Our report begins with this "covering letter" which is not part of the council message, but, rather, explains to participants how we have understood our assignment and how we have sought to carry it out.

We have understood our assignment as twofold. First, we were to write a document summing up the general council as a whole, without repeating section reports, without acting either as a censor or as an amplifier of any particular concern. Our remit was to express the spirit of the council. We were also, secondly, assigned the task of writing a declaration - perhaps convenantal in character - to which all participants in the council could be invited to subscribe, and which could be read in the Square of the Reformers at the close of our torchlight procession. All this was to be done in a context of "listening" to concerns expressed in many voices among participants in this general council.

We have been approached by many people concerned with particular issues. Many of these matters have seemed to us to belong on the agendas of sections or committees. Where possible, we have referred these particulars to the appropriate conveners or to the executive committee, while taking note, for purposes of the message, of the spirit they represent.

Your committee has met each day of the council. We have attended plenary sessions, sections, committees and Bible studies. We have engaged in countless conversations with individuals and small groups. We have carefully read drafts, redrafts, and finished documents. We have tried not simply to say again for the sections and committees what they have already said so eloquently for themselves. Instead, in an interpretative act, we have tried to catch the essence of what we have read and heard. We have sought to hear the implied messages to the Reformed churches, all Christian churches, and to the world.

Our assignment to write some form of covenanting statement - possibly in a poetic, evocative style - has been a challenge. We asked ourselves how such a statement could be deeply grounded in our tradition, yet decidedly contemporary in content. In the end, we have adapted words from John Calvin himself and from the answer to question 1 of the Heidelberg Catechism. In book III, chapter 7, section 1 of the Institutes, Calvin repeats over and over the words "We are not our own". In each case he elaborates consequences, of course in sixteenth-century terms. Now, in the late twentieth century, we have been bold to complete Calvin's sentences in new ways. We have also translated Calvin's Old French into contemporary, non-sexist, language for the French, German and Spanish versions of this document.

On this basis we have constructed a declaration with a trinitarian structure, Reformed theological content, and contemporary moral commitments. We call it The Declaration of Debrecen. May these words, or even better words which council participants may suggest, well serve our calling to contemporary discipleship. We invite participants in the 23rd general council to join us in this covenantal litany, and, if they wish, to add their names to it.