The CRC in Lynden is dying

What's happening in Lynden is happening everywhere in the denomination.

Today’s post explores the decline of the Christian Reformed Church in Lynden, Washington since 1990.

Though it’s not fun to try to understand church decline, it’s worth doing for two reasons.

1. First, the trends affecting churches in Lynden are happening in churches elsewhere, both inside and outside the denomination. Putting a local church cluster under the microscope can reveal patterns affecting the denomination at large.

2. Second, I suspect what’s happening in Lynden is also happening in other medium-sized CRC clusters.

Here are the Christian Reformed churches in Lynden:

• First CRC (organized 1900)

• Second CRC (organized 1920)

• Third CRC (organized 1938)

• Bethel CRC (organized 1951)

• Mountain View CRC (organized 1971)

• Sonlight CRC (organized 1978)

• Wiser Lake Chapel (roughly 1992–1999)

• Amor Viviente (2011 onward)

• House for All Saints and All Sinners (2023–2024)

I did not include Faith Christian Fellowship in Everson (disbanded 2018), Sumas CRC, or Hope in Christ (organized in 1968 with the help of Everson CRC and Bethel CRC). I also did not include Christ Community Church in Blaine, Washington, though it was started with considerable involvement of members of Second CRC. These churches are not included in the analysis below for three reasons:

1. It was a subjective judgment call: I had to draw a line (on a map) somewhere.

2. These churches were usually not included in Lynden CRC events.

3. Interactions between and among these churches and the churches I included seems less.

4. I don’t think adding these churches would have changed the story below.

This post is divided into six parts:

1. An overview of CRC membership patterns in Lynden since 1900.

2. Declining birth rates in Lynden since 1990.

3. How the WICO debates and subsequent organization of the URC in 1997 affected Lynden’s CRCs.

4. How the founding of North County Christ the King Church in 2000 affected membership trends.

5. The sharp decline in evangelism in Lynden since 1990.

6. Cultural changes in the late-20th century CRC in Lynden.

In addition to a few footnotes at the bottom, all data comes from CRC Yearbooks. The data is as good as what’s in the yearbooks—i.e. not perfect, but equally imperfect across time, so still useful for identifying broad trends and patterns.

Part 1: An overview of CRC membership patterns in Lynden since 1900

For the first twenty years of the CRC’s existence in Lynden, the church was comprised of individuals who were born in the Netherlands, immigrated to the United States, and had children in America. Though almost everyone was Dutch and spoke Dutch, these immigrants typically spent some number of years or decades in the Midwest, specifically northwest Iowa, southwest Minnesota, northeast Nebraska, the eastern half of South Dakota, and a few isolated communities in southeastern North Dakota. In almost all cases, economic circumstances—usually a farm that failed—prompted them to leave Midwest locales for Lynden.

By the 1920s, the CRC continued to grow both from Midwest migration and from a new generation born to those who migrated before 1920. The children of Lynden’s original settlers were more likely to speak English. This, along with the impractical size of First CRC, prompted several families to form Second CRC in 1920, where English was spoken.

Third CRC was organized in 1938 for many of the same reasons: First CRC and Second CRC were too large to absorb what were now third-generation migrants who spoke English.

The baby boom hit Lynden immediately after World War II, especially at Third CRC, which had more young families than Second and First. Bethel CRC was organized in 1951 to accommodate this growth. This was the fourth generation of Dutch immigrants.

1950 also saw the CRC’s greatest penetration into the local population. (The percentage of CRC members is greater than 100% because, in addition to the population living in Lynden, members came from surrounding rural areas.)

Growth slowed in the 1960s and stalled in the 1970s. Midwest migration had stopped, and the Baby Boom in Lynden was coming to an end. Despite this, Lynden’s CRCs organized two new churches: one halfway between Lynden and Bellingham (“out in the county”), and another in Lynden. These churches, Mountain View CRC and Sonlight CRC, began meeting in 1971 and 1978, respectively.

There was a final surge of growth in the 1980s and 1990s, driven primarily by growth at Sonlight, until the 1990s.

Then, in the 1990s, everything changed.

From a peak of 3,676 members in 1992, membership declined to 3,343 members by the end of the decade and kept dropping: to 2,869 members in 2010 and 2,133 members in 2020 at the start of the pandemic. Today, there are 2,065 members in the CRC in Lynden. Since 1992, membership in Lynden’s Christian Reformed Churches has declined by 43.8%.

Update 10/24/2024: Someone pointed out to me that Synod 1992 approved a change effective in 1994 that ministry shares paid by individual churches would be calculated based on the number of members rather than the number of families. Prior to 1994, churches were more likely to over-report members; counts after 1994 tend to be more accurate.

Where did everyone go?

Since 1990, 3,445 people have left Lynden’s CRCs. Or, to put it more starkly, in Lynden, only 231 people who were CRC in 1990 are still CRC in 2024. Around 93% of people have left.¹

Where did everyone go?

Roughly a third died, a third left for other denominations, and a third were reversions.

Frankly, I find these numbers impossible to believe. They don’t seem to reflect reality. Yet this is what the yearbooks indicate, and the yearbooks contain self-reported membership from each church—so I’m not sure where else to go to find more reliable numbers. If anything, because denominational quotas were once based on membership, churches would actually be incentivized to under-report.

Part 2: Declining birth rates in Lynden since 1990

For much of the CRC’s history—in Lynden and everywhere else—churches were comprised of extended family networks. Church was a family matter. Growth was driven by children who became adults in the church, and then had children of their own. For better or worse, have more babies! is a reliable way to grow membership.

Part of the reason membership has declined since 1990 is because people are having fewer babies.² Here is a chart of children—usually infants—baptized per year. It’s not a perfect measure of birth rates, as not all children are baptized, but it’s close. Still, the trend is unmistakable: many of the young families having children have left the CRC, and those who have stayed are having fewer children.

Meanwhile, the CRC in Lynden is aging. More people are dying:

These two factors—declining birth rates and an aging membership—have flipped the ratio of births to deaths in Lynden’s CRCs. In 1990, two people were born in for every person who died. Now, one person is born for every two people who die.

Part 3: The WICO debates and the URC split of the 90s

For two decades, the CRC waged a brutal fight over the question of Women in Church Office (WICO)—whether women could be ordained as pastors, elders, and deacons. Though much of the fighting took place at the denominational level, conflict happened locally, too.

The WICO debates started in 1970 when Synod appointed a committee to study the issue after the Reformed Ecumenical Synod—an international organization of which the CRC was a member—began studying the issue. Though the synodical committee’s 1973 report concluded that women could not be excluded from church office on biblical grounds, rather than adopt the committee’s recommendations, Synod instead appointed another study committee to re-examine the issue. In 1975, this committee reported much the same thing to Synod, but Synod still was not ready to open the offices of the church to women. Instead, two more study committees were formed. The first committee reported back to Synod in 1977 on the use of women’s gifts, and the second committee reported to Synod in 1978 on hermeneutical principles. In response, Synod opened the office of deacon to women but kept the offices of pastor and elder closed. The following year, Synod 1979 did not ratify the earlier Synod’s position on opening the office of deacon, and instead appointed yet another study committee, which reported to Synod 1981 that women could be ordained as deacons. Synod decided, rather than open the office of deacon to women, to form yet another committee to study headship in the Bible. This committee reported to Synod 1984 that women could be ordained as deacons, and Synod finally agreed.

However, Synod persisted in keeping the offices of elders and pastors closed to Women, while appointing yet another study committee to determine the function of elders and deacons. Synod 1987 approved this committee’s work but formed another committee to re-open the headship issue from the previous decade. In 1990, this second headship committee affirmed the decisions of the previous headship committee, concluding that all church offices should be open to women. This set off five years of contentious back-and-forth. First, the committee’s recommendations would need to be ratified by Synod 1992 to take effect, but Synod 1992 opted not to ratify, thus keeping the offices of elder and pastor closed to women. Synod 1993 re-opened the issue for Synod 1994 to ratify, but the following Synod 1994 closed all offices to women. Synod 1995 then undid Synod 1994’s decision, thus opening all offices to women. Synod 1995 also decided that there would be no further discussion of the issue for five years, until 2000. Synod 2000 extended the moratorium until 2005.³

WICO debates in Lynden and the formation of the URC

In response to Synod 1995’s decision, on January 19, 1997, nineteen families gathered for worship at Ebenezer Christian School, and on March 21, 1997, Lynden’s United Reformed Church officially organized. By 2008, Lynden’s URC had 345 members, most of whom had roots in the CRC.⁴

This chart shows all memberships transferred out of the denomination from Lynden CRCs. The noticeable spikes in the 1990s are departures rightward. (More on post-2000s in a bit.)

As you can see, more people left the CRC during the 1990s for other denominations than subsequent decades:

• 1990s: 465

• 2000s: 353

• 2010s: 303

• 2020–2024: 158

The exit for the URC affected Third CRC and Second CRC most dramatically. Around half of all CRC exits during the 1990s were from these two churches alone:

Membership loss from Third CRC during the 1990s

Not all members who left Third CRC in the 1990s went to the URC but many did. Henry Numan was one of at least two CRC pastors in Lynden who supported WICO (the other was Ken Koeman, pastor of Sonlight CRC).

Update 10/24/2024: Ken Koeman favored opening the office of deacon to women, but not the office of elder or pastor. My understanding is that Koeman’s position on this issue is still Sonlight CRC’s position.

Numan was present at Synod 1994 and registered two negative votes. Numan’s first registered negative vote was on this motion, which closed church offices to women, and Synod adopted:

That synod not ratify the change in Church Order Article 3 as adopted by the Synod of 1993 that all confessing members of the church who meet the biblical requirements are eligible for the offices of minister, elder, deacon, and evangelist.

Numan’s second registered negative vote was on this motion:

That synod (a) urge all councils which have ordained women elders, evangelists, or ministers to release them from office by June 1. 1995, and (b) urge all councils not to ordain any additional women elders, evangelists, or ministers.

In the mid-1990s, Numan also preached a 3-part sermon series on women in leadership, concluding that the CRC should open all offices to women. (I don’t remember the details of the sermons, but I do remember my uncles and aunts talking about them at my grandparents’ weekly after-church coffee.)

In response, total membership at Third CRC, which peaked at 829 in 1995, dropped to 750 in 2000. Transfers to churches outside the CRC—mostly the URC—was the reason. (Interestingly, when Third CRC opened the office of deacon to women in the early 2010s, very few people left the church, and nobody talked about it much. The WICO debates were largely over in Lynden after 2000.)

Membership loss from Second CRC during the 1990s

Second CRC also lost members, but what happened at Second CRC differed from what happened at Third CRC in two important ways.

1. Second CRC was more conservative on WICO than both their pastor and the rest of classis

First, Second CRC’s council was more conservative on this issue than Third’s and than Classis PNW as a whole. On October 14, 1995 at its first meeting after Synod 1995, Classis Pacific Northwest voted to open all church offices to women by a vote of 26 to 25.⁵ In advance of that meeting, a pre-advisory committee met to consider the request of Mill Creek CRC to examine Eleanor Rietkerk in advance of ordaining her. This committee was led by Thomas Haan, pastor of Lynden’s Second CRC, who, in an interview after the meeting, re-iterated Synod 1995’s position:

"If you heard me speaking at classis, you would not have been able to determine my views on this issue," said Haan. "What was at issue was the acceptance that Synod has recognized two different positions on this issue. That was key to our discussion: 'Do you accept that premise of synod?'"⁶

His congregation at Second CRC seemed not to agree with Haan’s public ambivalence on WICO. Unlike their pastor, their views were clear on the issue. The following year, the church submitted an overture to Synod—after Classis Pacific Northwest rejected it—stating the following:

The Council of Second CRC, Lynden, Washington, overtures synod to revise Synod 19955 action which allows the word "male" in Article 3 of the Church Order to be declared "inoperative."

This overture was signed by the council’s clerk, Scott Korthuis, who would soon leave for the URC, along with about 17% of the congregation.

2. Second CRC experienced challenges with their pastor in the late 1990s unrelated to WICO

Second, Second CRC experienced several challenges unrelated to WICO in the years preceding the departure of Thomas Haan in 2000. He was released from Second CRC on April 25, 2000 under Article 17-a, which states:

Ministers who are neither eligible for retirement nor worthy of discipline may for weighty reasons be released from active ministerial service in a congregation through action initiated by themselves, by a council, or jointly.

Between WICO and Haan’s Article 17-a, the 1990s were incredibly challenging for Second CRC—though not as challenging as the 2000s would be for Third CRC.

Part 4: The effect of NCCTK on Lynden’s CRCs post-2000

North County Christ the King church (NCCTK) held its first worship service on July 31, 2000 in the chapel of Lynden Christian High School. There were 462 people present. By January 2003, NCCTK had an average monthly attendance of 912.⁷ More recent attendance records aren’t available (that I know of), but Sunday attendance as of 2024 must surely be greater than 2,000 across three Sunday morning services.

Though a few former CRC members had already begun attending Christ the King Church in Bellingham during the 1990s, the organization of NCTTK changed the dynamic of Lynden’s CRCs after 2000.

It hit Third CRC hardest. Around 42.1% of all transfers out of Lynden’s CRC after 2000 came from Third CRC. Not all went to NCCTK, but many did.

There was also turmoil in Lynden's CRCs related to staff turnover. In the 1990s, there were 10 combined pastoral arrivals to or departures from Lynden’s churches, but in the 2000s there were 18. In addition to pastors coming and going, Third CRC had near-complete staff turnover in 2003.

Sonlight CRC also saw a membership decline after Ken Koeman left:

In general, more conservative or traditional churches had difficulty in the 1990s with membership loss to the CRC, more moderate churches (e.g. with a blended worship style or ordained women to the office of deacons) suffered not only during the 1990s with loss to the URC, but suffered post-2000 with loss to NCTTK. Across all churches, Third CRC has lost the most members to other denominations since 1990, followed by Bethel and Second:

Part 5: The decline of evangelism

Since 1990, only 359 people have joined CRCs in Lynden through evangelism efforts. Nearly half of all people who have joined because of outreach efforts have joined First CRC and Second CRC.

However, as CRCs in Lynden have shrunk, evangelism has declined in real numbers, too, though not relative to total membership.

Update 10/24/2024: The Yearbook defines evangelism is members who join a CRC without transferring membership from somewhere else.

Part 6: 2 cultural changes in the late-20th century CRC in Lynden

Here, then, is a summary of the story I’ve tried to tell.

Since 1990, Lynden’s CRCs have been in decline because of a combination of these factors:

1. The end of immigration from the Netherlands, the end of migration from the Midwest, and the end of the baby boom;

2. The departure of young families and declining birthrates;

3. The departure to the URC during the WICO debates;

4. The departure to NCTTK since 2000; and

5. The decline in evangelism in real numbers.

There were also two broader cultural changes happening in the background.

Cultural change 1: What church is for

First, there was a change in concept among CRCs in Lynden of what church is for. Sometime in the final decades of the twentieth century, CRCs in Lynden became less a place of refuge and belonging—the obvious first stop for a Midwest farmer who had lost everything in the Dust Bowl—and more a source of challenge and pain. A lot of good has always happened and continues to happen in these churches. This hasn’t changed! But a lot more heartache is happening than once did. That is reason for lament.

Cultural change 2: The rise of American evangelicalism

Second, there was also a slow drift within Lynden’s CRCs toward what can be broadly called American evangelicalism. Starting in the final decades of the twentieth century, CRC people began going to Billy Graham crusades, attending Promise Keepers conventions, and sending pastors and staff to Willow Creek and Saddleback for training. KLYN—later KWPZ—broadcasted James Dobson and John MacArthur first alongside and then instead of the Back to God Hour and the Sunday morning services of Second CRC. CRC people, like evangelicals everywhere, became more politically active in 1978, forming the Concerned Christian Citizens group and sending one of their own, Roger Van Dyken, to the state senate. Youth groups were more likely to send kids to Mexico with YWAM than participate in SWIM or a SERVE project, and they were more likely to attend Liberty and GCU upon graduation than Calvin and Dordt. The CRC Circulatory System broke down. One feature of American evangelicalism is reduced commitment: as the cost of church switching has dropped, more people are more likely to switch churches for styles of preaching, worship, mission, and interaction that are more appealing and fulfilling.

Concluding thoughts

Though this post contains lots of numbers and graphs, these aren’t just numbers and graphs. They are real lives and real people. Each rise and fall on a graph represents births and deaths, family splits, and hard conversations over coffee at Woods. There are people on these graphs who never decided to leave church but one day found themselves without a home. Some left boldly and spectacularly. Others left quietly—or the church left them. Behind this graph are arguments about whether women can lead or about whether worship should be led with guitars or organs. There are apologies not given; others not accepted. There are thousands of council meetings and tens of thousands of pastoral visits to the sick and dying.

Still, there are births, baptisms, and professions of faith. Mission is still happening. The word is still preached. At every funeral, there is still resurrection hope.

What’s happening in Lynden is not unique. It’s happening in every other cluster of CRCs and it’s happening across almost all denominations. The pattern in Lynden is repeated everywhere. We need to pay more attention to it.

Three possible objections to the story above.

First objection: I was a member of Third CRC in Lynden until 2014 and either lived through or experienced second-hand many of the difficulties depicted on these graphs. Through the network of family and friends, and as a function of living in a small town, I was also aware of similar happenings in neighboring churches, too. Thus, one criticism of the story I’ve tried to tell might be that, having experienced some of the CRC’s decline in a personal way, it would be difficult for me to write objectively. With this in mind, I’ve tried to lean on sources that can be cited, like the CRC Yearbook, rather than sources that can’t, like the conversations at my grandparents house over coffee after church. I do, however, acknowledge that it would be dishonest to think I’m unbiased.

Second objection: It’s been said that the church is not about numbers, and that the work of the Holy Spirit is hard to quantify. That’s true. However, whatever the church is, it is also an embodied people. It doesn’t exist in an abstract sense. It’s embedded in real buildings, real gatherings, real individuals, real pain and suffering and real communities. Thus, redemption isn’t just about mind- and heart-change. It’s about world change. The primary vehicle through which God carries out this expansive redemptive project is the gathered community of people who follow Jesus with the empowering of the Holy Spirit. However imperfect the numbers might be, the numbers represent a lagging indicator of the extent of this embodiment. The charts and graphs and a century’s worth of CRC Yearbooks testify to it. This is more than history or demography or sociology: it’s ecclesiology, too. When the numbers go down, we ought not to look away.⁸

Third objection: Another criticism might be that, having moved away, I’ve lost the right to comment on what’s happening in Lynden CRCs at all. That’s fair criticism: I haven’t set foot in a Christian Reformed Church in Lynden in more than ten years. I have no first-hand experience. Nearly all of my family and friends have left, too, so I don’t really have second-hand experience, either. What do I know about what’s happening in Lynden? Still, this community, more than almost any other, has shaped and continues to shape me. Lynden CRC people are still my people. I still belong to them.

Nicholas Wolterstorff writes of the church and tradition in which he grew up, and to which he still belongs:

“I became a member of a community, spread across time and space, whose ways of thinking and acting have, over the years, grounded, nurtured, instructed, guided, and disciplined me. I have often argued with the tradition as I received it; but my arguments have been from within, not from outside. Belonging to this people has been and remains an essential part of my identity.”

This is true of me, too.

Kent

1. This number seems impossible, right? Here’s another way to frame it. The average size of a CRC in Lynden as of 2024 is 338 members, and the average Sunday attendance is 249 members (First: 300, Second: 300, Third: 170, Bethel: 120, Mountain View: 103, Sonlight: 500). Next time you’re in church, look around and ask: How many of those were also in church in January 1990? Anyone under the age of thirty-four wasn’t there, for example. That removes around 1,239 people, or 207 people per church on average. Many others weren’t there, either. The average is 39 members per church present in January 1990 who are still present in 2024. The number will vary considerably, but framed this way, it’s not inconceivable to imagine that only a few hundred members from 1990 might remain.

2. An interesting question: Do birth rates in the CRC decline if local Christian school tuition rises faster than inflation and/or median wages in the area?

3. See the CRCNA page on Women in Ecclesiastical Office.

4. See the Directory of the United Reformed Churches in North America.

5. Classis Pacific Northwest was the first CRC classis to declare the word “male” in church order inoperative. This was partly a function of the order of classis meetings that fall: Classis PNW met before Classis GR East, for example. The mere fact that it’s hard to imagine Classis PNW being a first mover on any left-leaning position today illustrates how much this classis has moderated since 1995.

6. “Classis Pacific Northwest Makes Christian Reformed History by Declaring Word "Male" Inoperative”

7. These numbers are documented on early versions of the NCCTK website, which can be accessed on Archive.org.

8. I struggled with titling this post. I decided to use the word “dying” rather than a word like “decline” because the trends represent the absence of people, not just ideas. “The decline of the CRC in Lynden” or “The rise and fall of the CRC in Lynden” doesn’t convey this idea in the same way.