May 31, 2009

A South African and a Scot are the English voices for the Eurovision telecast of a worship service broadcast live in French from Geneva's Cathedral Saint-Pierre on Pentecost Sunday in celebration of the 500th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin.

Puleng LenkaBula, a South African academic who specializes in bioethics, economics and faith and Ian Alexander of the Church of Scotland report feeling "quite elated" by being part of a live television production.

LenkaBula and Alexander read the English script for the service which included a "dialogue sermon" between Liz Vuadi Vibila, a pastor from the Democratic Republic of Congo and professor of theology at the United Evangelical Mission in Germany and Antoine Reymond, President of the Conference of Reformed Churches of the French-speaking area of Switzerland.

Two hundred Reformed church Christians from more than 35countries joined a crowd of 1200 people at the cathedral. The group included 73 members of the Calvin Jubilee Study tour organized by the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) and 40 members of the joint executive committees of WARC and the Reformed Ecumenical Council which have been meeting in Geneva.

The service was broadcast to a European television audience conservatively estimated at two million viewers. It was also picked up in the United States by Calvin College in Grand Rapids and in Korea by the Christian Broadcast System in Seoul.

The webcast version is available on DVD in French, German, English, Hungarian, Italian and Dutch. For information about how to order copies from the Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches visit http://www.calvin09.org/, or send an e-mail message to vps@vpsprod.com.

World Alliance of Reformed Churches