Zion E-News (10-21-2021)
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.
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
