The group ordination ceremony—the first of its kind—is one of the more public signs of an ongoing split in the Christian Reformed Church on the part of churches no longer willing to abide the CRC’s increasingly rigid stance on sexuality. Most of the disaffiliated churches have declared themselves open and affirming of LGBTQ+ members. 

(RNS)—At a church just outside Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Tuesday (Feb. 18), 33 ministers from the Christian Reformed Church in North America stood up to read aloud a declaration, officially accepting ordination in a rival denomination, the Reformed Church in America, and thereby gaining the freedom to be more accepting of LGBTQ believers.

Having stated they will abide by the creeds and confessions of the RCA, each of the ministers was then offered a loaf of bread as a symbol of fellowship and welcome.

The group ordination ceremony—the first of its kind—is one of the more public signs of an ongoing split in the Christian Reformed Church on the part of churches no longer willing to abide the CRC’s increasingly rigid stance on sexuality.

The ministers are not moving alone. Since June of last year, 26 churches have informed the denomination that they intend to disaffiliate from the 1,000-church body based in Grand Rapids, according to a CRC spokesperson. Most of those churches have declared themselves open and affirming of LGBTQ+ members. Not all are moving to the Reformed Church in America. Some ministers have sought to be ordained in the Presbyterian Church (USA) or the United Church of Christ.

The 33 ministers in Tuesday’s ordination will all be absorbed into the North Grand Rapids Classis, or regional group, of the RCA. The North Grand Rapids Classis will hold another group ordination of CRC ministers in May.

The RCA has no denomination-wide policy on LGBTQ matters, allowing local church groups, or classes, to discern their views on human sexuality for themselves. The RCA went through its own split in 2021 when conservative churches broke away after it was unable to pass an amendment to its book of order on a human sexuality.

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