By Rev. Jon Opgenorth... (Lead Pastor at Trinity Reformed Church in Orange City, Iowa
I was invited to speak a the 25th anniversary banquet of the MFCA. The MFCA is the Ministerial Formation Certification Agnency of the Reformed Church in America (RCA). It oversees the ordination process for students who do not attend either of the RCA seminaries – Western (WTS) and New Brunswick (NBTS). I graduated from Fuller Seminary in 1992. Below is the talk I gave at their banquet last week in Orange City:
When did it first happen to you (if it has at all)? For me it was at the Missouri Valley McDonalds, 2008, returning from 10 days in Africa and 24 hours of flying and airports. The woman taking my order was much older than I and yet asked me if I qualified… for the senior discount.
It was the first, but was not the last. Combined with a number of other incidents of similar nature in recent years, I have come to a conclusion: while I am not a senior, I have come into a new era – middle age. I have changed. I have become something new. I have resisted growing up. Sometimes I want the respect of years of service without owning my place. I have changed, it’s time for me to accept it, and it’s time to take my place at that table.
The MFCA is 25 and I would not have known unless Director Cor Kors had told me. In any event, I find the MFCA at 25 to be the Rodney Dangerfield of the RCA – just can’t get any respect. Perhaps you have experienced situations like I did at the recent classis exams. One person shared, “With all these MFCA students, this creates something new for us…” When he said “new” I was as dumbfounded as when the woman at the Missouri Valley McDonalds offered me a discount.
Twenty years ago, the classis of Wisconsin said the same thing during my exams (which contained fellow MFCA students Madeline Fuentes, David Bailey, David Izenbart, and myself. Over our first quarter century we have produced students from a variety of seminaries (Fuller, Gordon Conwell, Trinity, Princeton, Tyndale, and RTS, to name just a few).
On this milestone year of the MFCA I want to share three gifts that both are both part of what makes our past worth celebrating and our future a strategic place at the table. We are now at the table. It’s time to start contributing like adults who belong and who have something worthwhile, even, strategic to the RCA’s future. These three gifts I call the ABCs of Diversity.
1. Diversity of an Alternate Route with the same destination
On one level, MFCA was formed, in part, as an alternative geographical route to ordination. Perhaps not unlike NBTS forming to train ministers in the new world without the burden of going back to Amsterdam, or WTS forming on the “western frontier” of Michigan and beyond. The MFCA seemed to provide a geographic alternative for the far west students.
But even if that was the intended origin, there is no doubt that this change brought about diversity of location and leadership development delivery systems for a wide range of RCA students. In my day, it meant that a kid raised in the RCA ghetto of Oostburg, WI, and educated in the RCA ghetto of Orange City, IA, could get outside the ghetto and learn in a different avenue and in a way that would benefit the congregations I have served.
Today, the alternative delivery system includes the shift to distant learning and further increased opportunities. Because of this diversity, MFCA is giving the RCA a laboratory of leadership development.
2. Diversity of Biblical perspectives within a Reformed Worldview
Second, because the MFCA has given us alternative locations, the MFCA has allowed us to study under a variety of biblical scholars from all over the world, yet maintain our theological identity through the RCA core courses we take on worship, polity, credo, etc.
This gift allowed me to study under Croatian Miroslav Volf, Brit Colin Brown, Leadership guru Robbie Clinton, Signs and Wonders missiologists John Wimber and Carl George.
Sometimes these varied perspectives provided iron-sharpening-iron moments. The richness of this diversity allows us to think through our reformed perspective through a variety of lenses. It gives opportunity to engage one another in robust, biblical, theological, and practical conversation about how to be the church and do the work of the church.
My experiences at Fuller fueled my passion for evangelism and church growth. Many of the concepts from those years enabled me to develop ministries and structures that enabled congregations to grow. It would seem that in a shrinking denomination, we have much to learn from other churches, denominations, and Christian traditions that have been proactive in their commitment to follow Christ in mission.
3. Diversity of Cultural experiences
Third, Diversity of cultural experiences. I’ve already mentioned the ghettoization of my child hood and college years. I was mainly wanting to get out of my bubble. But the unexpected blessing of diverse cultures has come home to my life in profound ways.
If I had gone to the NBTS or WTS of the early 90s, I would have experienced some cultural diversity, and today there is even more. But in almost every course at Fuller in those days, I was in a near-United Nations experience. I learned to relate, appreciate, and love peoples of radically different cultures. My life was made rich by these associations.
And, indeed, little would I know that in 2007, the multicultural experiences I enjoyed in 1992 would bear fruit in profound ways. In Orange City, Iowa, of all places, I came face to face with the radically changing landscape of Latino immigrants from all over Mexico and points south. My rich experiences gave me the opportunity to engage the community in new ways and set at ease a 5-generation congregation as it makes room for new residents.
This very experience, it seems, is critical as the RCA lives out the 6th piece of Our Call – multiracial future freed from racism – we will need ministers with experiences to engage this reality.
Those are my ABC’s of the MFCA at 25, but there is one more key to the MFCA’s history and its place at the table.
“Everything rises and falls on leadership.”
For most of the past 25 years , Cor Kors has led this agency. It was begun with Ken Van Wyk . But when the RCA looked for new leadership in those days, they looked no farther than the NHL. The NHL, you remember, struggling for fans and success at points south of Vancouver. 1n 1988, the NHL looked north and brought the Great One – Wayne Gretzky – to the LA Kings.
The MFCA looked north and found another Canadian – a Maple Leaf. Cor descended to LA like an Alberta Clipper – a furious storm of tireless energy for a rather thankless task.
Think of what hats he must wear –
- he is a seminary president (of a seminary without buildings)
- he is the VP for advancement (explaining to donors what MFCA stands for)
- he is the dean of students (nurturing their faith as chaplain)
- he is registrar and provost (ensuring the academic standards and practical requirements of the program are met)
- he is the classis exam committee reference
- he is the CEO, COO, CFO
- he is a peace maker – often standing in the gap between students and classis “care” committees who don’t get MFCA, then standing in the gap between pastors and the requirements – sometimes defending a student against the requirement and sometime defending the requirements to the students.
It is a thankless job and he gets no respect. He is the Rodney Dangerfield of the RCA denominational staff.
But he carries with him not only the thanks of the past 25 years and the hopes of the current students. I believe he is in a unique position to shape ministerial formation in the still-young century. He has his pulse on the denomination in a way not often appreciated or understood. Cor is in the lives of students, classis, and congregations across the entire breadth of the denomination. His unique experience and history gives him a perspective that is needed for his place at the table.
To that end, MFCA is 25 – some of our earliest students are now in the prime of their ministries and the top of their game. For the first time, and MFCA alumn, Lisa Vander Wal, was elected General Synod Vice President. We have a place at the table. We are grown up. We may not want to admit it, but we are now of age. It’s not that we need a place at the table for our pride and acceptance and legitimization, but our experiences, education, and various diversities allow us a perspective that is strategic to this historic moment in the RCA.
Happy Birthday MFCA!
I was invited to speak a the 25th anniversary banquet of the MFCA. The MFCA is the Ministerial Formation Certification Agnency of the Reformed Church in America (RCA). It oversees the ordination process for students who do not attend either of the RCA seminaries – Western (WTS) and New Brunswick (NBTS). I graduated from Fuller Seminary in 1992. Below is the talk I gave at their banquet last week in Orange City:
Happy Birthday MFCA!
Owning Our Place at the Table
Gift to our past, Strategic to our future
It was the first, but was not the last. Combined with a number of other incidents of similar nature in recent years, I have come to a conclusion: while I am not a senior, I have come into a new era – middle age. I have changed. I have become something new. I have resisted growing up. Sometimes I want the respect of years of service without owning my place. I have changed, it’s time for me to accept it, and it’s time to take my place at that table.
The MFCA is 25 and I would not have known unless Director Cor Kors had told me. In any event, I find the MFCA at 25 to be the Rodney Dangerfield of the RCA – just can’t get any respect. Perhaps you have experienced situations like I did at the recent classis exams. One person shared, “With all these MFCA students, this creates something new for us…” When he said “new” I was as dumbfounded as when the woman at the Missouri Valley McDonalds offered me a discount.
Twenty years ago, the classis of Wisconsin said the same thing during my exams (which contained fellow MFCA students Madeline Fuentes, David Bailey, David Izenbart, and myself. Over our first quarter century we have produced students from a variety of seminaries (Fuller, Gordon Conwell, Trinity, Princeton, Tyndale, and RTS, to name just a few).
On this milestone year of the MFCA I want to share three gifts that both are both part of what makes our past worth celebrating and our future a strategic place at the table. We are now at the table. It’s time to start contributing like adults who belong and who have something worthwhile, even, strategic to the RCA’s future. These three gifts I call the ABCs of Diversity.
1. Diversity of an Alternate Route with the same destination
On one level, MFCA was formed, in part, as an alternative geographical route to ordination. Perhaps not unlike NBTS forming to train ministers in the new world without the burden of going back to Amsterdam, or WTS forming on the “western frontier” of Michigan and beyond. The MFCA seemed to provide a geographic alternative for the far west students.
But even if that was the intended origin, there is no doubt that this change brought about diversity of location and leadership development delivery systems for a wide range of RCA students. In my day, it meant that a kid raised in the RCA ghetto of Oostburg, WI, and educated in the RCA ghetto of Orange City, IA, could get outside the ghetto and learn in a different avenue and in a way that would benefit the congregations I have served.
Today, the alternative delivery system includes the shift to distant learning and further increased opportunities. Because of this diversity, MFCA is giving the RCA a laboratory of leadership development.
2. Diversity of Biblical perspectives within a Reformed Worldview
Second, because the MFCA has given us alternative locations, the MFCA has allowed us to study under a variety of biblical scholars from all over the world, yet maintain our theological identity through the RCA core courses we take on worship, polity, credo, etc.
This gift allowed me to study under Croatian Miroslav Volf, Brit Colin Brown, Leadership guru Robbie Clinton, Signs and Wonders missiologists John Wimber and Carl George.
Sometimes these varied perspectives provided iron-sharpening-iron moments. The richness of this diversity allows us to think through our reformed perspective through a variety of lenses. It gives opportunity to engage one another in robust, biblical, theological, and practical conversation about how to be the church and do the work of the church.
My experiences at Fuller fueled my passion for evangelism and church growth. Many of the concepts from those years enabled me to develop ministries and structures that enabled congregations to grow. It would seem that in a shrinking denomination, we have much to learn from other churches, denominations, and Christian traditions that have been proactive in their commitment to follow Christ in mission.
3. Diversity of Cultural experiences
Third, Diversity of cultural experiences. I’ve already mentioned the ghettoization of my child hood and college years. I was mainly wanting to get out of my bubble. But the unexpected blessing of diverse cultures has come home to my life in profound ways.
If I had gone to the NBTS or WTS of the early 90s, I would have experienced some cultural diversity, and today there is even more. But in almost every course at Fuller in those days, I was in a near-United Nations experience. I learned to relate, appreciate, and love peoples of radically different cultures. My life was made rich by these associations.
And, indeed, little would I know that in 2007, the multicultural experiences I enjoyed in 1992 would bear fruit in profound ways. In Orange City, Iowa, of all places, I came face to face with the radically changing landscape of Latino immigrants from all over Mexico and points south. My rich experiences gave me the opportunity to engage the community in new ways and set at ease a 5-generation congregation as it makes room for new residents.
This very experience, it seems, is critical as the RCA lives out the 6th piece of Our Call – multiracial future freed from racism – we will need ministers with experiences to engage this reality.
Those are my ABC’s of the MFCA at 25, but there is one more key to the MFCA’s history and its place at the table.
“Everything rises and falls on leadership.”
For most of the past 25 years , Cor Kors has led this agency. It was begun with Ken Van Wyk . But when the RCA looked for new leadership in those days, they looked no farther than the NHL. The NHL, you remember, struggling for fans and success at points south of Vancouver. 1n 1988, the NHL looked north and brought the Great One – Wayne Gretzky – to the LA Kings.
The MFCA looked north and found another Canadian – a Maple Leaf. Cor descended to LA like an Alberta Clipper – a furious storm of tireless energy for a rather thankless task.
Think of what hats he must wear –
- he is a seminary president (of a seminary without buildings)
- he is the VP for advancement (explaining to donors what MFCA stands for)
- he is the dean of students (nurturing their faith as chaplain)
- he is registrar and provost (ensuring the academic standards and practical requirements of the program are met)
- he is the classis exam committee reference
- he is the CEO, COO, CFO
- he is a peace maker – often standing in the gap between students and classis “care” committees who don’t get MFCA, then standing in the gap between pastors and the requirements – sometimes defending a student against the requirement and sometime defending the requirements to the students.
It is a thankless job and he gets no respect. He is the Rodney Dangerfield of the RCA denominational staff.
But he carries with him not only the thanks of the past 25 years and the hopes of the current students. I believe he is in a unique position to shape ministerial formation in the still-young century. He has his pulse on the denomination in a way not often appreciated or understood. Cor is in the lives of students, classis, and congregations across the entire breadth of the denomination. His unique experience and history gives him a perspective that is needed for his place at the table.
To that end, MFCA is 25 – some of our earliest students are now in the prime of their ministries and the top of their game. For the first time, and MFCA alumn, Lisa Vander Wal, was elected General Synod Vice President. We have a place at the table. We are grown up. We may not want to admit it, but we are now of age. It’s not that we need a place at the table for our pride and acceptance and legitimization, but our experiences, education, and various diversities allow us a perspective that is strategic to this historic moment in the RCA.
Happy Birthday MFCA!
