Delegates from all over the world will gather together four years from now on the campus of the University of Ghana in Legon, Accra, to seek a common response to the challenges facing the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and its member churches both locally and globally.

But the Alliance's 24th general council (July 30 to August 12 2004) will be a "gathering process" in a more profound sense.

At its first meeting in Geneva this month, the preparatory committee agreed that the council should not be seen as an isolated "event in itself", but as the key moment in a process of gathering together the whole Reformed family - a process which begins here and now.

"We don't want to prepare this general council for our member churches," WARC general secretary, Rev Dr Setri Nyomi, says. "We want to prepare it with them."

"Our aim," he explains, "is to engage all in the family - young people, women and men, lay people and clergy, theological institutions, area councils and other regional bodies, and other Reformed organizations - in a unified process. If the general council is to be truly a gathering of our Reformed churches in fellowship, then we must engage those churches in its preparation from the very beginning."

As the preparatory committee spelled out its vision of a gathering process, this will mean:

consulting with member churches immediately on how to shape the theme of the council - "That all may have life in fullness";
asking member churches to name their delegates by June 2002, so that delegates and others in the churches can engage in a two-year study process before the council meets;
preparing resource materials which churches will be encouraged to include in their Christian education programmes in 2003-4;
asking member churches to work with the executive committee in drawing up preliminary proposals for the shape and direction of the Alliance beyond 2004.
engaging member churches more fully in covenanting for justice in the economy and the earth - the confessing process agreed at the 23rd general council - and in mutual commitment to breaking the chains of injustice worldwide.

"If the gathering process doesn't work," says Rev Anna James, newly-elected moderator of the preparatory committee, "then the council doesn't work. It becomes just another business meeting. But it has the potential to be much more than that."

"If people have had an opportunity to get into some really good discussions and debates at home, and bring that to Ghana, then the 24th general council can exceed all our hopes in mobilizing the whole Reformed family for the task of mission beyond 2004."