Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - Jan/92

Contributor - Jonathan Gerstner

Title - Change and Reformation

Topic - Reformed Church In Canada

Change is so hard for us all in the Reformed Church in Canada. All of us have golden memories of the church which are so difficult to see drift away. For some of us, it is the early years of our congregations when the church was a big family of men and women and children who had left their extended families so far behind. For others, it was a period of special growth or excitement in our congregation, perhaps under the leadership of a former pastor. How hard it is for us to see our churches change.,

But when we struggle with change, we need to remind ourselves that this is in keeping with our own tradition. Our very title "Reformed" could be paraphrased as the "Change" church. Those who refused to accept the need to change the church, never became part of the Reformed church at its birth. Likewise, if we cannot accept change in our congregations, we betray the great tradition on which the Lord built the Reformed Church.

What was it in the Reformed understanding of the Scriptures which empowered our spiritual forebears to accept change? It would be helpful to look at a few of them.

1. Throughout its history God has led His Church through change after change. The Belgic Confession teaches that "the Church has been from the beginning of the world and will last until the end" (Article 27). The people of faith, in other words, were always the Church. However, the Church was not always the same. Abraham and David, Deborah and Jeremiah lived in different times and faced different challenges all of which involved the need for change. Resisting change that God intends has disastrous consequences as we know of those who rejected the Messiah. The Reformation itself is testimony of the need for change to the end that the Church remain on God's chosen course.

2. God is in control of all things, including change. The Heidelberg Catechism beautifully summarizes this aspect of the Reformed faith which has inspired the Reformed Churches to take risks. We believe that "all things come to us not by chance but by His Fatherly hand." (Q 27) God's hand is not lifted when we or His church make a mistake. If we sincerely take risks for the sake of trying to reach out with His Good News, God will not let us destroy His plans, even when we make mistakes.

3. God has given us an unchanging measure for our change. The Reformed tradition does not elevate change for change sake. "The Holy Scripture fully contains the Will of God ... we reject with our whole heart whatever does not agree with this infallible rule." (Belgic Confession, Article 7) This infallible rule remains the unchanging guide for the Church. Change in the Reformed tradition is not just, or even primarily, adding things, it is just as much taking away what is not in accord with Scripture. Indeed, a mark of a false (or apostate) church is the Church that "ascribes more power and authority to itself than to the Word of God." (B.C., 29) Pruning programs and traditions of the church which no longer serve a biblical end may be even more painful than adding new programs, but our tradition calls us to both types of change.

To summarize, Reformed change is "Back to the Future" change. The Reformed tradition stresses that the change that vitalizes the church for the future is a return to the ancient truths once for all delivered to the saints. When a church tries to be contemporary for contemporary sake, it inevitably deforms. When a church goes back to the Scriptures and wrestles with how God would have us present those truths to men and women today, a reformation occurs.

It is helpful to illustrate these Reformed principles of change from history, before going on to apply them to our current situation. The Reformation was a remarkable upheaval in the status quo of the time. The liturgy and worship style was completely transformed. The polity of the church was radically restructured. The ruling government was overturned in the Netherlands and later in Great Britain by those rallying around principles of the Reformation. We who are trained in theology are quick to see these changes as primarily theological, and they certainly were principally that. But we cannot forget how clearly these changes were driven by a desire to make the Good News accessible to average people. To use just one example, the Reformed in their desire to keep the worship services as Close to Scripture as possible, chose to use the inspired hymns, ie. the Book of Psalms for their worship. This was a theological judgment, but if they were opposed to change, they would have stayed with the musical tradition common to the church of the day. (This would probably be something similar to the Gregorian chants.) Instead the first book of Psalms composed in the Netherlands used the melodies of familiar folk songs. The Reformers chose to change to make the Gospel as accessible to the people as possible.

What do these principles and their historic application have to say to our contemporary situation in the Reformed church in Canada? We certainly are called to test our ministries to see if they conform to the Word of God, and be willing to add and subtract as the Word would have us. However, we have to also ask how we can change our ministries in a way to make them more effective in reaching out to the lost in our country. The "mission field" in the traditional sense of those who have not ever encountered the Gospel of Jesus Christ is no longer just over there; it is down the street. Are we willing to adapt our Reformed worship to find a cultural point of contact with those outside?

Indeed, it is this need to change our externals to present God's unchanging truth to a changing society which also challenges us to move on to the calling of being a synod of Canada. We need to present a united front as congregations seeking ways to make an impact these changeless truths in our society. We need to change from a picture of synod as a "service center" far away, to one in which the synod provides staff which regularly consult with congregations to aid them in adapting their ministry to the context in which they are ministering. When the issues involved exceed the expertise of the staff, they could point congregations to additional outside resources, the majority of which will likely be those knowledgable of ministry in a Canadian context. The judge of the proposed synod of Canada will always have to be how effectively the synod can help our congregations minister the Reformed Scriptural truths in a Canadian context. If it cannot, it should be rejected. If as many of us are convinced it can, this change needs to be embraced.

Change is scary. Many people centuries ago let fear leave them in congregations with the same old worship in a language they could not even understand. Let us instead follow our spiritual forebearers in taking the risks in faith to change to more effectively reach out to our communities and our land.

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