Dear Congregation,
Please see Karen’s announcement about conference food below. Also, the Conference PDF is attached, as well as being available at bit.ly/harpc200th and prominently linked from the Hopewell website.
If you’ve got friends who are interested in learning what a Presbyterian is, or maybe you yourself are wondering, the anniversary conference is a great opportunity for that.
The word comes from the word presbyter, elder. In a church (Presbyterian’s prefer the word “church” to “denomination”) name, it basically means that we believe that the Lord Jesus shepherds and teaches His church through a plurality of elders in a particular congregation, and gives churches in a region accountability through meetings (which they call “courts”) in that region.
Sometimes, you might hear “higher” court, but to understand it the way Presbyterians mean it, it is better to think in terms of “broader” court. It’s very important to note that there is no office above elder at all—that all the elders in a congregation or a region are on equal footing before Christ and submit to him by submitting to their brother elders.
We see that in the New Testament, the elders sat in Session (the word “Session” means “sitting” and refers to when the elders are seated as a body to govern, rather than functioning as individuals or informally as a group) with the apostles at the first “General Assembly” in Acts 15. And, the apostle Peter refers to himself as a fellow-elder with them in 1Peter 5:1. So, depending upon how large is the region that the elders are coming from, you might hear these broader courts referred to as Presbytery, Synod, or General Assembly. (By retaining the name ‘Synod’, it implies that the ARP is still hoping to be reunited with other Reformed Presbyterian synods into a General Assembly!)
So basically, a Presbyterian is a Christian who sees that in the Bible, Jesus has a particular way of leading His church. You might also hear us called ‘Reformed’—which refers to the fact that there are many things that Jesus has a particular way of doing, that had been lost by the “Roman Catholic” church in the centuries leading up to the “Reformation.”
All branches of the Reformation agreed that Jesus has a particular way of speaking to His church (through the Bible, sola scriptura) and that Jesus has a particular way of saving sinners (by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone; sola gratia, sola fide, solus Christus)—and that no mere man should ever be honored above all the others (to God’s glory alone, soli deo Gloria).
But the Reformed branch (holding to one of the Reformed Confessions, such as our Westminster Confession or the Belgic Confession, etc.) saw even more than that in the Bible. Jesus has a particular way of conducting the worship of His church. Jesus has a particular way of growing Christians and making them more and more like Himself. Jesus has a particular way that He wants us to live. This is why our confession and catechisms (and other Reformed confessions) go into so much detail about the means of grace and the law of God.
I’ll stop spoiling Dr. Willborn’s lectures now, but it is really a great instance of Christ’s merciful grace that He has kept (and even, when necessary, returned) Hopewell walking according to His truth these 200 years. And, as we thank Him and celebrate that grace, we will be simultaneously reminded of what He calls us to be and do.
Of course, one of those things is a day that He has set apart as holy for His worship, in which He gives us a weekly celebration of Himself and reformation of ourselves, praise God!
Looking forward to that day and that worship together with you,
Pastor