Worship at Synod 2025 Honors 100 Years of First CRC Chatham

First Christian Reformed Church in Chatham, Ont., led a worship service at Redeemer University for Synod 2025 focused on fixing one’s eyes on Jesus. Synod is the annual general assembly of the Christian Reformed Church in North America. It is meeting June 13-19 in Ancaster, Ont.

In 1925 J.R. Brink was sent from Grand Rapids, Mich., to Chatham to serve a small group of Dutch immigrants as pastor. The new church was financially supported by Oakdale Park CRC in Grand Rapids and grew from its days meeting in homes, a dance hall, and the basement of a Presbyterian church to anticipating its 100th anniversary next year, doing an annual service project with that presbyterian church and has the honor of being the first CRC congregation in Ontario and the convening church of Synod 2025.

Synod delegates, guests, staff, and local CRC congregants attended the service led by five musicians and Pastor Nate Van Denend preaching. Josh Flikweert played piano and organ, Terry DeVries played guitar, Corina Flikweert sang alongside Kyra Schat, who also played the ukulele, and Peter Tigchelaar played guitar and stick dulcimer, leading “Holy Spirit Living Breath of God,” “A Mighty Fortress is Our God,” “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus,” and other hymns. Before the service, during the offering, and while communion was being served, Schat and Tigchelaar played and sang original duets written by Tigchelaar.

Van Denend invited participants to take five minutes to connect with one another during the Prayers of the People. After a few minutes of conversation, the room filled with voices as everyone prayed out loud in small groups, concluding with the Lord’s Prayer.

Van Denend preached from Hebrews 11:32-12:3, saying he was “picking up the baton from last year’s synod” when the service focused on Hebrews 11:8-13. Listing the persecutions and sufferings endured by faithful Christians the passage says, “These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.” Several times Van Denend asked, what is the “something better”?

“Hebrews 12 directs us to ‘fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God,’ and to live by faith we are to fix our eyes on Jesus.”

Van Denend said there are two motivations for Christians from Hebrews. The first is the “passionate longing for God's future” and the second is “future joy.” He said, “Jesus endures the cross because he can see past the cross to the future joy,” and for us the “future joy time travels back into the present and makes the present endurable.”

He questioned what it would be like if the founders of First Chatham CRC could join the service and could see Redeemer University, a school started by multiple CRCs in Canada. He said the people who started First Chatham CRC “had no idea at that moment what God was going to do.” Van Denend encouraged everyone to think about “What is God going to do 100 years from now?” every time they act in faith.

After the sermon, participants sang “Lift Up Your Hearts” and participated in the Lord’s Supper. The service ended with everyone singing “Now Blessed Be Our God.”

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.