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Week 3: History, Culture, & Mission

Why Church History?

We have a session on church history for two reasons: First, we want you to like church history. So part of what we want to do is just to get you interested in the subject. Second, this is our family history. When we look back in time, we’re reminded how faithful God has been to his people—which includes us! And that should help us grow in confidence that he is still just as faithful today.

Christianity is not a new thing… it didn’t start with Billy Graham, and it certainly didn’t start with Trinity Bible Church. We stand on the shoulders of the giants of the faith who have come before us, and thought so carefully about Biblical truth, and who fought for the faith once delivered for the saints. Their history is our history. And we want to help you see how they connect.

1. Apostolic Period—AD33 – AD 99

Church history begins with the coming of the Holy Spirit as recorded for us in the book of Acts. This begins what we call the “Apostolic Era.” It’s called Apostolic because this is when the apostles lived. Apostle means “one who is sent” and refers to one who is an official representative of another. So in the NT, apostles are those who Jesus chose to represent him. This was a very unique and formative time because they lived when Scripture was still being recorded. Ephesians 2:20 says that the church was “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone.” That period ended around the year AD 100. There are no more apostles now, because the apostolic age has ended. There is no more new revelation that comes from God that is in any way contradictory to what he has said in the Scripture. When God speaks now, he speaks through his Word by his Spirit.

2. Patristic Period—AD 100 – AD 600

The Patristic era is next, from about AD 100 – 600. This is the time of the church fathers and mothers. This era of church history doesn’t get a whole lot of attention, but it’s absolutely fundamental. They now have a closed canon. That means the Bible has been fully inscripturated at this point. But they needed to articulate what the Bible taught very carefully to defend it against false teaching. We see over and over, even in the letters of the New Testament, that there was false teaching about who Jesus was, the nature of his resurrection, how the law interacts with the gospel. During this time, core doctrines like the Trinity are articulated with more careful and precise language. There was some confusion and false teaching about who God is. If the Father is God and the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God, how can we say that there’s only one God? Folks like Tertullian were super influential in helping the church understand the Biblical truth that God is one in essence and three in person. He is three in one. Tri-une, Trinity.

And the person of Christ was more carefully articulated as well. There was a false teacher named Arius who claimed that only the Father was God. He said that Jesus wasn’t really God, he was just the greatest of the created beings. This was obviously false, because the Bible tells us that the divine Son has always existed and the Father has been the Father of the Son eternally. So the Roman emperor Constantine called about 220 leaders of the church in different areas together. And they had a council at a place called Nicea in AD 325. And they explicitly denied the idea that Jesus was a created being. They said the Son is of the same substance with the Father, not just a similar substance.

But the false teaching of Arius continued, and a man named Athanasius stepped up to correct it. He was known as the Black Dwarf. He was the bishop of Alexandria, probably a native of Egypt. And he was a theological genius. He wrote a book called On the Incarnation where he argued against this false teaching called Arianism. But he was fighting against the tide. Arianism became the official position of the Roman empire for a time, and so he was exiled from Rome five times during his life. There was another council in Constantinople in AD 381, where the Nicene Creed was fleshed out a little further.

So throughout this time of the Patristics, some key doctrines were articulated and defended. And there were three doctrinal statements that came out of this time: the Nicene Creed, the Apostles' Creed and the Athanasian Creed. Those who are truly Christian, orthodox Christians, are able to affirm those three statements. So you should know that Trinity Bible Church is orthodox with a small “o.” This history is our family history, and we affirm the core Christian doctrines that were articulated and defended by the Christian church during this time. Orthodoxy means “true teaching” or “right worship.” And it revolves around the right understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity: there is one God, yet he is three Persons; there are not three Gods, nor do the three Persons merely represent different aspects or modes of a single God.

There are many other important figures in this time, like Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, his sister Macrina the Younger, Gregory of Nazianzus, Ambrose, Jerome, John Chrysostom, Gregory the Great. And Augustine. You may have heard his name before. He was the Bishop of Hippo in North Africa, born in 354. He grew up a pagan, and became a Christian when he was 32. Some say that next to the apostle Paul, he’s had the greatest influence on Christianity. He impacted the church in two key areas:

The first was his doctrine of grace. He knew he was desperately reliant upon the sovereign grace of God for salvation. He once prayed, “O God, command what you will, but give what you command.” In other words, if God required anything of him, God was going to need to give it to Augustine. If God required him to have faith, he needed God to give him that faith. A man named Pelagius took issue with that idea, and said that the human will, merely aided by grace, is the source of our holiness. In other words, if we tried hard enough, we could be fully righteous with God’s assistance. Augustine won that argument, showing that Pelagius’ teaching was contradictory to the message of the New Testament. Pelagianism was condemned as heresy at the Council of Carthage in 418. Salvation is a free, unearned gift of God.

The second area where Augustine was influential was his doctrine of the church. We would say he was less helpful here. He helped turn Rome into a “sacral society.” The Roman Empire became a quote unquote “Christian” empire. There was an awkward marriage of church and state in Rome: to be Roman was to be Christian. So everyone born there was baptized as an infant and was a member of the “church” whether or not he or she was actually truly born again. But we would say that the church is a voluntary society—you can’t be coerced into being a member of the church apart from your own will. And having people without faith in Christ as members of the church is destructive to it. Confusing the citizens of a country with the covenant people of God is very unhelpful.

3. Medieval Period—AD 600–AD 1500

The Medieval period lasted a span of nearly 1,000 years. Some people call it the Dark Ages. Not many people study this time period in church history. Most of our knowledge of this period is limited to what we know from Medieval Times dinner theater. They jousted and didn’t use forks, that about sums it up. But it was a time period when amazing gothic architecture was built, agriculture made big advances, the first universities were established, music expanded into written notes and vocal harmonies. A lot of good, interesting stuff came out of this nearly 1000 year period, but it’s largely overlooked. Here are just a couple of interesting characters from our family history during this time.

Islam was started around A.D. 600 by Muhammed, when he supposedly had a vision of an angel who appeared to him and called him to be the messenger of the one true God, Allah. One Christian man named John of Damascus rose to critique the Quran and Muhammad’s teaching and how it borrowed heavily from Christianity but changed it at important parts—like denying that Jesus was God or that he actually died on the cross. John of Damascus also wrote what is thought to be the first work of systematic Christian theology.

There was a man named Boniface who lived in Germany in the 700s. He was an English missionary, trying to spread the good news of Jesus. But some of the Germans worshipped the god Thor and believed he was present in a particular huge sacred Oak Tree. And at this tree they would make child sacrifices to Thor, the God of Thunder. So Boniface gathered a team, took an axe to the tree, and chopped it down. He and his team were killed afterward for their act by a band of Thor worshippers.

Boniface was a relative of a man named Charlemagne, who would become the king of the Holy Roman Empire. He’s called the King and Father of Europe. He was crowned by the Pope on Christmas Day in the year 800. So this is where Augustine’s confusion of church and state hit new highs. The leader of the church literally established the leader of the government. A lot of corruption would come into the church through this relationship… political power was mingled with the mission of the church. We had military leaders leading the church. Charlemagne was a Christian who thought it was his duty to spread the gospel by any means possible, even through violence. His advisor Alcuin of York told him that Christianity could not be coerced; that it doesn’t spread at the point of a sword. Nevertheless, everyone born in a territory Charlemagne ruled had to be baptized into the church in the first year of their life. And if anyone hid a child to keep them from getting baptized, they would be killed.

The Crusades began in the year 1096, as a battle with Islam over the holy land. There were a series of 8 wars over a period of a couple hundred years. They battled in part over the city Constantinople, founded by Constantine, which is now Istanbul. The Crusades were a dark and brutal time. But during those years we also had some important and helpful figures in church history like Anselm and Thomas Aquinas. Anselm wrote an important book about the incarnation of Jesus. Aquinas was a scholastic theologian who highly valued Scripture, philosophy and reason. He made some important contributions to Christian theology. So it wasn’t all bad.

But there was a great deal of corruption and abuse in the church. Bribery, violence, nepotism. The Pope was thought to be the supreme authority in both spiritual and political matters. The violence of the Crusades turned from attacking heretics outside of the church into attacking heretics inside the church and became known as the Inquisition. At one point there were actually three popes all at once, and none of them recognized the others. It was a mess. And in some cases, those who were working for reform within the church to correct the corruption were condemned as heretics.

There are a couple of important figures here. The first is John Wycliffe. Born in the 1300s in England, he fought to end the papacy and worked towards returning to Biblical faithfulness and authority. He started translating the Bible from Latin into Middle-English so everyone—not just those relative few who read and understood Latin—could study the Gospel for themselves. His work was condemned, and some years after he died of natural causes he was officially condemned as a heretic. They dug up his body, burned his bones, and threw his remains into the River Swift. He’s called the Morning Star of the Reformation because he was foreshadowing some of the doctrinal issues that would come up again in the 1500s.

We also had Jan Hus living in what is the Czech Republic today. He’s read Scripture for himself and begins to preach things like salvation by grace and arguing for allowing everyone (not just the priests, as was the practice) to take part in communion. In 1415, he was accused of being a follower of Wycliffe. He denies it. He said, “No, I’m just following Scripture.” But they condemn him and burn him at the stake. “Hus” is the Czech word for goose. His last words were supposed to have been a bit of a play on words: “You may cook this goose, but there will come a swan who will not be silenced.”

4. Renaissance/Reformation Period—AD 1500 – AD 1700

The Reformations that Hus sought would eventually come to fruition about a hundred years later through Martin Luther. He’s seen as the swan who would not be silent. Listen to the way RC Sproul writes about this connection:

The circumstances of Luther’s ordination were marked by a double irony. When Luther prostrated himself with arms outstretched in the form of the cross, he was lying at the base of the chapel’s altar. The floor was made of stone. The exact spot where Luther lay was marked by an inscription in the stone indicating who was buried directly beneath the spot: the very bishop who had ordered the execution of Jan Hus. It is a great temptation to revise history and ascribe to the bishop an appropriate response to Hus’s words that a swan would come. I would like to think the bishop replied, “Over my dead body!” Indeed it was over his dead body that the swan was ordained.

In 1517, Luther posted the 95 theses on the door of Wittenburg Castle, which marks the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. He had points of doctrinal and moral dispute with the church and he wanted to publicly discuss them. He didn’t want to split the church, he wanted to clean it up. Just as an example of the abuses and excesses, one man named John Tetzel traveled around selling indulgences. Indulgences were a way to purchase time off purgatory. Purgatory was the place souls were taught to go to pay for the debt of their sins. But the church taught that they had the authority to free people from Purgatory. All you had to do was pay for it. Tetzel famously said, “Once a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs.” Luther questioned the theology behind that practice.

But even more importantly, Luther became convinced, based on Scripture and contrary to Catholic teaching, that the only hope of humanity to be saved is by faith alone. The Roman Catholic Church taught that salvation came through an infused righteousness that we needed to cooperate with in order to be made righteous. We can have our own righteousness given to us by grace by God, but if we sin, we lose it. And if we lose it, we have to go to the church and do penance to get back into a state of grace. And that grace came to us through the instrument of baptism. Luther argued that we are saved not by an infused righteousness but by an imputed righteousness. So we’re not made just in God’s eyes as we cooperate with his grace, we’re declared just in God’s eyes by faith alone in Christ alone.

This is really important. The Reformers held that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, that the authority of the church ought to be the Word alone, and all of it pointed to the glory of God alone. These are the Five Solas of the Reformation. (“Sola” is Latin for alone.)

The Roman Catholic church would agree with much of that! They’d agree that we’re saved by grace through faith, but not grace alone through faith alone. They agreed the Bible is authoritative, but the tradition of the church is also just as authoritative.

The 19th century Princeton theologian B.B Warfield famously said that the Reformation was just the ultimate triumph of Augustine's doctrine of grace over Augustine's doctrine of the Church. Once the Reformers realized that they wouldn’t be able to Reform the church from within, they broke away from it. Augustine held that salvation was tied to the one visible church with her popes and councils. But Luther and the other Reformers understood that the final authority was not the church, but Scripture. Luther was brought up on charges of heresy, and some of his most famous words came from that trial. He said:

“Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason—I do not accept the authority of the popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other—my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything. For to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen."

So the Protestant churches begin to break from the Roman Catholic church. There were three main branches of Protestant churches. (1) Lutheran, (2) Swiss Reformed, and (3) Anglican Reformed. Luther started what would become the Lutheran church in Germany with the help of Philip Melanchthon. And of course there are various kinds of Lutheran churches with us today. Five years after Luther posted his 95 theses, the Reformation came to Switzerland under the ministry of Ulrich Zwingli. Ulrich preached a famous sermon on meat. He said that we should be allowed to eat sausage during the season of Lent because there was nothing in Scripture about limiting what we could eat and when. Not long after, John Calvin arrived in Geneva Switzerland and began to preach and write. He wrote the Institutes of the Christian Religion. His work was very influential in the church and still widely read today. They would start what is known as the Swiss Reformed church. And from the Reformed line we got the Scottish Presbyterian churches and the German and Dutch Reformed churches.

The third branch was when the Reformation came to the English speaking world in the Anglican Reformation. King Henry the Eighth of England actually wrote against Luther’s ideas in 1521, and was known as a defender of Catholicism. But he wanted to get a church-sanctioned divorce from his wife because she wasn’t able to provide a male heir to the throne for him. So the English church broke away from the Roman Catholic church. Henry appointed a man named Thomas Cranmer as archbishop, and he pushed the English, or Anglican, church towards a Protestant/Reformed theology. He wrote the Book of Common Prayer, which is a beautiful collection of public prayers for use in gathered worship. Our prayers at Trinity are influenced by Cranmer. And it’s through the Anglican church that we get the Methodist church, founded by John Wesley. This is where the Episcopal church comes from in the US. It’s essentially just the English Anglican church in the United States. And the Puritans come from within the Anglican church as well.

Now within the Reformation there were some who thought that the Reformation hadn’t gone far enough. The Reformers still baptized babies and argued for an intermingling of church and state. These folks held that baptism was only for people who were believers and they pushed for a strict separation between church and state. They were called the Radical Reformers. Now because they were born as Roman Catholics, they were already baptized as babies. But as they read Scripture and saw that the new birth and personal regeneration was a prerequisite to baptism, they concluded that their infant baptism wasn’t actually baptism at all. So they were baptized as believers. They were called the Anabaptists, or “re-baptizers.” One of the early leaders in this movement was named Michael Sattler. He helped write the Schleitheim Confession, which argued for believer’s baptism, a memorial view of the Lord’s Supper, strict separation from the world, untrained clergy, and pacifism. This is where the Amish and Mennonites come from. These folks were persecuted both by Roman Catholics and by other Protestant Reformers. Michael Sattler was executed by the Catholic ruler of Austria. They cut out his tongue, had his body torn to pieces with red hot tongs, and burned his body to powder.

We mentioned the Puritans as coming from the Anglican church in the early 1560s. Well there was quite a bit of diversity with the Puritans. But here’s what they had in common: they stressed communion with God—they really emphasized the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. (Read John Owen’s Communion with the Triune God for a great example of that.) They were predominantly in agreement with Augustine’s doctrine of salvation and the need for God’s supernatural initiative in salvation. They had a strong dependence on the Bible, practical theology, and the centrality of preaching.

Some of those Puritans were Separatists who wanted the freedom to be able to worship according to their conscience and thought it was wrong to have such close ties between the church and the state. Some of them left England and began the Plymouth Colony in 1620 on the American continent. We owe a great debt to the Puritans, of course.

5. Modern Period—AD 1700–Today

Some of the other, probably more familiar figures from American church history include Jonathan Edwards, who wrote the sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” One of the most famous sermons in history. Edwards is still regarded as one of the greatest minds ever born on American soil. He was instrumental in the Great Awakening—a strong revival in Christianity in the colonies—along with George Whitefield and the Wesley brothers. We could talk about the first and Second Great Awakening. The modern missions movement and heroes like David Brainerd, Lottie Moon, Amy Carmichael, John Paton.

But we’ll skip forward to the Fundamentalist/Modernist controversy. A German named Friedrich Schleiermacher is known as the father of what we call liberal theology. Following the Enlightenment movement, he argued that we needed to move away from objective doctrine and focus on the subjective experience of the believer’s religious experience. Experience should be the basis by which we examine and reconstruct doctrines. Once you make that shift, of course, you’ve disconnected yourself from the authority of Scripture. So Schleiermacher denied the resurrection and disliked the doctrine of the Trinity. That subjective liberal theology eventually came over to the States and influenced various denominations and seminaries. It was a point of division for a lot of denominations. Many of them split. Some wanted to conserve historic orthodox Christianity, and others wanted theology to progress and change to get with the times.

The liberal or progressive theologians were called Modernists. They wanted to remove all supernatural ideas from the Bible, because as scientific modernism advanced, they figured that miracles were just fairy tales: virgins don’t give birth. Axe-heads don’t float. Resurrections don’t happen.

The conservatives were called Fundamentalists, because they argued there were certain fundamentals of the faith that cannot be changed without losing Christianity itself. And the main difference centered around their views of the authority of Scripture. The Modernists argued that the Bible was just a collection of writings about what people thought God was like. The Fundamentalists argued that it was supernaturally inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Princeton professor J. Gresham Machen wrote an important book in 1923 that pointed out that Modern Liberal theology was not just another branch of Christianity, it was its own distinct man-centered religion that used some Christian-sounding words. The book’s called Christianity and Liberalism. It still stands up today. Fairly short, definitely worth reading.

This is where the Bible Church movement came from. As the various denominations became influenced by Modernist theology, some folks recognized that the denominations were influencing the churches through their seminaries. So they thought, “If we can separate ourselves from the denominations and their authority, we’ll be able to protect a strict fidelity to the Bible as God’s word.” So Bible Churches are independent churches, and aren’t a part of any denomination. But there was a strong separatist spirit within that fundamentalist culture. They wanted to withdraw from contemporary non-Christian culture altogether. And even within the church, they tended to be schismatic and divisive. There’s something in that constant fear of slipping into Liberal theology that flattens every doctrine into a first-tier issue. Fundamentalists don’t always do theological triage well, and they can be argumentative about far too much. That’s unhealthy.

In 1947, a man named Carl F.H. Henry wrote a book called The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism, which marked out a conservative Evangelicalism that wasn’t as separatist. He argued that we needed to hold to fundamental doctrines but we shouldn’t run away and hide from contemporary culture. After all, if Christianity is true for everyone at all times, we should apply our fundamental doctrines to the prominent social issues in our day. We shouldn’t withdraw from society or from other Christian churches. We should work together to help folks understand how the gospel is relevant to global issues today and grow in our mercy and compassion for the world. We shouldn’t closely identify with a political policy or party that distracts and confuses the primacy of our proclamation of the gospel. But we need to carefully think about how our doctrine should drive us to understand political realities. It was a conservative evangelicalism more inclined to faithfully hold onto core Christian doctrines while seeking to attractively model heavenly citizenship as resident aliens in a lost and dying world. It’s that balance of gospel doctrine and gospel culture that we hope to continue here.

Trinity Bible Church was planted by Bethany Bible Church in 1968. They met for worship in a high school for a few years. Then built what is now the Education Center. It was the whole church until 1983 when they built what is our current Worship Center. MetroCenter mall used to be the place to be in the valley in the 80s. This was a really upscale area. Trinity grew a lot, they say we had about 1,000 people here at one point between various services. Today this area is pretty much right in the 50th percentile in terms of demographics and economics.

Trinity has only had four Lead Pastors in her 55-year history: Joel Eidsness, Mark Benadom, Josh Vincent, and myself. I served with Pastor Josh for about 10 years. Part-time as the Pastoral Assistant of Music. Then three years as Pastor of Music and Discipleship. Pastor Josh moved to Virginia to take on a new ministry challenge in the Fall of 2022, and Trinity selected me to fill in the role as Lead Pastor. So that brings us from Pentecost to 35th and Peoria.

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Gospel Doctrine

GOD THE CREATOR & KING

(Genesis 1-2, Psalm 89, Revelation 4) The Triune God (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) is the creator of everyone and everything. He is the good, sovereign king over his creation. That includes us. He is perfectly holy and righteous; therefore he cannot commit or approve of evil. That’s a problem because after God created all things good, Adam and Eve—the first man and woman—rebelled against him.

HUMANITY THE FALLEN SINNERS

(Romans 5, 2 Thessalonians 1, 1 John 1) Every human is made in the image of God and after his likeness. We were created to know God and to rule over his creation as his princes and princesses. But Adam sinned and we have followed after him. We are sinners by nature and by choice. God is holy and good, yet we rebel against him. We are separated from our loving Creator and deserve His just wrath against our injustice. This is why we need a Redeemer.

CHRIST THE GOD-MAN

(John 10, Matthew 28, Acts 4) Jesus is truly human. He perfectly obeyed God in every way and suffered the punishment for human sin. Jesus is truly God. He was able to bear the righteous anger of God against sin on the cross and yet overcome death. He died on the cross as a sacrifice, paying our sin-debt with his own blood, reconciling us back to God. Jesus was physically resurrected, declaring victory over sin, death, and the Devil. Jesus ascended to heaven and he will return bodily to judge the living and the dead.

FAITH AND REPENTANCE

(John 3, Acts 17, Ephesians 2) So how should you respond to this gospel? The Bible says you need faith and repentance. First, you must put your faith in God’s promise of salvation by grace alone through Christ alone. By faith, Jesus takes our sin and we take His righteousness. Second, you must repent–turn away from your sin and toward God. When you do, you receive forgiveness and become an heir to his infinite riches and grace as his child.

Gospel Culture

The doctrine of God creates a culture of confession. (1 John 1:5-10)

The doctrine of creation creates a culture of dignity. (Gen. 9:6, Jas. 3:9)

The doctrine of providence creates a culture of patience. (Rom. 8:38-39)

The doctrine of election creates a culture of humility. (1 Thess. 1:4)

The doctrine of regeneration creates a culture of genuine love. (Rom. 5:5, 12:9)

The doctrine of justification creates a culture of inclusion. (Gal. 2:11-16)

The doctrine of reconciliation creates a culture of peace. (Eph. 2:14-16)

The doctrine of adoption creates a culture of brotherly affection. (Rom. 12:10)

The doctrine of sanctification creates a culture of expectancy. (Phil. 2:12-13)

The doctrine of preservation creates a culture of encouragement. (Phil 1:6-11)

The doctrine of glorification creates a culture of hope. (1 Jn. 3:2-3)

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Our Mission

Mission: Trinity Bible Church exists to Make Disciple-Making Disciples and to Plant Disciple-Making Churches

Every institution has a mission. It is its reason for being in existence. And usually, it’s summed up in one brief statement about the goals and values of the organization. For example, Starbucks’ mission is “To inspire and nurture the human spirit—one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time.” In the same way, the institution of the church exists for a particular mission. But since the church is God’s creation, we aren’t really free to come up with our own creative mission. We’re meant to stick with the mission that we’ve been assigned.

So Trinity’s mission comes from Matthew 28:18-20 says, “Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

The major command in that passage is actually one verb—it’s the instruction to “make disciples.” “Baptizing” and “teaching” are the practical expressions of how you make disciples. That’s the job of those who follow Christ—to teach others to follow Christ. So based on the marching orders that Jesus gave to his disciples, the mission of the church is to Make Disciple-Making Disciples. And the healthy overflow of a local church who is making disciples is to plant other Disciple-Making Churches. So that’s what we’re about. Everything we do needs to be in support of that mission. Nothing we do can divert us from the priority of that mission.

Distinct Values: (that may set us apart)

Expositional Preaching

This means that in our preaching, our emphasis is to expose the text to the congregation. We want to read, explain, and apply the text. We usually do that in large passages, verse by verse, book by book. Sometimes we will do brief topical sermon series. But even then, the content of the sermons is going to be expositional.

Elder-Led, Congregational Polity

The elders are the under-shepherds, watching over the flock. In the New Testament, local churches consistently have more than one elder. We’re currently blessed to have six elders. Mal, and Stephen are staff pastors. Then we have four lay elders: Harry Fair, Jim Hughes, Andy McClurg, George Mann. Our lay elders have other full-time jobs (or are retired) but they love and serve the church as elders here. They’re always the people you’ll see leading our pastoral prayers.

The elders oversee the affairs of the church. But because we understand the Holy Spirit to be residing in the members of this church, the congregation has the final say on certain crucial matters like approving new elders, approving new members, church discipline, and approving budgets. We take care of that business in our Pulse members’ meetings three or four times per year.

Meaningful Church Membership

You’ve heard us make the case for why church membership is important and vital to the Christian life. We understand church membership to be an affirmation of the members’ profession of faith. When we bring someone into membership, we’re saying that we believe that person has been converted, or “born again.” So that means we want to be careful who we admit as a member. We ask everyone in our membership interviews to explain the gospel. We are slow to baptize people without examination to find out, as much as we’re able, whether or not they’re truly a Christian. We don’t want to use emotion to try to manipulate people into thinking they’re Christians.

Teaching Consistent with Reformed Soteriology

You don’t have to affirm this in order to be a member here, but you should know that the thrust of teaching is going to come from a Reformed soteriology, sometimes called Calvinism. You probably already figured this out based on our affiliation with the Gospel Coalition and 9Marks or the way we just taught through Romans 9-11 in the Fall. It’s not a huge point of emphasis for us, but we’re not ashamed of it. Our main intention in our teaching and preaching is to proclaim the supremacy and centrality of Christ in all things.

If you don’t know what Calvinism means, please don’t go home and Google it. Come ask me.

Heart-Focused, Word-Centered Discipleship

Discipleship is the intentional pursuit of loving the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. We want to continually deepen the belief in the all-sufficiency of Christ and his promises.

The primary context for Christian discipleship is the local church. We’ll talk about that more in a moment in our Four Points of Discipleship. But discipleship looks like growing in our understanding of the Word and who Jesus is so that we can become more like him. We want to gain knowledge and we want to put it into practice.

Word-Centered Gathered Worship

The Word brings Christians to life. It also sustains the life of the Christian. So when we gather, it’s always around the Word: we read the word, sing the word, pray the word, preach the word, and see the word (in baptism and communion).

Other Values: (We also value)

Evangelism in All of Life

Missions and Church Planting

Thoughtful Engagement with Non-Christian Culture

Local Church Autonomy

Friendly Cooperation with Like-Minded Churches

How do we Make Disciple-Making Disciples?

These four streams are meant to mutually reinforce one another as an ecosystem of discipleship to help you pursue Christ:

Gathered Worship. This is the engine room of discipleship. We gather around the Word and hear Scripture and doctrine explained.

Community Groups. These groups of around 12 adults gather to apply the teaching of the church, pray, and grow closer in relationship.

One-to-One Discipleship. We encourage everyone to meet with another Christian to regularly read Scripture, pray, and practice accountability in a way that is only possible within a trusted relationship.

Equipping Classes. Christians need Scripture and doctrine to grow in Christlikeness. We have classes on Wednesday evenings and Sunday mornings to help build up your understanding of the Word and what it means to follow Christ.

We also hope to create an atmosphere of evangelism in all of life. Our members are our evangelistic program. This fall, you could ask someone who may not be a Christian to read through the book of Romans with you. You could invite them to our Wednesday night $3 meal and teaching. We’re covering basic Christian doctrine this fall in the Apostles’ Creed. We just finished up SAF, which was a great avenue to teach the gospel to neighborhood kids. We hope that non-Christians are made to feel welcome in our church services as well.

We also work towards Planting Disciple-Making Churches by raising up pastors and planting churches in Scotland and the Philippines. We’re in the process right now of working with a group of other local churches to combine our efforts to plant more healthy churches in the valley. It’s called the Grove Church Planting network.

We’re a part of the Gospel Coalition Arizona. Which just means we join with other churches to encourage leaders and members to think in healthy ways about the church. We regularly meet with other local pastors to encourage them and be encouraged.

We have what we call “mercy ministries” here as well. We do a monthly mobile food pantry on the first Saturday of the month. We have an addiction recovery group called Hope 4 Addiction.

At least 10% of every dollar that’s given to the church goes towards missions. We support local and foreign mission trips from time to time as well.

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