The following is a production of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and is made possible by the generous financial support of our listeners and friends. For more information about the seminary, how you can support it, or applying to become a student, please visit GPTS.edu. Hello and welcome to another edition of Confessing Our Hope, the podcast of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. My name is Zach Groff, and I'm your host, also the Director of Advancement and Admissions here at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Today I have with me in the studio via Zoom my good friend, Pastor Travis Grassmid. Travis, thank you for joining me. Well, thank you for inviting me, Zach. I really appreciate it. It's an encouragement to be able to meet with you all, even if it's from a distance. Longtime listeners of the podcast will remember Pastor Grasmid as our frequent repeat guest in our denominational debrief segment, particularly treating the Reformed Church in the United States, the RCUS. This year, we're looking at and considering the 275th Synod of the Reformed Church in the U.S. It was held May 17th to 21st at Trinity Reformed Church in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, which is pastored by Mike McGee, another Greenville Seminary grad. Pastor Grasmid is, for new listeners' sake, the pastor of Zion Reformed Church in Menno, South Dakota. He's a graduate of Greenville Seminary in the class of 2008. He's ministered in both the RCUS and in the United Reformed Churches of North America, URCNA. and he is the RCUS representative on the Greenville Seminary Board of Trustees. The RCUS is the only denomination that supports Greenville Seminary at a denominational level and at an amount which gets them a seat at the board. Of course, Travis also checks off on all of our doctrinal requirements for all of our voting board members and we're very glad that he's serving on the board. He's the president of the South Central Classes of the RCUS and vice president of the Synod, both positions he has held for a number of years. Now, our listeners might be wondering, what happened to last year's denominational debrief? What about the 274th Synod of the RCUS? Well, last year, the Synod met via Zoom for a very abbreviated meeting just to keep things up to date and to authorize any necessary funding for the work of the Church, thus why we did not have a denominational debrief interview last year for the RCUS. For a general introduction to the denomination, I will refer our listeners to previous denominational debrief interviews, and we're not going to hash out some of those introductory details today. Travis, as we consider the RCUS this year coming out of the 275th Synod, how many congregations are making up the church today and where are they located? We have 46 churches represented. That includes Mission Works. They are from shore to shore. California has a number of congregations, but probably the heartbeat of the denomination is here in the Midwest, the Dakotas, Nebraska area. That's where we have a large grouping of our congregations, which is noted in the two classes. of really Northern Plains and South Central, which are the Middle Plains parts of the region. We do then go into Cognonese classes and goes throughout Wisconsin and Ohio and a couple of congregations in Pennsylvania. So it really is a United States wide denomination, although we're still a small cut denomination. Of those 40-some churches who sent ministers and elders, who exactly attended this year's Synod? How many delegates were present? Well, delegates are every minister, either active or retired, and every congregation is allowed one elder delegate. So this year we had 39 ministers delegated to the Synod, and 26 elders were present, and that gave us a total of 65 delegates to the Synod. And were they pretty representative, covering the whole geographic expanse of the RCUS, noticing that, you know, at least a couple churches perhaps were not represented? They certainly were. And a couple congregations are quite small, and they had difficulty finding representatives. However, yes, from every class there was good representation from the elders, and that was encouraging to see. One of the encouraging things about the RCUS Synod meeting, as well as some of the other Synod meetings that we cover in our denominational debrief segment, is that you have a series of worship services that really are the highlight for many of the delegates and the visitors. Was there a special theme this year to those worship services, or were they all occasional messages selected by the speakers? Yes, sometimes we do have a theme, but this year we did not have a theme, and they were indeed occasional messages. We had a good opening message from Reverend Stephen Carr, an excellent Wednesday evening message that I really appreciated from Pastor Groggin of Bakersfield, California, from 1 Peter 1. One of our former One of our graduates from GPTS, Pastor Campbell from Kansas City, delivered a very fine Wednesday morning devotional. So yes, they are an encouragement to the entire gathering of Synod to hear the word expounded to us multiple times throughout the week. Now having moved into, at this point, the business portion of the Synod meeting, can you give us a brief overview of what happened over the course of the Synod? And then I'll ask some follow-up questions to dig in on some particular items of interest. Sure. Beginning with worship and then the calling of the role, We went into the assignment of committees. Every delegate was assigned to at least one standing committee. I was assigned to chair the judicial committee, but those assignments were given out. Due course, those committees were given opportunity in the evening, primarily, to meet and conduct their business. There was the working through of the regular agenda. Well, first, the election of the officers. Pastor Frank Walker is, once again, the president. I'm the vice president. Pastor Ruben Zartman of Shafter, California, is the clerk. And our treasurer is an elder delegate from Ohio, Mr. Randy Schrader. So they were elected and yeah, the committee work was commenced, reports were presented, special committees gave their presentations at the allotted time. Everything following a carefully defined agenda by our executive committee. From what I understand, you had two special committee reports due this year. What were the conclusions of those reports? In fact, we can back up a little bit. What were even the subjects covered by these two committees? We had one strategic planning committee that was established a couple of years ago to look at the general trajectory of the denomination and rather than just going with what happens to actually have a plan forward for progress as a denomination. They gave a very lengthy, well thought out report and made a number of recommendations out of that came recommendations that include the infrastructure for better communication between the committees and to the members of the denomination and to the world. Social media being essential to that. They made certain recommendations to promote better training for mission works, to develop strategy for foreign missions, to develop and promote a better system for planned giving and to encourage that as an aspect of who we are that we would as a denomination plan on giving to the works of the church. So that was an excellent committee and with very good outcomes. The other committee had almost a Puritan-type title, one that seems to be more of a book rather than a title. But that one was titled, quote, The Special Committee to Study Whether Women Voting in Congregational Meetings is an Exercise of Authority. I think we talked about this in the past. This topic comes up on a regular basis in our denomination. Historically, there's the tradition of men only voting in the congregational meeting. But that's not a uniform practice in the denomination, nor is it a necessary practice in the denomination. Currently, according to our president, one in six of our churches allow for women voting in the congregational meeting. However, there's always a push to make a uniform ban on this. This recent committee presented a 48-page exegetical report with a number of recommendations looking at the history in the Reformed churches and the history in our practice. of what they believed to be the proper exegesis of scripture concerning this. They made a number of recommendations. I think it was 20 or so. I don't remember how. There were a lot of recommendations. But in the end, interestingly, they all centered on recommendation number 14, which Reads, this will be the heart of it. Recommendation number 14 reads, husbands and fathers are to vote in congregational meetings as covenant heads and representatives of their wives and households. Only male communicant members of the church may vote in congregational meetings who are of age and in good standing. Electors also include single young men who are of age. That was kind of the heart of all of these recommendations and one delegate wisely proposed that we deal with that first and then made a very good case for why this really oversteps the authority of a position paper or of a study report because this recommendation would make the voting in a congregational meeting a matter of constitutional authority without going through the necessary steps of a two-thirds vote and the two-thirds ratification of the classes. And so, upon his recommendation, the president concurred and ruled question 14 to be out of order. And that really gutted all of the rest of the questions and so the entire report was laid on the table and the committee was dissolved because there was nothing more of substance that could be done with it at that point. So that was the outcome of that special committee report as well. You might not be able to speak to this, Travis, or you may not want to step into the political furnace here, but from your vantage point, what do you expect will happen next? Now, the reports table, that's an indefinite move, parliamentary move. It could be taken up again to be received with thanks or as advisory or something. But yeah, those recommendations being as strongly put and as actionable as they are really is not the place of a study committee. So I think that those brothers ruled rightly on that. But do you think that perhaps a consistory or a classist will bring a motion before the next Senate to consider that recommendation in the proper way, as a motion of some kind from a lower court of the church being brought to the higher court to consider a constitutional change? Do you think that's likely, or did it seem like there's not appetite to do that? That's actually a very good question. And you're right, that would be the appropriate way for it to go. A direct answer is I do not know of any consistory that is planning that at this point. However, historical precedent would say that it will come up again. And so reading the tea leaves, I would expect that it will come up in one way or another. But I'm not aware of anyone in particular that is planning it at this point. Well, we may continue this conversation about the nature of voting and the exercise of power in this particular way in the church in the future. And one thing I'll remark to our listeners, and we remarked on this previously, Travis, is that this really, though it is treating of the subject of the proper roles of men and women in the church, it's actually more fundamentally about whether voting is by individuals or by households. And I think that's really the crux of the issue is not so much the male-female thing though that certainly factors into it but it's more the the household versus individual thing and And we've discussed I've discussed that on the podcast in a couple of different contexts that whole the nature of the relationship between individuals and the societies of which they are part if that's mediated through a household relationship or if it's directly between the individual and the society in question and You're absolutely right. And there's not going to be complete unanimity on how to achieve that, probably until the Lord comes again. I think you're probably right on that. Were there any new special committees formed this year? There was only one special committee formed that actually came out of the Judicial Committee, on which I was. There had been an overture to redefine a couple of classist boundary lines and judicial made a recommendation that Senate affirmed that rather than us trying to do that on the fly, we formed a special committee to look at all the classist lines and do some appropriate gerrymandering, I guess, to better find good representation between the classes. We're finding that in the northern plains, the populations in the city centers are just declining. And so then the churches are declining. And what used to be a very strong classes is finding that they have waning numbers. And so this seemed like a good opportunity for us to look at all four classes and see, make sure that we try to keep some sort of uniformity of number and influence there. So Lord willing, they'll come with a very good record recommendation to the 276th Synod that we can discuss that. I think it's very interesting that that's the one special committee that was formed out of this particular Synod, because in my conversation with ARP Minister Ben Glazer just last week, where we did our ARP denominational debrief, that was one of the issues that came out of this year's ARP Synod. They're taking a second look, I should say, at their presbytery boundaries and how the lines are falling and whether or not they need to be redrawn a bit or reconsidered in order better to serve the interests of the whole denomination and of the individual presbyteries. because it's kind of like the RCUS. They do technically have congregations from shore to shore, but they're concentrated in one particular area. In this case, rather than the upper Midwest, we're more considering the southeastern United States where the ARP is. And so it's interesting to see both denominations, very different sizes, of course, dealing with a similar issue here, born out of a similar problem. And that is when you're, primarily concentrated in one area but spread out across a wider area, how do you deal with that when you're seeking to be Presbyterian in your church government and have, you know, equitably distributed representation? That's interesting. We have to check with them at our upcoming NAPARC meeting and maybe get some info from them. Yeah, that is upcoming. It's what, next week or in a couple of weeks? No, it's in November. Yeah. Shortly after the JPTS board meeting. Yeah, that's right. So you could hit both strips. That's right. I can hit both with one flight. Because it's going to be in Raleigh, North Carolina, right? Raleigh, North Carolina. Yep. Yes, sir. Very good. Shifting gears, this year, did you all welcome any new ministers or congregations? And can you tell us anything about that? Well, we did one new minister. He is a second career gentleman from Chicago area. He was a graduate of Mid-America just last year, and we welcomed now Reverend Carl Bogelman. I had the honor of being able to do his ordination service, and he is the new minister at Emanuel Reformed Church in Sutton, Nebraska. So he and his lovely wife and a couple of German shepherds have moved down to Sutton and The labors there are going very well. In fact, October 31, Reformation Day, we will be having Pastor Gobleman up here for a mission test. So I look forward to seeing how things are going six months later. down there in Sutton. So we're excited about that. That's great. You mentioned a little bit ago in talking about the Special Committee on Strategic Planning, or whatever it was called, and their discussions about some areas of opportunity for the RCUS to put some energy toward, including in that training for mission works and church planters and core groups and provisional sessions or consistories, rather. Is the RCUS currently involved in any mission works, particularly either domestic or foreign, that you'd like to tell us about? Yes, we are both. Domestically, we work in central Iowa, around the Pella, Iowa area. It's being pastored by Pastor Chuck Meather. That's growing, it's doing very well, and we're very encouraged at that work. Also, and this is more a work of our classes, but which is developing and looking like it'll become a work of synod, Lord willing, is a work in the Gallatin Valley of Montana, which also is doing well. We have some retired ministers that have volunteered their time to go there and minister to the saints and trying to establish a work there in a little town called Manhattan. So we're excited about that potential work. On the foreign missions, we have the continuing work in Congo and in Kenya, which I'm not terribly familiar with, but I know we have work continuing there. And in the Philippines, we're developing work more and more with a small denomination there, Pearl of the Orient Covenant Reformed Church. churches, and cooperating with them for the developing of more Reformed works in the Philippines. So we're very excited about that work as well. You know, I don't know if this would fall under foreign or domestic missions for you all, but if you ever want to plant a church in Greenville, you know, send a group down. We'd love to have some RCUS students involved in that here at GPTS, and it is really remarkable. We've had a number of men from the RCUS over the years. Our listeners have heard us mention several, including you, Travis, and Chris Campbell, and also Mike McGee, and others besides, and even though there is no RCUS congregation, there's no Dutch Reformed or German Reformed or Continental Reformed congregation in the Greenville area, and yet, you know, these men have come, have studied with us, and we've been pleased to build a relationship, foster and nurture a very good relationship with the RCUS as a result. You know, Zach, I don't know if we ever talked about this, but that has been my dream for a long time, is to do exactly what you just recommended. So if anybody wants to get RCUS work started there, please contact me and we would love to be able to cooperate with y'all. It's one thing I'm praying for. I would love for us to have a continental reformed congregation in Greenville where our URCNA, RCUS, and other continental reformed brothers can worship and worship in a manner that will look a lot like the churches to which they'll be called. Now, That being said, our OPC church here right next to the seminary is pastored by Peter van Doodewaard, who comes from a Dutch Reformed background, and so you do have congregations here where these men have served very comfortably and eminently in the past. And Travis, you were at Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church, which is also very much like many of these Continental Reformed churches that we're talking about. Travis, kind of last note here on this brief denominational debrief, what was the single most encouraging takeaway from Synod for you? I think that special committees like the one on women voting and certain other things had potential to cause a lot of discord within the ranks, and it didn't. And I praise God for that. there was a commitment to unity, there was a commitment to brotherhood, there was a commitment to peace in the church, and I find that very encouraging, that peace with purity aspect being forefront, and I find that very encouraging that that would be the case. I'm encouraged that there's a renewed and growing priority being placed on home missions. I think that the outworking of the Strategic Planning Committee has highlighted to us that we can't just let things happen, but we have to be proactive in the work of the Church, and I'm encouraged to see that that is taking root, and Lord willing, we'll see the fruit of it, but we see a renewed commitment to that. Those would probably be my greatest encouragements that I see coming out of that, and Lord willing, by His providence that will grow and they'll mature and bear great fruit, and we'll see the church grow stronger spiritually, but also numerically, would be my prayer. Well, we are very thankful for the RCUS. We are thankful for our relationship with the RCUS and how the Lord has allowed us as a seminary to serve this blessed expression of his church. And I pray that that relationship will continue to grow even as your denomination grows and as our seminary. grows, and as long as I'm in this role, I'm hopeful that I'll be able to actually get to a synod at some point, and maybe even next year come up to Wisconsin to visit with you all. Travis, thank you again for your time, and please give our love to your family. I will do so and just to reciprocate we as a denomination do very much appreciate GPTS, other seminaries as well, but GPTS has been a great partner with us and we very much appreciate the work in the seminary. Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you for listening to this edition of Confessing Our Hope, the podcast of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. 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