wfn.org | Officers of new global Reformed organisation elected

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

Uniting General Council 2010                                    

>News Release 
>24 June 2010

Officers of new global Reformed organisation elected
By Jerry Van Marter, UGC correspondent

Delegates to the Uniting General Council of the World Communion
of Reformed Churches (WCRC) have elected four regional
vice-presidents, a general treasurer and 16 members to its
Executive Committee. The vote followed immediately on the
election of the organisation’s new president, Jerry Pillay of the
Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa.  

Over 300 delegates from 108 countries are meeting in the
Midwestern city of Grand Rapids in the United States from June
18-26 for the founding meeting of the new organisation which
represents 80 million Christians from Presbyterian, Uniting and
United, Reformed and Waldensian churches worldwide.

The president is joined on the WCRC presidium by vice-presidents
Lu Yueh Wen of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, Yvette Noble
Bloomfield of the United Church of Jamaica and the Cayman
Islands, Bas Plaisier of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands
and Helis Barraza Diaz of the Presbyterian Church of Colombia,
and General Treasurer Gottfried Locher of the Federation of Swiss
Protestant Churches.

The executive committee also includes the two presidents of the
organisation’s predecessor bodies – the World Alliance of
Reformed Churches (WARC) and the Reformed Ecumenical Council
(REC) – and the moderators of WARC’s five regional councils to
form a 29-member governing body.

Of the 22 Executive Committee members elected, 14 are ordained
clergy, 13 are men and two are under 30. Eighteen are previous
WARC members and four were also members of REC. They come from 18
countries in all eight designated regions of the world.

“We have struggled to fulfill all the requirements in our rules
within the framework of 22 positions,” said Nominations Committee
co-moderator Judi Fisher. “The task has been both sizable and
difficult, but we believe we have done all that is possible.”

No counter-nominations were proposed, but delegates to the UGC
approved revised procedures to ensure that future slates proposed
by regional groups to the Nominating Committee will be more
flexible and balanced.

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
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email: kgr@warc.chweb: www.reformedchurches.org (
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