A Church That Cares About You and Your Family
Life is a challenge. As members of the Reformed Church in America (RCA), we do our best to be a caring, accepting, and helpful group of people. We think it's important to provide meaningful worship, sympathetic counseling, and a solid program of Christian education. We think preaching must be biblical and practical. We strive to build strong youth ministries and a community of people who support each other when the going gets tough.
A Church That Cares About Others
We believe it's important to reach outward as well as inward. We want to be a force for good in our church, the local community, and the world. The RCA reachs around the world with a strong mission program, bringing the love of Christ in both word and action. Over one hundred RCA career missionaries serve worldwide in such countries as Kenya, Kuwait, Ecuador, Estonia, Mexico, and Japan. And thousands of RCA members serve as short-term and long-term volunteers in North America and overseas.
A Church With A Biblical Faith
We in the Reformed Church in America accept the Bible as God's Word for our time, the only reliable guide for our convictions and our lifestyle. We believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Savior of those who believe in him. We believe in the historic Christian faith as stated in the Apostle's Creed. We regard the Heidelberg Catechism, a sixteenth-century statement of faith, as an excellent tool for understanding the Christian faith.
A Church You Can Trust
The Reformed Church in America keeps a balance between local autonomy and denominational services, between clergy and laypeople, and between individualism and structure. Our local congregation elects elders and deacons who govern our church. The General Synod meets once a year to make decisions that affect the life of the entire church. Ongoing programs, such as missions and education, are governed by a representative body called the General Synod Council.
A monthly magazine provided by the RCA, the Church Herald, encourages members to mature in their faith and keeps them informed about their church.
The Reformed Church in America helps support three liberal arts colleges with a Christian emphasis, and two seminaries in the United States.
A Church With a Solid History
The Reformed Church in America is one of the oldest in North America, founded in Amsterdam (now New York City) by the Dutch in 1628, about 150 years before the Revolutionary War. The Reformed branch of Protestantism has its roots in the Reformation of the 1500's. Its primary spiritual leader was John Calvin of Geneva, Switzerland, whose reform movement spread to Scotland, where it became the Presbyterian Church, and the Netherlands, where it became the Dutch Reformed Church. Although Dutch in origin, the Reformed Church in America includes people from a wide variety of ethnic and racial backgrounds. The denomination currently has bout 950 congregations in the United States and Canada, with a membership of more than 300,000 adults, youth, and children.
