#epiphanyfellowship

This past week, I’ve noticed that there are several Church plants happening.  I’ve seen welcome videos of these churches and have seen Ministers within the Church of Christ ‘Like’-ing this Church plants.  

Let me clarify, I’m not against Church planting being as though there was a point in time where I was intending to plant a congregation.  I believe that the fastest way to colonize an area for Christ is to plant a congregation.  I also that it is the doctrine of the congregation that makes it a Church of Christ and not necessarily the name on the sign, i.e. - the Hope Church of Christ, the New Golden Heights Church of Christ, The Way Ministries, The Church At Mesquite, etc (all of the congregations named are Churches of Christ with powerful Gospel preachers).  

That being the case, when I saw Restoration Church (Philadelphia PA), Impact Church (Atlanta), and Epiphany Church (Brooklyn) and my brethren preachers ‘Like’-ing these welcome videos and advertisements, I was expecting the same thing.  You see, I’m just like the Bereans in Acts 17:10-12, I’m going to search the scriptures to see if what you’re saying is lining up.  If it does, you congregation is Christ’s Church.

For far too long, we’ve held on to the ideaology that a in order for a Church or truly be the Church of Christ, it needed to have to name on the door.  That is fallacious being as thought “Church of Christ” is not a name but a designation.  That’s the reason why I just said Christ’s Church in the last paragraph.  That’s another blog post all together.

So I started to check out these churches websites to see what it is that they believe because most post up a statement that shares what they believe... and that’s where I was thrown:

Restoration Church believes “Therefore salvation is provided to man by grace alone, through faith in Christ alone. When a person turns from their sin and believes in Jesus as the sufficient sacrifice for them, they are saved from God’s wrath, reconciled to Him, and are given the power to live a life in honor of God through the indwelling Holy Spirit.” as stated on their website here.   That is a Calvinistic idea which is not Bible, in spite of the fact that they site scripture without explanation or holistic view. (Synecdoche trips so many people up).

Impact Church believes “Through baptism, we are initiated into Christ’s Holy Church, incorporated into God’s mighty acts of salvation, and given new birth through water and the Spirit. In the United Methodist Church, infants, children and adults are baptized in one of three ways: Sprinkling, pouring or immersion.” as stated on their website here. Baptism is indeed for salvation but there is NO infant baptism and the word “Baptism” is a transliteration from a word that means to be immersed.

Epiphany Church doesn’t have a website, however, the Minister of the congregation to be planted is from the Epiphany Fellowship Church.  I would imagine, but without a statement of belief I cannot confirm, that this church would not be far from the beliefs of the lead church which is “If any of us repent of our sin and trust by faith His finished work on the cross and His resurrection from the dead as the payment for our sin, we are saved.” as stated on their website here (Click on “The Gospel” and then “Redemption”).

Looking at the Epiphany Fellowship Church, I then noticed a marque at the bottom which shares the fellowship of Churches, the basis being “The Acts29 Network”... and then it all made sense.  

I viewed The Acts 29 Network’s and then things became clearer as to why these congregations all popped up at the same time: “Over the last ten years Acts 29 has emerged from a small band of brothers to over 500 churches around the world. We want to allow a unifying, uncommon movement of God to happen through Acts 29. Centered on the Gospel, we desire to advance the mission of Jesus through obediently planting church-planting churches. It is our hope to see this leading to millions of lives changed by the power of the Spirit for the glory of God.” There website is here.  The message/mission is a good one and it is one that we have within the Church of Christ.  However, from a doctrinal standpoint, we see there are issues.  

From their presidents mouth “In 2012, Matt Chandler became the President of Acts 29 and outlined four values for the future of the network. As he states, ‘These aren’t complex and seem to me to be no-brainers, even though it might take years before some of them are a reality. I will be and am currently putting my efforts and influence to work in these directions.’ -Plant Churches that Plant Churches -Be Known for Holiness and Humility -Become a Radically Diverse Crowd -Be Serious about Evangelism and Conversions”

The first thing that I will say is that I admire their model.  They are so focused on planting churches they will grow immensely by shear location.  It’s something that within the Church of Christ we’ve noticed as well: Planting churches is the most effective method of reaching the most lost souls.  There are reasons that are so numerous, that I’ll do another blog to share all of that.

The second thing that I will say is that is that they will lead a vast majority, in sincere fashion (meaning they are sincere of heart), to a lack of understanding of what the scriptures teach in a few ways, namely salvation.

The third thing that I will say is that our brethren that support them need to gain the testicular fortitude to realize that as Preachers of the Lord’s Church, we can’t “Like” every post on our Timeline (#TL).  What we end up showing the world is that EVERYTHING is okay and it doesn’t matter what church to whom you belong.  We, as Preachers of the Gospel need to show people that in the Old Testament, there was only one way to get into God’s Kingdom, you had to be born into it.  Principles of scripture never change: You’ve got to be born (Born Again) into His Kingdom, which is the Church by water and the spirit.

John 3:5, 7 3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”  5 Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 

Mark 16:16 16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.