workgroup and accepted a proposal to support GOSPEL for another two years. Together with the SIC (Synodical Interim Committee) they hosted, by invitation only, a cross section of Church leaders to a Think Tank Conference at the Oasis in Mount Evelyn, Victoria.

Report 10 relates the activities of the Home Missions Workgroup. Their main task was to give direction and support to the work of the Home Missions Co-ordinator, namely John Rietveld.

It contains two appendixes, Practical Steps in Changing Communities to Reach the Lost for Christ and Reviewing Missions Around the Denomination.

The recommendations include a proposal that the Home Missions Workgroup be replaced by a Church Planting Taskforce and that $500,000 be set aside by the Synod for this purpose over the next three years. It is also proposed to create a new position entitled Ministry Training Co-ordinator and that the Rev John Rietveld be appointed to this position.

Report 11 gives us an overview of the work of the Rev Kevin and Mrs Machi Rietveld at the Swim base in the Solomon Islands as well as the sterling work begun by Frank and Janet de Hoog in the Deed ministry, which is presently being done by Jack and Trudi Visser. Kevin manages the base and its staff and has had many opportunities to run seminars and workshops for church leaders and pastors as well as arranging all kinds of conferences and being involved in various counselling activities. Machi is involved in roles like first aid, hospital visitation, liaison with women’s groups and running workshops for Sunday School teachers and leaders. Jack’s main task has been managing and upgrading facilities in water and power supply, as well as accommodation and other structures. One of the recommendations is to “encourage the mission director to investigate further means of extending the Word aspect of the ministry, by supporting Bible and Theological training and to cooperate with the CRCA Resource Centre personnel in hosting interns under the ministry internship scheme.

Report 12 bears the title World Development and Relief Workgroup and gives some indication of how members of this workgroup have gone about doing their task.

Their activities centre on the diaconal ministry of our churches, providing relief to people involved in disasters like the horrific tsunami of 2004, or those caught up in the poverty and suffering which is so common in certain countries surrounding Australia. Various programmes supporting children and victims of AIDS in India and Indonesia are reported on. The Rev Bert Kuipers is employed on a part time basis to co-ordinate activities of our churches. A number of changes to the mandate of the Workgroup are proposed.

Report 13 is one of the most encouraging of the reports presented to Synod. It is about G.O.S.P.E.L (Gujarat Outreach Support by Planting Churches, Economic Change and Literary Training) in India. This ministry is directed by a sub committee of R.O.A.D.. Evangelists supported by our churches have contacted over 16,000 families over a period of two years. In that time 46 ‘house churches’ have been planted with 1,245 people attending worship each Sunday. 1,350 have made a faith commitment and some 164 adults have been baptised. Praise the Lord for such blessings on the ministry of the ten evangelists. May His kingdom continue to expand in that huge subcontinent.

Report 17 gives an account of the work of the Deputies for Contact with the RTC.

The deputies report on a mandate they were given by the churches at the last Synod, namely to ‘develop a clearly defined minimum academic standard for entry into the ordained ministry of the CRCA’ A high standard of training is provided by the RTC. It is pointed out that the Rev Dr Henk de Waard will retire from his position as Principal at the end of 2007 and that consequently the Board will be looking for the appointment of a new principal in the not too distant future.

Report 18 is from the Vicariate Committee which reports that while at the end of 2006 three students presently at the RTC will be looking for vicariates, no students will be graduating in the years 2007 and 2008 and only two in 2009. The churches are encouraged to challenge young men to consider serving the Lord in the ministry of the Word and Sacraments.

Report 19 comes from the Reformed Churches Youth Committee. It advises us of the relocation of the Resource Centre from Dandenong to the Oasis Camp Ground at Mt Evelyn and of the name change of the RCYA (Reformed Church Youth of Australia) to Youth Connection. The work of Jonathan Vanderberg as Denominational Youth Co-ordinator and Helen Vanderbom as Denominational Children’s Coordinator is reported on. Activities such as that of SWIM teams to places like Warburton and the Northern Territory are noted. The report also describes the newly established ministry internship, with its areas of interaction and aims.
Recommendations include a Denominational Conference on “Intentional Intergenerationality”. It is hoped that the Synod will vote to support such a conference with $10,000 and that a further $20,000 be awarded towards the internship establishment costs.

There are also letters and overtures. These are matters that come from the Classes as matters arise through the inter-synodical period.

Letter 1 – Crossroad Bible Institute
This letter is from the Australian Crossroad Bible Institute Governing Committee requesting that Synod recognize the CBI as a genuine and commendable missionary organisation reaching out to prison inmates with the Gospel through the means of Correspondence Bible Courses and therefore encourage the churches to set aside one diaconal offering per year for the ministry of CBI. CBL was initiated in 2001 with two volunteers: Bob and Anne Bruinsma. They have visited almost every prison in Australia and resource every minister in our churches by sending materials that keep them up to date with the working and progress of CBI. By the end of December 2005, CBI had some 300 active students.

Letter 2 – Church Membership.
In this communication to Synod, Classis New South Wales is seeking a ruling from Synod with regard to the status of Reformed Baptists (Reformed Baptist is generally a term given to those who hold to all the tenants of Reformed Theology except for Infant Baptism) and Church Membership. Some churches accept Reformed Baptists into full membership as long as they do not propagate their (Baptist) views and with the understanding they cannot become office bearers as they cannot fully subscribe to, nor defend, the Confessions. Other churches bar such people from full membership because they cannot in good conscience fully subscribe to the second question in the Profession of Faith Form.

Overture 1 – Examination of Non-CEF Ministerial Candidates.
This overture seeks to tighten up the screening process of ministers who are called from a denomination not in ecclesiastical fellowship (the highest level ecclesiastical fellowship means we would have our ministers swap pulpits without a learned discussion because we hold to the same confessions and synodical attitudes– a church not in ecclesiastical fellowship would mean that they do not hold to the same doctrines, for example: holding to women in the office of Minister and Elder). The overture proposes that these ministers sit the equivalent of a Preliminary Examination that a Vicar would sit. And if declared eligible generally for a Call would still sit a Final Exam before ordination. Up to now, we have tended to have a Colloquium Doctum (Learned Discussion) rather than an examination as such.

Overture 2 – Sharing the Financial Burden of Trowel ands Sword Editor
Classis Western Australia is overturing Synod to share the cost of paying for their minister being Trowel & Sword Editor. The contention is that he is busy with the Trowel & Sword at least one day per week, which takes him away from normal church duties. The Overture considers this an exceptional case from other ministers who serve the Synod and Classis as every month an issue of Trowel & Sword needs to be published. The overture is asking Synod to reimburse the Perth congregation $9,400 per year (1 days stipend per week) which would cost each of the churches $188 per year. This reimbursement would then provide funding to appoint a pastoral assistant to make up the work lost by their minister.

Overture 3 – Evaluation of Ministers Serving a Long Term Ministry in One Congregation

This overture from Classis Gippsland seeks to provide an alternative “system” (from the current Church Order and Synod Decisions) to deal with ministers who serve in a congregation longer than ten years. The main premise is that a separate body be appointed to evaluate the `effectiveness’ of the minister’s ministry and help move them on if it is not good. It is recommended that this take place every two years after ten years of service. Any decisions made would need to be mutually agreed upon and according to the Church Order. The overture notes that this may impact on the traditional calling / covenant towards a more contract / term system.

Overture 4 – Oversight of National Youth Conventions
Overture 4 from Classis New South Wales seeks oversight by the Classis in which the Bi-annual National Youth Convention is held. Currently the National Youth Convention is supervised by the National Youth Worker and the Convention Planning Committee. The Overture contends that it is not a Synod responsibility but a Classis one as it is organised on a local level and not a national one. Therefore it would like to see two ministers from the Classis to be ex-officio members (members without a vote) on the Convention Planning Committee.

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