Together…

By Jessica Maddox

The week of Synod 2024 has come to an end. As the week wrapped up, many people in the Christian Reformed Church felt that more than just meetings were coming to a close. In the final session of synod, Trish Borgdorff, an elder delegate from Classis Grand Rapids East and a member of Eastern Avenue CRC, was allowed to read a “statement of farewell” from the floor. She stood at the mic and shared her statement with a steady voice, expressing deep faith and hope in the face of loss and grief (watch here, starting at 2:24:30). We are grateful to Trish for permitting her statement to be shared in full in this post.

We share Trish’s statement because it names the sadness many feel: “Here we are together, serving the same God, loving God’s people in our desire to further His Kingdom and somehow we see it all very differently.” The differences we felt that we could navigate better together have deepened and widened into a breach. 

We are together with you in this changing terrain. 

We also share Trish’s statement because it names the hope many also feel: “We will remain faithful to God’s call on our community, trusting in his guidance and provision.” God’s church is big, and the church’s call to show love, bring hope, and do good in a hurting world remains.

We are together with you in this unchanging work.   

Finally, we are sharing Trish’s statement with you because it reminds us that there is no breach that can separate us from God’s love that binds us to himself and to one another. She writes, “We trust the Spirit will continue to move and chase after us, all of us, with goodness and mercy, and, someday together, we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”  

We remain committed to working toward supporting visible expressions of the church’s unity in a fractured world. 

As we navigate our grief and hope in the unknown days ahead, our prayer for us all is that we will remember we already know how this whole story ends: someday together—all together—we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Until that day, may we join one another in the journey homeward, encouraging one another with faith, hope, and love. 

We are together with you in the journey.

Full Text of “Statement of Farewell” by Trisha Borgdorff, spoken at Synod 2024:

Dear Delegates,

We have talked a lot about process this week. I asked our president for permission to address the body. As excited as we are to make a good pathway to welcome new church plants into our denomination, how we leave is also important to consider.

I have heard Christians referred to as repairers of the breach—that our highest calling is to mend the places that sin has broken. Perhaps that’s why it’s so heartbreaking to have a breach of our own. We’re doing the very opposite. And it would be disingenuous for any of us to think we didn’t play some part in causing it. I don’t come to you with a spirit of us versus them, but more to highlight the reality that here we are together, serving the same God, loving God’s people in our desire to further His Kingdom and somehow we see it all very differently.

I grew up as the daughter of a pastor and later administrator in the CRC. For much of his life, this church was his deepest love. It was our home in the truest sense of the word. This church shaped me and my faith. I’m grateful for all of it and that makes this process particularly painful.

My church home, Eastern Ave Christian Reformed Church, has been on the corner of Eastern and Logan in Grand Rapids for almost 150 years. We have been imperfect yet faithful in serving God and his people. We are a gospel-loving, story-telling, justice seeking, joyful body of believers.

We trust a God who looks kindly on those of us who are uncertain and struggling - who can live with the gray areas of life and still trust in the wideness of his mercy. We serve a God who is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. We trust that where the fruits of the Spirit are present, that the Spirit is present. We believe Scripture is meant to form and teach us - binding us together. We believe God is making all things new, therefore, we are called to move with the Spirit in the messy and holy work of renewing worship, nurturing faith, doing justice, caring for creation and building community with our neighbors.

At Eastern, we have loved and been committed to the work and ministry of the CRC. Today, there is sadness, but there is also peace and hope. We believe that God’s Church is bigger than any denomination, and his call extends beyond the boundaries of the CRC. We will remain faithful to God’s call on our community, trusting in his guidance and provision.

We trust the Spirit will continue to move and chase after us, all of us, with goodness and mercy, and, someday together, we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Then, with eternity on our side, we can find a way to live in unity.

May the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, guard all of our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.