The Mission Forty Six Story
"Biblical illiteracy leads to believers taking paths of least resistance. Confessional deficits mean churches become businesses catering to the wishes of customers."
Right here in the Christian Reformed Church in North America, pastors and other leaders are doing excellent ministry. Sermons are written and delivered. Curriculum for Sunday school classes and small groups are being developed. People are being discipled. Articles, podcasts and videos are being produced. Sadly, these helpful resources were going unknown and unused in the broader church. Many Christian Reformed leaders and teachers are searching for Bible studies or Sunday school materials that are flashy but expensive and generic.
In recent years some Christian Reformed pastors began discussing a way to platform and share the good ministry being done in the CRC. While they agreed that good content is being produced in greater Christendom, CRC-specific content was getting overlooked. One pastor had developed a curriculum on the Heidelberg Catechism for high school students that was well received. Another was producing a podcast to discuss topics from a confessionally Reformed perspective. A third had produced a training for officebearers on the creeds and confessions. Mission 46 is what emerged.
In a constantly evolving world, the need for roots in the gospel of Jesus Christ is great. The cultural playing field is shifting rapidly with expanding technologies and new challenges. Biblical illiteracy leads to believers taking paths of least resistance. Confessional deficits mean churches become businesses catering to the wishes of customers. Christian leaders are learning to deliver the unchanging good news of salvation to a spiritually starved world. Many new resources lack biblical depth or confessional parameters. Meanwhile, the Christian Reformed Church and Christendom in general is disintegrating. Top-down resourcing is being passed over. A need exists for bottom-up resourcing born out of on-the-ground ministry leaders. At the same time, the Christian Reformed Church is coming out of an identity crisis where we need to come together and take inventory of where we are and what we have to offer one another and the broader Christian world.
In the upheaval, we follow Psalm 46:10 to be still and know that the Lord is God. People change but Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. God is doing mighty work through his people in the Christian Reformed Church. Despite our flaws and weaknesses, people are coming to Christ, being discipled, and growing in the love and knowledge of Jesus Christ. The Christian Reformed Church is doing good ministry that is worth sharing. Mission 46 aims to create, collect, and distribute biblical, confessionally Reformed materials to disciple Christians to be mature in Christ throughout every sphere of life. These would be carefully vetted to follow specific criteria.
The Bible would be the final authority. Every book, article, video, and conference presentation begin with careful exegesis.
The materials would be unashamedly Reformed as expressed in the creeds and confessions of the Christian Reformed Church.
The materials would demonstrate how Reformed theology is a “world-in-life view,” informing every dimension of human experience from personal piety to public engagement, from family life to cultural participation.
The materials would engage thoughtfully with competing ideas, helping believers understand not only what they believe but why those beliefs matter.
The materials would remain accessible and practical so that they would be useful in the broader church.
The church is moving forward not on human effort but by the power of the Holy Spirit. Mission 46 seeks to connect CRC leaders to CRC sources for the good work that God gives us to do.
Written by Aaron Vriesman
