wfn.org | A Week of Joy and Struggle

["Daphne Martin_Gnanadason" <Daphne.Martin_Gnanadason@warc.ch>]

Uniting General Council 2010                                    

>News Release 
>25 June 2010

>A Week of Joy and Struggle
>By Chris Meehan, News Editor
>The World Communion of Reformed Churches began to wrap up its
>10-day meeting on Friday by addressing and adopting a number of
>priorities on which the new organization will focus.
>Debate occurred on the floor of Van Noord Arena in Grand Rapids,
>Michigan, over a number of those priorities, especially how to
>best deal with the Accra Confession, a faith-based critique of
>the free-market economic system in an age of globalization. 
>WCRC delegates accepted the recommendation that the new body
>continue to use the Accra Confession as a teaching tool on how
>Christians can view the economy and that it be considered as an
>important document to help guide WCRC as it addresses issues
>related to the world economy. In addition, after long debate, the
>delegates decided to ask the WCRC’s executive committee to seek
>out ways to bring other voices and organizations into the
>discussion involving the confession.
>But debate and disagreement was by no means the theme of the
>Uniting General Council, from which WCRC was born on June 18. In
>fact, the UGC began with high hopes, smiles and enthusiasm as
>more than 300 delegates from around the world agreed to create
>the new ecumenical body.
>Much pomp and ceremony, including a multi-faceted Sunday worship
>service, accompanied the merger of the World Alliance of Reformed
>Churches and the Reformed Ecumenical Council into the WCRC, which
>represents more than 80 million Reformed Christians worldwide. 
>Symbolic gestures of unification, friendship and identification
>with Native Americans in the United States and aboriginal people
>in Canada took place, making it clear that a focus of WCRC will
>be on people who have often been marginalized and ignored in
>their native lands.
>An emphasis was also placed on youth and including them in the
>life of WCRC, especially since the youth are the hope of the
>future for the ecumenical body.
>While there was some debate over how to best balance the new
>executive committee of WCRC with women, men and younger persons,
>the event unfolded smoothly on the campus of Calvin College in
>Grand Rapids, Michigan.
>Delegates for the most part resolved that issue and the election
>of officers and members of the executive committee came off
>without much problem. Jerry Pillay, general secretary of the
>Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa, was elected as
>the first president of WCRC.
>“We have started a new chapter in the history of Reformed and
>Presbyterian churches … We will be engaging the world in the name
>of Jesus Christ,” he said.
>That engagement, in human terms, means debating issues and
>reaching a consensus on matters. His priority, he said, will be
>to keep the churches in the new body together.  “Issues of
>disunity and struggle continue to be present in the world,” he
>said.
>Looking ahead, he said the WCRC will have challenges raising
>funds to be able to pay for all of its programmes as well as the
>priorities adopted at the meeting which ends on Saturday. In
>addition, he sees the continuing clash over what takes precedence
>– worship, prayer and Bible study or efforts to help create
>social justice.
>He said he sees the two as the same. The Bible requires
>Christians to be involved in social justice issues. 
>“Each of us has present before us a multiplicity of pictures in
>which we see God,” said Pillay. But in the end, this multiplicity
>emerges as one – the triune God.
>“I hope we will be able to journey together joyfully and that
>the Spirit will direct us to where God wants us to go. We must
>discern together what God wants of us.”

The Uniting General Council 2010 in Grand Rapids, United States
(June 18-28) marks the merger of the World Alliance of Reformed
Churches and the Reformed Ecumenical Council to form the World
Communion of Reformed Churches. 

>Contact: Kristine Greenaway
>Executive Secretary, Communications
>World Communion of Reformed Churches

UGC News Room – Calvin College - Hoogenboom Center Room HC 204
Cell phone: 1-616-826-5540 or 1-616-826-8636
News Room: 1-616-526-7885
email: kgr@warc.ch
web: www.reformedchurches.org (
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