Letter from New WRF International Director, Dr. P. J. (Flip) Buys, April 12, 2015: Greetings from Flip Buys, the new International Director of World Reformed Fellowship

I am deeply humbled by this calling to take up this appointment as International Director of World Reformed Fellowship, following in the footsteps of great men of God who initiated the ministry of this organization. I have seen the growth of WRF since the year 2000 and I know how Dr. Sam Logan fulfilled a gigantic task in managing the expansion of WRF the past 10 years. Since I became part of the Board of Directors I also became acquainted with the tremendous challenges that WRF faces in fulfilling God’s call to facilitate the sharing of gifts and resources and needs of Reformed brothers and sisters around the globe. 

I have also seen the strengths of WRF as well as the needs that have been fulfilled. 

In the activities of WRF we taste something of what of John Calvin wrote about the Church universal of the multitude collected out of all nations, who, though dispersed and far distant from each other, agree in one truth of divine doctrine, and are bound together by the tie of a common faith. I fully agree with the WRF statement of Faith stating that God’s truth revealed in Scripture is universal, eternal and relevant for all cultures, ages and peoples. Nevertheless, there can be several and distinct applications of that truth. In contextualizing God’s Word, we should distinguish between biblical principles which are the eternal and universal manifestations of God’s truth, and the practical implications of those principles, which can vary in different contexts. 

I have seen through the years that contextuality that does not include fellowship and engagement and unity with the universal Church of Jesus Christ, develops Christians with a narrowed down vision of God. The idea easily creeps in: He is more the God of our tribal group than the God of other cultural groups. 

I believe and have experienced that every Christian must interrelate with other believers individually and corporately to fully experience and express spiritual growth. Real ongoing Christian nurture is experienced beyond one’s local church through interaction with other Christians in the much more extended body of Christ.  

For continued spiritual growth, believers should sustain a proper relationship and responsibility to their local church in its cultural setting but also vitally interact with other Christians on an international scale to enrich and broaden their experiential knowledge of God. 

Ministry of the gospel that does not submit itself to the judgment of the gospel as proclaimed by others in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church, can so celebrate their own cultural expressions of the gospel, that their theology slips into a kind of absolutism, in which a particular local theology asserts its own absoluteness and therefore universality that stands in judgment of every other contextualized theology. 

In the two international consultations that WRF under the leadership of Dr. Sam Logan organized in cooperation with the Lausanne Movement and World Evangelical Alliance we realized that contextualization remains a dynamic enterprise that requires the wisdom of the whole people of God who are willing to listen together and hear each other as we discern the movement of God’s Spirit in any historical era. 

Together with the Board I commit myself to the following main priorities: 

(I’ll do my utmost) to continue with WRF’s involvement in Theological Education Worldwide, 

to continue to take hands globally to strengthen Christian ministry in Muslim as well as other contexts, 

to fight contemporary enslavement of millions of people through evil human trafficking syndicates and 

to stimulate WRF members to help one another to be the hands and feet of Christ in alleviating poverty and suffering in our broken world. 

31 October 2017 will be a kairos moment for Reformed Christians globally, when 500 years of the impact of the reformation will be commemorated. The Board has approved, that WRF will organize an international conference in the Luther hotel in Wittenberg, Germany from the 25th to the 30th  of October 2017 God willing. 

Because I know my own weakness, my style will constantly be to establish working committees to implement our decisions about our vision, mission, goals and objectives. 

The newly elected Board of Directors had a very good meeting on Friday the 27th and Saturday the 28th of March with strategic planning and revisited our previously formulated vision and mission and objectives. A committee will formulate the decisions for approval by the Board and then send it to all WRF members around the world. Please pray regularly for me and our Board for wisdom and strength and a close walk with God to discern the open doors and the leading of the Holy Spirit for the progress of God’s kingdom in our contemporary global world.  

May God in his mercy enable and use us to be a part of his gathering of his people from every tribe and tongue and nation to glorify Him forever in his new creation!  

Dr. P. J. BuysThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.