World Communion Sunday is a celebration observed by several Christian denominations, taking place on the first Sunday of every October, that promotes Christian unity and ecumenical cooperation. [1] It focuses on an observance of the eucharist. The tradition was begun in 1933 by Hugh Thomson Kerr who ministered in the Shadyside Presbyterian Church. According to Presbyterian Outlook:
Davitt S. Bell (the late Clerk of Session and church historian at Shadyside) recalled that Dr. Kerr first conceived the notion of World Communion Sunday during his year as moderator of the General Assembly (1930). Dr. Kerr's younger son, the Rev. Dr. Donald Craig Kerr, who is pastor emeritus of the Roland Park Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, was sixteen in 1933. He has related that World Communion Sunday grew out of the Division of Stewardship at Shadyside. It was their attempt to bring churches together in a service of Christian unity—in which everyone might receive both inspiration and information, and above all, to know how important the Church of Jesus Christ is, and how each congregation is interconnected one with another. [2]
It was then adopted throughout the US Presbyterian Church in 1936 [1] and subsequently spread to other denominations. In 1940, the Federal Council of Churches (now the National Council of Churches), led by Jesse Moren Bader, endorsed World Communion Sunday and began to promote it to Christian churches worldwide. [1]
The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination in the United States and Canada. The denomination started with the Restoration Movement during the Second Great Awakening, first existing during the 19th century as a loose association of churches working towards Christian unity, then slowly forming quasi-denominational structures through missionary societies, regional associations, and an international convention. In 1968, the Disciples of Christ officially adopted a denominational structure at which time a group of churches left to remain nondenominational.
The Presbyterian Church (USA), abbreviated PCUSA, is a mainline Protestant denomination in the United States. It is the largest Presbyterian denomination in the country, known for its progressive stance on doctrine and its ordaining of women and members of the LGBT community as elders and ministers. The Presbyterian Church (USA) was established with the 1983 merger of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, whose churches were located in the Southern and border states, with the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, whose congregations could be found in every state.
The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a worldwide Christian inter-church organization founded in 1948 to work for the cause of ecumenism. Its full members today include the Assyrian Church of the East, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, most jurisdictions of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Union of Utrecht, the Lutheran World Federation, the Anglican Communion, the Mennonite churches, the World Methodist Council, the Baptist World Alliance, the World Communion of Reformed Churches, the Pentecostal churches, the Moravian Church and the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church. Notably, the Catholic Church is not a full member, although it sends delegates to meetings who have observer status.
Full communion is a communion or relationship of full agreement among different Christian denominations or Christian individuals that share certain essential principles of Christian theology. Views vary among denominations on exactly what constitutes full communion, but typically when two or more denominations are in full communion it enables services and celebrations, such as the Eucharist, to be shared among congregants or clergy of any of them with the full approval of each.
Ecumenism – also called interdenominationalism, or ecumenicalism – is the concept and principle that Christians who belong to different Christian denominations should work together to develop closer relationships among their churches and promote Christian unity. The adjective ecumenical is thus applied to any non-denominational initiative that encourages greater cooperation and union among Christian denominations and churches.
The United Church of Canada is a mainline Protestant denomination that is the largest Protestant Christian denomination in Canada and the second largest Canadian Christian denomination after the Catholic Church in Canada.
Open communion is the practice of some Protestant Churches of allowing members and non-members to receive the Eucharist. Many but not all churches that practice open communion require that the person receiving communion be a baptized Christian, and other requirements may apply as well. In Methodism, open communion is referred to as the open table, meaning that all may approach the Communion table.
The Church of South India (CSI) is a united Protestant Church in India. It is the result of union of a number of Protestant denominations in South India that occurred after the independence of India.
The World Methodist Council (WMC), founded in 1881, is a consultative body and association of churches in the Methodist tradition. It comprises 80 member denominations in 138 countries which together represent an estimated 80 million people; this includes approximately 60 million committed members and a further 20 million adherents. But there is also another, contradictory, number of members of the member churches on the WMC's website: about 40 million. It is the fifth-largest Christian communion after the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Anglican Communion, and World Communion of Reformed Churches.
Action of Churches Together in Scotland (ACTS) is a national ecumenical organisation of churches in Scotland, founded in 1990. It is the successor to the former Scottish Council of Churches. ACTS is one of the four national ecumenical bodies in the UK, with equivalent bodies being Churches Together in England, Cytûn in Wales and the Irish Council of Churches, plus Churches Together in Britain and Ireland. The ACTS office was originally located in Dunblane, then in Alloa and finally in Stirling.
Jesse Moren Bader (1886–1963) was a 20th-century evangelist and ecumenist. He was an evangelical leader who played a role in the establishment of the World Convention of Churches of Christ.
The Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus is a Lutheran denomination in Ethiopia. It is the largest member church of the Lutheran World Federation. It is a Lutheran denomination with some Pentecostal influence and one Presbyterian-leaning synod, with a large Pietistic following.
As of the 2011 census, Christianity was the largest religion in Scotland, chosen by 53.8% of the Scottish population identifying when asked: "What religion, religious denomination or body do you belong to?" This represented a decline from the 2001 figure of 65.1%. More recent polls of public opinion have shown that the majority today consider themselves non-religious. In 2017, the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, conducted by ScotCen Social Research found that 58% of Scots identified themselves as non-religious, compared to 40% in 1999.
The World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) is the largest association of Reformed (Calvinist) churches in the world. It has 230 member denominations in 108 countries, together claiming an estimated 80 million people, thus being the fourth-largest Christian communion in the world after the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Anglican Communion. This ecumenical Christian body was formed in June 2010 by the union of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) and the Reformed Ecumenical Council (REC).
Shadyside Presbyterian Church is a large congregation of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in an historic part of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Located at the corner of Amberson Avenue and Westminster Place in the Shadyside neighborhood, Shadyside Presbyterian Church was founded in 1866 as a congregation in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. and has enjoyed a long history of local, national, and global recognition for its outreach and service.
The United Church of Christ in the Philippines is a Christian denomination in the Philippines. Established in its present form in Malate, Manila, it resulted from the merger of the Evangelical Church of the Philippines, the Philippine Methodist Church, the Disciples of Christ, the United Evangelical Church and several independent congregations.
The Presbyterian Church of Pakistan Operation Office 6 Empress road, Lahore is the largest Presbyterian, Reformed denominations is the second largest Protestants in Pakistan. It was formed in 1993 by the merger of United Presbyterian Church of Pakistan (1855-1993) and Council of Churches of Lahore.
The Christian Reformed Church of Sri Lanka is the oldest Protestant church on the island.
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