A Quick About Us
We are a Confessionally Reformed, Liturgically Covenantal, Presbyterian and Catholic Church.
WE ARE CONFESSIONALLY REFORMED
Every church believes certain things to be true and other things to be false. Trinity Reformed is no different. We adhere to the ancient creeds and confessions of the church, and particularly we use the confessions and catechisms of the 16th century Reformation, and particularly the Belgic Confession of Faith and the Heidelberg Catechism as a summary of what our pastors believe and teach.
Adhering to the Belgic Confession and Heidelberg Catechism is not required for membership, but it should provide you with a clear understanding of how we approach reading and teaching the Bible.
While there is certainly more to Christianity than historic doctrine, we believe that God has entrusted the church with a body of theology to be delivered to God's people and passed to each subsequent generation. While God nourishes us by His Spirit through the Scriptures, we want to receive and deliver the rich deposit God has given to his people through our Book of Confessions summary of the Scripture's teaching.
WE ARE PRESBYTERIAN & CATHOLIC
The word Presbyterian is an odd word in our day. Many think of it as a church brand, and not always a good one. But the word really simply refers to the way a church is led and cared for. A presbyter is an elder and our church is led by a group of elders who are themselves accountable to the larger body of elders we call a presbytery.
Our elders have various responsibilities within the church. They are responsible for pastoring the members of our church. Each of them is assigned to a group of these members in our church with the responsibility to provide counsel and care. The ministering elder is primarily responsible for overseeing the church service on Sundays as well as the larger mission and direction of our church in the city.
Trinity confesses with the Nicene Creed that, "We believe in one holy, catholic and apostolic church...." This is a statement of faith in what God is actually up to in the church throughout the world. When we look around we see a church that appears splintered and divided into endless divisions - the farthest thing in the world from catholic - or united and encompassing- church. But we confess and seek to recognize in tangible ways the promise and prayer of Jesus: that the church would be one. While we confess certain things to be true and we structure our church in particular ways, we do so in the promise that God is at work to bring our grand, expansive, international and historic family together in our confessions, our worship and our mission.
WE ARE LITURGICALLY COVENANTAL
Liturgy simply refers to the shape that the church's worship takes. Covenant describes the way that God binds himself to his people through his promises and by keeping those promises in history. When we gather as a church, we do so as a covenant people and our worship culminates in a covenant meal wherein God feeds his people and once again makes covenant promises through the body and blood of Jesus. Our worship is designed to remind us of this and seal it unto us each time we gather.
Human beings are shaped by the habits we practice. Our liturgy is designed to not simply teach but shape, through habit, our loves and our entire way of living in the world.
For many of us, this approach to worship is new and can feel strange. Here we are in a well-lit room, surrounded by... well, people. And then we're expected to sing - loudly, and read and respond and pray and kneel and stand and then raise our hands. Everything we do in this liturgy is intentional. It is all meant to shape us as well as to teach us.
Our Sunday worship centers on the central means God uses to feed and nourish his people: the Word and sacraments. The Scriptures feature prominently in our singing, our praying, our reading and are the foundation for all our preaching. We come together around a table with bread and wine where all baptized Christians are welcomed to eat bread and drink wine. And this table is at its heart an invitation to all. It is an invitation to put all your hope in Jesus, to believe in Him and to be fed by Him.
