The World Reformed Fellowship (WRF) is an ecumenical, Christian fellowship that advances partnerships among confessional Reformed churches around the world.^[1]

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.^[2] 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.^[3]

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.^[4] 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 Sao Paulo^[5][6] and a theological consultation on Christian ministry among Muslims in 2011 in Istanbul.^[7][8] The WRF partners with both the World Evangelical Alliance, of which the WRF is an affiliate member,^[9] and New Growth Press for book publishing.^[10][11]

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.

• 2000 Orlando, United States
• 2006 Johannesburg, South Africa
• 2010 Edinburgh, Scotland
• 2015 Sao Paulo, Brazil
• 2019 Jakarta, Indonesia
• 2022 Orlando, United States^[12]

WRF membership is also divided up into regional boards for planning and implementing fellowship for ministries within their own larger, geographic area.^[13] These boards are more contextualized than the general assembly, both in composition and in the nature of their work.

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.^[16] Unlike the WCRC, which officially supports the ordination of women,^[17][18] and the ICRC, which prohibits denominational members that ordain women as pastors,^[19][20] the WRF as a confessional fellowship recognizes the diversity of positions among its members regarding the ordination women.^[21] There are a total of 82 denominational members of the WRF and 155 organizational members, as of July 08, 2023.^[22][23] The majority (75 of 82, as of September 15, 2023) of WRF member denominations prohibit women from being ordained as pastors, elders, or deacons.

Membership

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

• The statement that "The Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are without error in all that they teach."
• At least one of the following historic Reformed Confessions – The Gallican Confession, The Belgic Confession, The Heidelberg Catechism, The Thirty-Nine Articles, The Second Helvetic Confession, The Canons of Dort, The Westminster Confession of Faith, the London Confession of 1689, the Savoy Declaration, or the WRF Statement of Faith.^[24]

The largest churches as of 2023 are (membership of 100,000 or more):