After a multi-year discernment process, the restructuring team prompted a dozen recommendations it believed would help the Reformed Church in America optimize for sustained spiritual and organizational health. Those recommendations were brought before General Synod 2024, including a constitutional change that would condense regional synods and classes into one body: middle assemblies.
With the recommendation receiving initial approval from General Synod 2024, regional synods and classes within the denomination have started conversations on how they might form middle assemblies. Things are beginning to take shape, even as classes voted to approve the amendments to the Book of Church Order and before the necessary ratification by a subsequent General Synod. Here’s how it’s playing out in select regions and classes.
This article is meant to give examples of how the restructuring process is taking shape across the RCA; it is not an exhaustive list. Restructuring conversations, discernment, and decision making are underway across the denomination. Refer to this appendix from the restructuring team for more ideas about how middle assemblies might be formed.
Some classes will become middle assemblies without too many changes.
In Great Lakes City Classis, there hasn’t been a lot of focus on the restructuring. “We didn’t want this conversation to take our focus away from their mission of proclaiming the good news of Jesus and teaching others to walk in Jesus’s ways,” says classis leader Greg Brower. “For us it’s about supporting our churches while trying to adapt to the changing reality of the RCA.”
The classis, which includes about 30 churches and church plants primarily in Michigan and Ohio, will likely become one of three or four middle assemblies in what is currently the Regional Synod of the Great Lakes. It is expecting to gain eight churches from Northern Michigan Classis if the recommendation to consolidate regional synods and classes is approved. This will expand the geography of the classis.
“We’ve already had to adapt to a large geographic footprint, and we do most of our work virtually already,” says Brower.
The classis has already begun connecting churches in missional network groups of four to six churches. “They focus on practical training, based on the needs of the churches in that network group,” Brower says. Four groups are currently running. The next to start will be a group of immigrant church plants; together they will focus on challenges and opportunities particular to their cultural contexts.
“The approach we’ve communicated with our classis is that we’re trying things to see what works best right now,” Brower says. “Whatever we try, we’re willing to change it if it’s not working or if it doesn’t connect well. We’ve found the RCA denominational staff to be really supportive and a great resource to us as we think through how to live differently.”
Grants for regional synods and classes are available to help explore possible restructures. Contact Annalise Radcliffe (aradcliffe@rca.org) for more information.
Some areas will undergo a complete shift in how they are structured and will operate.
The Regional Synod of the Heartland anticipates morphing its eight classes into one large middle assembly with many missional communities, and a second, much smaller middle assembly.
“Very intentionally, we are not simply taking the classis and the regional synod and renaming it as a middle assembly. It’s a historic time of change, and in that change, we are giving ourselves the freedom to reimagine how ministry can be done,” says Dale Assink, executive strategist for the regional synod.
Many classis meetings were business focused and were most relevant for RCA churches or pastors of those churches, Assink says. Three years ago, key leaders from Heartland classes began a visioning process, which included exploring an assembly that would be empowering to churches and to local leaders, including specialized ministers—RCA ministers serving in other denominations—and retired pastors who want to remain active. After years of discernment and gathering feedback, the region has pinpointed a new structure.
“We are really focusing on what will be the healthiest, most beneficial, empowering structures for local leaders,” Assink says. A single middle assembly will function as an administrative hub and oversee “the business side of things” and, Assink says, “the real support and ministry to each other will be done in missional communities.” A small number of churches would commit to being in a missional community, or network, together. These groups will center around a common vision or direction of ministry—perhaps the size of church, ministry location, or priority in ministry. The groups will covenant together for a set period of time. Each network will have a facilitator who’s coached and held accountable.
Churches will choose which missional networks they join, in a process that’s yet to be determined. After a period of time, there will be an opportunity to change missional networks based on a church’s given priority at that time.
Assink says the missional networks will provide a level of benefit and accountability in individual spiritual walks, wherever a person is serving.
“Heartland has been geographically challenged forever. The added piece is that Heartland is now global. We have churches in Argentina and Chile; that will only increase,” he says. “What I foresee is a missional network, say, with two churches from Northwest Iowa, and a church from Minnesota, and two churches from Chile, and a church from Argentina. The support and empowerment across cultures is pretty exciting for me.
“One thing we have learned from our Hispanic ministries: they don’t want to be segregated. They don’t want a middle assembly that’s just them,” adds Assink. Many of those leaders are currently in the International Classis of Texas, a classis that has received many inquiries from leaders and churches in South America about joining the RCA. The region is already increasing collaboration across classes with Project Juntos (juntos means “together” in Spanish).
“So many churches have made contact with the International Classis of Texas, and we have so few leaders in the International Classis of Texas to, in a qualitative way, respond to all of those new leaders, even though they have a credentialing process,” says Assink. “Part of the challenge regionally has been, how do we involve more of our other classes, and leaders from those other classes, into this process? We put together Project Juntos, involving leaders from our other classes into the expansion into other countries.”
Feedback was an important part of the discernment process in the region. Amid other feedback, Assink says, “Almost 90 percent of our churches felt more comfortable aligned with a traditional understanding of marriage. A few churches indicated they would feel more comfortable with churches that are open and affirming. We did not want to lose anyone, so we are actually developing a more open and affirming middle assembly that’s much smaller and leaner, while we’re developing this larger one as I’ve described with the hub and networks. The smaller middle assembly is developing their own mission, vision, and values.”
Some regions and classes are still figuring things out.
In the Regional Synod of Albany, which has six classes, conversations around restructure have been underway for quite some time; however, decisions are not yet firm as discernment continues and feedback is received.
“We’re working to develop a process that can help us move forward in a healthy and God-glorifying way,” says Dirk Gieser, vice president of the regional synod. “We all unanimously agreed: restructure needs to happen in this region, regardless of what happens at the denominational level.”
Following General Synod 2024, classis presidents and clerks provided input around what they value in the current regional synod structure, and how many middle assemblies they could foresee. However, as leaders from the regional synod met to synthesize feedback, Gieser says that a “nice, clear picture” did not emerge.
Currently, the restructuring sub-team of the executive committee is proposing one middle assembly and gathering feedback on that proposal. There is a possibility for a smaller, second middle assembly, says Gieser, but that outline is not as defined yet. The proposal will be discussed at the regional synod’s meeting in May. If Albany moves forward with one middle assembly, there will be 90 churches in the body, if they all join.
Likewise, discernment continues on the United States’ western coast as possible iterations evolve and fluctuate in the Regional Synod of the Far West, which also has six classes.
“We each need to figure out what we can handle, what’s our capacity for change, and where we will be able to live and to minister with integrity,” says Phil Assink, regional facilitator.
Regardless of whether the Far West moves forward with one or two middle assemblies, traditional or progressive, or some other iteration, the focus is on a grace-filled transition and this question, says Assink: “Are there ways we can find that common ministry basis, and because we’ve agreed this is how we’re going to live out the tension, we can do ministry together in an easier format?”
Given the breadth of the existing regional synod, the conversation also considers connection across geography, exploring virtual connection opportunities or smaller networks. And yet, there is also a mind toward the tough reality of doing ministry in tiny groups, says Assink.
Commonalities that are emerging
While specific conversations around restructuring vary by regional synod and classis, a few common themes are emerging.
Focus on mission
A number of regional synods and classes have discussed the possibility of restructuring around mission priorities and alignment—or providing a flexibility for churches to do so in some capacity.
Other leaders are hopeful for the streamlining of structure that will enable a laser focus on mission instead of administration, personnel, redundancies, and other limitations.
“If we can have the same function [and support of the regional synod], but just at one level, that takes a burden off of people,” says Gieser. “That allows people to focus on one thing in their ministry, instead of serving at the classis level, congregational level, and regional synod level. This could be good, for the doers of this world. … Overall, there’s a hopefulness that something good can come out of this.”
A focus on mission is one that the restructuring team opened its final report with last spring:
Imagine for a moment a re-focused Reformed Church in America (RCA). An RCA choosing to move forward together focusing on what unifies us: the mission of Jesus Christ. A denomination focused on helping one another present the gospel of Jesus Christ and the good news of God’s reign in ways that are compelling and transformative for a culture too accustomed to division, distraction, and power struggles from within the church. A denomination eager to celebrate new worshiping communities, deepening discipleship in congregations of all ages and sizes, and new people learning how to follow the ways of Jesus in an increasingly post-Christian world.
Build community and strengthen relationships
One of the main concerns surrounding the restructuring in the Far West, says Phil Assink, is what will happen to the existing relationships. And that’s a concern shared by many within the denomination, which has long valued its familial relationships.
“Relationships are important,” says Gieser. “We don’t want to lose that.”
Several regions hope to build community and strengthen relationships through smaller networks within middle assemblies. Great Lakes City Classis, Regional Synod of Albany, and Regional Synod of the Heartland have all made this a key part of their restructuring plans.
Support congregations
One of the restructuring team’s intentions in recommending the merged middle assembly was stronger support and more direct connections with congregations. That intention is coming through in these conversations about forming middle assemblies.
“A lot of congregations have really felt support [from the Regional Synod of Albany] and want to see that continue,” says Gieser. “So that’s part of this conversation. We like this support here. How do we keep it going? … And maybe there will be different support that comes out of this that [churches] didn’t have before.”
“My hope is that we continue to be a community focused on supporting churches so leaders can thrive in the context God has placed them,” agrees Brower.
What happens next
The condensing of regional synods and classes into one middle assembly is a constitutional change. Having received initial approval by the 2024 General Synod, the recommendation proceeded to RCA classes for voting. In late March, sufficient classis votes on the proposed amendment were recorded to know that the Book of Church Order changes received the required two-thirds approval. (Typically, the results of classis votes on proposed amendments to the Constitution are reported to the denomination through the General Synod workbook, which is usually published in early May. However, in response to a request by the executive committee of the Regional Synod of the Great Lakes, General Synod officers agreed to announce the results of the middle assembly vote as soon as enough votes were reported to approve or deny the change.)
Now that the recommendation has been approved by at least two-thirds of classes, it will come to the floor of General Synod in June 2025 for ratification. As it is not yet known whether middle assemblies will receive ratification, the timeline for condensing regional synods and classes is yet to be determined, though each regional synod was asked to work together with its classes to develop a plan by June 2025 to re-form into one or more middle assemblies.
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