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Reformational Catholicism Now, (5)

I have been pastoring Cornerstone Reformed Church in Carbondale, Illinois since 1999. We are members of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), but have been practicing catholicity for many years, both personally and corporately.

I’ve always believed that the Church of Jesus Christ is much more than the local expression that I pastor, and so have attempted to reach out, work with, and worship with other Christians as much as possible. When vacationing in town, I attend other churches to meet the pastor(s) and the congregation, and to join them in worship. Over the years, I have visited most of the churches in Carbondale at least once, and in many of the outlying towns, whether they be Bible churches, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Charismatic, Pentecostal, Lutheran, or Reformed. Unfortunately, and sadly I think, my church has never been visited by any other pastors.

Over the years, I’ve taken other pastors out to lunch, attempting to make connections and build a greater consensus of the church in Carbondale. I believe a return to the model of the first four hundred years, with local and regional churches working together, is best. In fact, I would like to and have sought to build a working “Church of Carbondale” model, but have found that everyone else is too busy working within their own circles! It seems that most pastors are not interested in building a cooperation of local churches in our city. While we do visit and build friendships, it has never moved beyond that. Nonetheless, it has been encouraging in that we share war stories and find out that blessings and difficulties are similar across denominational boundaries.

Another item that I have pursued is attending a monthly prayer meeting of pastors hosted by a Baptist minister. The other pastors in attendance include Baptists, Presbyterians, and Pentecostals. We share public concerns, prayer requests, and then pray for one another and our city. It is not well attended, though it has led to some cooperation in discipline matters, and has deepened my relationship with three or four other pastors that I did not know very well. It also brought us an opportunity to have one of our conference speakers give a lecture to the Baptist Student Center on the campus of Southern Illinois University. It was well attended by over eighty students and members of Baptist churches that support the Student Center.

I also study once a week for several hours at the local Panera Bread wearing a collar, showing the flag of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Only three other pastors in town wear collars (two Lutheran pastors and the Roman Catholic priest), so I think it helps remind people that Jesus has his church and it is out and about in the local community. I have witnessed many times to people in this setting, as well as having people come up to me and ask me to pray for them, mostly complete strangers. I also have met many other believers from all kinds of churches as they come and say hello, amazed that someone is studying the Bible in public.

As a church, we have pursued several paths to build relationships with other believers and churches. For several years, we met once a quarter with an organization of charismatic churches for a joint worship service, which introduced them to covenant renewal worship, wine in communion, and even singing hymns and psalms in harmony as a congregation. The local African Methodist Episcopal church was so impressed with our singing in harmony, that the pastor initiated that in his church to some degree, with us being blessed the next time we worshiped with his congregation. Unfortunately, only two or three people from each of the churches would come to these quarterly worship services, though we often had 15-20 people from our church attend their services. It was held Sunday evenings, and I think the fact that most of their churches do not have regular Sunday evening services hindered their participation. This effort has died out in recent years.

Another catholicity attempt has been to invite the surrounding two hundred homes to our annual conference, as well as our Christmas and Easter services. We either knock on the door to invite them or leave a flyer inviting them to the event. Over the years, we’ve had neighbors attend some of our conferences, though no one has ever attended regularly from that endeavor.

One “catholic” event that we participate in but do not organize is the “Summer Week of Choir,” sponsored by a Baptist church. About eighty to a hundred children attend, and we usually have 10-12 children (four or five families) attend from our congregation. This mingles our children with other believers from about 25 different churches, as well as meeting their parents at the joint concerts. We are in the planning stages of something similar on a neighborhood level, with our children forming the core, and teaching the neighborhood children how to sing as well as introduce them to hymns and psalms.

Though we haven’t had much direct fruit from these endeavors, I still think they are valuable attempts to go to the lost, and God has seen fit to bless them by bringing other people from unsought quarters, with our congregation continuing to grow even in a college town that has a high transient population. All of these endeavors have mingled our congregation amidst God’s people from all sorts of places, enriching everyone’s lives and blessing the kingdom.


Burke Shade is Pastor of Cornerstone Reformed Church in Carbondale, Illinois.

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