Beliefs
Summing up what Redeemer believes and practices is a difficult undertaking. The best thing we can do is invite you to come, to taste and see, by worshipping with us on a Sunday morning or coming to one of our gatherings. Otherwise, here is our best shot!
We are Gospel-centered. We believe it is God's sovereign initiative and grace that finds us like lost sheep and brings us into the family of God. You will hear much about Christ's work on behalf of his beloved church at Redeemer.
We believe the Bible. We believe it has power to change us and equip us for every good work in this life. We believe it is exactly what God wants us to know and understand about him and how to love him and one another.
We desire to be winsomely, unapologetically Reformed. We are historically united to the great Biblical truths that spurred the Reformation in the 1500's but were in the works of many great saints beforehand. We believe the church must always reform herself according to God's Word to know Christ, be like Him, and serve our world. We try to do so in a loving, charitable, and appealing manner. You can find a statement from Pastor Fritz on our polity below.
We believe God is sovereign and we are responsible to pray and depend upon his Spirit to work in us and through us. One way we do this is by praying about everything in the life of our church, city, and world.
We care about our city. We want to plant roots and be a blessing to each other, our neighbors, our coworkers, and our place. We think God has wired Redeemer to best do this through small groups and discipleship. We want the gospel and the Bible to permeate our church as we enjoy God together.
We are covenantal. We believe God's promises are to his church, both those born into the church through the Holy Spirit and those born into church families. Infant baptism can be a confusing subject for many so we don't require it for membership and are happy to patiently and lovingly walk through it with those wrestling with it. You can also find a statement from Pastor Fritz on our view of baptism below.
For more details on our church beliefs, please see our denominational page, the Presbyterian Church in America.
On Being Presbyterian
A friend of mine wrote a book entitled On Being Presbyterian. It covers a whole host of beliefs, practices and history that helps explain what it means to be Presbyterian. In short, what it means to be Presbyterian is simply that we are a church led, served and governed by elders. The greek word from which we derive our English word elder is “presbuteros.” We find this word all through the New Testament. It is used for leaders of the Jewish religion, along with scribes and rulers. And, you can find it referring to the earliest leaders designated by the apostles to lead the church. In fact, normal practice in the book of Acts was to plant a church, teach and equip the church members, and hand its leadership over to local elders. The other word Paul uses for these leaders is the word episkopon, which denotes oversight. You can read of qualifications for elders / overseers in I Timothy 3, Titus 1 and I Peter 5.
When I meet with new members of our church I tell them that we as a denomination cannot be accused of trying to be cool or trendy with our name because our entire denomination is named after an office in the Lord’s church! That being said, I am thankful that we are not being trendy but we are simply trying to be biblical regarding our church polity. Polity is a fancy word for how our church is organized and governed. That may sound ho-hum, but if you read church history or even listen to podcasts about abuse and scandal in churches, often the absence of biblical polity hindered the health of those churches, including lack of accountability and correction when necessary. Church polity does not guarantee a sinless church, but it does help when sin and consequent issues arise. Church polity can be abused or misused, but done rightly it promotes what we hope to see in the Church: Christ-likeness that is a light to the nations!
All that to say, we are unashamedly Presbyterian. We believe Jesus is the Chief Shepherd of the Church, and the way he leads is through a plurality of (multiple) undershepherds called elders. These elders are nominated and elected by the congregation and approved by other elders, and all elders submit to one another not only at the local level but at parallel levels regionally (Presbytery) and nationally (General Assembly). Thus Presbyterian churches are “connectional,” meaning that we believe congregations were meant to cooperate with other local churches in missions, training of ministers, and other mutual concerns, as well as helping keep one another accountable in love. This form of church government provides checks and balances for the local member, the elders and the church at large.
Pastor Fritz
On Baptism
And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” (Acts 2:38-39)
The divisions over baptism become most evident when discussing the proper recipients of the sacrament (sacred ordinance). Historically, virtually all Christian churches applied this sealing ordinance to the children of professing believers. Today, most American evangelicals only baptize those who have verbally professed their faith. Still, many Christians follow the majority practice of church history and administer the ordinance both to adults on profession of faith and to their infant children.
The New Testament nowhere explicitly commands us to baptize infants, but neither are we forbidden to do so. Recognizing this fact, we will offer here a brief case for infant or “covenant” baptism as consistent with the way covenants were administered throughout Scripture, in the hopes of promoting our mutual understanding of why it has been and is still practiced by so many Christians.
First, in the Old Testament there is no uniform chronology for faith and circumcision. Abraham was circumcised after professing faith (Gen. 17:22–27), but Isaac was circumcised before his confession (21:4). Faith in the Lord was necessary in both cases to appropriate all the benefits that circumcision promises, but the administration of the covenant sign and seal was not tied to the timing of their faith. Circumcision and baptism are linked (Col. 2:8–15), and so baptism, like circumcision, need not be tied to the moment of profession.
Second, the Old Covenant promises were given to believing adults and their children, and this was depicted in circumcision. It is hard to imagine that the greater New Covenant promises and signs should not also be given to the infant children of believing adults. In the above-cited passage, Peter actually tells us the New Covenant promises are gifts for the children of believers (Acts 2:38–39). Twenty-five percent of the baptisms referenced in the New Testament are of entire households, and those homes most likely included small children.
Third, Paul says the children of a Christian parent are set apart to God (1 Cor. 7:12–14). Circumcision visibly set a child of believers apart under the Old Covenant, so it would be hard for Jewish converts to believe the Lord would not include children in application of the New Covenant seal that sets people apart as part of the visible community; yet, there is no indication of this arising as a concern in the New Testament, nor in the history of the early Church. Even so, without personal faith baptism avails nothing, just as circumcision before it (Rom. 3:25-30). Thus, baptism marks the child as part of the visible church, pointing to the need for the inner renewal of the Holy Spirit–the new birth that comes from above (John 3), making the recipient liable to even stricter judgment if he or she never trusts God (Luke 12:41–48, Hebrews 6).
Whether or not we baptize infants, 1 Corinthians 7:12–14 reveals that children of believers have a relationship to the Lord that the offspring of non-believers do not share. They are in the visible church where they enjoy hearing the preached Word of God. But while the church does play an important part in teaching children about Christ, the church is not to do all the work. We as parents, family, and friends must also impress the teachings of Jesus upon the children we know–especially those within the covenant community.
Finally, if you had the choice between hearing this from God for you or reading this written by God to you or not, “I will be your God and the God of your children forever,” which would you choose? When your son is in the hospital wavering between life and death, would you rather pray to a God who promises you that your children belong to him, or otherwise? Which would you choose? When your teenager is wandering in the wilderness of our worldly culture, does it matter if they are a covenant child or not?
Most importantly, our conviction is that observation of the sacraments is intended to accurately reflect God’s gracious work for us in salvation. He sovereignly initiates and secures our redemption, before we are even aware of our need (John 3, Rom. 9, Eph. 2, Col. 2). We receive his grace and in turn are called to respond in awe and gratitude. There is a special way that the baptism of a covenant child, unable to even speak of faith or perform works that he or she might be inclined to trust in as meriting God’s favor, beautifully depicts God’s monergistic work in and for us (Rom. 3, Eph. 2:8-9). We believe that our covenant-keeping God has given us the sacraments–signs and seals of his covenant of grace–to continually remind us that he has lovingly laid claim to us and to our children, and he is faithful to keep his promises!
With all of this said, as important as we believe Covenant Baptism is, we also love and share fellowship with our brothers and sisters who believe otherwise. Although we regard administration of this sacrament to the children of church members as consistent with Scripture and attested to by Church history, we also respect the views of believers who differ; agreement on this point is not required for church membership at Redeemer. Similarly, we invite all Christians who are members in good standing in Bible-believing churches to participate with us at the Lord’s Table–the other sacramental sign and seal by which the Lord sets apart his people in the New Covenant.
Pastor Fritz