A letter from Karla Koll serving in Costa Rica
April 2015 - Ecumenical Dialogues
Dear Friends in mission,
What do you get when you put a group of Reformed Christians together with a group of classical Pentecostals to talk about mission? We don’t know yet, but we are going to find out over the next five years.
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Pentecostal Reformed Dialogue participants
In November of last year I found myself in Hungary as part of the team named by the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) for the new round of the Pentecostal Reformed Dialogue. The two teams met for five days at the House of Reconciliation in Berekfundo, a retreat center of the Reformed Church in Hungary. Members of the Reformed team came from Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Puerto Rico, South Africa, and the United States. Pentecostal participants were from Australia, the Philippines, the United States, Switzerland and Russia. In this first meeting we learned about understandings of mission in both traditions.
The World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) brings together 229 member churches from around the world, including the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). The Theology and Communion Office of the WCRC facilitates dialogues between the Reformed family and other churches. There are currently dialogues under way with the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, and the Lutheran World Federation. The Pentecostal Reformed Dialogue, which began in 1996, has previously focused on “Word, Spirit, Church and the World” and “Experiences of Christian Faith and Life” in the two traditions.
Pentecostalism is a form of Christianity that emerged in a series of nearly simultaneous revivals in different parts of the world in the early 20th century. In these revivals believers from different churches experienced gifts of the Spirit that manifested in ecstatic forms of worship such as speaking in tongues. Though Pentecostalism was born with the hope that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit would overcome the divisions between Christians, Pentecostal believers eventually formed their own churches. Denominations such as the Assemblies of God, the Church of God, and the Church of God in Christ are considered classical Pentecostal churches because they trace their beginnings back to the initial days of the movement.
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WCRC Pentecostal Reformed Dialogue leadership: Jean-Daniel Plüss, Gabriella Rácsok, Cecil (Mel) Robeck and Karla Ann Koll
My own journey of faith has been nurtured by relationships with Pentecostals. At Union Theological Seminary in New York Rev. Dr. James Forbes taught me preaching. I had African-American, white and Hispanic classmates who brought the experiences and perspectives of their Pentecostal churches into our classroom discussions. When I began teaching at the Evangelical Faculty for Theological Studies in Managua, Nicaragua, most of my students were Pentecostals. I also had many Pentecostal students during the years I taught at the Protestant Center for Pastoral Studies in Central America (CEDEPCA) in Guatemala. And of course the biggest Pentecostal influence on my life has been my husband, Javier Torrez. His great aunt, Encarnacion Torrez Mayorga, was a pastor at the Foursquare Gospel Church. Javier was ordained as a pastor in that denomination at the age of 17. Our lives for the last 25 years have been a daily Pentecostal-Reformed dialogue!
One of the hopes of the Pentecostal-Reformed dialogue is to encourage dialogue between churches at the local level in the countries where the meetings are held. Representatives of the Hungarian Reformed Church met with our group and shared about different aspects of their denomination’s life in the post-Communist era. One of their seminary professors also led us on a wonderful sightseeing tour in Budapest. We also met with the leadership of the Hungarian Pentecostal Church, who told about the life and witness of their church.
The war in the Ukraine was on everyone’s mind. Prior to World War I the territory that today forms the western part of Ukraine belonged to Hungary. The Reformed Church in Transcarpathia, part of the Hungarian Reformed Church, serves the Hungarian minority community there with 108 congregations. Rev. Dr. Gabriella Rácsok, a seminary professor who is part of the Reformed dialogue team, told us how she travels regularly into Ukraine to teach seminary classes. Young men from the Reformed churches are being drafted by the government to fight in the war in the eastern part of the country. The churches provide support for the families of those who have been drafted as well as engage in a variety of social ministries amid the shortages and economic instability brought about by the war. Now when I hear news about fighting in Ukraine, I remember the Reformed churches that are holding funeral services for their young men who have been killed and I pray for negotiations that will bring a path to peaceful coexistence to that part of Europe.
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Karla with Theresa Chai and Fundiswa Kobo in Budapest.
Formal dialogues such as the Pentecostal-Reformed Dialogue are one way Christians respond to Jesus’ prayer in John 17:21 that all of his followers might be one. For those who met in Hungary, dialogue is also a matter of deep personal conviction. Rev. Dr. Cecil (Mel) Robeck, the professor of Church History and Ecumenism from Fuller Seminary who chairs the Pentecostal delegation, shared the vision he had years ago of Jesus commanding him to become involved in ecumenical work. I told the group how exciting I find being a Christian in the 21st century. There are more people from more cultures who are followers of Jesus Christ than ever before in history. Christians from other cultures and faith traditions know aspects of Jesus Christ that I will only be able to learn if they share their perspectives with me. We need each other in the worldwide body of Christ to grow in faith.
Our daily work at the Latin American Biblical University (UBL) is also an experience of dialogue as students and professors from different countries and different cultures reflect together on following Jesus Christ in Latin America today. I am very grateful for the financial gifts and prayers that make it possible for me to serve on behalf of the Presbyterian World Mission here in Costa Rica and beyond. If you have not given recently to my support, please consider doing so. With your help I can continue to work for understanding among Christians from different traditions and contexts.
Karla
The 2015 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 66, 67
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