Joel and Marilyn Van Dyke

Vision and Mission

Currently, more than half of the world’s population live in cities. In 2030, it’s projected to reach 66%. The implications are enormous, especially for the most vulnerable.

The most powerful assets in under-resourced urban communities are the leaders who already live and serve there. Unfortunately many faith leaders are not equipped to face the challenges or leverage the opportunities of a rapidly urbanizing world. Even fewer have an incarnational vision of mission to ground them.

Cities are healed the same level they are created. They are healed relationally. The incarnation of Christ provides the spiritual technology necessary for human flourishing and shows us how to activate, leverage and steward the power of relationships for the sake of Gospel transformation in the city.

Mission Work

Joel serves as the Mission Innovation Leader for Urban Mission Engagement with Resonate in three primary areas:

Urban Mission Design Team
A design team has been formed of leaders in urban ministry innovation from all over the world committed to discover and share the ways that the Christian Reformed Church can best encourage, connect and resource urban leaders connected to and congregations of the CRCNA. Joel gives facilitative leadership to that design process that has grown out of 15 months of research and interviews. 

Urban Young Adult Community of Practice
Joel will co-facilitate with a Resonate partner from Guatemala City, a strategically assembled group of young adults from cities all over the word. These young adults will engage a ten month missional formation process utilizing a newly formed Resonate curriculum that Joel helped develop called, “Reverb: Life on Mission.”   The young adults will meet over Zoom every other week and engage with material in an on-line training platform on the alternate weeks. As part of their experience, they will engage and learn directly from urban ministry pioneers in cities all over the world. At the end of the 10 month experience they will all meet together in one of the cities represented by the cohort participants. 

Urban Training Collaborative

Joel serves as Director of Hub Development for the Urban Training Collaborative (UTC) which is an initiative serving the global networks of Resonate Global Mission, Street Psalms and Leadership Foundations. Resonate is a founding organizational partner of the collaborative.  The UTC exists to equip the head (reflection), heart (discernment) and the hands (action) of urban community leaders, churches and organizations seeking to love their cities into greatness and seek their peace.

The shared networks of the organizations that make up the UTC represent nearly 150 cities worldwide and the vision is drawn from Jesus’s first public address in Luke 4:18-19 which speaks of good news and liberation for the poor.  We envision a dynamic global network of training hubs equipping incarnational leaders where cities become playgrounds of God’s grace for all people. The training methodology of the UTC is designed around the message, method, and manner of Jesus’ mission that frees messengers to become peacemakers who love and serve their cities towards social and spiritual renewal.