Doctrinal Distinctives

Today, there exists a growing and potentially dangerous trend among some in the church to devalue deep thinking about God, mankind, and our world as revealed in the Bible. This can be heard in such phrases like “doctrine divides.” However, the Apostle Paul strongly encouraged the early church to “watch [their] . . . doctrine carefully” (1Tim. 4:16). He understood that wrong thinking was a quick way to negatively impact our hearts and our actions. So, our commitment at Evergreen to graceful living and loving does not mean that we reject theological reflection or doctrinal thinking. However, we hold what we believe loosely and humbly, understanding that we see and understand imperfectly. Therefore, we highly esteem the value of unity above the desire to be right. What is expressed below imperfectly expresses who we understand ourselves to be in light of our descriptions, principles, and directives given to the early church of the Scriptures.

Who we Are...

There’s a lot that can be said about Evergreen Community Church. We’re committed to the worship of God, to deep relationships with each other, to a dynamic witness to the world. At the center of it all, however, is an understanding of God and his people that we believe to be firmly rooted in Scripture. At the broadest level, these convictions place Evergreen squarely within the historic Christian church and especially within evangelical Protestantism. We rejoice in “the communion of the saints” and the many things which bind us to Christians of all kinds. However, we hold certain theological conviction at Evergreen that we sometimes sum up in two words: Reformed and Baptistic. In short, with respect to our understanding of God and his sovereignty, we are “Reformed.” With respect to our understanding of the church and how God’s people are formed, we are “Baptistic.” Here’s the short version of what we mean by that:

To Be Reformed...

When we say we’re “Reformed,” we simply mean that, along with the Protestant “Reformers” like Martin Luther and John Calvin, we delight to affirm the sovereignty of God in all things. “The Lord reigns, let the nations tremble; he sits enthroned between the cherubim, let the earth shake” (Ps 99:1). We live in a world in which this is routinely denied. From physicists to philosophers, from big business to show business, the message is that perception is everything, image is all, reality is what we believe it to be. Against this, Evergreen celebrates a more Biblical vision of the world: one in which humans may indeed achieve much in the sciences and the arts, in business and culture — yet always and only as representatives and servant-kings of the great king in heaven. It is the Lord who has made us, not we ourselves, and we love to witness to his wise and loving sovereignty in all that happens — from the path of a photon to the course of our lives, from the rising of the sun to the resurrection of Christ, from the decree of a king to the changing of a human heart. In other words, when we say we’re “Reformed,” we mean that we wish to stir up a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples.

To Be Baptistic...

When we say that we’re “Baptistic,” we mean that we agree with those Reformers whose understanding of Scripture led them to break with the church tradition of baptizing infants. Baptists have long argued that because baptism marks the beginning of the Christian life, it should closely follow the faith and repentance by which one becomes a Christian (hence, “believer’s baptism”). At Evergreen Community Church we practice believer’s baptism because we are convinced that it points in a biblical way to what should define the new covenant people of God: changed hearts which respond to God in faith and repentance. This truth is at the heart of the new covenant, as can be seen in Jeremiah 31:31-34 where God promises to “make a new covenant” with his people in the future restoration: “‘This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,’ declares the Lord. ‘I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people.’” In other words, when we say we’re “Baptistic,” we mean to point to the defining characteristic of God’s people in this age: a faith and repentance which point back to the sovereign work of God in his people’s hearts.

To say that Evergreen is “Reformed” and “Baptistic” is not to say everything, then. There is so much that we hold in common with other churches. There are so many ways in which our convictions work themselves out in worship, nurture, and witness. However, it is fair to say that these two words represent a kind of shorthand for our core convictions regarding the sovereign nature of God and the transformed character of his people. They help us to express the hope we have that God’s words to Jeremiah are being fulfilled in and among us at Evergreen: “I will be their God and they will be my people.