Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - Jan/95

Contributor - Art Vander Meulen

Title - A Vision For Canada: Draw Near to God! (and He will draw near to you) Part III

Topic - Regional Synod Of Canada

(From Your Regional Synod of Canada Executive Committee)

As I write this, a favourite route of mine is under construction. The road is closed, and the detour signs direct me to take a different way. I still manage to get where I'm going, but in those moments when I pass that closed road, my stress level goes up.

Why? Well, it's because I don't like change. I like routine. And predictability. And stability. You see, I'm a creature of habit. Perhaps you are too.

Not appreciating change can be perfectly okay when it doesn't really matter which road you take, as long as you get to where you're going. But sometimes it does matter. Sometimes we get so hung up on following certain routines and habits, that it is more important for us to do things that way, than it is to know why we do them that way! And when that happens within our relationship with the Lord, that relationship loses its edge, and we are headed for trouble.

TURN, TURN, TURN

In the gospels, the call to repentance is issued primarily to those people who are so stuck in their religious observances that their relationship with God has become a sham. Today that call comes to The Church. 'Repent" means turn around. We need to turn toward God, and move in the direction He wants us to go.

In our relationship with Him we need to turn away from sin. But you knew that already. When we talk about sin in The Church, we have to be careful not to limit our repentance to those obvious sins, those things that even the world acknowledges as being wrong. We must look beyond that which is blatantly immoral, and realize that we sin in habitual, inconspicuous ways as well.

For instance, we dismiss someone "blowing up" at a congregational meeting as normal. We've come to accept and expect fireworks at congregational meetings as a "normal" part of Church life. And power-plays. And backroom politics. And failure to confront.

We sin by admiring leaders who demonstrate very little of Jesus' servanthood, and we think that to be a Christian leader is to be autocratic. We pass over someone's unwillingness to express his/her faith, and are glad that "well, at least they come to church". We pretend to ignore someone's well-known sinful lifestyle, and hope that "they heard the sermon last Sunday". Even at the Classis level, we leaders model unchristian behaviour at times, and our only reaction is to sweep it under the rug and hope it doesn't happen next time.

As The Church, we also sin in the way we do things. Our focus tends to be on what works, or what is convenient, or 'What do the people like?", instead of asking "What has God said?" or "What is God saying?" We must take stock of our methods of operation. What do we do, how do we do it, and why do we do it that way? are important questions. All too often, the rationale for doing the things we do is because it worked for someone else, it once worked for us or we've always done it like that before. Then the living out of our relationship with God is limited by what has been done before, elsewhere, and in someone else's life. The Lord is surely bigger that. Every generation needs to know and experience the Lord personally, not ride on what He did for a previous generation.

LEARNING NEW WAYS

If it is a sin to quench the Spirit, and if refusing to allow God to lead us into new ways of doing things quenches the Spirit, we have a lot to confess and repent!

Being creatures of habit, it is quite natural for us to resist doing things in new ways. But saying that is not to say it's okay! As a matter of fact, the opposite is true. Our human nature does not, of its own accord, lean toward God's way. Our natural inclination is to do things our own way, travelling that same road we've always travelled.

In order to work against that natural inclination, we have to begin to learn to be uncomfortable with the status quo. In other words, in order for us to begin doing things God's way, we need to learn to make change in our lives and in the life of The Church.

Repentance is a change that matters. We have to turn from our own ways of doing things. We have to turn from measuring church health by longevity. We have to turn from measuring church-success (or failure) by attendance. We have to turn from the worldly models of leadership to the servant-model Jesus gave. We have to turn from a survival mentality ("Just hang on, everybody!") to seeing ourselves as the Body of Christ.

TAKE THE DETOUR

The Word of God is the detour sign. It says, "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand!" It says, "Be transformed by the renewal of your mind". It says "Declare a holy fast; call a sacred assembly. Summon the elders and all who live in the land to the house of the Lord your God, and cry out to the Lord!" (Joel 1:14)

Your Executive Committee of the Regional Synod of Canada is organizing a series of eight cross-Canada meetings in March, 1995 in order to "draw near to Go&', (see James 4), by "washing our hands", "purifying our hearts", submitting ourselves to God and to one another. Watch THE PIONEER and your local bulletin for dates, times and locations of the "Draw Near" meeting near you! Let's draw near to God together and we will experience a Reformed Church Miracle in the 1990's as He draws near to us.

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