Title: Worship Will Inaugurate Lutheran-Reformed Full Communion
ELCA NEWS SERVICE
January 27, 1998
WORSHIP WILL INAUGURATE LUTHERAN-REFORMED FULL COMMUNION
98-018-FI
CHICAGO (ELCA) -- A festival worship service at Chicago's Rockefeller
Chapel on Oct. 4 will formally declare that the Evangelical Lutheran Church
in America (ELCA) is entering into "full communion" with three U.S.
churches of the Reformed tradition, if the relationship is ratified by
presbyteries of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Assemblies of those two
church bodies and of the Reformed Church in America and United Church of
Christ approved "A Formula of Agreement," a proposal for full communion,
in 1997.
A planning committee representing the four church bodies announced
initial plans for the worship service. Plans are being finalized to
broadcast the ceremony on a national cable network. The service will
include celebration of the Lord's Supper -- an expression of full
communion. "Full communion" includes recognition that "the sacraments are
rightly administered according to the word of God" in each other's
churches.
Full communion is not a plan to merge; it commits the churches to
sharing in their mission to work locally and internationally and to develop
procedures whereby clergy in one church body may serve as pastor in a
church of another church body. The proposal grew out of several decades of
theological conversation.
The Lutheran-Reformed planning committee asked the four churches to
work together on several short-term projects, such as a brochure for
congregations to describe the nature of full communion, and several
long-term projects, including conversations among staff and governing bodies
on the necessary provisions to implement full communion. Communication staff
from each of the four churches will meet Feb. 11 in Indianapolis.
The committee will meet here May 12 to monitor progress on these
projects and "to begin considering the shape of a permanent structure to
nurture full communion following the formal declaration ... in October."
Two people from each of the four church bodies serve on the planning
committee. ELCA Secretary Lowell G. Almen chairs the committee, which also
includes the Rev. Daniel F. Martensen, director of the ELCA Department for
Ecumenical Affairs. Other committee members are the Rev. Harriet A. Nelson
and the Rev. Eugene G. Turner of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.),the Rev.
Jose Malayang and the Rev. John H. Thomas of the United Church of Christ,
and the Rev. Douglas W. Fromm Jr. of the Reformed Church in America. The
RCA will appoint one more member to the committee.
For information contact:
Ann Hafften, Director (773) 380-2958 or [log in to unmask]
http://www.elca.org/co/news/current.html
