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Synod 2015 welcomed Colin Watson, Sr., recently appointed director of ministries and administration for the Christian Reformed Church. Synod is the annual leadership meeting of the CRC.

“This has been quite a journey for me,” said Watson. “I’m an immigrant from the former British Guiana [now Guyana]. I was born in a place smaller than Sioux Center, and the town was called New Amsterdam. God has a sense of humor.”

Watson proudly introduced his wife, Freida, as he stood before synod. Since 1985, the couple has worshiped at Madison Avenue CRC in Paterson, N.J., where he led the men’s ministry and she led the women’s ministry. Watson was executive minister at the church for five years. Previously he worked in senior leadership at several large companies; he became a senior vice president at Keyspan, a major natural gas distributor.

Since retiring in 2005, he has given his leadership to many corporate and nonprofit boards and committees, including as head of the CRC’s Diversity and Leadership Inclusion Working Group and board president of the Christian Reformed World Missions board.

Watson said his new task will be “ensuring that we [staff] support every [CRC] church throughout North America.”

“I love the diversity that I see when I look out on this group,” he told the delegates. “The history of our church is the history of each and every individual, each and every people group represented. God calls us to unity.”

“One of my favorite passages in the Bible is Jesus’ final prayer,” he continued, “that we will be brought to complete unity to let the world know that Jesus has been sent by the Father and that Jesus is the Son of God and Lord of all.”

With Watson’s posting, the denomination now has both a non-interim executive director and a director of ministries for the first time since 2011.

Synod 2015 is meeting at Dordt College in Sioux Center, Iowa, from June 12-18. For continuous Banner coverage, please follow The Banner Magazine on or on Twitter. You can find more tweeting by following hashtag . News stories will be posted at several times daily. For CRC Communications releases, webcast, and live blogging, please visit . Unless noted otherwise, all photographs are by Karen Huttenga.