In November 2025, three members of the PRCA’s Committee for Contact with Other Churches traveled to Beaver Falls, PA to attend the annual three-day meeting of NAPARC: the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council (this year was the 50th anniversary). The council is ecumenical, meaning interdenominational in this case, and comprised of 13 member denominations, which range in size from very small—only five congregations with 275 members and two active pastors, to very large—about 1,700 congregations with 400,000 members and 5,000 ministers. Size differences notwithstanding, all express determination to maintain the Reformed (Three Forms of Unity) and Presbyterian (Westminster Standards)...
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Dear brothers and sisters in our Lord Jesus Christ, And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace (John 1:16). When we look back on the past year, we can only marvel at what God has done in and through our churches. In addition to the founding of our BERG confederation in January [2025], we thank God for the ordination of Pastor Paul Koch in Nordhorn and Joab Udaiyar as a an elder in Tübingen. At the same time, God has added many new members to our churches, and we welcome new guests almost every week. We...
On Saturday, January 18, 2025, the first synod of a new Reformed denomination met in Giessen, Germany. This denomination is the Bund Bekennender Evangelisch- Reformierter Gemeinden (or BBERG). This synod was a joyous occasion for the German believers who, taking part in this work, witnessed God’s gracious blessing on some twenty-five years of prayer, faithfulness, and commitment to the Reformed faith. The BBERG is the new Reformed denomination in Germany that begins with two congregations and two fellowships. The two instituted congregations are the BERG in Giessen and the BERG (formally known as the BEG) in Osnabruck. There are two...
Pastor of Providence PRC in Hudsonville, Michigan Synod 2024 of the Protestant Reformed Churches approved the Contact Committee’s (CC) proposal to establish a corresponding relationship with the Bekennende Evangelisch-Reformierte Gemeinde (BERG), which translates as the Confessing Evangelical- Reformed Church in Giessen, Germany. The PRC recognizes two official relationships. The first is a full sister-church relationship that includes, among other things, “mutual acknowledgement of offices, so that ministers of sister churches are allowed preaching privileges in one another’s congregations and are eligible to be called by congregations in sister churches” and “mutual acknowledgement of member attests” (CC Constitution, V, B,...
Rev. Martyn McGeown, pastor of Providence PRC and secretary of the Contact Committee of the PRC The Contact Committee (CC) exists because the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC) confess “one holy catholic church.” It is, as we read in the preamble of the CC’s Constitution, “the sacred duty” of the PRC “to manifest the true unity and catholicity of the church on earth in as far as possible…with all churches which have obtained like precious faith with us, both domestic and foreign.” Scripture urges that we should “endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph....
As most readers know, the Committee for Contact with Other Churches is one of the permanent committees of the Protestant Reformed Churches. The PRC has long recognized the importance of seeking church unity. God commands all believers to be active in this, “endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3). The PRC, confessing the reality of the “one, holy, catholic church,” pursue unity with other churches and denominations. For this work, the churches commission the Contact Committee (CC), which committee follows the mandates of synod in her yearly activity. Concerning the work of...
In our previous article, written to bring the reader up to date on our work as Contact Committee (CC), we focused on our contacts with churches with whom we stand in formal ecclesiastical relationships, sister churches or in a corresponding relationship. In this article we report on contacts we have with churches and groups with whom we have no formal relationship as yet, some of recent vintage, a couple of others of longer duration, but groups of believers that have reached out to us either to explore the possibility of establishing formal relations someday or for assistance in development in...
As we stand near the beginning of a new year, the year of our Lord 2020, it is appropriate to consider the church universal, and, along with that, our denomination’s contact with small but greatly varied manifestations of it. Be they ever so small, they are ever so important. An important element of our prayers during this coming year (as it ought to have been in past years) should be for the church universal, of which the PRCA are only a small part. I still remember visiting an old saint in her mid-90s in a rest home in Artesia, California,...
If you are privileged to attend the upcoming Synod of Dordt conference at Trinity PRC this April, you may notice a similarity between the actual Synod of Dordt and this 400th anniversary conference on the Synod of Dordt: Both are gatherings of many Dutch people, yet with an international character! Out of the over 100 delegates to the Synod of Dordt, 27 foreign delegates (including the two replacements) were seated and given full voting rights in the matters regarding the Remonstrants. There would have been more even than that, except the French King Louis XIII did not allow the French...
In 2010, the Committee for Contact with other Churches (CC) sent Professors R. Dykstra and B. Gritters to visit Reformed believers in Namibia who requested a visit from the PRCA. The believers there were very displeased with their denomination— the Reformed Churches of South Africa—and hoped the Protestant Reformed Churches were of like mind with them. What they had read of our churches gave them such hope. These saints in Namibia had heard of the PRCA through literature recommended to them by a minister in South Africa, Rev. Slabbert LeCornu. One couple, the Duvenhages, had asked his advice for a...
