The next general council of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches will be held in Seoul, Republic of Korea, August 15 to 27 1989, at Yonsei University.

Such a general council provides the world Reformed "family" of churches a unique opportunity to worship, share and covenant with each other, to open ourselves to the Spirit's leading, and to make decisions that will affect our faith and witnessing in the 1990s and beyond. This is a crucial and fragile time in world history, one which requires renewed discipleship and solidarity within our Reformed churches and the Christian community at large. We believe that such renewal will emerge from decisions out of our shared response to Jesus' question "Who do you say that I am ?", which is the theme for our general council.

The present document contains the report on the activities of the Alliance for the period 1982 to 1989; it is called "From Ottawa to Seoul", and contains basic documentation to help the general council frame the organization and programmes of the Alliance for the last years of this millennium.

All preparatory documents are being distributed sufficiently in advance, allowing all participants enough time to prepare themselves for the general council and providing the churches opportunity to give mandates to their delegates.

We ask all participants and all WARC member churches to take this opportunity to discuss widely and seriously the many aspects of the work of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, so that the Seoul general council gives clear mandates and responds to the challenge which is addressed to us for our witness in the contemporary world.

We draw special attention to Chapter V, "The Alliance in the Nineties". in which the executive committee has attempted to envision the future shape and work of the World Alliance to the year 2000.

Dr Allan A Boesak
WARC president

Dr Edmond Perret
General secretary

Prof Dr Lukas Vischer
Moderator, Oversight committee
WARC 1989 general council