Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches
Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches belongs to the Reformed (Continental) family of churches.
Governance: presbyterian.
Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches reports 81 congregations in the United States (RCMS 2020 (ARDA national table), 2020).
A young communion built around covenant renewal worship — liturgical, family-thick Calvinism that feeds its children at the Table and runs classical schools next door.
Heritage
The Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches organized in 1998 as a home for Reformed congregations that fit no existing body — many shaped by the classical Christian education movement and by the ministry of Douglas Wilson and Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, where the communion's best-known institutions (Logos School, New Saint Andrews College) stand. It gathers congregations of varied Reformed confessional standards into presbyteries under a shared council, and RCMS 2020 counted 81 US congregations. Its circles have generated both devoted energy and public controversy, theological and otherwise, which any honest account notes without adjudicating here.
Theological family
Reformed and evangelical with a liturgical accent: member churches subscribe historic Reformed confessions (Westminster or the Three Forms among options), hold Scripture as inerrant, and characteristically emphasize covenant theology applied to family, worship and culture; many practice paedocommunion — communing baptized children — which sets the CREC apart from most Reformed bodies.
Who decides what
Presbyterial in form with congregational weight: local elders govern each church, congregations gather in presbyteries and a triennial council, and the communion deliberately permits multiple confessional standards side by side.
What a first-time visitor would find
Covenant renewal worship is the signature: a structured liturgy moving through call, confession, consecration, communion and commissioning — weekly Eucharist in most congregations, children included at the Table in many, robust psalm and hymn singing in harmony, and expository preaching with application pressed hard. Families with many children fill the pews.
What it has always cared about
Weekly communion as covenant renewal; classical Christian education as a church-adjacent institution — the CREC orbit helped drive the national classical school and homeschool movements; psalm-singing revival; and unapologetic cultural confidence.
Its gift to the wider church
The CREC has pushed two recoveries onto the wider Reformed agenda — weekly communion within a full liturgy, and the classical Christian education movement, whose schools and curricula now serve families far outside this communion.
Commonly confused with
With the PCA and other conservative Presbyterian bodies, from which it is distinct in communion practice and liturgy; and by way of its Moscow, Idaho center, the whole communion is sometimes equated with one congregation's public profile — the CREC is broader than its most famous pulpit.
Range of views inside it
Range spans confessional standards (Westminster and continental), paedocommunion practice, liturgical fullness, and degrees of identification with the Moscow ethos — member churches differ more than outsiders assume.
A note from the mapmakers: Nothing here may be asserted of a specific congregation — including its communion practice, its confessional standard, or its relation to the communion's most publicized voices. Sentences drawn from this record hedge as "CREC congregations typically…" and yield to the congregation's own materials.
Sources: Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches — about the CREC (Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches) · Handbook of Denominations in the United States (Abingdon Press) · 2020 U.S. Religion Census (ASARB)
Where Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches churches are on the map
1 Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches congregations appear on The Church Map, across 1 states.
- Virginia — 1
More of the Reformed (Continental) story · Find these churches on the map