Dr. Douw: Bywoning van World Reformed Fellowship Algemene Vergadering
Dr. Douw woon tans die 4de Algemene Vergadering (General Assembly) van die World Reformed Fellowship (WRF) in Sao Paulo, Brasilië by as een van twee afgevaardigdes van die GKSA.
Vanaf die webblad van die WRF gee ons die volgende inligting vir u aangaande die WRF:
The World Fellowship of Reformed Churches (WFRC) was formed in 1994 by the Presbyterian Church in America, the National Presbyterian Church of Mexico, the Presbyterian Church of Brazil, and connected evangelical denominations from most of the countries of Latin America plus churches in India, East Africa and the United States. The International Reformed Fellowship (IRF) was also organized in 1994 to join evangelical Reformed leaders from Korea, Indonesia, Taiwan, Japan, and all across Asia.
The WRF was formed to encourage understanding and cooperation among evangelical Presbyterian and Reformed denominations and institutions, and to link those institutions having ministry resources with those possessing vision but few resources. The fellowship promotes Reformed thinking, a Reformed world and life view, fosters evangelism and strategies on missions, church planting and theological education, and promotes international communication for the further advancement of the Gospel.
With a board of twenty-six members representing eighteen nations, the WRF focuses on the needs of the international Reformed community such as the plight of persecuted Christians, incorporation of theological education, missions, publications, and the expansion of evangelical fellowship into all parts of the world.
The people of God, with diversified cultural and ethnic backgrounds, are one in Christ. God has enabled WRF to express the unity of the church through cooperative agreements based upon the same Biblical, evangelical, and missionary vision. Thus, believing that these are but expressions of a well-thought-out Reformed perspective, we invite other Reformed churches, agencies, institutions, and individuals to join with us under the banner of a new international, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic Reformed fellowship of believers. The desire of WRF is to see the Gospel spread throughout the world, applying the distinctives of a Reformed world and life view.
In many ways WRF fulfills the dream cherished by John Calvin in the 1500s, the Westminster divines in the 1600s, and George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards in the 1700s, of a truly worldwide union of the Reformed branch of the Church.
Each member agree with the following:
1 We affirm the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the authoritative, God-breathed and inerrant Word of God.
2 We stand in the mainstream of the historic Christian Faith in affirming the following creeds of the early Church: the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Chalcedon Creed.
3 More specifically, every member must affirm one of the following historic expressions of the Reformed Faith: the Gallican, the Scots, the Belgic, or the Heidelberg Catechism Confessions; the Canons of Dort, the Westminster Confessions of Faith, the London Confessions of 1689, and the Savoy Declaration.
World Reformed Fellowship seeks:to promote Reformed thinking and a Reformed world and life view;to inform and encourage churches and people who embrace the Reformed faith;to provide a forum for dialogue on current issues;to be able to offer direction to the evangelical Reformed community;to promote evangelization in the Reformed tradition;to maintain, strengthen, and defend the sound doctrines and Biblical-theological tenets that distinguish us as Reformed Christians.
In all of its work, the WRF has this as its goal – that the strengths of some might become the strengths of all in the service of Jesus Christ.