We Begin with Christ

The Foundational Theology for Everything We Do

God created everything by his word.  That word-created world was plunged into sin through the rebellion of it’s steward—Adam.  Adam, his wife Eve, and all their natural born children experience the results of this rebellion: lost communion with God, exposure to the miseries of this broken world, and eventually death and eternal separation from God.  But God did not stop speaking sovereign words.  After the entrance of sin, God began to speak redemptive words—in the form of promises—to reverse the effects of sin, restore creation, and create for himself a people to live in happiness with him forever.  These gracious words were eventually written down and remain as the holy, inerrant, and infallible Bible.

The promises found in the Old Testament point to a final redemption that would be brought about by one of the sons of King David.  This son, also known as the messiah, is Jesus Christ.  He is the sovereign, redemptive, and gracious word of God made flesh.  He is God and man in two distinct natures yet one person.  He is the culmination and fulfillment of God’s covenant of grace—his plan to redeem sinners and make them his people forever.

Through his perfect life and atoning death on the cross Jesus earned salvation for all those who have been chosen by God before the foundation of the world.  They are made holy and blameless, are justified before God by Christ’s work, and are preserved for all eternity as the people of God.

This is the main story of the Bible.  As a church we recognize this truth and center all that we do on the person and work of Jesus.  Our main goal is to exalt him.  Through him we now know the Father’s love for us and plan for our redemption.  Through him we have the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit.

We are a people humbled by his sovereign grace extended towards us without any merit of our own.  We are a people who no longer try to earn God’s favor through obedience.  We are a people who have been shown the emptiness of all this world has to offer.  We are a people marked by faith in God and repentance for our sins.  We are a people privileged to share this good news with others.

Our spoken, explicit, consuming focus on Jesus Christ is our attempt to model our church and our lives according to the Bible.  The preeminence of Jesus is the bar by which we judge all that we do.

For further Reading:

• Luke 24:13-35
• John 1:1-18
• Colossians 1:13-23
• Hebrews 1:1-14

Being centered on Christ leads to Worship

Corporate Worship – Family Worship – Private Worship – Calling

The response of a redeemed sinner to the presence of God is worship.  Worship is what takes place when we proclaim God’s worthiness to be praised as God Almighty, Creator and Redeemer.  We worship the triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.  Every human being was made to be in relationship with God.  Sin broke this relationship.  Redemption is the gracious process by which our Trinitarian God is restoring that relationship enabling sinners to respond to him in worship.

God has given the church certain means by which we worship him.  These means are the Bible, prayer, and sacraments.  In these means God has shown us how we are to commune with him and so find soul satisfaction.  God has taught us to look to these three things if we are going to grow in grace.  God has ordained these three things to be the way of communicating the gospel to unbelievers.

We are a church that puts primary emphasis on worship.  It may take on may different forms and take place in many different locations but we exist first and foremost as redeemed sinners who worship the Triune God.

This worship is expressed in four fundamental ways.

First, we worship together corporately on Sunday—the Christian Sabbath.  Jesus has graciously given us the Sabbath for our spiritual rest and refreshment.  The main way we receive this rest and refreshment is gathering together as brothers and sisters in Christ to celebrate what our God has done through Jesus Christ.  This celebration is marked by the singing, reading, praying, and preaching of the Bible along with the observance of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.  This worship is joyful and reverent, edifying to believers, and accessible to unbelievers.

Second, we worship together as families.  Each family is a mini-church with the husband as the pastor.  The Christian family is marked by the same emphasis on God’s grace expressed in the gospel of Jesus Christ revealed in the Bible.  So, we as families, worship together in our homes as we sing, pray, read, and understand together the Bible.

Third, we worship as individuals.  Each person is ultimately responsible to God as an individual.  Each Christian should have normal times of private confession, prayer, praise, and Bible study.  This is the sure habit of spiritual health—private, consistent, personal worship.

Fourth, we worship God in our calling.  God has made each person to do something well.  He has also given us roles and responsibilities in our families, church, and world.  We believe that people honor God most when they do what God has made him to do well.  This is called “worship in all of life.”  As a church we recognize each member has a personal calling and specific gifts.  We want to see each member understand those gifts and serve in the role God has given him to the honor of Christ in the world.

For Further Reading:

• The Psalms
• 1 Corinthians 10:31

Worship leads us into Community with one another

Small Groups – Fellowship – Christian Education – Accountability – Conflict Resolution

The same gospel that moves us to worship also binds us together in profound community.  All men and women come to Christ on the same terms: with no merit of their own, solely dependent on the mercy of God.  In salvation God adopts us as his children.  That adoption not only makes God our heavenly Father but also makes other Christians our spiritual brothers and sisters.

The gospel is the cohesion of Christian community.  A gospel-centered church transcends ethnicity, being a place where people from every tribe, tongue, and nation are welcome.  A gospel-centered church transcends socioeconomics, being a place where rich, poor, and middle class live in generous community with one another.  A gospel-centered church transcends education being a place where those of high and low intellect humbly encourage one another towards holiness and service in Christ’s Kingdom.

The foundation of Christian community is the Christian family.  We place a large emphasis on equipping husbands and wives to build Christian marriages centered on the truth of the Cross.  Husbands are to daily die to themselves as they serve and lead their wives just as Christ sacrificially loves and serves the church.  Wives are to daily submit to their husbands in loving service just as the church submits and serves Jesus.  Husbands and wives together parent their children by bringing them up in the fear and admonition of the Lord, daily living out the gospel before them.

But families do not exist in isolation.  Following the example of Titus 2:1-6 we are also committed to gender specific accountability.  Our church will not only meet together for worship on Sunday but also during the week as smaller groups for worship, fellowship, accountability, and instruction.

Within this gospel community men are given a special responsibility to lead in their homes and in the church.  One of the greatest needs of the church today is strong, humble, theologically astute, Christ-adoring, holy, servant-minded, masculine leadership.  To this end our church will place a primary emphasis on the training of men.  As the Lord grows our men in Christian maturity so will the wives and children receive the dividends of husbands and fathers growing deeper in relationship to Jesus.  It is from this group of mature, godly men that the Lord will raise up elders and deacons to serve, shepherd, teach, lead, and protect our church.

We also realize that even a gospel-centered, Jesus-loving community is still a community of sinners.  We will have conflict with one another.  We will disappoint one another.  We are dedicated to dealing with conflict biblically according to the principles of Scripture generally and Matthew 18 specifically.  In this way we hope to show that a repenting community is also a community of peace.

For Further Reading:

• Acts 2:42-47
• Titus 2:1-6
• Matthew 18:15-20
• John 13:31-35

Our Community motivates us to Mission

Service Ministry – Mercy Ministry – Evangelism – Church Planting – World Missions

Gospel humility is the foundation of all cultural engagement.  By his own example, Jesus turned the concept of “greatness” upside down.  In instructing his disciples he told them that the greatest among them will be servants, because he himself—the very Son of God—did not come to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.  The servant-humility of Jesus is the example to all Christians of how to interact with the culture around them.

This example guards us from the two dangers of cultural engagement.

First, the humility of Jesus guards us from approaching culture from the stance of arrogance or pride.  We do not have it all together and we do not have it all figured out.  We were broken sinners at our conversion, though redeemed we are still broken sinners, and we will remain broken sinners until Jesus returns for us.  The recognition of our own need and of God’s unmerited mercy towards us in Jesus deprives us of any pride, exclusivity, or self-entitlement.  If we boast, it is in Jesus alone.

At the same time, the humility of Jesus guards us from liberalism.  In Jesus’ humility we also see his perfect example of truth telling.  Jesus did not condone sin.  Jesus did not mince words when it came to salvation.  Jesus was uncomfortably clear about the sinfulness of man and about a salvation that could only be found in himself.  Jesus was aggressively loving toward sinners and radically clear about the sinfulness of sin.

We see then that the gospel provides us with a powerful witness to our community—a group of humble servants privileged to share the gospel.  This is our goal as we love our community.  We want to provide tangible service to those around us.  We believe every man, woman, and child is created in the image of God and so possesses inherent dignity.  Everyone is worthy of being served.  Everyone is worthy of hearing the gospel.

How we serve our community in gospel humility will depend on the needs of the community.  In this way we are missionaries.  Our goal is to love and learn Culpeper.  We want to be aware of Culpeper’s strengths and weaknesses.  Then as witnesses to the gospel of Jesus we want to engage Culpeper asking God to extend his kingdom.

But we want more than just Kingdom extension to be in Culpeper.  We want to be more than a church plant.  We want to be a church planting church.  As the Lord provides the means we want to participate in church planting throughout our Presbytery, state, and world.  It is in this kind of service that we want our Lord to find us at his return.

For Further Reading:

• Matthew 28:16-20
• Jeremiah 29:7
• Mark 10:35-45
• Acts 17:1-4, 22-34

Mission brings people into contact with Jesus

We worship Christ, in community, on mission.

As we go out we will encounter the spiritually lost with whom we will have the privilege of sharing the gospel. Whether an unbeliever hears the gospel in our worship service, one of our small groups, or through our members on mission our goal is to introduce them to Jesus Christ. As Jesus saves the spiritually lost they too join us in worship, community, and mission.