Date: Wed, 15 Oct 1997 10:42:40 -0400 (EDT) From: Darrell128@aol.com Subject: NR 97105: Lake Michigan Regional Fellowship: No Appeals w/o Consistory Consent NR #1997-105: Lake Michigan Regional Fellowship: No Appeals to Fellowship without Prior Consent of Local Consistory Since the Lake Michigan Regional Fellowship isn't a classis or a synod, what is it and what's it for? Those questions headlined a September 11 special meeting of the regional fellowship called by churches concerned about what procedure should be used if member churches had internal difficulties. Currently numbering eight members with several other churches outside the area considering membership, the Lake Michigan Regional Fellowship is a group of churches, mostly in the West Michigan area, which declined to join Classis Midwest of the United Reformed Churches when the majority of former Christian Reformed congregations federated into the URC. Over the past few years, two members of the regional fellowship have had problems between their pastors and either the consistory or congregation, in each case resulting in large numbers of members leaving the church. That raised the question of how churches that don't want to be part of a synod should handle such problems -- almost three dozen members of one of the churches attended as observers to see how the regional fellowship would handle the issue. In response to the concerns, the regional fellowship adopted a motion declaring "that the articles of fellowship be amended to specify that 'the appellant and his council must be agreed on the propriety of hearing the appeal before the Lake Michigan Regional Fellowship before the appeal will be heard at the meeting.'" The motion passed by the slimmest of margins -- a 7 to 6 vote. However, the amendment won't take effect until a simple majority -- five churches -- certify that their consistories have ratified the amendment. The proposal dies if it isn't ratified within a year. NR 1997-105: For Immediate Release Lake Michigan Regional Fellowship: No Appeals to Fellowship without Prior Consent of Local Consistory by Darrell Todd Maurina, Press Officer United Reformed News Service HOLLAND, Mich. (October 14, 1997) URNS -- Since the Lake Michigan Regional Fellowship isn't a classis or a synod, what is it and what's it for? Those questions headlined a September 11 special meeting of the regional fellowship called by churches concerned about what procedure should be used if member churches had internal difficulties. Currently numbering eight members with several other churches outside the area considering membership, the Lake Michigan Regional Fellowship is a group of churches, mostly in the West Michigan area, which declined to join Classis Midwest of the United Reformed Churches when the majority of former Christian Reformed congregations federated into the URC. Over the past few years, two members of the regional fellowship have had problems between their pastors and either the consistory or congregation, in each case resulting in large numbers of members leaving the church. That raised the question of how churches that don't want to be part of a synod should handle such problems -- almost three dozen members of one of the church es attended as observers to see how the regional fellowship would handle the issue. "We want to have some input into what the Lake Michigan Regional Fellowship's jurisdiction is, what they can do to cooperate with one another, in cases of appeal," said Elder Rick Poll of Dutton Independent Reformed Church, who chaired the special meeting. Poll cited an article in the Lake Michigan Regional Fellowship's "Articles of Fellowship" specifying that the organization could act in cases of appeals. "What we would like to know is what is the understanding of this article," said Poll. "Does this mean just councils or also individuals?" Elder Phil Barker of Messiah's IRC of Holland argued that the article clearly was intended to handle appeals by members of churches against decisions of their consistory with which they disagreed, noting that the Form of Subscription inherited from the Christian Reformed Church specified that officebearers had the right to appeal decisions of their churches alleging that they had violated the Reformed doctrinal standards. That argument didn't go down well with all delegates, however. Elder Roger Swets of Cutlerville IRC noted that his church had deleted the appeal provision from the Form of Subscription; delegates from Immanuel Fellowship Church of Kalamazoo -- which seceded from the Reformed Church in America rather than from the Christian Reformed Church -- noted that they had never had a Form of Subscription for their local congregation. Poll reminded delegates that even if their local churches didn't have an appeal process specified in their own rules, by joining the regional fellowship they had agreed to follow the articles of fellowship which mentioned appeals but didn't provide a detailed process. "We have it in our articles of fellowship that we will be a forum for protests and appeals but we have never defined what that means," said Poll. Elder Dave Eshuis of Immanuel Fellowship Church reminded delegates that there were reasons his church and others hadn't joined a tightly-knit federation, but noted that his church -- which has an internal issue unrelated to the two more publicized problems -- would be happy to seek the advice of the regional fellowship. "We have a case before us which could very easily become an appeal, and we would have no problem with having it appealed to this body," said Eshuis. "One of the things I have against classes and denominations is they overrule the council. Our articles of fellowship say we can't overrule the council. I would hope that a council would want a larger body to hear it, but if they do not, I don't think we have jurisdiction." After several delegates pointed out that the original intent of the relevant article was to allow appeals, Rev. Ray Lanning of Cutlerville IRC reminded delegates that those who originally proposed the article had since left the regional fellowship to federate with the United Reformed Churches. According to Lanning, while churches quite properly should seek the advice of other churches in case of appeals, the appeal should be to an ad hoc council of churches called to deal with a specific situation, not to a permanent body of churches which could begin to act as a church court and usurp the rights of member churches. "I would point out that Rev. Leestma [of Lynwood URC in Illinois] and some of those other people were looking for a provisional classis," said Lanning. "For this body to act as a classis when it is really not, I don't think that is anything any of us really want." "We have had a precedent here with one of our churches which had an appeal which did not come to this body, but called upon other churches to call a duly constituted council of churches to deal with the appeal," said Lanning. "This is well in line with historic independent and congregational polity." Those who advocated allowing appeals to the regional fellowship emphasized they had no desire to become a classis in the historic Christian Reformed sense but wanted some avenue by which disaffected members could obtain a hearing for their concerns. "It is our desire to uphold the autonomy, rightly defined, of the local church," said Rev. Ken Anema of Messiah's IRC -- sentiments echoed by other delegates. "If we are not seeing this as a sort of classis to hear appeals, what is the purpose of this body?" asked Poll. Lanning asked Poll why his had used a different process rather than having its appeal processed by the regional fellowship. "This is a process, not the only process," said Poll. "In the case mentioned, we all wanted the matter not to get more publicity for the welfare of all involved." Eshuis continued to insist that the regional fellowship not handle appeals unless the church agreed -- and would be wasting its time if it tried to handle an appeal without consent of the church whose decision was under appeal. Eshuis moved that the articles of fellowship be amended to specify that "the appellant and his council must be agreed on the propriety of hearing the appeal before the Lake Michigan Regional Fellowship before the appeal will be heard at the meeting." "I would point out the practicality of this motion," said Eshuis. "If we have no authority over a local council, of what value is that appeal to this body?" Elder Dan Mejeur of Wayland IRC cited John Calvin's view of the authority of broader assemblies in cases of appeal, and other delegates questioned whether the proposed amendment was proper. Lanning, however, argued that appeals to John Calvin or Christian Reformed documents were not relevant. "We may as well discuss how the Roman Catholic Church would handle an appeal to the Vatican," said Lanning. "Those are other systems of government we would not accept or acknowledge as our own." Other delegates noted that the motion didn't prevent a council from overturing the regional fellowship to expel a church that no longer met the regional fellowship's membership standards. After more debate, Eshuis' motion passed by the slimmest of margins -- a 7 to 6 vote. However, the amendment won't take effect until a simple majority -- five churches -- certify that their consistories have ratified the amendment. The proposal dies if it isn't ratified within a year. The regional fellowship then moved on to a general debate of how an appeal should be handled if it is accepted by both the appellant and by his church council. "Are we as a regional fellowship going to hear any appeal that comes before us, or are we going to have some committee to act as a clearinghouse?" asked Elder Pete Elzinga, recording clerk of the fellowship. "If we have an appeal accepted by both the council and the appellant, that would say we ought to hear it," said Eshuis. The regional fellowship will next meet on the evening of November 13, following the October 16-17 meeting of the Alliance of Reformed Churches with which the regional fellowship is connected. According to Elzinga, he has received notice of only one consistory vote on ratification, and that consistory opposed ratification. If three more consistories also reject the amendment, it will die before the one-year deadline and the regional fellowship will have to decide whether it wants to handle appeals by a different procedure. Cross-References to Related Articles: #1994-054: Lake Michigan Churches Ratify "Articles of Fellowship" #1996-015: Lake Michigan Regional Fellowship Calls Special Meeting to Deal with "Crisis" of Federation #1996-116: Lake Michigan Regional Fellowship Votes to Let Federated Churches Stay After Most Federated Churches Leave Contact List: Rev. Ken Anema, Pastor, Messiah's Independent Reformed Church of Overisel 234 N. Ottawa, Zeeland, MI 49464 H: (616) 748-1542 Elder Pete Elzinga, Recording Clerk, Lake Michigan Regional Fellowship 10532 Paw Paw Dr., Holland, MI 49424 H: (616) 772-2918 Rev. Ray Lanning, Pastor, Independent Reformed Church of Cutlerville 1088 Harvester Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49508 H/O: (616) 554-0001 Rev. Rein Leestma, Pastor Emeritus, Lynwood Christian Reformed Church (Independent) 1429 Inverness Lane, Schererville, IN 46375 H: (219) 322-8890 Elder Dan Mejeur, Covenant Independent Reformed Church c/o Covenant IRC, 2846 - 16th St., Hopkins, MI 49328 Elder Rick Poll, Dutton Independent Reformed Church 3390 - 60th St. SE, Caledonia, MI 49316 H: (616) 554-3203 Elder Roger Swets, Independent Reformed Church of Cutlerville 800 Bridgewater Place, Grand Rapids, MI 49501 O: (616) 459-1171 * FAX: (616) 732-1740 ---------------------------------------------------------- file: /pub/resources/text/reformed/archive97: nr97-105.txt .