I received some good feedback on my sending of agencies post.
Wendy in the comments noted three agencies World Renew has launched.
- Communities First
- Partners Worldwide
- Food Resource Bank
I was only familiar with the first.
Another commenter in another space (a closed group) gave a great list of other organizations the CRC has launched:
- The Bible League,
- Mission India,
- Luke Society,
- Bethany Christian Services,
- Partners for Christian Development,
- Eastern Ukraine Seminary,
- Crossroad Bible Institute (40,000+ students in prison)
- Christian Leaders Institute (training 10,000+ leaders in 160 countries)
- Worldwide Christian Schools
and the list goes on. This is a natural thing for CRC folks to do.
CRC Agencies Already Do This
World Relief does it with NGOs most intentionally, but if you consider churches and denominations World Missions and Home Missions have been doing this a very long time.
Home Missions long ago stopped “sending missionaries” and today much more supports local churches and classes in starting churches. Home Missions doesn’t own churches or supervise churches, they help start churches that are formally independent from their organization.
World Missions does the same with national churches world wide. World Missions doesn’t control these churches (that’s of course an ongoing conversation as I know from the DR) but it wants to launch things that will be self-sustaining and self-governing.
I’m less familiar with the practices of Back to God Ministries International. I don’t know to what degree they help start agencies and institutions to do the ministry on their own and to what degree they keep them in house.
A Series of Good Ideas
Most good things happen because some sees a need and has a good idea. Others see the same need, confirm that the idea is good and follow along.
I wonder whether the difference between an in-house CRC agency and an organization formally outside the CRCNA is more historical than principled.
My proposed priority of release asserts that we should spin off good ideas that are not central to the ecclesiastical core of the church’s mission.
This is an expression of the idea of sphere sovereignty.
Pastors should be looking after churches. God has given diverse gifts to his people. Churches tend to be pastor-dominated which is not always healthy for the organization. Continuing to prune organizations from the ecclesiastical tree in order for them to be lead by the laity rather than the clergy helps both the church and the other ministries.
Figuring out where to do the clipping is always difficult. The kingdom of God should be embodied in diverse organizations but the ecclesiastical one should have its own role and differentiation. Getting that right will always be a process and a conversation that we never get completely correct.
A Missionary Church Keeps Pruning for Fruitfulness
It is noteworthy that in Acts 6, when we first see task-differentiation the motivation by the apostles is specialization. They want to continue to devote themselves to preaching and prayer. It is also interesting that in time the Greek-named deacons began to act more like apostles than table waiters. This suggests a natural flow in the life of the Spirit in the church.
If a ministry that has be incubated within the boundaries of the institutional church stays too long it doesn’t become strong for the context it was designed for. It should be sent out so that the leadership of the church can continue to foment new works and the leadership of the incubated work can itself grow to develop its witness and proclamation.
World Renew and the RCA as Institutional Ecumenicity
World Renew is now no longer just the relief and development ministry of the CRC, it is also that of the RCA. To be this in some ways World Renew will need to have some organizational distance from the CRC so that it can be influenced also by the RCA and in turn influence her.
When the CRC sends out organizations it creates space for these ecumenical relationships to develop. The organizations that the CRC sends gives space for these relationships to grow and these relationships will turn later to hopefully helpfully impact the institutional church.
Where, When and How Should the CRC Continue this Pruning Process?
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Paul, in your “Follow Up” you mention that you’re not familiar with what Back to God might be doing in spinning off other agencies. Current BTGMI staff know present practices better than I do, but I’ll just mention one example from my time at BTGMI: an informal partnership with Crossroad Bible Institute.
When I first found out about Crossroad in the early 1990s, it had about 150 students in Michigan prisons and was led by a CRC car dealer in his spare time. I liked what they were doing and asked if they would take referrals of prisoners who contacted Back to God. After a year of these referrals, Crossroad suddenly had 3,000 prisoners as students, located in all 50 states and Canada. I suggested that Crossroad contact other broadcasters and prison ministries, and this resulted in additional growth.
The rapid expansion of Crossroad students in those early days required rapid recruitment of volunteer instructors. I was preaching for mission emphasis Sundays on behalf of Back to God in a lot of CRCs in various regions where nobody had heard of Crossroad, so I would just put in a brief plug inviting people to become volunteer correspondence instructors for Crossroad. Soon there were hundreds, and eventually thousands, of instructors. I expended very little time or effort on Crossroad during that period, but my denominational position and access to churches across North America gave me a platform to boost Crossroad far beyond West Michigan. The real work was done by others.
When Crossroad leaders asked if perhaps Crossroad should come under Back to God’s umbrella, I advised against it. The ministry to prisoners would remain more focused and nimble outside the denominational apparatus, plus Crossroad could partner with more non-CRC churches and organizations if it remained unrestricted by an official denominational label.
After a few years, David Schuringa became the first full-time president of Crossroad. David has a special blend of entrepreneurial, managerial, scholarly, and pastoral gifts. He has done a superb job in leading Crossroad, expanding it, and giving it staying power. Crossroad is not officially a CRC ministry, but David is a CRC minister and thousands of volunteer instructors are CRC.
BTGMI has certainly spun off or helped create organizations in the past. We helped launch CBI as David points out above, we helped congregations form or join up with the “Back to God denomination” in the Dominican and in Nigeria. When we ended Primary Focus in 2005, some of the staff created LifeFocus.tv with our blessing. And we’re part of Timothy Leadership Training too. It’s not been our focus, but it’s happened.
Our current practice favors partnerships worldwide, so often our ministry involves coming alongside with indigenous groups, such as the Presbyterian Church of Brazil, the Reformed Church of Japan, the Reformed Church of Indonesia, the Good Books Trust in India, and the Mid-East Reformed Fellowship (the last three also being partnerships with Words of Hope). That’s due to both our commitment to indigenous ministry and our commitment to partnerships that extend our ability to do ministry.
ReFrame Media is wholly within BTGMI as our indigenously North American ministry, but it also partners with Words of Hope and Reach Beyond (HCJB) in producing “Groundwork” and “Spotlight” for example.
So yes, I’d have to agree that creating and supporting organizations is something we’re good at and do by nature.
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