How I Met the Christian Reformed Church

When I was a student at Cerritos College in Norwalk, California in 1962, I took a social dance class. PE was required and I hated dressing out, so I took classes that didn't require it . My boyfriend was also in that dance class, but he had a geology class afterwards and I had to wait an hour for him since we rode together. Since you aren't allowed to always have the same dance partner in these classes, I happened to meet a young man named Jay, who was one of my other partners. We really enjoyed dancing together. And often he'd stand and talk to me until John got out of his geology class.

During one of these conversations, he aksed what church I attended. At the time I was going through my doubting phase, brought on by a young youth minister at the Presbyterian church I was raised in and by my mother, who was taking college philosophy classes and who was tired of my witnessing to her. My dad was raised Pentecostal, my mom Episcopalian. They had compromised on the Community Presbyterian Church. I had been doubting the Trinity concept, but not God Himself, since my mother was reading Unitarian writers and had gotten me into reading them.

One night after class, Jay said I should come to his church. When I asked why, he said it was the best church, the Christian Reformed Church -- First Church Bellflower to be exact. I asked why he thought his church was the best and he said something like this: "They don't drink or dance."

I asked, "What are you doing here, then?

He replied, "I don't agree with the church about everything."

We continued to talk week after week until the semester was over. I then transferred to UCLA and started living on campus. I lived at Hershey Hall, a rather dull girl's dorm at the time, and except for my roommate, Carol, a very lonely place. I wasn't used to being around girls much. My best friends in high school had been boys. They talked about interesting things -- not hair and clothes and crushes on professors. The only members of the male sex I saw at Hershey Hall were the dates of other girls. Classes were too big to meet anyone. Carol was an agnostic. We talked a lot about our churches and how our ideas were evolving. I did go home most weekends because Carol did, and without Carol there I couldn't handle the loneliness.

During that first semester at UCLA I reached a crisis of faith. My best friend's father died. I wanted to write a letter of condolence until I could get home, and I discovered that without my Christian faith I didn't have much to say. God was speaking to my spirit, showing me that I couldn't keep living in a world where everything was relative.

That weekend I went home and visited my friend. Back on campus, I tried to find a church to visit and walked all over Westwood looking for one open at night. But I couldn't find a church service. The next Sunday I tried morning services I could walk to, but they didn't say much that helped me. Fortunately I could still go home on weekends, and I believe I must have been on spring break that first Sunday I was home.

My home was in the middle of Bellflower, a short walk from everywhere. It still had a main street where everything was located -- Bellflower Blvd. That was two blocks away if I came out of my house and walked east. If I walked half a block west I came to Ardmore. Many churches were located on or just off of Ardmore. My Presbyterian church was six blocks south and the First Christian Reformed Church was six blocks north. On that first Sunday night I was home, I decided I would go north and see if Jay was at his church. He wasn't. But God was.

I will never forget that sermon. It was on the first chapter of James, and the Rev. Ackerman laid it on the line. He made it clear that if I lacked wisdom, I should ask God for it, but I must ask God in faith, without doubting. He was preaching from James 1:1-8, if you'd like to read it. I decided at that moment that I would believe God, and go back into the fold, and acknowledge the Lord once again as my shepherd. My business with God transacted, I walked out of the church, fully expecting to just go home. I was on foot, as usual.

It didn't quite happen that way. I was barely out on the porch when I was spotted and recognized as a visitor. (One thing about CRC churches is that they know each other so well, they know when there's a stranger among them -- even in a church of 200).People began to come up and talk to me-- people my own age home on college break and older people. I was invited for coffee, but I declined that night. I left wanting to come back.

The next Sunday Jay was there and he began to either walk or drive me home on Sunday nights. We had a chance for some more long talks. I had decided he was right about his church being the best one, but not for the reasons he gave me. It was the best one I had known because I could hear God speaking in a new way.

Did I mention I also loved the singing? Back in 1962 they still used the old blue Psalter Hymnal. I had never heard people in church sing like that! Everyone -- even the men -- sang as thought they meant the words. The harmony was magnificent! The other thing that hymnal had was all the Doctrinal Standards of the denomination. I immediately went to the Christian bookstore in town and bought myself a copy of the hymnal to take back to school the next year, for summer came not long after that first visit and I was able to attend services both morning and evening. I adopted that as my church for whenever I was home.

After I married, we lived near UCLA for a few months while my husband finished his degree. We had met in the dorm (by then I had moved to Dykstra Hall, a coed dorm, and I had gotten active in Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship on campus. Kosta had been attending West L.A. Baptist, and after we married we attended that church until we moved to Long Beach to go back to school for graduate work.

We did not find a church that met our needs in Long Beach. We did attend a church within walking distance in the morning, but after we got a car, we drove to Bellflower to see my parents on Sunday afternoons, and stayed to attend church at Bellflower First Christian Reformed. My husband loved it as much as I did. When he got a job in Malibu, we had to move to Culver City, and on our last Sunday at the CRC church, we asked if there was a CRC church where we were going. They suggested this little mission church, Crenshaw Christian Reformed Church, which was to become our new church home for nine years. But that deserves it's own chapter.

I haven't been back to Bellflower First Church in years, but if you'd like to visit, I have the link link to their web site below.

While we were attending the First Christian Reformed Church in Bellflower, we found we were going to move to Culver City. We asked the people at First Church if they could suggest a CRC church we might attend. They suggested CCRC, since it was a small mission church that needed people and help.

The first Sunday after we moved we visited it. The people were friendly, and after church one of the younger families invited us for lunch so we could get better acquainted. Since it was summer, I believe it was the seminarian and his wife who had come to help for the summer that year. We had a wonderful time with them, and we met a lot of other interesting people, as well. We were hooked. We never even looked for another church.

When we had been there for about two weeks, Vacation Bible School was about to start. We weren't even church members yet, but I was asked if I would help teach, so I did. I guess they had learned enough about our backgrounds to trust us. The VBS had over 200 children, most of whom were from the surrounding neighborhood. This neighborhood was unique. The church was about two blocks east of Crenshaw Blvd. on the corner of 48th St and 8th Ave. On the other side of Crenshaw Blvd. was one of the first integrated middle class areas in Los Angeles. I happened to know that because my college roommate had lived in that neighborhood and she had told me about it. The neighborhood right around the church, however, was still changing. It had once been mostly Oriental, but most of the Chinese had moved out and the African Americans were pretty much the majority when we got there.

While my husband was on contract at General Electric in the Boston area, he was living in a condo close enough to Whitinsville to allow him to attend church there. Toward the end of his stay, I brought the children across the country so that we could visit some historic places while he still had his condo. During our visit, we attended the Pleasant Street CRC as a family. We were invited to the home of one of the members after church for some conversation and refreshment and had a great time. Our musical daughter finds conversation difficult in families with no children her age, but even she was made to feel at home when invited to learn to play this organ. Whenever I've walked into a CRC church a stranger, I've never left that way. Hospitality seems to be a hallmark of this denomination.

Calvin College, which is associated with the Christian Reformed Church and trains its pastors, has been speaking out on health care reform. Two professors at Calvin College were interviews separately on how health care reform might best be achieved.
See their answers here.