Let me tell you a little about who we are. This church is being planted by Seven Rivers Church, which is a congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA).
Something that may be helpful for you to know about the PCA is that we hold to the historical truths Christians have expressed from the very first. The world has changed, but God’s truth has not. It still gives life and direction. The beliefs of the PCA can be found in a document called the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms.
The PCA comes from what is called the Reformed tradition. If you don’t know what the label Reformed means, let me give you a brief summary of some of the distinctives of being a Reformed church.
We celebrate the Glory of who God is. People are drawn to beauty in the world, but all that is beautiful, good, and excellent, finds its source and its greatest purity, perfection, and intensity in God. When we talk about the glory of God, we mean that all that makes life worth living is a reflection of who he is, in the way that a song reflects its composer, or a novel reflects its author. As the Creator, he is the origin, source, standard, and fullness of all that we love in life. Being a Christian is a lifelong adventure of growing closer to this God, being revitalized by his grace and truth, and experiencing the deepest joy in his presence.
We emphasize God’s Word. We think that God spoke clearly in the past through appointed spokespeople who wrote down precisely an account of God’s words and actions in the world in the historical collection of letters and books that we now call the Bible. Reformed Christians believe that God gave us the Bible because he loves us and wants us to know him truly.
We rely solely on God’s Grace for us salvation. We believe that we were too important to God for him to leave our eternal salvation in our hands. So, our heavenly Father devised a plan to rescue us. Jesus, the Son of God, accomplished and secured our salvation by his perfect life and sacrificial death. And the Holy Spirit comes into our lives and brings all of the necessary abilities and redemptive benefits that Jesus accomplished and the Father planned. What God requires from us in response is summarized in the comprehensive term Faith, which is the inner response of trust and dependence in our minds, hearts, and wills to the person of Jesus Christ.
We orient our lives around the mission of God’s truth and grace. Jesus is more than a religious figure who can be relegated to the sidelines of history or of day to day living. He is the centerpiece of history and everyday life. He cares about all of it, which means that we bring him by faith into every part of life – family, marriage, career, community, finances, time, and pursuits. Faith in Jesus is more than a personal matter. It determines how we live in private and how we live in public. Every part of life is oriented around and directed by him as communicated in the Bible.
We are committed to the community of people called the Church. Since Christ welcomed us into the family of God when we were sinners, we are compelled to love and welcome one another in the same way. In the earliest churches people from every walk of life—rich, poor, Jew, Gentile, slave and free—responded to the good news of Jesus Christ. Life can be messy, people can be messy, and that means that the Church can be messy. And yet Jesus loves the church and calls us to love it, too. It was in His love and forgiveness that they based their hope and identity, joining together as one body. You may feel like you don’t need church. Maybe not. Maybe the church is not what you need. But maybe the church can help you get to what you do need. We believe that in our segmented and segregated culture, the gospel of Jesus Christ is the one thing that can and should cut through all lines of division and draw us together. We are at our best when we are worshiping with the same variety that makes up our larger Villages community.
