November 5, 2007
Praise God
I had called a pastor that we knew from a former church and talked with him at length about what happened and how we feel that God used those events to push us in the direction of ministry. We decided to visit his church the next day which was a good 85 miles away! What a blessing, the pastor is sovereign grace and has come to a recent belief in the gifts of the Spirit. He is also open to discussing the King James Bible debate and I was able to share with him some information regarding the modern versions being based on faulty manuscripts. I pray that he does come to the same conclusion that God’s preserved words are found in the King James Bible and not the modern versions based on inferior manuscripts. Since our beliefs also coincide I asked about the possibility of the church ‘sending us out’ to start a FIC in Alvin that is sovereign grace and gifts of the Spirit. If it is the Lord’s will then it will happen. We plan on visiting this pastor’s church once a month and going to a local (cessationist) congregation once a month and having home church the other times.
I start at the school of ministry tonight. I will update on how that goes.
Increasing in Him,
Paul
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New church experience
Sarah did some googling in trying to come up with a church that we would feel comfortable going to and found one less than a half hour away that is a reformed baptist church. She emailed the pastor about the issue of head coverings and while he didn’t agree, he was very gracious to her and said she would certainly be welcome in coming. Our experience was quite a blessing. It’s a very small church (family integrated by nature), but close knit and full of love for Jesus. We met a family there that has 7 children and was quiverfull before there was a label for it.
Unfortunately the pastor is a cessationist so we won’t be joining the church, but we do want to go again and worship with other believers who do love Jesus and praise the name of Jehova for what he has done for them.
I believe this to be further confirmation of the need for a family integrated reformed church that is continualist.
Increasing in Him,
Paul
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School of Ministry
I applied for a school of ministry at a large non-denominational church and was accepted. I had prayed before that God would close this door if he didn’t want me going into ministry. I was honest during the interview that I felt called to start a local family integrated church where people would feel comfortable with large families. The pastor was quite positive about everything I said. I was looking at the old testament survey notes from the professor and he uses the King James Bible in them. Hopefully this means he is a KJB supporter. I will find out November 5th at the first class.
Increasing in Him,
Paul
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Theological beliefs definition
I have been researching a lot of terms and ideas since this search began and I have finally found out what the theological term is for our beliefs. We are continualist reformed credo-baptists.
And that means what now?
Continualist means that you believe the gifts (miraculous and non miraculous) of the Holy Spirit didn’t end with the cannon of scripture as opposed to cessationists who do.
Reformed means that we believe in what is known as the doctrines of grace, or more vulgarly (commonly) known as Calvinism. We do not call ourselves Calvinsts because we do not feel Calvin was perfect nor right on every point of doctrine, eg. he believed in infant baptism.
Credo-baptist means that we believe in fundamental baptist doctrine and believer’s baptism instead of infant baptism.
So there you have it, a short breakdown on what our system of belief is called theologically. We came to believe these things when reading scripture not knowing what they were called and feel the Holy Spirit as revealed these truths to us. For more information on what we believe, please see our About page.
For a in-depth look at what all the beliefs are of reformed credo-baptists please read the 1742 Philadelphia Baptist confession of faith. We find it to be a full confession of faith apart from our confession of belief in the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Increasing in Him,
Paul
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Shopping for a head covering
Sarah and I went to a messianic jewish store to look for head coverings today since we couldn’t find anything at the local wally world and she had a conversation with the owner about head coverings and found out that the owner has seen a rash of women of late come in convicted about wearing a head covering. A lot of these women that feel convicted now are saying that they were not forced into it, they are not in ‘bondage’, it was the Holy Spirit that has shown them in scripture and convicted them. This shop’s church is of course more geared toward the messianic judaism, we’ve not seen anywhere yet where a gentile would feel comfortable worshiping. Sarah and I feel that while not totally convicted that we are to start a church, God does seem to be leading us that direction with events like this. We were shown today that yes there is a need for a church that embraces head coverings.
Increasing in Him,
Paul
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Head covering blowup
Yes it finally happened, we’ve had conversations with our mothers about head coverings. Both were unwilling to take a hard look at the scriptures with us and see why it is we came to our conclusion that Sarah should wear a head covering. Both mothers had basically said that they’ve studied it and didn’t feel convicted that head coverings were still for today, or felt that the covering was only the hair and that what Paul wrote as instruction for a problem in the first century Corinthian church. For an explanation of why that idea is wrong, see this site.
So yet again we are unable to sit down and hit a logical discussion because the other party already knows that they believe and don’t want to search the scriptures with us. Paul says in 1st Corinthians 14:37 “If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord.” I don’t feel that this is only to apply to the immediate teaching in chapter 14. The Bible was not divided into chapter and verses before the 16th century. As John Gill says, “whatever was commanded by the apostles under divine inspiration, was all one as if immediately commanded by Christ himself.”
We certainly didn’t base our decision to have Sarah cover her head solely on our interpretation. We looked at every commentary we could find and read lots of people’s opinions both pro/con and then we looked at what women did throughout history. The early church fathers taught that women should have their heads covered and this teaching prevailed up until the 1920′s to the 1930′s when it really started falling out of ‘fashion’. This was also about the time that feminism started making inroads and the church stopped really teaching that birth control was wrong. I feel that the issue of head coverings is do divisive because a lot of women are in rebellion and don’t even see it. They think that wearing a head covering says that you’re being abused and watch out if you’re quiverfull and wear a head covering, that really paints you as a target of scorn.
If Paul’s letter was to be instruction for all believers as we see in chapter 1 vs. 2, “Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours” and Paul commanded the women to wear a head covering when praying or prophesying as a commandment of God (chap 14, vs 37) then we have to logically conclude that we need to obey this teaching even today. For to not do so is to be in rebellion to God and James 4:17 says “to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin”. Jesus said in the sermon on the mount in Matt. 5:19, “Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
Increasing in Him,
Paul
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Looking for a Church
I spent the better part of a day on line looking at various churches in our area and what they believe. It is quite a daunting task given the multitude of churches in the area. We don’t however agree with the man made traditions of most denominational churches so those are already going to be out, much less the fact they we don’t agree doctrinally. We are then limited to non-denominational or Baptist churches.
It is amazing the variety of belief in the Baptist churches. You have Southern Baptist churches, Free Will Baptist churches, Fundamentalist Baptist churches, Sovereign Grace Baptist churches, and the list goes on. I think that it goes to show that having even one ‘minor’ doctrinal belief different can give grounds for starting a church. I did find a church in Tennessee that is an Independent Baptist church that believes in Sovereign Grace, believer’s baptism, and in head coverings! Sounds perfect.. except we don’t live anywhere near Tennessee.
We even looked at the local Mennonite church to see if that would be somewhere we would want to go. Contrary to the Amish church which believes that you have to be a good citizen of the church to go to Heaven, the Mennonites believe more along the same lines as does a Free Will Baptist church would but would most likely head cover. We do believe in Sovereign Grace though so that would rule the Mennonites out..
We also checked out the local Messianic Jewish synagogue. Oddly to us, the men there cover their head as do the non-messianic Jews. Come to find out, Jewish men started covering their heads several centuries after Christ in order to differentiate themselves from the hated Christians and that tradition took hold and no one questions it in the modern church, even the Jews. It goes to show that you have to base everything on scripture and not just accept tradition for tradition’s sake.
Sarah and I feel that after long talks into the night regarding the situation that maybe God is using these events to push us ever toward starting our own church. We will continue to pray about it and to seek His will.
Increasing in Him,
Paul
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