Reformed Communiqué
September 2011
Vol. 2 No. 3
Welcome to the electronic version of Reformed Communiqué, the quarterly newsletter of the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC). It aims to quickly reach a wide audience, including youth and others not yet involved in WCRC, about the critical events in the life of the Reformed family worldwide. It also hopes to draw more WCRC constituents to our website, programmes and resources. We offer this alongside the print and web versions of the newsletter. We welcome your feedback wcrc@wcrc.ch as well as names to add to our list of subscribers. Thank you.
Reformed Communiqué is published quarterly by the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC), a fellowship of 80 million Reformed Christians in 230 churches in 108 countries. Its member churches are Congregational, Presbyterian, Reformed, Uniting and United churches with roots in the 16th-century Reformation led by John Calvin, John Knox and others. WCRC has a small secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland.
Editor: Kristine Greenaway
Full version: PDF (September 2011)
Selected articles follow.
Wanting to renew your congregation’s worship practices? Read on!
What worship issues or needs are of most concern in your church? This question was posed in a questionnaire sent by our worship institute in the United States to Reformed churches around the world in 2008.
Responses from 13 countries in six regions were submitted in reply to the questionnaire distributed by the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, United States prior to the meeting of the Uniting General Council (UGC) in that city in June 2010.
WCRC builds on five key concepts
The future for the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) is based on five key concepts: Mission, Communion, Justice, Theology, and Ecumenical Engagement. A strategic plan adopted by WCRC’s Executive Committee in May charts a course for the organization leading to its next General Council in 2017 that focuses on those five terms. What do they mean for your church community?
Women in Rwanda: coming together for peace
Tumekutana is a Kiswahili word meaning “We have come together”. The name was chosen by a group of African woman leaders who came together for the first time in 2004 in Nairobi in Kenya. In October this year, a group of about 75 women will meet again, this time in the Presbyterian Church in Kigali, Rwanda, the host of the conference.
Global Institute of Theology 2012
The World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) will hold its third Global Institute of Theology (GIT) in Indonesia, 8 June – 1 July 2012. The Institute will be held in collaboration with, and under the academic auspices of, Duta Wacana Christian University, Yogyakarta, on the island of Java.
Prayers online
Is your church in need of prayers? Is it concerned for the situation of churches in other parts of the world? The WCRC website has prayer resources for you.
From the General Secretary
Speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love. (Ep 4.15-16)
The chapter in the book of Ephesians that gave the WCRC founding Uniting General Council its theme also gives many pointers for living out our calling as the body of Christ. In Ep 4.15-16 we are reminded how the different parts of the body when working well together lead towards building up the body of Christ.