Worship Celebrates New Lutheran-reformed Relationship

     CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Four U.S. churches will celebrate their new relationship of "full communion" with a gala worship service Oct. 4 at Rockefeller Chapel in Chicago.  The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Reformed Church in America and United Church of Christ agreed to enter into full communion with a series of votes from June 1997 through March 1998.
     A highlight of the worship will be a ritual of four processions moving from four directions and meeting at a central baptismal font to affirm the churches' mutual recognition of Baptism, to confess the divisions of the past and to pledge "to live under the gospel in mutual affirmation and admonition that respect and love for each other may grow."
     Full communion is not a plan to merge; it commits the churches to share locally and internationally in their mission and to develop procedures whereby clergy in one church body may serve as pastors in congregations of another church body.
     The Rev. James Kenneth Echols, president of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, will be the preacher.  The Rev. Cynthia McCall Campbell, president of McCormick Theological Seminary, will preside at the service of Holy Communion.  McCormick is related to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).  Dr. Addie J. Butler, Philadelphia, will be the assisting minister.  Butler is vice president of the ELCA.
     "The worship service will be a momentous celebration," said Butler. "We are taking the first steps of our really becoming the body of Christ as it was envisioned nearly 2,000 years ago.  It is an important step, an early step, and much work has been done, but there is still a lot more work to be done," she said.
     The Rev. Paul R. Nelson, chair of the Lutheran-Reformed worship committee, said the liturgy has been planned to demonstrate full communion in a number of ways.  "First, by taking representatives of the four church bodies who are moving into a relationship of full communion and blending them together or braiding them into a single procession following a service of baptismal renewal around a baptismal font."
     Second, Nelson said, "by drawing from liturgical resources from all four of the church bodies, as well as commissioning some brand new liturgical material.  Third, by drawing on the rich musical traditions of each of the church bodies involved in the celebration.  So, there will be music drawn from the Presbyterian tradition, from the Lutheran tradition, from the traditions that make up the United Church of Christ and also from the Reformed Church in America."  Nelson is director for worship in the ELCA's Division for Congregational Ministries.
     Musicians will include organist David Eicher of First Presbyterian Church, LaPorte, Ind.; pianist Dennis Friesen-Carper, Valparaiso, Ind.; percussionists from Valparaiso University, Valparaiso; the Sanctuary Choir of Trinity United Church of Christ, Chicago; Hope College Choir, Holland, Mich.; the Tower Brass from Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago; and bell ringers from Bethany Lutheran Church, Batavia, Ill., Augustana Lutheran Church, Hyde Park, Chicago, and the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.
     A link to live audio and still images from the worship service will be available on the web site of each church body.  On the World Wide Web http://www.elca.org/co/celebrate/ is a direct link for the full communion celebration site.

For information contact:
Frank Imhoff, Assoc. Director (773) 380-2955 or NEWS@ELCA.ORG
http://www.elca.org/co/news/current.html