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Clarification about Recent Update from the Restructuring Team 

The Restructuring Team published this update to the denomination to share the work that we have done as a team so far. We want to thank all those who have taken the time to offer us their thoughts and feedback in response to our update. 

As we read your feedback, we realized that some of the language we used to frame our update created misunderstanding, and we want to offer clarification.

In trying to offer the denomination an update on our work so far, we chose words that carried more implications than we had intended. Rather than providing clarity, these words increased confusion, and for that we apologize. In particular, we have heard confusion and concern around the language included in our update about biblical mandates. We’d like to clarify that the mandates that were referenced in the update are not the outcomes that we have discerned.

What we were hoping to highlight for the denomination through our update is this. 

As a team, we have been working to faithfully discern how we believe God is calling us to restructure our denomination for the future. As we have engaged in a process of group discernment using the work of Ruth Haley Barton, we have realized that in order to restructure, we must first know what outcomes that structure needs to produce.

The product of our discernment process thus far is outcomes that we believe that God is calling us to produce. Throughout this discernment process, we have focused on Scripture, using two key passages to guide us to these outcomes: Matthew 28:18-20 and Revelation 7:9. 

The central outcome that we believe God is calling the RCA to produce is “making disciples who grow disciples.” The outcomes that will be shared at the Zoom and in person meetings for dialogue and feedback flow from this central outcome. 

We covet your prayers and support as we continue to refine the outcomes we have discerned through dialogue and feedback that will occur through the planned Zoom and in-person meetings, and then as we discern a new structure for the RCA that will best enable us all to achieve the outcomes to which God is calling us. We invite you to continue to remain engaged in the process as we all seek God’s will for the RCA.

May God bless you,

The RCA Restructuring Team

Eddy Alemán
Dale Assink
Greg Brower
Michelle Chahine
Chad Farrand
Andrea Godwin-Stremler
Sung Kim
Micah McCreary
Sherri Meyer-Veen
Ina Montoya
Young Na
Andres Serrano
Gildo Vieira

General Synod 2021 asked that a restructuring team be appointed “to develop a restructuring plan for the denomination with a view to optimizing the RCA’s sustained spiritual and organizational health.” In March 2022, this team met via Zoom and began their work by reading through Ruth Haley Barton’s book Pursuing God’s Will Together. The book serves as a guide for the team’s process of group discernment. The process is lengthy and slow. Many would like faster results, but waiting on and listening for the voice of God can take time. We can grow impatient. The team asks for patience with them and the process. Team member Rev. Dr. Sherri Meyer-Veen voices this sentiment well: 

At restructuring team meetings, we all have noted at times we would like the process to move faster—including our facilitator—and yet as we have patiently given ourselves to the deep work of discernment, I certainly have been encouraged by the ways the Holy Spirit has grown love between us and continues to guide us. I see the great value in our work and pace. I am excited by our direction and believe we have much hard work to do, but what has emerged so far is a great start.

A focus on outcomes

The initial focus for the restructuring team is on outcomes. What are we, the church, called by God to do? What is our prayed-for outcome or goal? Structure serves to move us toward desired outcomes. Before the team can draft an ideal structure, no matter how similar or different from the RCA’s current structure, we need to know where we’re going. The team (and indeed every leader and member of the RCA) needs clarity on what outcomes God is calling the RCA to produce in order to redesign the structure to serve this.

As people of God, living in God’s creation, we are living between two bookends. The starting place, the first bookend, comes from Genesis; it is God’s creation. The second bookend is the beautiful scene described in Revelation 7:9-10:

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying,

“Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne and to the Lamb!”

Listening to Scripture

Between these bookends of creation and the multicultural church unified in worship of our God, we live under four overarching mandates given to us by God and recorded in Scripture. In these we find our created and called purpose, as well as our desired outcome as a people of God. 

The first two mandates come from the creation account in Genesis 1:26-31:

Then God said, “Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the wild animals of the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”

So God created humans in his image,

     in the image of God he created them;

male and female he created them.

God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the air and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

God made all of creation, made us, and declared it all very good, declared us very good. God blessed us and commanded us to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. God commanded us to have dominion over, to care for, all creation—creatures and earth. The first mandate is to be fruitful and fill the earth with God’s glory. The second mandate is to have dominion over the earth and everything in it. We still live under these first two mandates today and will continue to do so until the end of time.

The third mandate is the Ten Commandments, repeated and summarized by Jesus in Matthew 22:36-40:

“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” [Jesus] said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

We find our fourth great mandate from Christ just a few chapters later in the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20):

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Another way of wording our fourth mandate is making disciples who grow disciples. 

These four mandates are the total of our purpose as the people of God. All this builds toward the second bookend from Revelation 7.

Next steps for the team and the RCA

Based on the bookends and mandates, the restructuring team has discerned a number of desired outcomes for the RCA. These outcomes are not a finished product yet, and the team is looking for feedback. From late October to early December, there will be a series of ten Zoom meetings with classis and regional synod representatives. The goal of these meetings will be to share and explain the outcomes that the team has discerned, and then give the classis and regional synod representatives the opportunity to share with the team their affirmations, concerns, and questions regarding the presented outcomes.

The invitation is for a small group of representatives from each classis or regional synod, in order to keep the Zoom meeting sizes manageable: the classis or regional synod president  and possibly vice president or other elected officers, stated clerk, and staff member(s). Each of the ten Zoom meetings has space for up to five classis or regional synod teams. Classis and regional synod representatives were invited to sign up several weeks ago, and there has been a good response to the signups already.

Following the Zoom meetings, the restructuring team will use the feedback provided by classis and regional synod leadership to further refine the outcomes that have been discerned.

The next step will be a series of in-person meetings around the U.S. and Canada from January to April 2023, to continue to share what the team has discerned from God regarding outcomes, and to hear from the church. The dates and specific locations of these meetings are still being finalized. These in-person meetings will be open to anyone who is part of the RCA in the area who wishes to attend.

How do we—the church, the RCA, individuals—move forward from one bookend to the other? What should that look like for us today and every day? An immediate answer is prayer, discernment, and patience with one another as we wait on the restructuring team to do their work of discernment, listening, and writing. The team invites you to join them in this time of prayer and discernment. You are also invited to communicate with the team as you are prayerfully led to do so. They value your input. Email the team at restructuringteam@rca.org.

The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, including the RCA!

The restructuring team:

Eddy Alemán
Dale Assink
Greg Brower
Michelle Chahine
Chad Farrand
Andrea Godwin-Stremler
Sung Kim
Micah McCreary
Sherri Meyer-Veen
Ina Montoya
Young Na
Andres Serrano
Gildo Vieira