To the GCF Family:
Sunday, September 16, 2018 marks the 45th
anniversary of the formation of the new church body which would eventually
become Grace Christian Fellowship, a member congregation of the Presbyterian
Church in America. Some of you have been
involved since the beginning. Most of
you have joined the church family in the years since.
The vision driving the founding of this church was a
desire to remain true to the orthodox teachings of the Christian faith in the
face of theological liberalism infiltrating the mainline Presbyterian
Church. Today, the inroads of compromise
and lack of theological integrity continue to plague organized Christianity
across our land. Pressures from secular
society are taking a toll on numerous denominations. Rather than standing for biblical orthodoxy,
many choose the path of capitulation and compromise, leading to churches that
gradually are losing their Christian distinctives.
Semper
Reformanda, Reformed and always reforming, has been the battle
cry of churches in the heritage of the Protestant Reformation. This phrase doesn’t mean that we are always
to be adapting to the latest trends and demands of secular society. Rather, the focus of these two Latin words is
that churches must be continually striving to re-orient our beliefs to the
absolute authority of Scripture.
The
human tendency is to compromise. The
burden of such Reformed churches is that our beliefs and practices must
continually be brought back into line with the Word of God. And that is our goal at Grace Christian
Fellowship. Our loyalty is not ultimately
to the traditions of the past but to the abiding relevance of God’s eternal
truth in the Bible.
As we look to the future, let us pray and work and
serve together so that in the years to come we will remain true to our founding
vision. There is much work to be done to
honor the name of Jesus Christ and to address the evident needs of the
tri-state area in which we live.
Thousands of people in our neighborhoods lack a fundamental
understanding of the gospel of salvation by grace alone, through Christ
alone. Let us pray for increased zeal
that we may more effectively be “blameless and harmless, children of God
without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom
[we] shine as lights in the world” (Phil. 2:15).
God has gifted each of you to contribute to the
ministry of this congregation. Let us
encourage each other as we serve the Lord together. May God’s hand of blessing rest upon our
labors so that much fruit is produced for His glory.
