A Message from Pastor Dave... |
|
|
7/24/06 Our Church Anniversary - 1 Beloved, Each day during this week I will send out a short "anniversary email" to draw attention to some of the blessings that we can be thankful for at Grace. I begin with where the church (GRC) began. On July 31, 1993 a new church was planted in Camarillo for the purpose of "preaching the Word" and specifically to "proclaim the Reformed Faith". This was our intention at the beginning and I believe that by God's grace alone we have kept to that charge. There is one thing that can always be counted on and is assured at GRC and that is the each Lord's Day that you show up for church the Bible is going to be read and it is going to be preached. This has happened without fail for thirteen years. Of course this means that there are going to be unsettling times for all of our lives because the Word of God comes to change and transform us. It obliterates our comfort zones, smashes our idols, reveals our sins, kicks the leg out from under our faulty presuppositions and shows and gives us Christ. If we are to ever have a church crest or logo the Word must be central to it. This Word is our life. And by the grace of God we shall continue as long as our lampstand shines to give the Word it's primacy. We shall never back down nor water down the truth of God's Word. We shall never edit God. The whole of the Bible is our proclamation. The Reformed Faith is our Confession. We shall not be ashamed. Trying to mature in preaching, Pastor David Cranmer Library 7/25/06 Our Church Anniversary - 2 Beloved, More than likely before you came to GRC you had either a low view or no view of the sacraments. Most of us grew up in churches in which baptism and the Lord's Supper were mere aids to memory and were actions we did for God. The Lord's Supper helped us monthly to remember the Cross and baptism was a gift of obedience we offered to God. Then comes GRC and all of the sudden there is wine, real bread, pouring and an emphasis on the fact that God is acting in and through the sacrament and we are receiving from Him (this is thoroughly Calvinistic by the way). This has been hard for many of you to swallow. And swallow you have had to because the Table is celebrated every week. You must understand that it is very difficult to throw off the remnants of your past "Arminianism" and to embrace a thorough-going black coffee theology of grace. Sovereign grace teaches us that in baptism God is acting through the water to accomplish what the Bible says baptism accomplishes. It also teaches that God acts through bread and wine to deepen our unity with His Son, with one another and to give us His resurrected life. God does this and we receive it in faith. I hope that the Lord will continue to teach you that "sovereign grace" if it is to be consistently biblical requires the theology of the sacraments that you have learned at GRC. For those still wondering why we practice the Lord's Supper every week simply read 1 Corinthians 11 and Acts 20:7 and it should be fairly plain. Anticipating the Sacraments this Lord's Day, Pastor David 7/26/06 Our Church Anniversary - 3 Beloved, Clearly one of the greatest areas of reformation in the thirteen-year history of GRC is in our theology and practice of worship. When we started Grace it was all about "free" worship. We had the Word. We had the Supper. But after that we did what suited "our" tastes and our likes. Somehow we thought that worship "style" was neutral and almost "any" expression could honor God. We were wrong. As we continued to grow in our understanding of the holiness and majesty of God it became increasingly apparent that our worship was not faithful to what we believed and proclaimed concerning the glory of God. There was a trivialness and lightness in our worship that did not match the grandeur of God. So we sought reformation here. We are actually still reforming here. I still have questions here myself that I am trying to work out with an open Bible, our Reformed Heritage and the need to accept the times in which we live (we do use electricity in worship you know). We have come to believe over the past couple of years that the closest to a scriptural model of worship that can be found is called "Covenant Renewal". Covenant Renewal worship is not entertainment, it is not education, but is rather communion with the living God and His people. We still have much to learn in this area. We still need to mature in our preparation of the service of Worship and in our participation in the service of Worship. God is graciously taking us there. Covenant Renewal follows the pattern of God calling and we come. We meet His holiness and confess our sins and He cleanses us. He then consecrates us by His Word and communes with us at His Table. He then commissions us to go and be His people in the world He is redeeming. Within this there is repetition and diversity. It is good for all. I have noticed that we have fallen off a little when it comes to our exuberant participation in worship. I pray the Lord restores us soon. Thankful for thirteen years, Pastor David |
|
|
2006 Archives 2005 Archives 2004 Archives |
![[Top button]](resources/go_top_btn.gif){kind=small}
Go to top of this page