Got this link via Twitter: http://www.rca.org/Page.aspx?pid=6127

A very good piece of analysis on what the RCA is currently facing. There are clearly differences between the CRC and the RCA but there is more in common than that which separates.

I think it’s important to see that the hemorrhaging is all over. Each side wants to cry about the bleeding their affinity group is experiencing:

1. Conservatives: the CRC is losing its confessional heritage so hammer that area down harder!

2. Evangelicals: the CRC isn’t doing evangelism like Saddleback so transition churches in terms of style and outreach.

3. Emergents: the CRC isn’t doing social justice so make sure all church planters are community developers

4. Liberals: the CRC needs to join 2009 and be open to all lifestyles.

It is probably most true that lack of retention of youth and 20 somethings probably doesn’t fit in any of those four voices and has more to do with general satisfaction with the world and the business of life.

Ironic to those 4 is that dramatic movement in any one of those 4 directions just increases the sense of dislocation while lack of movement in any direction increases the sense of irrelevance.

We live in interesting times. pvk