Fanning the Flame

A kaleidoscope of  Korean, Hispanic, African-American and Caucasian CRC leaders met for two days to "Fan the Flame" of  mission in the CRCs of New Jersey and New York.

Those that have been around Zach for the last few months will agree that one theme is near to his heart and on the tip of his tongue--the need for the Holy Spirit to "reignite" a heart for mission among established churches, pastors and other leaders.  Given the North American context where the Christian faith is increasingly marginalized, no amount of programmatic tinkering will change the basic calculus the church is facing.  The Fanning the Flame prayer conference at Midland Park CRC was organized by our Resonate Regional Mission Leader, Marco Avila, to bring churches and leaders together to pray for mission renewal.  It was awesome to be surrounded by leaders praying for renewal in mission together.  The next day after our prayer time, Zach was pleasantly surprised to find a delegation of pastors from New Jersey CRCs present at a session on Resonate's mission-focused church renewal process called Go Local.  Please pray for mission-focused church renewal in New Jersey and New York and give thanks that so many Christian leaders from different cultures and races are praying for and working toward that end.

An Eastern Canada Travel Log

Zach and James VanderLaan spend some time at Maitland River Community Church, a recent church plant in the Wingham area of Ontario.  Zach got to preach and give and update on a ministry project that Maitland supported through a tithe given as part of the congregation's building renewal program. 

St. Jacobs dam just north of Waterloo.

One of the great opportunities in Zach's job as the Director of Resonate is traveling to places where the CRC is working in mission.  One of those places is southern Ontario.  At the end of October Zach took a trip to Southern Ontario to spend some time visiting mission leaders, pastors and significant donors of Resonate Global Mission.  About 30% of CRC churches may be found in Canada and many of those are in southern Ontario.  Zach's travels took him from Burlington (near Hamilton), south of Woodstock and north of Waterloo (to a town called Wingham).  One highlight of the trip was seeing Randy and Karen Lodder, our missionary friends from Haiti, who were in Hamilton to have their fifth child.  While it was great catching up with the Lodders, the trip was focused on ministry.  One thing that the trip taught us was that many of our Canadian CRC congregations are feeling strong headwinds because church attendance is declining on average even faster in Canada than in the United States.  In this context, congregations are looking to Resonate Global Mission to walk with them in community outreach and church planting.  We are convinced that the Gospel fueled by the Holy Spirit's presence can ignite a new movement of renewal in Canada and in the Christian Reformed Church.