World Reformed Fellowship

The World Reformed Fellowship (WRF) is an ecumenical, Christian fellowship that advances partnerships among confessional Reformed churches around the world.

History

The World Fellowship of Reformed Churches was formed in 1994 by the Presbyterian Church in America, the National Presbyterian Church in Mexico, and the Presbyterian Church of Brazil, as well as member churches mainly from Latin American countries and from India, East Africa and the United States. The International Reformed Fellowship (IRF) was formed also in 1994 with Calvinist churches in Indonesia, Taiwan, Japan, and from all part of Asia.

The World Fellowship of Reformed Churches and the International Reformed Fellowship united on October 24, 2000 to form the World Reformed Fellowship. The WRF is now an international body represented in seventy-nine countries.

Work

The WRF operates commissions that serve its global membership, focusing on evangelism and missions, theological education, and theology. These commissions facilitate dialogue for better partnership between member denominations and organizations, produce and provide resources for the church, operate as theological and ministerial forums between WRF members, and serve as platforms of engagement from the WRF towards other organizations. The theological commission has produced several documents, such as the WRF’s Statement of Faith, a narrative statement on Reformed identity, and a statement on ecclesiology, all designed to facilitate greater theological partnership across cultural and intra-Reformed theological differences. The commissions of the WRF sometimes facilitate larger forums, such as partnering with the Lausanne Movement to host a consultation on theological education in 2014 in São Paulo and a theological consultation on Christian ministry among Muslims in 2011 in Istanbul. The WRF partners with both the World Evangelical Alliance, of which the WRF is an affiliate member, and New Growth Press for book publishing.

The WRF hosts a global general assembly approximately every four years. These assemblies review and direct the work of the WRF’s commissions, are a time of networking and fellowship for the membership of the WRF, and are where the WRF’s membership hears about major issues facing the global church in order to consider and address them.

WRF membership is also divided up into regional boards for planning and implementing fellowship for ministries within their own larger, geographic area. These boards are more contextualized than the general assembly, both in composition and in the nature of their work.

Governance

Governance of the WRF is held by its membership voting at general assemblies. Oversight and operations are carried out by a board of directors and an international director (CEO).

Chairmen of the Board,

International Directors,

Membership

The WRF is similar in theology to the International Conference of Reformed Churches and more conservative than the World Communion of Reformed Churches, though several member churches of the WRF are also members of either the ICRC or the WCRC. The WRF primarily differs from these other groups in that it is a fellowship, not a council, and so includes in its membership not only denominations, but individual congregations, pastors and theologians, and non-ecclesial organizations (e.g. theological seminaries). It conceives of its existence as facilitating dialogue and sharing of resources between the different global branches of Reformed Christians. Unlike the WCRC, which officially supports the ordination of women, and the ICRC, which prohibits denominational members that ordain women as pastors, the WRF as a confessional fellowship recognizes the diversity of positions among its members regarding the ordination women. There are a total of 82 denominational members of the WRF and 155 organizational members, as of July 08, 2023. The majority (75 of 83, as of September 15, 2023) of WRF member denominations prohibit women from being ordained as pastors, elders, or deacons.

The WRF has a Reformed, confessional basis for membership. Members have to agree with:

The largest churches as of 2025 are (membership of 100,000 or more):

  1. National Presbyterian Church in Mexico (2,800,000)
  2. Presbyterian Church in Korea (HapDong) (2,250,530)
  3. Presbyterian Church of Brazil (702,949)
  4. Presbyterian Church in America (400,751)
  5. Christian Reformed Church in North America (183,710)
  6. ECO: A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians (127,000)
  7. Evangelical Presbyterian Church (121,058)

Denominational members

  Countries with member denominations of the World Reformed Fellowship.
  Countries with missions of member denominations of the World Reformed Fellowship.

As of April 2025, there are 83 member denominations:

Member Profile

  1. Presbyterians (95.61%)
  2. Continental Reformed (4.38%)
  3. Reformed baptist, reformed anglican and others (0.01%)

The vast majority of the World Reformed Fraternity (more than 95.61% of individual members) are Presbyterian denominations. The Continental Reformed Churches represent the second largest group within the FRM, with 4.38% of members. The remaining 0.01% of members are Reformed Anglicans, Reformed Baptists and other denominations.

Former members

Former members of the WRF are:

Criticism

The World Reformed Fellowship (WRF) is different from other global Reformed communions in that it allows a wide range of churches for membership. While the International Conference of Reformed Churches only allows membership to Presbyterians and Continental Reformed Churches, the WRF includes, in addition to these, Reformed Baptists, Reformed Aglicanism, Congregationalists, and Reformed Pentecostals. This is because its confessional base is extremely broad, allowing any position on baptism, ordination, eschatology, ecclesiology and pneumatology.

Even the largely liberal and ecumenical World Communion of Reformed Churches, does not accept Baptists, Anglicans or Pentecostals as full members and considers them other denominational families. From this perspective, the World Reformed Fellowship would be redefining the meaning of Reformed Christianity, giving it greater breadth than it has historically had. meant.

References

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