Gerard “Jerry” Lee Dykstra, a retired minister of the Word in the Christian Reformed Church of North America who served the denomination as executive director from 2006 to 2011, died April 27. He was 76.
Before becoming executive director, Dykstra served one year (2005-2006) as director of denominational ministries (a position that is no longer part of the church’s structure and was most recently held by Colin Watson Sr.), and pastored Cascade Fellowship CRC in Grand Rapids, Mich., and Faith Fellowship CRC in Walnut Creek, Calif.
His tenure included the development of The Network, a CRCNA ministry discussion and sharing platform; and a personal and denominational commitment to diversity. “If we are to experience the joy of diversity,” he wrote in a July 2009 Banner article, “we must be willing to endure the pain of repentance and restoration. It will not be easy; however, it will be necessary for the church of Jesus Christ to flourish.” That was two years after Synod 2007 included a public repentance of historic and present racism.
After his service as executive director ended in 2011, Dykstra didn’t take another call with the CRC. The Calvin Theological Seminary database of ministers shows his date of retirement as Nov. 1, 2011. Banner reporting on his departure quoted Mark Vermaire, then-chair of the Board of Trustees (since transitioned to become Council of Delegates), saying the reasons behind the mutual decision for Dykstra to resign were properly confidential and were not related to doctrine or lifestyle.
“At times in every congregation, the council with elders, deacons, and pastors makes a decision that the members of the congregation don’t understand or might even think they disagree with,” Vermaire said. “Yet the servant leaders of God’s church make a decision together—albeit at times with differences among them—based on what they know and are called to do. The BOT, of which the executive director is a member, does its best with the calling given by the church.”
The challenges facing the Christian Reformed Church at the time of Dykstra’s service, as judged by his speeches to synod, are similar to those still facing the church 16 years later. In a June 2010 address to synod he included “‘more allegiance to causes outside the church than to what we do together as a denomination’—and the danger of allowing political perspectives to take precedence over biblical ones” among the church’s challenges (as reported in the July 2010 Banner).
A memorial service for Dykstra is scheduled for May 30 at Christ Community Church (part of the Alliance of Reformed Churches) in Glendale, Ariz. Dykstra and his wife Linda, who survives him, have been living in Sun City, Ariz.
CRC Communications published a remembrance of Dykstra on May 13. An online obituary is available from Heritage Funeral Chapels.
(The Banner publishes an In Memoriam column for all active or retired ministers of the Word. This will follow in the coming weeks.)
About the Author
Alissa Vernon is the news editor for The Banner.