Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Jesus Creed

Home
Evangelical
Good News: Women in Ministry (Jane Halton and CRC)

Good News: Women in Ministry (Jane Halton and CRC)

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:00 pm by Scot McKnight

Good News: Women in Ministry (Jane Halton and CRC) 2015-03-13T22:00:52-05:00 Scot McKnight

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

When I tweeted for good news stories about women in ministry, Jane Halton, up in Vancouver, wrote in to tell the story of her church … and, prompted just a little from a few questions I asked, this is her post about women in ministry in the Christian Reformed Church and specifically in her own congregation.

——

When I first read Scot’s tweet, I immediately thought of all the good news for women within my own congregation and how we stand out within in the not-so-good-news for women within our denomination.

The following is a summary (with some commentary) of the Women in Ecclesiastical Office description on the CRCNA website.

The CRC began to talk (at synod) about policies that disallowed women in any ordained position in 1970. Over twenty-five years and ten committees later, the first three women were approved as candidates for Ministry of the Word at synod in 1996. To this day, synod still allows for classes (geographically grouped churches) that don’t believe in the ordination of women to continue this practice.

Women couldn’t be delegates at Synod until 2007 but as recently mentioned inThe Banner, “Eight years after synod declared that women can be delegated to synod, that representation is less than 7 percent. None of this year’s female delegates are pastors, and none of them were appointed to be chairs or reporters of advisory committees.”

In 2014, out of the 1940 ordained persons in the CRC, less than 5% (88) are women and 8% (16) of the 187 delegates at Synod were women. (Quoted from an email from theYearbook office at the CRCNA).

What is really discouraging to me is that there is currently no official movement toward fixing these dismal numbers. Because the CRC holds both positions (to ordain and not to ordain women) as ‘Biblical’ there is resistance to further support women’s ordination (or even offer any support to specifically women) because it may be seen as taking ‘sides’ rather than equipping women to do the job they were ordained to do.

Despite the limited support for women within the denomination, my church, First Christian Reformed Church Vancouver has been promoting ‘good news’ for women in ministry for decades.

In my attempt to learn more about the history of women in my own congregation I spoke with long time church member and current elder, Elsy TerMaat. Here is a bit about what I learned from her wonderful story.

In 1969 Bastiaan (Bas) Nederlof (Elsy’s father), a strong supporter of women in office, became the pastor at First. Pastor Nederlof even spoke up about his support of women in office at synod, where he was a delegate over ten times.

Around 1984, when female deacons were first permitted in the CRC, Elsy (Pastor Nederlof’s daughter) was approached by council to stand for a position. She didn’t feel her gifts were that of a deacon but more of an elder, so she declined (more than one request!).

In 1999, a few years after women were permitted as elders, Elsy was asked to stand as an elder, but lost the vote (to a man). Later that year, when one of the elders moved away, Elsy was ordained as the first female elder at First and was installed by her own father, Bas.

Elsy attended synod as a delegate for the first time in 2010 and spoke against a motion that would allow churches who didn’t support women in office but who were in a classis that did support women to in office to be able to move to a different classis that held a similar belief. This motion was denied.

At First CRC Vancouver, soon after the first female elder, came the first female preacher. Willemina Zwart, a Regent College seminary student, was the first woman to preach at First. One of the male congregants (who was vocal when he disagreed with something) was heard saying “Oh, that is what the church has been fighting about for all these years!” (inferring it was no big deal).

When I asked Willemina about this experience she replied, “I didn’t know that I was the first woman to preach at First CRC Vancouver. That’s hilarious…in that I didn’t know until just now! My experience at First is a major part of my call story…I think enough to say that if it hadn’t have been for my experience and key people there, I’m not sure I would have had the courage to follow God’s call into ordained ministry within the CRC.” We are good news for women! (We’ve had at least three other female interns since Willemina go on the become the first female pastor of their congregation)

All of the pastors after Pastor Nederlof also supported women in office and in 2007, including Pastor Henry Numan. Pastor Numan was instrumental in Julia Vanderveen’s call to ministry and in 2007 Julia and Trevor Vanderveen were installed as the first co-pastoring couple at First (and, thus Julia became the first female pastor).

Currently, Julia and Trevor share a 1.25 pastoral position. Julia works part-time and spends much of her remaining hours caring for three boys under seven.

Her role as pastor includes leading parts of the worship services such as communion, baptisms, and preaching. She also teaches some adult Sunday school, does pastoral care visits and many other random things pastors find themselves doing.

My favourite thing to experience is when Julia at the helm is a sermon because that is how I experience it: I am being taken on a trip into scripture and I want to hold on, listen and learn. Her sermons are passionate, poignant and her enthusiasm for worship is contagious. She cares deeply about the scriptures and the spiritual life of her congregation. She uses her strong voice and her emotions without apology. She was also the first woman to preach at five other CRC churches.

In 2013, First CRC hit another milestone in support of women, without any celebration or dissent, Caroline Short was elected the first female chair of council. At first I wasn’t sure if the quiet way she was ordained to this position was actually ‘good news.’ Should we celebrate or be grateful that it was so normal?

Her ordination was preceded the year before by four women being appointed as elders. And then during the next installation Caroline became the chair. As I sat in the pews, pleased as punch, it occurred to me that she must be the first female head of council. Perhaps no one said anything because our church is so accustomed to having women elders and Julia as one of our pastors. But it still felt like it needed to be noted. I brought it up during ‘coffee time’ after church and some people said it had occurred to them that she was the first woman, but most just said, “Oh yeah, I bet that is right,” and offered no sense of victory**. I still feel a bit torn between “Wow, we have achieved normalcy,” and “No wait, we still need to celebrate!”**

My hope and prayer is that the support women have received and the “normalcy” we have experienced in Vancouver will become a common place as more women are called, equipped and supported in their God given gifts with in the CRC.

Women and Ministry

Previous Post

December 23, 2014

Good News - God Cannot Be Contained (RJS)

Next Post

December 23, 2014 Good News about the Church: A Place of Refuge

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Acts of the Apostles Adam Advent Anabaptism Angels Anglican Apologetics Atonement Baptism BCP Prayers Bible Biblical Studies Birds Blogging Bloglossary Bonhoeffer Books Calvinism Christianity Church Church History Coffee Colossians Commentary Recs Conversion Creation Creeds Culture Death Ecclesiastes Economics Education Embracing Grace Emergent Emerging Movement Eschatology Essays Ethics Eucharist Evangelicalism Family Fasting Fathers Fellowship of Differents Footsteps Tour Fun and Whimsical Gospel Grace Happiness Heaven Hell Holy Spirit Irenaeus James Jesus Jesus Creed Job Justification Kingdom of God Law Lectures Lent Liberalism Love and Marriage Mabanteneni Manhood Mary Miracles Missio Alliance MissioLife Missional Missional Jesus Movies and Film New Perspective Northern Seminary OneLife Origins Project Orthodox Parables Pastor's Spouse Pastoring and Leading Pastoring and Preaching Patristics Paul Paul-John Tour Pharisees Pietism Political Theology Prayer and Formation Preaching Problems for Faith Psalm 119 Psalms Public Issues Purgatory Religions Resurrection Revelation Romans Rule of JCreed Science and Faith Sermon on the Mount Sports Ten Commandments Theology Third Way Top Ten Lists Translations Uncategorized Universalism University Ministry Way Out Weekly Meanderings Wisdom Women and Ministry Work Worship Writing & Blogging Youth Ministry

Select a Month July 2021 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 0000

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

On which sea did Jesus calm a storm and walk on water?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Red Sea Aegean Sea Dead Sea Sea of Galilee