Back Row: (left to right) Mr. Emile Schmid, Rev. Case
Koolhaas, Mr. Bill Zwiep, Rev. Bart Keefer, Rev. Randy Opmeer, Mr. Cor Demeris
Front Row: (left to right) Mrs. Barb Laidlaw, Rev. Siebrand Wilts, Mrs. Laurie
Heron, Rev. John Kapteyn, Rev. Carson Culp, Rev. Don Waterhouse, Mrs. Deborah
Waterhouse
The Regional Synod of Canada has just
completed our Annual General Meeting.
We thank God for the spirit of mission and unity that prevailed at our
meeting. We are excited about the
mission opportunities that lie ahead of God's church here in Canada.
We trust that a number of decisions will equip us better for the
task which God has set before us.
We elected Case Koolhaas to be our new president and Bill
Zwiep to be our new vice president.
We thank God for that gifts that each of these men will bring to their
positions.
Left to Right: Rev. Case Koolhaas, President, Rev. John
Kapteyn, Executive Secretary,
Mr. Bill Zwiep, Vice-President
We spent considerable time
determining how we can fulfill the mission.
We are in process of presenting a new mission statement which will
reflect our call to mobilize the church in Canada toward its mission.
Our mission will be based on the Our Call of the RCA, and our initial
focus will be on leadership development and discipleship.
We believe that change must occur within the people. We should
soon have our goals and action plans agreed upon in these areas and we hope to
initiate a fund drive which will enable us to carry out our plans. More
information on this will soon be sent to churches and classes.
We decided to provide $500 scholarships to the members of
the Synod and classes CP&D Executive committees to be 'One Thing' event next
January in San Antonio
with Reggie McNeal. We will provide
up to 40 grants and some may be made available to non-committee members.
We also decided to restructure our CP&D committee into
3
working teams- Leadership Development and Discipleship, Multiplication and Mission and
Revitalization. We will present this
restructuring to the classes as it will require their participation within each team.
We increased the monies available for new church
development grants from the Canadian Church Growth Fund, and extended the term
of the grants by up to two optional years.
We continue to endorse the Commissioned Pastors program, Natural Church
Development, Coaching, and Coached Facilitators Networking.
We will remind churches that grants are available for visioning and
strategic planning. We will
establish a resource Library (online and in our office) for church planting.
We also plan to improve our communication by increasing the
size of Northern Lights and hope that the churches will be able to ,make
copies at their
locations to keep costs down. We are
asking for churches to advise us of potential point persons in each church to
help with the flow of communication.
We are also seeking to communicate the good news of what
God is doing in our churches more effectively on our website and through
an e-mail newsletter .
We will also study the closing of the office at the Camp
location, and determine to where our office should be moved.
This will be done by a the end of this year.
We also supported the Foundation Canada’s plans to begin a
new campaign based on Our Call.
Our budget was approved with an increase of $2.00 per
member in assessment. This is the
first increase in assessment in many years.
We hope to finish the draft minutes of our meeting in the
near future and will publish them on the website so that all the decisions can
be read.
We are excited about the opportunities that God has placed
before us and we believe we will be able to take advantage of these
opportunities, only as we all work together as one team.
Our focus must be missional - in that the church does not exist for
itself, but rather to bring God's truth into the world.
