I promised last week to provide an update on actions and decisions made at General Synod just over a week ago. It feels like either I can provide a book of thoughts or only a brief thumbnail sketch. So, since no one wants a book of my thoughts, following is a sort of brief thumbnail sketch of the week.

General Secretary Rev. Eddy Aleman gave a report on the RCA early in the week that is well worth your time to watch. And yes, I know it is about 55 minutes. You can watch it here. He talks about the 68 new church plants and the growing diversity of our once Dutch denomination. Listening to Eddy, I feel great hope and confidence in God’s future for the RCA.

The bulk of our time was spent considering three proposals from the Vision 2020 team. This is a team created to consider a way forward through our ongoing disagreements around the proper response to human sexuality. Some in the RCA are vocally open and affirming regarding LGBTQ people (this group accounts for about 5% of RCA churches). Others believe such behavior is declared in scripture to be sin and so should not be tolerated in church. And many people and churches fall somewhere between those two poles. For more than 40 years we have lived with this tension as a denomination. Over the past few years, some churches have made clear their intention to leave the denomination over these differences and so the Vision 2020 team was tasked with finding a way to work through these issues.

They came with three proposals that were discussed in breakout groups for about 2 hours each on Thursday and Friday and then most of the day on Saturday in a full session. First, they proposed forming a team to restructure the denomination to be more responsive and nimble and allow for churches to associate within the denomination with churches who share a similar view on how to respond to LGBTQ people in their midst. This proposal was approved.

Second, they proposed spinning off RCA Global Missions into a separate 501c3 so that some of the more conservative churches who are planning to leave the denomination would still be willing to support RCA missionaries. After much discussion, this proposal was denied at the recommendation of the Vision 2020 team as they heard from more and more churches that they would support their missionaries no matter what happened with the RCA. Interestingly, the RCA is known for our global missions. Many people from other Christian traditions have commented that we “punch above our weight class” in global missions. We are not a big denomination, but we have a huge impact globally in missions and ecumenical work.

Third, they proposed regulations to clarify the process for a church to leave the denomination. The RCA has some unique rules that cause the property of a church to automatically revert to the Classis (local governing body) if the church leaves the denomination. The Classis can then decide if they will allow the church to keep its property. For the next 5 years, this proposal creates a regulation that requires Classis to let churches keep their property when they leave to go to another denomination. It also requires 75%of members to vote to leave the denomination. This proposal was approved.

What does all of this mean? I have a few ideas.
1. You will probably hear of some churches in West Michigan who will choose to leave the denomination. Some of these churches have been upset the RCA approved the Belhar Confession that says both that racism is wrong and that the gospel compels us to work for both racial reconciliation and justice. Many of them also disagree with RCA practices which allow women to be ordained as Elders, Deacons, and Ministers. Differences over LGBTQ issues are only one of many reasons they are choosing to leave.
2. The RCA is going to become a much more racially diverse denomination as over 80% of our recent church plants are churches reaching minority ethnic groups. This has only increased with a Nicaraguan refugee serving as our General Secretary.
3. Our Classis has in the past and I expect will continue to hold to a traditional view on human sexuality. We will continue to not ordain people actively in a same sex relationship to the offices of Deacon, Elder or Minister. We will also continue to not allow our pastors to officiate same sex marriages.
4. At Zion, Consistory has not discussed these decisions yet, but I suspect not much will change at Zion as we continue to seek to love our neighbors and tell people about the new life in Christ available to all.

– Greg

Connect to God
This Sunday we will gather for worship at 9:30 am. The service will be live-streamed at 9:30 and replayed again at 11. You can find the services either on our Facebook page, at zionreformed.online.church, or streaming on our Youtube channel. We will also rebroadcast a version of the service on WCET at noon on Friday and 4pm next Sunday. 

Churches are not places of model behavior. They have as many people struggling with sin, pain, and brokenness as those outside of church. Rather than being perfectly healthy communities, church is the place we can go to acknowledge, face, and deal with our brokenness. The book of James confronts the conflicts, tensions, and mess of church life head on. This week, as we continue our study of James, we hear a hard word for the abusive rich. Judgment is coming. God is going to set things right.

This Sunday, we welcome Dr. Rachel Postle-Brown, the principal of Bursley Elementary. We have been partnering with Bursley Elementary and Kids Hope for the past year and will be doing so again this year to provide mentoring to students and encouragement to the teachers of Bursley. We look forward to hearing from Dr. Brown.

Grow in Community
Steve and Shawn Landstra received difficult news this week as small spots were found on Steve’s lungs. This raises his diagnosis to stage 4 lung cancer which is considered treatable, but not curable. Please keep Steve, Shawn and their daughters Haley and Carly in your prayers as they process this news and Steve begins treatments again next week.

This has been a fun week at Zion. Jim Peterson has been busy painting our lobby. Threads was busy sorting clothes Monday night while at the same time the Personal Care Pantry was holding a distribution. That afternoon Hand2Hand was meeting with a representative of Feeding America to talk about how to partner more effectively in distributing food to kids in our community. Like RCA Global Missions (mentioned in the introductory reflections), Zion punches above its weight in its local community impact!

On Sunday morning, Nov. 14, kids in Kindergarten through 5th grade are invited to sing “Raise a Hallelujah” in front of church. If you child would like to join in, please have them at church a few minutes before 9:00am. We’ll meet in the sanctuary to practice before church.

We are reading through the New Testament over the next year as a congregation. The reading schedule for this coming week is below:
11/1    Monday         Revelation 3
11/2    Tuesday        Revelation 4
11/3    Wednesday   Revelation 5
11/4    Thursday       Revelation 6
11/5    Friday            Revelation 7

You can also find the reading schedule on our website under the Ministries tab.

Serve the World
Last week Threads Boutique and two other ministries were presented to a group called 100+ Women Who Care.  This is a group of local women who are interested in supporting the community by contributing to local charities as a group to increase the impact of their donation.  During the presentation, the mission of the organization had to be described, along with how it serves the community, who it impacts, and how many it impacts.  After the presentations of the three ministries, each woman in this group voted on which ministry they would like their donation to go towards, and the organization with the most votes received all the donations from each of these women.  AND, THREADS WON!!!  $5,000!!!!   So many people will be blessed with this donation!  The plan is to use this money to purchase and provide NEW winter coats, boots, and snowpants to the children of the families that shop at Threads.  What an incredible opportunity it was to present Threads and spread the word about this ministry to the community.   To be able to receive so much money for this ministry on top of that is truly amazing!  Thank you Jesus!

Last week, we shared a need from Jenison Public Schools for people to help prepare meals for a class being held by Love Your Neighbor (formerly Love, INC). If you are interested in helping provide food, you can sign-up at the link below.
Connections Meal Signup

If you need help, either with food, personal care items, help grocery shopping, or with financial needs, please contact Jerrod Holzgen, our chair of deacons, and he can help connect you with the appropriate resources at Zion. His e-mail is Jholzgen@yahoo.com and his phone number is 616-520-1771.

Administration
We have been busy cleaning out some closets and storage rooms in the basement. As a result, we have uncovered plates, cups, coolers and more that we do not need at church. If you are interested in giving any of these items a new home, you can do so following worship on November 7. Any donation to support Zion will be appreciated, but not required.

We continue to thank God for his provision of all of our needs and for the generous support of our congregation with their time, talent, and treasures.

Fiscal Year 2021/22 Budget:  $235,415.67
Fiscal Year 2021/22 Contributions: $168,368.31
Giving Last Week: $5,902.00

Late Tuesday night, I arrived home from General Synod. I will share more of my personal reaction to General Synod after our Consistory meets in a few weeks. If you want to know what happened, you will find a summary of Synod here.

But, I do want to share what I truly enjoy about attending General Synod: the people.

We belong to a small denomination so you can genuinely get to know many people from across the denomination. The first night, I grabbed a soda with my friend Tom who has spent much  the last 20 years in New York City. I sat in worship the first night by Sherri and Mike Meyer-Veen who both went to seminary with me and are related to the Boeve’s from Zion. In the morning, I had breakfast with Randy Weener a dear friend who leads our denominations church planting efforts. Later, I met with my friend Ross who has served the same church in Iowa for 19 years. I preached at his installation and would like to take some credit for the call lasting so long. I reconnected with Seth Kaper-Dale who leads a church doing amazing work with refugees, job training, and housing.  I met the new pastor of a CRC church in Zeeland who is ordained in the RCA. Met Sebastian, a hispanic church planter, who is discipling hundreds of people every Saturday by simply teaching through the Heidelberg Catechism. His people love it! And I think of Cal Brouwer an Elder from southwest Minnesota who brought such wisdom, patience, and prayer to our work together. We got along so well that I got invited for a cup of coffee if I ever make it out to me in-laws farm in Minnesota! And on Sunday afternoon, I spent a couple of hours talking with Jon VanderWall (Pastor Rick’s son) about ministry and life. Relationships matter.

Just as relationships matter in our denomination, they matter at church. The small weekly connections before or after church. The deeper connections of small groups and discipleship groups. The deep family ties some of you enjoy at Zion. The ties our kids developing as they grow up together. They all bind us together and make our lives and our faith more rich and full.

We do not form these deep ties because we agree about everything in life. We do not agree about everything now and truthfully we never have. We find community in these relationships because of our common love for Christ. And, we experience love in these relationships because Christ’s love flows through each of us to those around us. We are the conduits of the grace and love of our God.

However, we do not always love one another perfectly. We fail to connect for a while. We say something insensitively. We make presumptions. Our fear or anxiety come out in hurtful bursts of anger or quiet withdrawal. When we see this failure to love well, it is imperative we take steps to both confess and make amends as well as put in the equally hard work forgiving those who have unintentionally hurt us.

But always, we say connected because of our common love for Christ and in Christ.

– Greg

Connect to God
This Sunday we will gather for worship at 9:30 am. The service will be live-streamed at 9:30 and replayed again at 11. You can find the services either on our Facebook page or at zionreformed.online.church. We will also rebroadcast a version of the service on WCET at noon on Friday and 4pm next Sunday. 

Churches are not places of model behavior. They have as many people struggling with sin, pain, and brokenness as those outside of church. Rather than being perfectly healthy communities, church is the place we can go to acknowledge, face, and deal with our brokenness. The book of James confronts the conflicts, tensions, and mess of church life head on. This week, as we continue our study of James, James encourages us to take a hard, close look at ourselves. He uses two words that might cause us to be a bit uncomfortable, humility and submission. Will that lifestyle help us in our struggles? We find the answer in James chapter 4.

This Sunday, we welcome Dr. Rachel Postle-Brown, the principal of Bursley Elementary. We have been partnering with Bursley Elementary and Kids Hope for the past year and are doing so again this year to provide mentoring to students and encouragement to the teachers of Bursley. We look forward to hearing from Dr. Brown.

Grow in Community
Please keep Larry and Marge Westra in your prayers as Larry undergoes surgery on his back today.

We give thanks that Jim Overweg was able to return home from the hospital yesterday and is continuing his recovery from Covid there.

Please also continue to keep Rog Beute and Steve Landstra in your prayers.

We are reading through the New Testament over the next year as a congregation. The reading schedule for this coming week is below:
10/25    Monday         2 John
10/26    Tuesday        3 John
10/27    Wednesday   Jude
10/28    Thursday       Revelation 1
10/29    Friday            Revelation 2

You can also find the reading schedule on our website under the Ministries tab.

Serve the World
We received the following request for help from Jenison Public Schools this week, If you, your friends, or your small group are looking for a way to serve in our community, you should check this out the opportunity. There’s a new class that’s meeting on Monday nights in Jenison that’s designed to create sustainable ways for under-resourced families to get ahead.  The class is sponsored by Rise Community Center in conjunction with Love Your Neighbor (formerly Love INC) and is called “Connections”.  It combines the power of community to support families and help them achieve their goals.  There is also a parallel curriculum for children and a meal provided each week.  This is where we’re hoping you could help!  Would you or your small group be willing to work together to provide a meal for Connections on a Monday evening. This could look however you would like, but some suggestions could include taco bar, soup and salad bar, sloppy joes, lasagna with salad, etc. You could also choose to support a local restaurant by purchasing the food. Meals would need to be delivered to Alive Ministries ( 263 Church St.) by 5:45 on Monday evenings and should serve approximately 40 people.  Groups are not required to stay, but if they would like to help with serving and cleaning up, it would be appreciated.  We are attaching the link for the signup genius.  Please feel free to share with your teams and have them sign up for dates that work best. Teams are also welcome and encouraged to sign up for more than one date if possible.

Connections Meal Signup

Thank you again for considering this important need!

If you need help, either with food, personal care items, help grocery shopping, or with financial needs, please contact Jerrod Holzgen, our chair of deacons, and he can help connect you with the appropriate resources at Zion. His e-mail is Jholzgen@yahoo.com and his phone number is 616-520-1771.

Administration
We continue to thank God for his provision of all of our needs and for the generous support of our congregation with their time, talent, and treasures.

Fiscal Year 2021/22 Budget:  $224,205.40
Fiscal Year 2021/22 Contributions: $162,466.31
Giving Last Week: $6,582.50

10-17-21 Bulletin