UCC leaders invite all to global celebration of Reformation Sunday 

This Reformation Sunday, leaders from the United Church of Christ will participate in a global celebration from the Cayman Islands. 

All are invited to join the Oct. 27 special worship of the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC), which will be livestreamed from Grand Cayman at 4 p.m. EST.  

The UCC delegation to the event, led by General Minister and President Rev. Dr. Karen Georgia Thompson, includes the Rev. Mark Pettis, UCC ecumenical and interfaith relations minister; the Rev. Barbara Kershner Daniel, retired Pennsylvania minister; and Stacey Cooper, layperson within the Missouri-Mid-South Conference. 

The Reformation Sunday worship service is part of WCRC’s Caribbean and North American Council Assembly — the regional body where the UCC is a member — which occurs this year during the Reformation Sunday weekend.

“This is a worship service that reflects the global nature of Christianity,” Pettis said. “Our experience of Church is usually narrow to our own local churches. Every General Synod, we gather as the wider UCC, and every seven years or so, we have this interesting opportunity to join and witness the global church worshipping together. It gives the opportunity to listen and engage with how a communion like WCRC is speaking into this moment through worship.” 

WCRC president, the Rev. Najla Kassab, will preach, and the liturgy for the service is available in English and in Spanish. It commemorates the twentieth anniversary of the Accra Confession, which calls for faith-driven commitments to economic and ecological justice.  

“We are called to stand against any form of injustice in the economy and the destruction of the environment, ‘so that justice may roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever- flowing stream’ (Amos 5:24),” the liturgy reads. 

Joining as global reformed church

The United Church of Christ is one of 235 member churches of WCRC, which includes 109 countries and seeks to promote justice and unity “in a world that is crying for God’s healing.”  

Pettis highlighted that WCRC, as well as the World Council of Churches, serve as larger bodies where the UCC engages in conversation and strategies for the church to respond to needs of people around the world.  

“Our participation in the World Communion of Reformed Churches offers us a presence within the global reformed church, expressing our voice and working collaboratively with other denominations that have similar social justice concerns on global issues,” he said. 

Visit this livestream to tune into the WCRC Reformation Service livestream on Sunday at 4 p.m. EST. 

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