The North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council (NAPARC) met Nov. 14–16 in Providence, R.I. This 48th annual meeting was hosted by the Presbyterian Reformed Church, a denomination of six congregations that was established in 1965. RPCNA pastor Bruce Parnell was elected vice-chairman for this meeting of NAPARC.

NAPARC is comprised of 13 member churches (denominations or federations) that together represent over 3,500 organized and mission congregations and about 600,000 members (see naparc.org). The RPCNA is a founding denomination. Each member church may send up to four delegates, and the delegations meet annually.

The basis of NAPARC’s fellowship is “Confessing Jesus Christ as the only Savior and Sovereign Lord over all of life, we affirm the basis of the fellowship of Presbyterian and Reformed Churches to be full commitment to the Bible in its entirety as the Word of God written, without error in all its parts, and to its teaching as set forth in the Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confession, the Canons of Dort, the Westminster Confession of Faith, and the Westminster Larger and Shorter Catechisms.”

Reports from the 13 member churches took up a majority of the time in the joint sessions, along with questions to, and prayer for, each church. Following that, four topics of discussion were taken up. They included how we can encourage compliance with the NAPARC Comity Agreement, how we can encourage organic union, how to retain young people in our churches and recruit new ministers, and a proposal from one federation asking whether any member churches were interested in the formation of an independent investigations counsel to serve NAPARC member churches, providing objective counsel to member churches regarding instances of sexual abuse and related scandalous crimes.

The Comity Agreement, mentioned above, requires communication with other NAPARC denominations when considering and starting a church plant in an area with other NAPARC churches.

The RPCNA Interchurch Committee met the day before NAPARC to handle its own business. This meeting was held in the Providence RPC church building, and beforehand the committee had dinner with Providence’s pastor, Daniel Howe, and his wife, Esther.

In between sessions of NAPARC, the RPCNA Interchurch Committee met with delegations from five denominations or federations—the United Reformed Churches, the Presbyterian Reformed Church, the Canadian Reformed Churches, the Heritage Reformed Congregations, and the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. One focus of joint discussion with the ARP Church was the pursuit of a possible annual consultation on theological education at NAPARC, something that had been a regular occurrence in decades past.

The Reformed Presbyterian Church of Canada, newly established this year, will be invited as an official observer for next year’s NAPARC meeting. That meeting will be held Nov. 12–14, 2024, in Kansas City, Mo., hosted by the Reformed Church in the U.S.