For almost a decade as a youth pastor, one of my favorite games was six-way tug-of-war. Instead of one rope, you use three. The result is chaos. Everyone pulls as hard as they can, convinced they're moving in the right direction, but the whole group usually ends up spinning in circles.
As I listened to conversations after Synod 2026—and later read The Banner’s discussion about who is now "in the driver's seat" of the CRC—I couldn’t stop thinking about that game.
Sometimes that's what denominations feel like.
Not because people have bad intentions. Quite the opposite. Most people are pulling because they love the church. The problem is that they're often pulling toward different visions of what faithfulness looks like.
As a first-time delegate, I had a front-row seat to something I had only read about. The conversations weren't simply about overtures or Church Order. They revealed a denomination asking a deeper question: Who are we?
Several times during the week I found myself thinking, "Ten years ago I'm not sure this argument would have carried the same weight."
Many have described the renewed emphasis on the confessions as a new trend in the CRC. I'm not convinced it is.
As I've reflected on our history, it seems to me that the CRC has always wrestled with three different instincts.
One instinct asks, “What has God said?” It believes the church is healthiest when Scripture and the confessions govern everything else.
Another instinct asks, “Now what?” If Christ is Lord over every square inch of creation, how should our confession shape our schools, our work, our politics, and our communities?
A third instinct asks, “What is happening around us?” It wants the church to speak meaningfully into a changing culture and wrestle honestly with new questions.
None of those impulses is inherently wrong. The problem isn’t that these questions are asked. The problem is the order in which they’re asked. The problem comes when one of them begins crowding out the others. In fact, at their best, they need one another. A church that only confesses but never engages its neighbors has forgotten Christ’s mission. A church that engages culture without a theological center eventually begins taking its cues from the culture itself. And a church that is always trying to answer the newest question without first asking what God has already said will slowly lose confidence in its own confession.
That’s why I don't think the confessional voice is making a comeback. I think it’s taking its turn as the denomination’s center of gravity once again.
What struck me at Synod 2026 wasn't simply that certain delegates were “in the driver's seat.” It was that appeals to Scripture, the three forms of unity, covenant, subscription, and ecclesiastical accountability felt ordinary again. There was a renewed confidence that the confessions are not simply historical documents to admire, but living standards meant to guide the church.
The real question, then, isn’t whether the confessional voice has returned. It has never really left. The question is what comes next.
If this renewed confidence in the confessions leads to deeper discipleship, bolder evangelism, richer worship, and a renewed desire to see every square inch of creation belong to Christ, then Synod 2026 might be remembered as more than another chapter in the CRC’s long story.
Maybe that’s what renewal looks like: not six groups pulling six different directions, but a church pulling on the same rope again.