The Messy Reformation

Zack Flipse walked into Synod 2026 as a first-time delegate and came home energized. For anyone who remembers the synods of 2022 and 2023—the walkouts, the exhaustion, the open question of whether the CRCNA would survive—that's no small thing. In this first half of our post-Synod conversation, Zack and Jason compare notes across a few short but seismic years: from a denomination that felt like it...

Part two of the recap opens with a quieter decision that says a lot: removing Our World Belongs to God from the Covenant for Office Bearers. As Willy explains, the real debate wasn't about the contemporary testimony's merits but about what an office bearer should be bound to — and Synod's answer was the ecumenical creeds and the Reformed confessions, nothing added. It's one more thread in a confes...

Jason and Willy are back with their annual post-Synod recap, and the mood is different than it used to be. This isn't a denomination bracing for a fight; it's one taking stock of how far it has come. Willy is relatively satisfied with Synod 2026 — a give-and-take week with real wins and real losses — and Jason agrees, framing his disappointments as wisdom calls rather than make-or-break ones. The...

Chris Ganski and Derek Buikema join Jason to talk about the overture out of Classis Wisconsin to Synod 2026 calling for a study committee on the nature of the church. It is not a flashy overture. It is not addressing a fight. But Chris and Derek argue it might be the most important overture on the floor — because every other ecclesiastical conversation in the denomination right now is happening at...

Jason and Dan DeGraff kick off the Messy Reformation's annual Synod coverage with a breakdown of the convening session of Synod 2026. The convening session is mostly a warm-up — an hour of tech troubleshooting and a chance for delegates to find their footing before the real work begins. But it ends with the one piece of business that, year after year, tells you more about where Synod is headed tha...

In part two of our conversation with Lora Copley, editor of The Banner, the question turns from where the Banner has been to where it could go. Lora doesn't dodge — she names specifics. A Banner podcast launching this year, fully funded through grassroots giving, hosted by Derek Buikema and Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra. A daily Synod 2026 recap modeled on the work of Abide Project. A growing donor base o...

Lora Copley never thought she'd be editor of The Banner. When her name first came up, she sent back a crying-laughing emoji. She was a campus minister in Iowa, not a journalist. But on a Saturday afternoon — the day before the application deadline, while her daughter was napping — the thought wouldn't leave her alone. She put in her résumé fully expecting to be politely declined, and instead found...

Part two of our Synod 2026 preview goes after the bones: who has authority to discipline, what the church owes the state, what the church even is, and why confessional integrity at every level isn't a bonus — it's the basic ask. The technical density of these overtures hides deeply theological questions, and the answers will shape the future of the CRCNA. Jason, Dan, and Willy work through the dis...

We're back from a short break with the first half of our annual Synod 2026 preview — and this is not a back-to-normal agenda. The Council of Delegates is bringing 27 recommendations forward, and Jason, Dan, and Willy walk through the bigger buckets the people in the pew should actually be paying attention to. We dig into Recommendation K (Saturday-to-Saturday synod and the Lord's Day problem), Rec...

Lee Christoffels was ordained in the Christian Reformed Church in 1970. He has been preaching ever since — in Worthington, Minnesota, where his congregation has held services in four languages and watched the community around it change week by week; in Edgerton, where he now serves part-time in retirement; and in pulpits across the region whenever someone needs a preacher on a Sunday morning. Fift...

If episode 267 made the case that the CRC has a congregational health crisis, episode 268 asks why the structures meant to address it aren't functioning. The answer, according to Matt Haan, is simple: classes have never had a plan. Not a real one. They were formed by proximity, not strategy, and the denomination has never seriously addressed that. What would it look like to treat a classis as a te...

The CRC's vacancy crisis isn't evenly distributed. While Thrive reports 146 vacant pulpits, statistician Dan DeGraff's independent tracking puts the real number between 107 and 128 — and the worst of it is concentrated in Canada, where one in four churches currently has no pastor. Host Jason Ruis and co-host Willy Krahnke are joined by Dan DeGraff and Matt Haan for the first of two roundtable epis...

Before Harry Frielink was a pastor, he was a camp counselor, shaped by a man named Matthew Kingswood who asked a deceptively simple question every summer before the kids arrived: are you in the word with people? Not are you ready with your theology. Are you in the word — actually, with actual people? That question has never left Harry. This episode follows him through the harder parts of pastoral...

Harry Frielink has served the same classis for thirteen years while the denomination around him transformed. He came up through RTS Charlotte and Calvin Seminary, took a call in southwestern Ontario, and eventually settled in Barrie — an hour north of Toronto — where he's now been pastor for over a decade. What he's observed from that vantage point is not a smooth doctrinal progression, but a deno...

If you walk into a pastoral care situation knowing exactly how to fix it, you will make it worse. That's where Part 2 begins—with Jason and Shaun naming the pride that destroys pastoral ministry the same way it destroyed King Saul. From there, the conversation turns to some of the most honest and practical territory the Messy Reformation has covered: what to do with the overwhelm you can't show th...

Shaun Furniss didn't grow up in the church. A Roman Catholic mass enthralled him at age seven, a confirmation class confused him at twelve, and the Heidelberg Catechism converted him in college. Now he's co-pastor at Trinity CRC in Sparta, Michigan—holding a Master's in Marriage and Family Therapy alongside his MDiv—and he's convinced that most churches have quietly abdicated one of their most imp...

Churches say they want hard conversations. They say they're ready to change. And then the STM arrives. Part 2 of the STM roundtable with Roger Sparks and Harv Roosma moves from the structure of this ministry into the raw material they actually work with: human nature. Forgiven, being sanctified, still human. People talk, Roger says plainly, as long as they sense you're going to agree with them. Th...

The CRCNA is navigating a pastoral shortage, smaller candidate pools, and congregations that have been through enough upheaval that calling a new pastor straight away isn't always the right first move. This episode introduces the STM — the Specialized Transitional Minister — through two men who have made it their life's work: Roger Sparks and Harv Roosma. They want you to know something upfront: h...

This is part two of our team update — and we're getting into some specifics. The big topic: the COD's recommendation for biennial synods, which will come before Synod 2026. Willy serves on the Council of Delegates and voted against the recommendation, and he explains why. The proposal came from a task force looking to cut costs. Their solution? Hold synod every other year instead of annually. But...

It's January, which means it's time for our annual team conversation — just Jason, Willy, and Dan talking about where we are, where the CRC is, and where we think things need to go.                                                                                      After life updates (Dan's upcoming sabbatical, Willy's new pastor in Pease, Jason's transition into school ministry), we dive into an...

Join and Support us on Substack: https://themessyreformation.com/   Check out the Abide Project:   https://www.abideproject.org We love the Christian Reformed Church; we want to see reformation in our denomination; and we recognize that reformation is typically messy. So, we’re having conversations with pastors throughout the CRC about what reformation might look like. Intro Music by Matt Krotzer 

Join and Support us on Substack: https://themessyreformation.com/   Check out the Abide Project:   https://www.abideproject.org We love the Christian Reformed Church; we want to see reformation in our denomination; and we recognize that reformation is typically messy. So, we’re having conversations with pastors throughout the CRC about what reformation might look like. Intro Music by Matt Krotzer 

Join and Support us on Substack: https://themessyreformation.com/   Check out the Abide Project:   https://www.abideproject.org We love the Christian Reformed Church; we want to see reformation in our denomination; and we recognize that reformation is typically messy. So, we’re having conversations with pastors throughout the CRC about what reformation might look like. Intro Music by Matt Krotzer 

Join and Support us on Substack: https://themessyreformation.com/   Check out the Abide Project:   https://www.abideproject.org We love the Christian Reformed Church; we want to see reformation in our denomination; and we recognize that reformation is typically messy. So, we’re having conversations with pastors throughout the CRC about what reformation might look like. Intro Music by Matt Krotzer 

Join and Support us on Substack: https://themessyreformation.com/   Check out the Abide Project:   https://www.abideproject.org We love the Christian Reformed Church; we want to see reformation in our denomination; and we recognize that reformation is typically messy. So, we’re having conversations with pastors throughout the CRC about what reformation might look like. Intro Music by Matt Krotzer