THE RETURNING CHURCH

SPAM-ATTACK!

2010-04-25T16:32:00.002-04:00

The Returning Church blog has finally succumb to the SPAM ATTACK and much declare defeat! No, this is not the end of the Returning Church (see an interesting discussion about that on the Returning Church facebook page), but it does mean this avenue of communication is going to be ceased. The number of spam comments overwhelms any legit comments - it's become too cumbersome to manage. We

More on the Belhar...

2010-01-27T08:13:00.004-05:00

In seeking for the CRC to be a confessional church, the proposed Belhar Confession certainly rises to the top of the issues discussed. We hope to pass along various resources evaluating the Belhar and balancing some of the information that has been passed on to the congregations in the CRC already. If we are to truly study and evaluate it, we need to have good information.Below are two

Manhattan Declaration

2009-12-04T14:17:00.003-05:00

Since one of the primary goals of the Returning Church is to encourage the CRC to be a committed confessional church, it's important to know what the means. Historically, for the CRC, this has meant understanding the Three Forms of Unity (Heidelberg Catechism, Belgic Confession and Canons of Dort) and the Three Ecumenical Creeds (Apostles', Nicene and Athanasian) as faithful interpreting and

Winter Classis Meetings

2009-12-04T14:13:00.002-05:00

The number of important topics and issues the CRCNA is dealing with on a denominational level at this time in history is a bit overwhelming. What are your churches and classes discussing or what should they be discussing right now??

We're Still Here!

2009-09-13T15:34:00.002-04:00

No, recently we haven't been posting any blogs... or is it blogging any posts... whatever. We've been watching others' blogs/websites/etc and, of course, just trying to keep up with the demands of local ministry.We will be starting the process of planning for our spring event (yeah, summer's not even over yet and we're already thinking "spring" - we'll it's been cold here in West Michigan this

CRCNA Synod 2009

2009-06-12T11:44:00.003-04:00

Pastor and elder delegates from classes all across the United States and Canada will begin converging on Trinity Christian College in Palos Heights, IL, Friday, June 11, to convene Synod 2009. There are the usual items of business on the agenda: new candidates for ministry, budgets, appointments, agency and committee reports, etc. On top of that there seems to be quite a bit of business from the

More Thoughts on the Belhar

2009-05-12T22:00:00.003-04:00

Since our previous post on the Belhar Confession there have been several comments made that are insightful and helpful. Recently, the Belhar Implementation Team from 1st Seattle CRC sent out a communcation with some of their research to the churches. We encourage you to take a look at that, as well as the study report from the Inter-Church Relations Committee (IRC) printed in the agenda for

Kevin De Young Audio from 03.26.09

2009-04-07T10:08:00.002-04:00

We were greatly blessed through Kevin De Young at CTS on March 26, 2009. Not only did we get a good analysis of the emergent church movement but also a challenge to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our churches. The audio is here. You can go to www.sermon.net/returningchurch to get the podcast, etc. This is the cleaned up version. For some reason the entire Q&A was not recorded. We

Belhar Confession

2009-02-25T09:31:00.005-05:00

It's been a couple of years since the CRC has been introduced to the Belhar Confession. We are supposed in a time of reflection and study to see if it would be appropriate to add this as a fourth "confession" along with the Heidelberg Catechism, Belgic Confession and Canons of Dort. Still, it seems that the Interchurch Relations Committee (IRC) certainly knows what we should do with it as seen in

Details on March 26 "Not Emergent" Meeting

2009-02-09T15:56:00.003-05:00

The meeting with Rev. Kevin De Young on March 26 will begin at 7:00 p.m. and is being held at the Calvin Seminary Auditorium in Grand Rapids, MI. Seating is first-come, first served. Ted Kluck, co-author with De Young of Why We're Not Emergent, will not be present due to a prior commitment. For more information, see the post below. If you would like a copy of the promotional poster, just send at

Pastors' Gathering at the Piper Conference

2009-02-09T15:07:00.003-05:00