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church

Redeemer Presbyterian Church is the only PCA church in or around Waco. So I didn’t have a lot of alternatives in case Redeemer didn’t satisfy my church-hunting.

Based on the first Sunday, I could not have asked for a better church.

The liturgy is extremely similar to my home church, with a lot of responsive readings, affirmation of faith from the Westminster Larger Catechism, confession of sin, assurance of pardon, even a “Thanks be to God” after the scripture reading! The pastor wore a robe, they use the New Trinity Hymnal (I'll have to learn new page numbers, because my church uses the old Trinity Hymnal, but still a great bunch of hymns), weekly communion, the whole bit. They did have communion by going up to the front rather than having the elders serve it, but I have a hunch that may be due to a small number of elders as much as anything doctrinal. Either way, it worked fine.

And the sermon was excellent. I believe it was the campus/youth minister that preached, but it was anything but what I consider “campus preaching.” He preached from I John 3:1-3--

"See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we will be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure."

He tied it in with Mark 9, when Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up on the mountain with him and is transfigured, allowing them to see his glory...the glory that John says in the passage above that we will one day share. But they can't stay up on the mountain--right after this scene, they go back down and come upon a boy possessed by demons that the disciples have not been able to cast out. They must return to life's problems, to a problem that they can't solve on their own. Jesus refocuses them on himself, on God, and on prayer..."this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer." The point of the sermon was that rather than focusing on practicing purity, we must focus on Christ's perfect purity. Otherwise, we start trusting in ourselves to be righteous rather than trusting in Christ, and that leads to self-righteousness, legalism, and doubt.

The pastor brought up what I think is an incredibly important point for Christians today: When we focus so completely on morality and on doing the right thing and on imposing that morality on others, all the world sees is self-righteousness. They don't see Christ. And we aren't called to force the whole world to behave properly (although by saying this, I'm not endorsing relativism)--we are called to be conformed to Christ and to display the love of Christ in the world. He isn't physically here anymore, and the church is called to represent him until his return. I kinda think we're not doing that great a job sometimes. He quoted someone who's name I've forgotten: "It doesn't matter how well or badly you're living the Christian life. What matters is how well Jesus lived it for you." Focus on him, and what he's already done, and the living out of the Christian faith will come naturally. That's easy to believe intellectually, but harder to believe in action. We want to put the cart before the horse and think that we have to do something spiritual or moral in order to get God to listen to us and accept us--when really, it's the fact that he already has accepted us that allows us to act in conformity with Christ. It's humbling and freeing at the same time.

I was afraid that a small church (some 150-200 people were there today, about the same size as my chuch at home) in a college town might veer away from meaty sermons, but those fears are gone. Unfortunately they don’t have an evening service, but I’m looking forward to going back next week and getting more of a chance to speak with the pastor, etc. (I had to run straight to the restroom after the service, and couldn’t easily locate him when I got back.)