Delegates of a worldwide alliance of Reformed churches are meeting in Holland [Michigan] for the first time in the organization's 126-year history to encourage member churches to "active solidarity."

The World Alliance of Reformed Churches, founded in 1875, includes 214 churches in 106 countries, according to communications secretary Paraic Reamonn. People from 27 countries are in Holland now for the annual meeting of the executive committee of the alliance, which began Friday and continues for a week. The general council meets every seven years.

"Part of what we're about is giving people some experiential sense of being part of the church worldwide," said Reamonn, who is Irish and a minister in the Church of Scotland.

The alliance's biggest US members are the Reformed Church in America, the United Church of Christ, the Presbyterian Church (USA) and various ethnic-based Reformed congregations, but two-thirds of member churches are in the Southern Hemisphere.

"I think the importance for the Reformed Church in America is to maintain the larger connection with the Reformed churches worldwide," said Doug Fromm, a New Jersey pastor who is the RCA's associate for ecumenical relations.

Fromm invited the alliance's executive council to Holland because it's the home of Western Theological Seminary, the denomination's academic center.

The week of meetings, which concludes next weekend, will help the executive committee prepare for the next general council meeting, scheduled for 2004 in Ghana. That council's theme is "That all may have life in fullness," taken from the gospel of John.

Throughout its history, the World Alliance has tried to keep Reformed churches around in the world in fellowship with each other. Fromm said that task has become challenging as membership expanded to include churches from Asia, Africa and the Caribbean instead of only the United States, Canada and Western Europe.

"Those churches are raising questions and looking at issues with different eyes," Fromm said.

He said one delegate told him this week that churches in Europe and North America spend time discussing issues like sexuality, but issues concerning churches elsewhere are medical care, food and basic survival for their members.

"We know what we're dealing with, here in the States, but we don't always know what other Reformed bodies are dealing with in their own cultural contexts," he said.

Reamonn said the alliance is trying not to act as an organization separate from its member churches, but wants to encourage churches to "active solidarity" on topics including economic injustice and environmental destruction.

The alliance is headquartered in in Geneva, Switzerland. The last time an alliance body met in the United States was in 1994, when the executive committee met in Pittsburgh, Reamonn said.

This article is copyright The Holland Sentinel and is reprinted with permission