Altered Abstract w/ Scripture

Posted by Joe Thorn - 21/05/07

The Abstract of Principles is a solid, simple confession written in 1858. It was the first confession drawn up by Southern Baptists for the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and is in use by many churches today. I like it, but the language is a bit archaic and there are a few things I would say differently, or not say at all.

This is a hack on the Abstract that makes it better for our church. The language has been modestly updated, we made some minor adjustments in a couple of places, and - get this - we added Scriptural support to each article. I am not sure why, but I have not seen a copy of the Abstract with Scriptural proofs. I am sure it’s out there, but until we put this together we have not seen it. What many will not like is that we removed the second clause on the article on the Lord’s Day that reads, “resting from worldly employments and amusements, works of necessity and mercy only excepted.” I am sure many will not like this, but others may. So here it is: what we use as our confession, or statement of faith.

I. The Scriptures
The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments were given by inspiration of God, and are the only sufficient, certain and authoritative rule of all saving knowledge, faith and obedience. (2 Tim. 3:15-17; 2 Peter 1:19-21)

II. God
There is but one God, the Maker, Preserver and Ruler of all things, having in and of Himself, all perfections, and being infinite in them all; and to Him all creatures owe the highest love, reverence and obedience. (Deut. 6:4; 1 Cor. 8:4-6; 1 Tim. 1:17)

III. The Trinity
God is revealed to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit each with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence or being. (Mt. 28:19; 2 Cor. 13:14)

IV. Providence
God from eternity, decrees or permits all things that come to pass, and perpetually upholds, directs and governs all creatures and all events; yet so as not in any way to be the author or approver of sin nor to destroy the free will and responsibility of intelligent creatures. (Heb. 1:3; Mt. 10:39-31; Prov. 16:33)

V. Election
Election is God’s eternal choice of some persons unto everlasting life-not because of foreseen merit in them, but of His mere mercy in Christ-in consequence of which choice they are called, justified and glorified. (Rom. 8:30; Eph. 1:3-6; Acts 13:48)

VI. The Fall of Man
God originally created Man in His own image, and free from sin; but, through the temptation of Satan, he transgressed the command of God, and fell from his original holiness and righteousness; whereby his posterity inherit a nature corrupt and wholly opposed to God and His law, are under condemnation, and as soon as they are capable of moral action, become actual transgressors. (Gen. 1:27; 3:4-7; Rom. 5:12-21; Eph. 2:1-3)

VII. The Mediator
Jesus Christ, the one and only Son of God, is the divinely appointed mediator between God and man. Having taken upon Himself human nature, yet without sin, He perfectly fulfilled the law; suffered and died upon the cross for the salvation of sinners. He was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended to His Father, at whose right hand He ever lives to make intercession for His people. He is the only Mediator, the Prophet, Priest and King of the Church, and Sovereign of the Universe. (Mt. 3:17; 1 Cor. 15:3-7; 1 Tim. 2:5; Rom. 5:6-11; Phil. 2:5-11; Heb 1:3)

VIII. Regeneration
Regeneration is a change of heart, wrought by the Holy Spirit, who gives life to those who are dead in trespasses and sins enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the Word of God, and renewing their whole nature, so that they love and practice holiness. It is a work of God’s free and special grace alone. (Jn. 3:1-8; Titus 3:5; 1 Pet. 1:3)

IX. Repentance
Repentance is an evangelical grace, wherein a person being by the Holy Spirit, made sensible of the manifold evil of his sin, humbles himself for it, with godly sorrow, detestation of it, and self-abhorrence, with a purpose and endeavor to walk before God so as to please Him in all things. (Mk. 1:15; Acts 20:21; 2 Cor. 7:9)

X. Faith
Saving faith is the belief, on God’s authority, of whatsoever is revealed in His Word concerning Christ; accepting and resting upon Him alone for justification and eternal life. It is wrought in the heart by the Holy Spirit, and is accompanied by all other saving graces, and leads to a life of holiness. (Jn. 1:12; 5:24; Eph. 2:8, 9)

XI. Justification
Justification is God’s gracious and full acquittal of sinners, who believe in Christ, from all sin, through the satisfaction that Christ has made; not for anything wrought in them or done by them; but on account of the obedience and satisfaction of Christ, they receiving and resting on Him and His righteousness by faith. (Rom. 3:23-24; Rom. 5:1-2; 18, 19; 2 Cor. 5:21)

XII. Sanctification
Those who have been regenerated are also sanctified by God’s word and Spirit dwelling in them. This sanctification is progressive through the supply of Divine strength, which all saints seek to obtain, pressing after a heavenly life in heartfelt obedience to all Christ’s commands. (Jn. 17:17; 2 Thes. 2:13; Heb. 12:14)

XIII. Perseverance of the Saints
Those whom God has accepted in the Beloved, and sanctified by His Spirit, will never totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace, but shall certainly persevere to the end; and though they may fall through neglect and temptation, into sin, whereby they grieve the Spirit, impair their graces and comforts, bring reproach on the Church, and temporal judgments on themselves, yet they shall be renewed again unto repentance, and be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation. (Jn. 10:28-29; 1 Jn. 2:19; Rom. 8:30)

XIV. The Church
The Lord Jesus is the head of the Church, which is composed of all His true disciples, and in Him is invested supremely all power for its government. According to His commandment, Christians are to gather together into local churches; and to each of these churches He has given needful authority for administering that order, discipline and worship which He has appointed. The regular officers of a Church are Elders, and Deacons. (Col. 1:18; Mt. 16:18; 18:15-18; 1 Tim. 3:1-15; 1 Pet. 5:1-4)

XV. Baptism
Baptism is an ordinance of the Lord Jesus, obligatory upon every believer, wherein he is immersed in water in the name of the Father, and the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, as a sign of his fellowship with the death and resurrection of Christ, of remission of sins, and of giving himself up to God, to live and walk in newness of life. (Mt. 28:19-20; Rom. 6:3-5; Acts 8:38-39)

XVI. The Lord’s Supper
The Lord’s Supper is an ordinance of Jesus Christ, to be administered with the elements of bread and the fruit of the vine, and to be observed by His churches till the end of the world. It is in no sense a sacrifice, but is designed to commemorate His death, to confirm the faith and other graces of Christians, and to be a bond, pledge and renewal of their communion with Him, and of their church fellowship. (Mt. 26:26-27; 1 Cor. 10:16-17; 11:23-26)

XVII. The Lord’s Day
The Lord’s Day is a Christian institution for regular observance, and should be employed in exercises of worship and spiritual devotion, both public and private. (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:1-2; Col. 2:16; 3:16; Rev 1:10)

XVIII. Liberty of Conscience
God alone is Lord of the conscience; and He hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are in anything contrary to His word, or not contained in it. Civil magistrates being ordained of God, subjection in all lawful things commanded by them ought to be yielded by us in the Lord, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. (Rom. 13:1-7; 1 Pet. 2:17)

XIX. The Resurrection
The bodies of men after death return to dust, but their spirits return immediately to God-the righteous to rest with Him; the wicked, to be reserved under darkness to the judgment. At the last day, the bodies of all the dead, both just and unjust, will be raised.
(1 Cor 15; Jn. 5:28, 29; Phil. 3:21)

XX. The Judgment
God hath appointed a day, wherein He will judge the world by Jesus Christ, when every one shall receive according to his deeds; the wicked shall go into everlasting punishment; the righteous, into everlasting life. (Mt. 25:31-46; 1 Cor. 15:35-58; 2 Cor. 5:10)

The Start of Something New

Posted by Joe Thorn - 21/05/07

The Really Short Story.
As of yesterday the church I planted with some friends seven years ago no longer exists. The 50+ year old church that gave birth to us no longer exists. A new church has been started with both congregations: Redeemer Fellowship. This was not a merger, but could be considered a restart/church plant combo.

The Short Story.
This is a much more complicated story than I can tell here, but I wanted to let everyone know what’s been happening. Consider this the short story.

Seven years ago I began the work of planting Grace Baptist Church. I did not do it alone, but was blessed to start this work with a couple families - people who had a heart for the community and a new work that would be biblically faithfully and culturally relevant. We started strong with a clear vision as a church plant and developed community through small groups. We were seeing conversions happen in the context of personal relationships. Our small groups grew from one to two to three and we began worshiping together at the community center with just over twenty people. After a couple years we had grown to about 60 people and four small groups. Growth was slow but regular, and lives were being transformed. God was at work and we were growing together, but as the years passed we plateaued in our growth, stopped seeing conversions, and never had the impact we dreamed of in our immediate community. In a future post I will unpack why I think we struggled after 2004.

We had planted Grace in a nice little bedroom community (Elburn), detached from the larger Fox Valley/Tri-cities area. The nature of Elburn made it difficult to reach the people within the town, and Elburn’s distance from the Fox Valley made it difficult to create lasting connections with the people there. While a few of our families lived in Elburn, most of our members and regulars lived elsewhere - the larger portion farther east back in the Fox Valley. We were worshipping in a community where we had little impact. A couple years ago I began to conclude that planting ourselves in this bedroom community was now hindering us from fulfilling our objectives, and I started thinking about the need to relocate the church into the Fox Valley with a public relaunch.

I shared my thoughts on relocating with the elders, but this was not immediately embraced. So we waited, thought about it, prayed and several months later we believed this is something we should really look into. In short, it agreed that relocating and relaunching was necessary.

While we were thinking through all this our parent church, First Baptist Church of Saint Charles, was struggling as well. They had been without a pastor for some time and was having a rough time finding the right man to lead them. Their numbers had dwindled, but they had settled with a small core group of committed Christians. They had a strong leadership team that led them through some difficult times. FBC had, for some time, been in need of re-starting. And now, this was needed more than ever. As I considered and prayed about both of our situations I began playing with the idea of a completely new work made up of the families of both churches: new name and identity, vision and mission, constitution, covenant, confession, leadership structure, etc. Our leadership discussed this, prayed about it and encouraged me to talk with the leadership of FBC.

We began discussing what came to be called the “big idea.” For both churches this was a radical concept. A risky suggestion. Along the way the leadership talked and prayed through a number of issues, eventually believing we should take this idea to our congregations for further, open discussion. Some people did not like the idea, others had concerns, everyone had a lot of questions. Does this mean we failed? Are we quitting? Are we abandoning Elburn altogether? We are very different from FBC, how will that work? So we took our time and worked out as much as we could. Eventually both churches agreed to take the next step in exploring this idea.

We decided to have joint services at FBC’s building for several weeks. During this time each church selected 3 men to form an Interim Leadership Team, of which I was the seventh member, which began looking into the most immediate concerns and questions. We spent a lot of time praying together and fleshing out what this new work would look like. The ILT developed a constitution, confession, covenant, name, and sought to address the concerns brought up from each congregation. As we worked together we became more convinced that this new work was the best course of action for both congregations; that this new work is the best way for us all to be God’s worshipping, missionary community.

We finally voted this past Sunday and both churches have decided to let their churches die while giving birth to something new. We have named the new church Redeemer Fellowship and meet at the old FBC building. The hard work we have done so far has been the easy part, the next few months will be more complicated as we develop systems, a plan for redemptive outreach/service to our community, organize elder and deacon ministries, flesh out a number of other issues, continue to cast vision, and will have a very public launch in the fall.

Some of our people are still nervous about this new venture. We loved our old churches and are sad that they came to an end. God accomplished some great things through Grace and FBC, but we are also excited about what God is doing among us now and where we believe he is leading us. I have over-simplified much of this for the sake of a blog post, but I wanted to let everyone know what we are doing and where I am at.

In the coming weeks/months I will be sharing what we have learned through our successes and failures at Grace: worship, evangelism, relationships, approach to culture, systems, location, leadership, vision and communication. I will also be sharing what our new church is developing and doing along the way. Please pray for us as we seek to be God’s missionaries to the Fox Valley.

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