Our Mission

Life is the seed God planted in the center of this dead and broken world. When Jesus Christ died on the cross, the whole cosmos died with Him. When Jesus Christ rose again, He founded the new heavens and Earth. But the only way into this new heavens and Earth is through re-birth. One cannot see the new heavens and the new Earth if they have not been born again.

One of our favorite pictures for the way God works on a new convert is to imagine a chemical factory that produces toxic fumes and ruins the ground around it. When one is reborn, it is like that factory is sold to new owners. These owners rename the factory and now use the same factory to clean the air and heal the ground. The factory is not torn down. Instead, the old parts that are bad or not needed for the new function are removed and new parts are installed. Over the course of a lifetime, the new factory becomes more effective at the new function. This is the way God works in human hearts, and it is the way he works in the world.

1 Peter tells us that God is in the business of turning dead stones into living stones so that the true temple on earth might be built. Not every stone has the same function, either. Some stones are for the walls, and some stones are for windowsills, and still others are for benches. The project is God’s project, and we do not know how long it will take. We do know everyone who confesses the name of the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved. And we know that every believer will take their place in His glorious building meant for the healing of the nations and the glory of God.

We strive to have a Biblical basis for everything we do in worship and life. We want to show honor and accept help from the Christians that came before us. We look to the early church, the Medieval church, and especially the church of the Reformation to guide us in our application of Scripture and practice.

Distinctives

A list of our distinctives are as follows:

1. Weekly Covenant Renewal Worship – which means that each Sunday is ordered into three main movements that culminate in Communion each week.
2. We believe that God calls all of his people to gather together to worship Him – which means that the whole family worships together.
3. We practice paedo-baptism (baptism of believers and their children) and paedo-communion (we welcome all baptized believers – including children – in good standing to the table).
4. We are Post-Millenial in our eschatology – which means we believe that the world will be successfully evangelized before Jesus returns.
5. We sing psalms and hymns.
6. We believe that the primary mission of the church is to go into all the world, baptizing the nations, and teaching them all that God commanded. For us, this begins with Waco, TX.
7. All of Christ, for all of life, for all of Waco.

This is why the new birth is so important. Without the new birth, the best liturgy and the best doctrine can only reorganize dead material. Kind of like all those science experiments that try to get life from rearranging acid. No, Christian teaching is not rearranging dead material, but feeding the faithful with the Words of God.

So, Jesus Christ has risen from the dead and has established the new Heavens and the new Earth right in the middle of the old Heavens and the old Earth. We must not think that we can bring the new heavens and earth here through physical violence, manipulation, or a coup. No, Jesus is the King of this world, and He has made us to be a kingdom of priests and kings to His Father. We stand in this reality by faith in the promises of God for this world and for us. All of this is accomplished by God’s Spirit.

“For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6)