The 46th annual meeting of the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council (NAPARC) took place Nov. 9-11 at Shiloh Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Raleigh, N.C. The outgoing chairman, Prof. Anthony Curto (OPC), led the opening devotions.

The RPCNA’s representatives to the meeting from its Interchurch Committee were Bruce Parnell, Bruce Martin, Dean McHenry, Bruce Backensto, and Drew Gordon.

NAPARC is composed of 13 member churches that include the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARPC), the Canadian Reformed Churches (CanRC), the Reformed Church of Quebec (Église Réformée du Québec) (ERQ), the Free Reformed Churches of North America (FRCNA), the Heritage Reformed Congregations (HRC), the Korean American Presbyterian Church (KAPC), the Korean Presbyterian Church in America (Kosin) (KPCA), the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC), the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), the Presbyterian Reformed Church (PresRC), the Reformed Church in the United States (RCUS), the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (RPCNA), and the United Reformed Churches in North America (URCNA). Representatives of the Bible Presbyterian Church (BPC) and the Protestant Reformed Churches in America (PRCA) attended as invited observers. No representatives of the ERQ were able to attend this year.

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.”

Dr. Bryan Chapell of the PCA was elected as this year’s chairman. The chairmanship and vice-chairmanship rotate annually among the 13 member churches following an alphabetical listing.

The bulk of the work at NAPARC is to hear from the member churches about what the Lord is doing in their midst, and to pray for one another after each report. Reports were heard of God’s spiritual blessings, of unity in the churches, and of new mission works. There is a lot of cooperation among the member churches on the mission field, in conferences, and even youth conferences. There was also discouraging news of mission works being forced to close due to persecution in one country, of minister burnout, of vacant pulpits, and of the various complications and hardships over the last two years with burdensome government restrictions.

At the devotional service on Tuesday evening, the message by host Pastor Matthew Holst summed up many of these joys and challenges with a stirring reminder from Psalm 93 that “the Lord reigns.”

At the Wednesday evening dinner, Dr. Jonathan Master, the new president of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, spoke on praying publicly in the ministry for the glory of God and the benefit of God’s people. He showed from Scripture that prayer, together with preaching, are the two great works of the ministry and that prayer is equally worthy of careful attention and preparation.

The NAPARC schedule runs from Tuesday afternoon to Thursday noon and provides time slots for bi-lateral meetings between the interchurch or ecumenical committees of the member churches. These smaller meetings have proven fruitful for member churches to grow closer together and manifest more fully their oneness in Christ. The RPCNA had bilateral meetings with the ARP, FRC, RCUS, CanRef, and HRC.

In addition to the annual meeting of the council, NAPARC sponsors consultations where representatives of member churches gather to discuss cooperation in a specific area of ministry. For more than 30 years, there have been annual world mission consultations in September. This year representatives from 9 NAPARC member church world mission agencies (ARPC, CanRC, HRC, KAPC, OPC, PCA, RCUS, RPCNA, and URCNA) met together for their annual consultation in the OPC’s administration offices in Willow Grove, Pa. Joining with them were representatives from four NAPARC Member Church diaconal ministries and agencies (CanRC, HRC, OPC, and URCNA).

During the week, the RPCNA delegation was also able to fellowship with several members of the nearby First RPC of Durham, N.C.

The next meeting of NAPARC is scheduled for Nov. 8-10, 2022, to be hosted by the PCA in Atlanta, Ga.