Summit Marks Transition from Toward CRC Canada to ‘Movement of Churches’

The group called Toward CRC Canada, a movement formed in 2023 to promote an independent Canadian Christian Reformed Church distinct from the binational denomination it grew up in, is still working to develop “a new way of being Canadian churches together.” About 150 people met under that umbrella for an all-Canada church summit Nov. 5-8 in Kitchener, Ont. Everett Vander Horst, chair of the four-person steering committee for the movement and pastor of Meadowlands Fellowship CRC in Ancaster, Ont., said it was a “culminating event” for TCRCC that the board sees as a hand-off for what might come next. Vander Horst’s church, whose 2025 overture to synod to “envision the CRCNA as two distinct Christian Reformed Churches, one in Canada and one in the United States” was rejected by a vote of 171 to 3 and one abstention, has started a Church Order article 38-f process of disaffiliation from the CRCNA with Classis Hamilton.

By The Banner’s count from submitted classis minutes, 12 Canadian churches have left or started the process to leave the denomination since 2024. (Thirty-nine U.S. congregations have done so in the same time frame, which makes the departures roughly equivalent to the overall percentages of U.S. and Canadian churches in the CRNCA; three-quarters U.S. and a quarter Canadian congregations.) The wave of departures (not every instance) is connected to synodical decisions of 2024 that required discipline to be enacted for churches speaking publicly or acting contrary to the church’s teaching that same-sex sexual relationships are unchaste and therefore sinful.

Vander Horst said the “well over 100” full-summit registrations (the event also included single-day or single-morning attendees) came from more than 45 different congregations, from New Brunswick to British Columbia.

Not all of those congregations will disaffiliate from the CRCNA. For example, Richard Bodini, who serves in a unique setting at Heritage Christian Reformed Church, within a seniors retirement living complex in Brampton, Ont., said publicly in one of the summit’s three open sessions that he is “committed to be Christian Reformed for the people who have called me.”

Bodini, having arranged for all-Canada conversations of the church in the past, offered to help arrange logistics for the summit’s keynote speakers. (Bodini chaired a January 2022 discussion for Canadian church members and was spokesperson for the organizing committee of a similar earlier forum in 2013.) He attended the summit on vacation.

“My pastoral heart will still be called to journey with people,” Bodini said in conversation with The Banner. Describing his general pastoral approach of being with and walking alongside “when someone is cut off,” Bodini said he wanted to facilitate the gathering of those without a home in the Christian Reformed Church, to “at least get together and find out if God leads (them) somewhere.”

Vander Horst said organizers heard other attendees or supporting volunteers describe their participation a little bit like “serving on a refugee committee in a church—‘I’m in a comfortable space but I know others are hurting and in need of a home. We can be a part of creating something new in order that those people can land well.’”

There are 230 CRC congregations in Canada.

Vander Horst said there were three different kinds of summit attendees: those from churches that had disaffiliated or are in the process, those saying “‘I’m here because I see something exciting happening and I want to lend my voice or listen in,’” and “what we’ve heard from a number of people is they’ve said ‘we feel ourselves increasingly uncomfortable, for whatever reason, in the CRCNA, but we’re not looking to be homeless,’” so people in that category came to “listen in and get a sense of what God might be building.”

Vander Horst said “the board (of TCRCC) feels they’ve taken this as far as they can, and if this (a new way of being Canadian churches together) is to continue it needs to become a movement of churches, where the board starts getting joined by people who are representatives of churches.” No specific commitment was asked for at the summit, however, except that attendees would go back and ask their church councils to consider appointing a board member.

We recognize that disaffiliation was “a long conversation that included council and congregation, and, rightfully, affiliating with something new should be just as careful a process,” Vander Horst said. The transition after the summit “will take some time,” he said, but summit working groups already put some thought into key pieces for a new community of churches, including draft vision statements, a possible governance structure, and a new name. “Toward CRC Canada” is recognized as no longer being appropriate, but Vander Horst said it didn’t make sense to come up with something new before the transition.

Reporting note: The sessions of the All Canada Summit, except for three keynote speaker addresses open to the public and livestreamed, were closed. News editor Alissa Vernon attended one open session and was welcomed to approach members of the TCRCC steering team, its director of engagement, or summit planning team members for conversation during lunch. She had two on-the-record conversations.