Historic RCA Church Joins Classis Chicago South as Dually Affiliated Congregation

First Reformed Church in South Holland, Ill.—a congregation with 177 years of history in the Reformed Church in America—now has dual affiliation with the RCA and the Christian Reformed Church. Members of the classis interim committee of the CRC’s Classis Chicago South signed the formal covenant of participation with representatives from First Church at the July 8 meeting of classis.

“As a classis we've been experiencing the sorrow of saying good-bye to beloved congregations within our Classis, and so this felt like a particular encouragement to welcome in a congregation eager to be a part of the CRC,” said pastor Derek Buikema, who served as classis vice president at that meeting.

Anthony Bolkema, pastor of worship and ministry at First Church, who has served there for 15 years, said the church has been discerning its possibilities for further denominational or network attachment since leading up to its 175th anniversary a few years ago.

“We wanted the opportunity to broaden the number of mission partners with folks who shared a confessional identity,” Bolkema said. He; Corey Buchanan, First Church’s associate pastor; and the congregation’s lead pastor, who has since left the church for another ministry, have attended Classis Chicago South’s Chicago Company of Pastors for the past several months, an extension of years of collegiality Bolkema said. “We’ve had personal and professional relationships with ministries and staff and a colleague-level that we’ve been grateful for.”

First Reformed Church remains a congregation of the RCA in this dual affiliation. “We very intentionally chose” a place to “broaden our scope of ministry partners” but not subtract from their original affiliation. “That aligns with who our congregation is,” Bolkema said.

Agreeing to participate in classis by sending delegates and contributing to joint ministry was part of the covenant of participation. Bolkema said he believes First Church’s learning and experience of being “20 years into a revitalization for a historically Dutch church in a community that is now predominantly African American” might be helpful to CRCs in similar circumstances. (Revival Without Revolution: The Story of How a White, Agricultural Church Became a Multi-Racial, MultiGenerational Body of Christ is a 2017 case study by the church’s former senior pastor Matthew J. Waterstone.)

For benefit in the other direction, Bolkema said, “We’ve already felt the enfolding” of the Chicago South classis churches through supporting First Church with pulpit supply in their vacancy.

The dual affiliation of First Reformed Church was the end of a three-year discernment process for the congregation. Bolkema said their excitement to be accepted in the CRC classis was not tempered by the June decision of Synod 2025 to establish a five-year review of the CRC’s ecclesiastical relationship with the RCA. He wasn’t surprised by that decision and recognizes that as the two denominations have been through periods of change and readjustment the review makes sense. “We’ll see how that pans out,” Bolkema said. “We hope there will continue to be a place of belonging for churches like ours who are in confessional alignment with the CRC.”

Buikema and Bolkema co-led a litany of commitment at the July 8 meeting. “The focus throughout was on unity—the unity of Christ's church flowing from the unity of the Triune God,” Buikema said. Affiliations of congregations into the CRC are governed by Article 38-c of the Church Order.