The second plenary session of Synod 2025 ran just a little over an hour and included worship, a presentation by Thrive’s Elaine May on the Gather Initiative, and only one matter of business—approving the items on the consent agenda.
Synod is the annual general assembly of the Christian Reformed Church in North America. It is meeting June 13-19 in Ancaster, Ont.
May told delegates she considered it a privilege to be the first report presenting to Synod 2025, noting that the work of Gather—10 events held between April 2024 and April 2025—represented the “first step in responding to Synod 2023’s overture to address decline in the CRC.”
May pointed out there were 42 delegates to synod, almost 25% of delegates, who participated in a Gather event—groupings of pastors and lay leaders from five different regional groups at a time gathered together in one of 10 cities; Minneapolis, Vancouver, Calgary, Boston, Niagara Falls (Canada), Orlando, San Diego, Houston, Chicago, and Des Moines. She encouraged delegates to seek out these participants and “get first-hand testimony about what that the Gather experience was like for them,” but synod watched one Gather story from Covenant CRC in Winnipeg, Man., as an example of the kind of encouraging storytelling about what God is doing in various places of the Christian Reformed Church. More video stories will be shared throughout the week.
Gather’s guide for learning together was the Emmaus Road story found in Luke 24:13-35. “With Luke 24 as our guide,” May said, “we made similar moves while we were together. We acknowledged our expectations and desires to God. We testified to the redemptive work of Jesus through storytelling. We aligned ourselves with God and his mission, and we were sent out empowered in our witness of God’s renewing work.”
Gather participants responded to prompts at round tables, contributing details of where churches are experiencing disappointments and unmet expectations, as well as where they are seeing God revealed. All of the contributions have been compiled in a Gather report and some crafted into prayers. May led delegates in a prayer of confession using participants’ contributions.
“In part, Lord Jesus, we confess our misplaced expectations about church growth and ministry success. We have foolishly equated numerical increase with your blessing and our effectiveness. We have been slow to believe that you build your church in your time and in your way, and that it is not dependent on our hard work or ministerial engineering. Forgive us for our pride when we have seen growth and our discouragement when we have not, forgetting that true success is about heart transformation and your glory, not our numbers.”
Synod 2025 responded with the refrain, echoing Luke 24:29, “Lord in your mercy, stay with us.”
With the large Gather events complete and as the CRC moves from the “listen and learn” phase to “discern and draft a renewal strategy” phase, May reviewed some of the short-term and long-term strategies included in the written report. These include an immediate “call to prayer for the renewal of our congregations; Renewal does not happen without prayer,” hosting of regional Gather events to continue prioritizing “testifying to God’s activity and then aligning ourselves with what he’s doing,” convening conversations between congregations where there is an overlap between the struggles seen in one congregation and blessings in another, and connecting churches with denominational resources.
May also listed five principles for long-term strategies, starting with acknowledging Jesus as “the initiator and the sustainer of the church,” walking together, discernment, discipleship, and learning.
The consent agenda items approved or received for information by Synod 2025 included the location for synods 2026 to 2028 (all will be at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Mich.), updates to Church Order references to previous agencies now contained in the ministry Thrive, condensed financial statements, forms for ministry wellness checks for bivocational pastors requested by Synod 2023 and produced by Thrive, and a Synod 2016-mandated annual report from the Council of Delegates with regard to gender and ethnic diversity on denominational boards. “Out of 149 denominationally appointed board members, 40—27%—are women, and 34—22%—are people of color. As compared to the data from 2023-24, this reflects a decrease of 5% in women (appointees), and an increase of 4 percent in (appointees) who are persons of color. The consent agenda—a total of nine items—passed by voice vote with no discussion.
Synod 2025, the annual general assembly of the Christian Reformed Church in North America, is meeting June 13-19 on the campus of Redeemer University in Ancaster, Ont. Find daily coverage from The Banner at TheBanner.org/synod. Visit crcna.org/synod for the agenda, advisory reports, recordings of plenary sessions, and to subscribe to the daily Synod News email.
About the Author
Alissa Vernon is the news editor for The Banner.