“We are at a very significant moment to witness to the reconciliation we find in Christ,” said Clifton Kirkpatrick, president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, which is to unite with the Reformed Ecumenical Council to form the new grouping.
The October 6-10 meeting in Utrecht was the first joint session of the governing bodies of the two organizations.
“This important joint meeting demonstrates the commitment of these two Reformed bodies to grow together in the coming months,” said WARC General Secretary Setri Nyomi. He described the formation of the new body, to be called the World Communion of Reformed Churches, as an opportunity to show to a broken world that the church could heal some of its divisions.
About two-thirds of the 41 member churches of the REC are also members of WARC, which tallies 214 member churches.
“At its core, Reformed history is a history of separation,” REC’s President Peter Borgdorff, told Ecumenical News International. “This is a global witness that unity is the better way.”
The Utrecht meeting finalized a draft constitution and by-laws for the new organization. The draft texts will be presented to the member churches of both organizations, which will have twelve months in which to comment. Approval of the final draft is scheduled for the new body’s inaugural general council in Grand Rapids, Mich., in June 2010.
The Utrecht meeting also “placed in motion the process that will define the structure and budget of the new organization,” Borgdorff noted. “We have got difficult issues on how we organize ourselves,” said WARC President Kirkpatrick. “They are not easy to resolve.”
Decisions still need to be taken on staffing, regional structures, and where the new organization will be based, WARC communications secretary John Asling told ENI. The WARC secretariat is presently based in Geneva, Switzerland, while the REC secretariat is located in Grand Rapids.
The members of both groups trace their roots back to the 16th century Reformation led by John Calvin, John Knox and others, as well as to earlier church reform movements, such as the Waldensians, and the followers of Jan Hus in the Czech lands.
The Utrecht meeting was hosted by the Protestant Church in the Netherlands, which was created in 2004 through a merger of the Netherlands Reformed Church, Reformed Churches in the Netherlands, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
Leaders of the two existing world Reformed groupings have praised this Dutch union as one of the inspirations behind the creation of the new global body in 2010.
