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06527 October 18, 2006
'Always Being Reformed'
A Reformation Day message to the PC(USA) from the stated clerk
by the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick General Assembly stated clerk and president, World Alliance of Reformed Churches
LOUISVILLE - Reformation Sunday is a time each year for Presbyterians to reclaim our heritage in the Protestant Reformation and to draw upon its strengths for our contemporary witness.
It is typically the last Sunday in October (this year, October 29th), the Sunday closest to October 31st (1517), when Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the church door in Wittenberg, Germany. That dramatic event marked the beginning of a movement of reformation in the churches and set forth a spirit of reform that is at the heart of the gospel and the experience of the New Testament church.
Reformed churches affirm the great motto of the Protestant Reformation: Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda-The church reformed, always reforming ("according to the Word of God and the call of the Spirit," as our Book of Order states in G-2.0200.) While Reformation Sunday is indeed a time to look back to such great truths and insights as articulated by the reformers almost 500 years ago, it is much more importantly a time to look forward as we face the challenges of our life and witness today.
The spirit of the Reformation calls each new age to work for the renewal to which God is calling churches.
On this Reformation Sunday, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches is calling us in particular to remember and celebrate the remarkable way the Reformed movement has literally circled the globe. There are now some 75 million Reformed Christians, two thirds of which are now in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Reformed Christians from all over the world will be joining us to re-appropriate the great themes of the Reformation that are at the core of faithful Christian living:
faith alone, grace alone, Scripture alone;
the priesthood of all believers;
the sovereignty of God over the whole creation; and
the church as a covenant community.
These callings are at the core of what it means for Presbyterian churches to live out the Reformation in our day. May this year's observance be a real time of renewal and reformation for you, for your church, and for the global movement we share through the World Alliance of Reformed Churches.
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