Worshipping God and Making Disciples
Some of the women at Faith Church were able to attend a conference hosted by Grace Fellowship Church. I have heard that it was a blessing to them. Hopefully, the messages can be a blessing to you.
Here are the links to the conference messages:
Biblical Womanhood and Wisdom – Mary Kassian
Gospel-Centred Singleness – Linda Baartse
Q&A with Mary Kassian and Linda Baartse
If you missed it, or would like to listen again, the messages from the Gospel Coalition Women’s Conference are up on the web.
Faith Church is now a Fellowship Baptist Church!
For more information on our organization, please visit www.fellowship.ca and www.febtoronto.com. We are excited to be a part of a historically dynamic and theologically rich fellowship. Many thanks go to Pastor Barry for making this happen. We are blessed more than we deserve.
…we apologize for the lack of posts and sermon uploads. We’ve been having technical issues. We hope to have them resolved this week.
God bless!
This message is for Faith Church members:
This is a reminder that Faith Church will be holding a general meeting tomorrow at 7pm. We will be meeting in the second floor chapel. Please enter through the North entrance facing Olive Avenue.
Martin Luther (1483-1546) and John Calvin (1509-1564) argued that the church was not a human institution, but a community of believers as God sees it. They opposed the Roman Catholic Church’s view that the only valid church was a visible organization that receives its authority through Apostolic succession. A church is visible to the extent that there are visible people that gather visibly. But visibility is not what makes them a church. There is something invisible about the church too. There is something that binds people together in the worship of God that cannot be determined by appearance and attendance.
That something is God. He is the one that gathers people and binds them together (Ephesians 4:4). He is the one that predestines them into a family (Ephesians 1:5). And he does this through the saving work of Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:20-22). Those that are redeemed through Christ’s saving work on the cross are redeemed into a community. The people of God is not a conglomerate of independent individuals. They are a unified body. A household. A church.
God is the architect of the church. But he does not design it without a purpose. As a church, the people of God are called to join one another in worship. Everything they do is to facilitate this central goal. Paul explains how this is lived out in his letter to the Ephesians:
Ephesians 4:4 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. 7 But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. 8 Therefore it says,
“When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.”
9 (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? 10 He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) 11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
So, not only is God the founder of the church, he also gives it a task: build each other up in love. It is this theological understanding of the church that helps us understand who we are as a local expression of the church. Faith Church exists as a community of believers building one another up in love and making disciples. We do this centrally here in our city, in cooperation with other Christians, churches, denominations and para-church organizations.
Faith Church is currently an independent church with no official denominational affiliations. This, however, does not mean that Faith Church does not recognize the invisible church, or other believers in Christ. Faith Church is dedicated to the task of building up the whole church, the larger body of Christ. So, we work with para-church organizations and churches of various denominations to share the gospel and make disciples. We believe that partnering with others in this way is consistent with the scriptural witness.
