Photo: Setri Nyomi (Helen Putsman-Penet)
The role of the Reformed church movement in global ecumenism is the focus of a meeting of the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) set to get underway in Ghana next week. Discussion by the organization’s executive committee comes at a time when new models for inter-church collaboration are emerging in response to the decline in traditional sources of support for worldwide church organizations.
The 30-member committee is set to meet May 7-17 at the Forest Hotel in Dodowa near the country’s capital, Accra.
Committee members will be asked to consider how to stay connected with global ecumenical church organizations that are based in Geneva, Switzerland when the Communion’s international offices are relocated from Geneva to Hannover, Germany in January 2014. Debate will include reflection on which of WCRC’s ecumenical engagements should be prioritized and how to finance and staff ongoing support to those initiatives.
WCRC links 229 member churches in 108 countries with an estimated combined membership of 80 million people. The organization is known for its emphasis on theological formation, dialogue with other church traditions (Pentecostal, Catholic, Lutheran) and for its assertion that Biblical teachings instruct Christians to transform unjust social and economic systems that harm people and the earth’s ecological system.