Praise God for this desire to feed on God’s word. Our goal is to not just have nominal believers, but to make disciples of Christ. Christian discipleship means walking in the footsteps of Jesus, and we do this through relationships with others in the body of Christ.
A student wants to know what the teacher knows; but a disciple wants to be who the master is. We want to help you cultivate a love for all aspects of God’s revealed Scripture, and most of all, for the Word made flesh – the person of Jesus Christ.
We are taught that the Holy Spirit imparts spiritual gifts to the members of His church to build up the Body and equip the saints for the work of ministry (Ephesians 4:12; 1 Corinthians 12). We all also have certain skills, talents, and resources that can strengthen the church and bless the broader community in the name of Jesus. We want to deploy and fully expect our people to minister in their God-given strengths as they have opportunity and calling.
Men, we get it. Many, many churches for way too many generations have been marked by niceness, effeminate leadership, and low expectations for men. The evangelical church has been tailored by and large to appeal to the sensibilities of women. And we love women, and the indispensable richness and beauty that they add to life and the life of the church.
We must guard against a faulty image of a soft, inoffensive Jesus. He was a man’s man – the ultimate Man (the Second Adam). He was able to be gentle towards those who needed gentleness, while in the next moment, He was breathing fire against the self-righteous hirelings and enemies of God. A church ought to serve all its people and benefit from the contributions of men, women, boys, and girls, but it must be led by the men. Christ the King Church takes seriously the high calling for men to take responsibility as husbands, fathers, and leaders in their church, vocation, and community.
Great, so do we. We are a Reformed Baptist church. You’ll probably like it here, even if you disagree with the fact that we don’t baptize babies. We love the Protestant Reformation heritage, the Solas, the TULIP, and so forth.
Bear in mind, sometimes Reformed churches can become very nerdy and pedantic and indeed proud of their various doctrinal distinctives. This can reinforce a stereotypical culture that leans very academic and tends to appeal to smart guys with beards (and we love you and your beards) but can be alienating and inconsiderate of the rest of the congregation. Our Reformed theology is like an operating system; it underlies and informs our preaching and the working out of our faith, but these distinctives are not going to be the whole of our identity and pulpit ministry.
My brother or sister in Christ, we hear you. We are a small church out in the country and do not have the means or desire for a slick stage production. There will be no fog machine or light show to manipulate your emotional state. The Lord’s Day service is to renew our covenant with the Living God who has redeemed us from sin, death, hell, and Satan’s grip through the broken body and shed blood of His Son on the cross. We employ many traditional elements in our liturgy, but always with good reason. All traditions must be weighed and examined, and we are free to hold on to the good.
For many decades, evangelicals thought that they should be free of more “traditional” elements of the worship service, thinking this would appeal to so-called “seekers” in their community. (In doing so, they created their own traditions, just lamer.) However, there is a return to tradition afoot. Some younger Christians, not finding what feels like a sacred worship time in the non-denom evangelical church, are flocking to Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy. We want to be a keeper of the flame of historic Reformation orthodoxy, while remembering the principle of Semper Reformanda – “always reforming.”
We think that’s a problem, too. We don’t have “children’s church” concurrent with the “adult” worship service. We have a family-integrated service, which means we encourage families to sit together, learn together, stand and sing together, pray together, and take communion together. Children need to be with their parents to understand how to worship God rightly. Young children are going to make some noise and get fidgety sometimes. That’s just fine. We bear with one another in the church, and we help carry each others’ burdens.
When it comes to babies, however, there is a nursery and larger room available downstairs for parents to use for fussy little ones when needed. In time, we want to be able to offer nursery care for infants when we have the ability to staff it.
Many a man in the pulpit is concerned with his job security and is reticent to offend people in his congregation with speaking hard truth, even in love. These are the same men who would not dare do or say anything in the community that might offend people about the sinfulness of sin or the exclusivity of Christ. The Bible has a name for men like this: cowards. The Bible is plenty offensive, straight-up. It offends those who hate God. It calls out those ashamed of Jesus. It names wickedness for what it is. And cowardice is sin.
Every day there is something new (really nothing new, though) to bring the Bible to bear upon and expose the shameful deeds of the wicked. The Scripture and Christian worldview must be brought into conflict with the kingdom of darkness, starting with the pulpit and flowing out into the streets.