United Reformed Churches in North America

Heritage

The United Reformed Churches in North America federated in 1996, formed by congregations that had left the Christian Reformed Church over the direction of its synods — women's ordination decisively, and beneath it the questions of biblical interpretation and confessional authority the founders believed were being loosened. They organized deliberately as a federation: the local consistory is the church, and the broader assemblies exist to serve the churches, not govern them. Strongest where Dutch Reformed America is strongest — Michigan, Iowa, California, and Ontario — the URCNA counted 88 US congregations in RCMS 2020.

Theological family

Confessional Reformed without remainder: the Three Forms of Unity — Heidelberg Catechism, Belgic Confession, Canons of Dort — subscribed by all officers, Scripture held inerrant, and the confessions treated as the churches' living agreement rather than historical background.

Who decides what

Federative on principle: authority rests in the local consistory of elders and deacons; classes and synod are gatherings of the churches with delegated, limited tasks. Only men are ordained to office. The federation maintains close fraternity with kindred bodies, including ecumenical relations with the OPC and the Canadian Reformed Churches.

What a first-time visitor would find

Ordered, reverent services — commonly two each Lord's Day — with psalms prominent in congregational song alongside faithful hymns, expository and catechism preaching, and the Lord's Supper administered by the consistory's oversight.

What it has always cared about

The Heidelberg Catechism preached on schedule; confessional subscription meant seriously; the primacy of the local church guarded in the church order itself; and sober continuity with the Dutch Reformed inheritance as received before the changes it left behind.

Its gift to the wider church

The URCNA offers the Reformed world a tested modern example of federative church government — real connection without centralized power — and its insistence on unamended confessional subscription keeps a clear benchmark on the table for every church that shares its documents.

Commonly confused with

With the Christian Reformed Church, from which its congregations came and with which it shares confessions and neighborhoods; and with the other small Dutch Reformed bodies of the same regions — the URCNA is the 1990s departure, distinct from the 1924 (Protestant Reformed) and 1857 (CRC itself) partings.

Range of views inside it

Range is modest and mostly liturgical — psalm-hymn balance, service details — within a deliberately uniform confessional practice.

Where United Reformed Churches in North America churches are on the map

15 United Reformed Churches in North America congregations appear on The Church Map, across 12 states.

• Michigan — 3
• North Carolina — 2
• Iowa — 1
• Idaho — 1
• Indiana — 1
• New York — 1
• Oregon — 1
• Pennsylvania — 1
• Vermont — 1
• Washington — 1