Hundreds of volunteers are needed to fill a variety of roles when the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) and the Reformed Ecumenical Council (REC) unite next summer in Grand Rapids, Mich., to form a new body representing millions of Reformed and PresbyterianChristians worldwide. This united body will be called the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC).

In 2005, the REC Assembly resolved to approach the World Alliance of Reformed Churches to propose a much closer relationship, that the REC become an “entity within” the WARC. The WARC Executive Committee agreed to participate in an exploratory discussion and in January 2006, a joint committee of eight delegates proposed that the two organizations each disband and that the member churches come together for a new organization, with the suggested name of the World Communion of Reformed Churches.

“This will be a historic event. Delegates from 230 denominations representing 75 to 80 million Christians around the world will be in attendance,” says Borgdorff, executive director emeritus of the Christian Reformed Church.

The CRC is the main hosting denomination for the event because the CRC is the only denomination in the United States and Canada that belongs to both REC and WARC, and the two bodies wanted to hold the unification event in the U.S. WARC hasn’t met in the U.S. in 50 years.

Both REC and WARC will meet in the morning on June 18, 2010 to dissolve themselves. The formal gathering of the Uniting General Council begins later that same morning (at 11 a.m. with an opening worship service).At 2 p.m. that same day, the two organizations will take the final steps leading to a legal union between them.

Exhibits from various churches, groups and denominations will be available to visit during the conference on the Calvin campus. “We hope and pray for this to be a world-class event,” says Borgdorff. “We hope many individual churches will get involved to show a common front in hosting the delegates.”
For more information on volunteering and on the conference itself, click here.

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