Communion with God is a profoundly biblical idea; it is found throughout the scriptures Genesis , Jeremiah , Isaiah , Zephaniah , John , 2 Corinthians , 2 Corinthians , Galatians , Revelation Calvary is a church of the Word and a church of the Spirit.
We believe in the authority of scriptures to teach us about the nature and character of God. And we our a Spirit-filled people who are in communion with God.
This is our great hope and yearning. We are a people who seek the Lord! We dream of a church filled with men and women from all different walks of life with one common denominator: we know God in our actual lives. We believe that such intimacy with the triune God is the foundation and final aim of the Christian life John Finally, we strongly adhere to the reformed idea that salvation is not only about where we go when we die. Salvation is the means by which we are thrusted into the journey of becoming the men and women God desires us to be [v].
It is also the essence of Christianity for the believer as presented in the Bible Matthew , John , 2 Timothy , Luke , Luke This is what it means to be born-again, made alive in Christ John , Romans Anything that is alive has certain attributes and as long as it receives the attention and nutrients it needs and nothing harmful intervenes, the life will naturally grow into a mature life—a seed becomes a bloomed plant, an egg becomes a hen, etc… This is the way God has designed life.
It is also the biblical vision for the Christian life. This new life will grow and mature through the process of discipleship until a Christian lives his or her life as Christ lived his 1 John This is the natural development of the Christian. Such growth into maturity is not for the super-Christian.
It ought to be as natural as a flower seed growing into a fully bloomed plant. To be a born-again Christian is to be a person who is learning from Jesus how to live the life he lived. As a community, we are deeply committed to see disciples become more like Jesus. If you are with us for any length of time, you will hear us either corporately or privately invite all who will listen into a discipleship relationship with Jesus.
And if a person is already a disciple, we want to help in any way we can for his disciples to continue to grow in the life of Christ. Nor is perfection our goal. While the term Reformed has sometimes been taken to include all the Protestant churches which have accepted the principles of the Reformation, it is used here in the more accurate sense to refer specifically to church bodies which have theological and historical roots in the French and Swiss-led Reformation Jean Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, Bullinger, etc.
The primary presupposition of the Reformed churches is that the risen Christ is the only head of the church. Thus there is no stress on a special elite person or group that has received through direct revelation or by the laying on of hands extraordinary powers of authority.
Doctrines are traditionally governed by such principles as Sola Scriptura, salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, God's sovereignty, and the calling to be agents of transformation in the world. Worship is usually simple, orderly and dignified, with an emphasis upon the hearing and preaching of the word of God. Few Reformed and Presbyterian churches have weekly celebration of the eucharist; monthly eucharistic celebrations are more common.
The level of education required for the Presbyterian or Reformed minister is traditionally high. Where did they come from? What do they do that is different from what you are used to? These are great questions, and just the types of basic questions I hope to answer, or at least begin to answer, in this brief book. As a former outsider to these churches and now a planter of a Reformed church in an area with no other church like it, I know where you are coming from.
The New Testament describes those who believe in Jesus Christ as pilgrims in this life 1 Peter ; In your pilgrimage, you may be moving toward involvement in a Reformed church. If so, I want this book to make your pilgrimage as informed and smooth as possible. This book is like walking into the foyer or narthex; there you look around, meet some people, and begin to take note of things about this church. Sproul and Michael Horton mentioned in Appendix 2 take you deeper into the Reformed faith.
Finally, you sit in a pew and the worship service begins. Likewise, a heavy-duty book of systematic theology or any title of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Reformed and Puritan theologians takes you to an even greater depth of experience. While there are variations from one Reformed church to another, what I hope to communicate to you in this basic welcome to the Reformed churches as a whole can be summarized in three points.
0コメント