For those of you in various Reformed federations or denominations, I’d also be interested to hear:
* Have you attended meetings of Classis, Presbytery, or Synod (or their equivalents)?
* If you are an officebearer, what has your experience been like participating in them?
* If you are a lay member or covenant member, what was it like observing?
* Do you feel your federation or denomination handles these assemblies in a way that is transparent and edifying for the broader church?
Personally, observing the process gave me a deeper appreciation for the wisdom of the Reformed system—local sessions/consistories, broader assemblies, mutual accountability, and the careful guarding of doctrine and life. It made me wish more members could see it firsthand.
Curious to hear others’ experiences and thoughts.
-Kerry
My situation is different from almost everybody else on the Puritan Board, perhaps everyone else.
For a decade of my life back in the 1990s, as the lead reporter for Christian Renewal, I attended virtually every meeting of the major liberal CRC classes in the United States where a lot of the horrible things were happening, and the same at the major conservative classes where conservatives were trying to write overtures and prepare responses to the bad things the liberals were bringing to synod, or sometimes doing on their own in defiance of synod. I also attended every meeting of the Christian Reformed synod, most meetings of the OPC general assembly (which at that time was the main denomination that was paying attention to what was going wrong in the CRC and trying to alert others that the CRC's problems were NOT just "loosening up" to become more Americanized and evangelical, but outright heresy), and a fair number of OPC presbytery meetings where key things about the CRC were being discussed. I also attended every meeting of the Alliance of Reformed Churches (the predecessor body to the URC) and a fair number of regional bodies of the ARC and then of the URC classes once it organized. Also, every meeting of the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council during that period, and one PCA general assembly when the CRC was on the agenda, and the first meeting of the new denomination of Koreans who seceded from the CRC, and the 1997 meeting of the International Council of Reformed Churches. I also attended at least two NRC synod meetings, the one at which Dr. Beeke's deposition was debated and then the one where he was actually deposed. I attended the meeting at which Puritan Reformed Seminary's organizational plans were announced, though I don't remember for sure now if it was the HRC classis/synod (they're too small to have more than a single broader assembly) or if it was a meeting of some other type.
I know I attended the Protestant Reformed synod at least once, perhaps more. I pull that out into its own paragraph because that was one of my funnier ecclesiastical experiences. Most, perhaps all, of the Protestant Reformed ministers knew me by sight, and many of the elders had been reading my work and knew who I was, but most of the elders hadn't seen my face. It's not like today where Facebook and social media put people's photos out to be easily found. I happened to be attending with my Korean wife, and we were some of the few black-haired short people in the room, two of the few obviously non-Dutch people. So a very tall Dutch ruling elder came up to us and asked if we were able to follow along well and understand the English being used in the meeting. After some confusion on my part, I realized he thought we were from one of the Protestant Reformed sister churches in Singapore! I tried to be as polite as I could, handed him my business card, and said, "I'm Darrell Todd Maurina from Christian Renewal." I don't remember exactly what he said, but the gist of it was to apologize and say some version of "You're too short to be Darrell!" I wasn't at all offended; I thought it was funny, and still do three decades later.
To be clear what that means to attend many classis meetings, because many of the West Michigan/Chicagoland/Iowa classes of the CRC are geographically compact and could meet three times per year for day and evening meetings the same day, not just twice a year for a Friday night/Saturday classis meeting, it wasn't unusual for me to be at four different classes in a single week -- one on Tuesday, one on Wednesday, one on Thursday, and then another on Friday night/Saturday. Since the roughly four dozen CRC classes tended to have their meetings clustered into groups in early fall, midwinter/early spring, and then mid-to-late spring in preparation for synod (depending on whether they met two or three times per year), during what I called "classis season" (sort of like "hunting season" for other people!) I would do the same thing the next week, and the next, and the week after that. There were weeks that the only reason I went back home during an entire week was VERY late on Saturday night, or even early Sunday morning if I had to drive a long distance from someplace like Ohio or Iowa, to preach in the small Michigan church I was serving as a tentmaker. It wasn't common, but there were even cases when I was trying, bleary-eyed, to write my sermons while flying on a Saturday night plane coming back from a classis that was too far away to drive. Of course, I also had my own denominational meetings I needed to be attending on both the state and national level.
I once compared notes with Rev. Henry Vander Kam, a very important retired CRC minister and former president of the CRC synod who eventually seceded from the CRC, and we realized that just partway through that ten years I was working at Christian Renewal, I had already attended more classis meetings than he had attended in his entire life as a CRC minister.
So I think I have some basis to comment on when I talk about how classis and synod meetings operate.
Kerry, you are correct that attendance by laymen is rare, except by retired people. I saw that in almost every classis/presbytery of every denomination, no matter what the denomination was. It didn't matter whether the denomination or the classis was liberal or conservative, and almost by definition, what was happening at the classis meeting was important, not routine business, or I wouldn't have been there.
It's not lack of interest, but lack of ability to attend.
Distance is a huge problem in the URC and the other smaller denominations. Only in the CRC and PCA are there enough churches in close proximity in some places for people to attend easily. No NAPARC denomination except the PCA has the total membership needed to have lots of churches in close proximity to each other, and even then, the PCA is not like West Michigan for the CRC with Classis Grand Rapids North, Classis Grand Rapids East, and Classis Grand Rapids South right in the city itself, and then Classis Thornapple Valley to the east, Classis Georgetown and Classis Grandville to the southwest, and less than an hour away, Classis Zeeland and Classis Holland to the west, Classis Kalamazoo to the south, and Classis Muskegon to the northwest.
I cite that list of Christian Reformed classes in West Michigan to show how densely packed and geographically compact the CRC is in the places where it is strong. The same could be said of the RCA, and of both denominations in parts of Iowa and to some extent in Chicago and the New York/New Jersey area for the CRC with Classis Hackensack and Classis Hudson.
Also taking vacation time is a serious problem for people who are not self-employed. For people who are self-employed, there may be even more serious issues. Just because somebody CAN take time away from work because they own the company, doesn't mean they should, or can do so without serious consequences.
I think those factors make attending classis/presbytery meetings in most NAPARC denominations, except the PCA, non-viable for most people. There's no way around that.
There are reasons when the elders who take an active part in the broader assemblies/higher courts of the church tend to be, well, "elderly." And that may even be a good thing. We WANT experienced men making decisions. I just wish more were able to come and observe, even if they aren't the official delegate.
