wfn.org | Worship celebrates new Lutheran-Reformed relationship

["Barb Powell"<powellb@ucc.org>]

Sept. 25, 1998
Office of Communication
United Church of Christ
Laurie Bartels, press contact
(216) 736-2213
bartelsl@ucc.org

On the Web: <http://www.ucc.org>

Worship celebrates new Lutheran-Reformed relationship

     CHICAGO   Four U.S. Christian churches will
celebrate their new relationship of "full communion" with a gala
worship service Oct. 4 at Rockefeller Chapel in Chicago.  The
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church
(U.S.A.), Reformed Church in America and the United Church of
Christ agreed to enter into full communion with a series of votes
from their main deliberative bodies between June 1997 and March
1998.
     A highlight of the worship will be a ritual of four
processions moving from four directions and meeting at a central
baptismal font to affirm the churches' mutual recognition of
baptism, confess the divisions of the past and pledge "to live under
the gospel in mutual affirmation and admonition that respect and
love for each other may grow."
     Full communion is not a plan to merge; rather, it commits
the churches to share locally and internationally in their mission
work and to develop procedures whereby clergy in one
denomination may serve as pastors in congregations of another
denomination.
     The Rev. James Kenneth Echols, president of the
Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, will be the preacher. 
The Rev. Cynthia McCall Campbell, president of McCormick
Theological Seminary, will preside at the service of Holy
Communion.  McCormick is related to the Presbyterian Church
(U.S.A.).  Addie J. Butler of Philadelphia, vice-president of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, will be the assisting
minister.
     In addition, the heads of the four communions will
participate.  The Rev. Paul Sherry, president of the United Church
of Christ, called the occasion "historic."
     "This celebration marks the healing of divisions between
our two traditions that have existed in North America for over 250
years," said Sherry.  "Even more exciting are the new possibilities
for strengthened mission together as we enter the 21st century."
     The Rev. Paul R. Nelson, chair of the Lutheran-Reformed
worship committee and director for worship in the ELCA's
Division for Congregational Ministries, said the liturgy has been
planned to demonstrate full communion in a number of ways:

     * by taking representatives of the four church bodies  and
"braiding them into a single procession following a service of
baptismal renewal around a baptismal font";

     * by using liturgical resources from all four denominations,
as well as commissioning brand new liturgical material; and

     * by drawing on the rich musical traditions of each
denomination.

     Musicians will include organist David Eicher of First
Presbyterian Church, LaPorte, Ind.; pianist Dennis Friesen-
Carper, Valparaiso, Ind.; percussionists from Valparaiso (Ind.)
University; the Sanctuary Choir of Trinity United Church of Christ,
Chicago; Hope College Choir, Holland, Mich.; the Tower Brass
from Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago; and bell ringers from
Bethany Lutheran Church, Batavia, Ill., Augustana Lutheran
Church, Hyde Park, Chicago, and the Lutheran School of
Theology at Chicago.
     A link to live audio and still images from the worship
service will be available on the web site of each church body.  The
direct link for the full communion celebration is on the Lutheran
site:  <http://www.elca.org/co/celebrate/>.
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