Ancaster, Canada — Synod 2025, the annual general assembly of the Christian Reformed Church in North America, met this past week on the campus of Redeemer University in Ancaster, Ontario, Canada. The Christian Reformed Church has many congregations in northwest Iowa.
As usual, delegates to Synod made many decisions over the course of the week.
Some of the bigger ones included:
In presenting issues pertinent in the life of the church, The Banner — the CRC’s magazine — will no longer show “diverse” positions but only positions held by the denomination.
This year’s Synod delegates instructed the Office of General Secretary to coordinate the Christian Reformed Church agencies and regional groups of churches to develop a vision, plan, strategy, and financial proposal for church planting for the CRCNA and bring it to the next synod.
Synod 2025 decided to accept six recommendations for the operation of digital ministries and virtual churches within the Christian Reformed Church in North America.
The CRC Synod also decided to maintain its close relationship with the Reformed Church in America (RCA), but that relationship will be re-evaluated over the next five years. The original agreement from 2014 has been stressed by different positions on sexuality. The RCA gives its classes more leeway to apply, or not apply, denominational positions. As a result, some classes allow people living in same-sex relationships to serve as officebearers, something the CRC does not allow.
Meanwhile, Synod 2025 agreed to pursue a church in communion relationship with the Alliance of Reformed Churches. It’s the closest ecumenical category of relationships the Christian Reformed Church has. The Alliance is made of congregations that have left the Reformed Church in America because of disagreement with the RCA’s decisions regarding human sexuality and same-sex relationships.
Read more CRCNA stories at CRCNA.org.
Thanks to CRC Communications for this content
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