Member Church News: Accords, Awards, Reformation Events

The relationship between the Christian Reformed Church in North America and the Reformed Church in America has been receiving focused attention since 2014 when the CRC’s and RCA’s synods met together in Pella, Iowa, and adopted what has become known as the Pella Accord. It states: “[T]he principle that guides us, and the intention that motivates us, is to ‘act together in all matters except those in which deep differences of conviction compel [us] to act separately.’”

The Waldensian pastor Alessandro Esposito is one of the three winners of the second edition of a prize dedicated to the best preaching of the year by the Swiss Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches (FEPS).

Take a look at (and learn more about) the “Akte Zwingli,” an oratorio that explores the mystery of the message Huldrych Zwingli, his ambivalent personality and the tension between history and the present.

The House of Representatives of the Province of Misiones, Argentina, instituted that on October 31 of each year the “Protestant Reformation Day” will be celebrated. The proposal was presented by the Ministers of the Evangelical Church of the Río de la Plata.

The Inter-Church Dialogue for Peace—DiPaz—in Colombia continues to monitor progress of the peace agreement and accompany activists in the country who are working for its implementation.

The Presbyterian Church in Ireland’s first (of three) special worship services to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation was held this week in Abbey Presbyterian Church in Dublin.

A group of more than 20 Korean Christian Reformed Church pastors and their spouses had a chance in early October to visit a series of sites in Europe connected to the Reformation, whose 500th anniversary will be celebrated at the end of this month in services and events in North America, Europe and elsewhere.

“Participating in the reign of God requires living in tension between the despair of now and the hope that is within us; at the future deliverance and the present suffering,” noted Bishop Reuel Norman O. Marigza, head of the United Church of Christ in the Phillipines while giving the fourth thematic presentation at a plenary session on the third day of the Asia Mission Conference being held in Yangon, Myanmar.

In South Sudan, times are difficult but churches serve together.