Philosophy of Mission of the German Reformation Project

I have raised Him up in righteousness, and I will make straight all His way: He shall build my city, and let my exiles go free (Is. 45:13).

He turns the desert into pools of water, and parched land into springs…There he makes the hungry to abide, that they may prepare a city in which to dwell (Psalm 107:35-36).

The "City of God" is a theme that runs through the Bible like a crimson thread, from Genesis to Revelation. It is part of a complex of ideas that affirms the goodness of creation and God's commitment to renew and restore it (and us) in Christ. It is a city with foundations, whose builder and maker is God (Heb 11.10). It is His holy commonwealth (Eph 2.12-13, 19-22), a city set on a hill that cannot be hidden (Mt 5.14). It is a city with heavenly origins, but one that descends to earth to become the dwelling place of God (Rev 21-22). This does not happen automatically or magically. It happens as God's people proclaim His Gospel and minister sacrificially in His name. For this cause the German Reformation Project has been established. It seeks to bring the life restoring gospel of Jesus Christ to the spiritually dry lands of the German speaking peoples. The German Reformation Project exists to promote the planting of Reformed and Presbyterian churches throughout Europe.

Our Focus

The focus of our ministry is church planting. Our desire is to minister throughout the German speaking nations of Europe in order to establish new Reformed and Presbyterian churches who will faithfully serve the Lord Jesus Christ. In order to accomplish our purpose we will focus our efforts on particular communities or parishes. This parish approach to ministry is a guiding conviction for all that we do and is founded upon a distinct view of the Church. The Church is God’s New Creation. Christ Himself is the new Adam, and we, co-heirs with Him, are the new Humanity. With Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, a renewing and transforming power has been released upon the world (Rom 8.17-25; 1 Cor 15.20-26, 45). All that was enslaved by the evil one, all that has been in bondage to decay—our bodies and souls, the world in which we live, all of our relationships, and all that is good and beautiful about the creation as God intended it—is in process of being reclaimed, renewed and transformed by the Spirit of Jesus Christ. This renewal manifests itself in the midst of the Church. Like the first flowers to blossom in spring, she is the bud that will blossom into the fully renewed creation.

The Church then, is something unique and distinct that has burst in upon the old creation. She is not a ghetto within the old. She is not a private spiritual club, nor does she depend on another government, institution, or social entity. She is essentially, a community with her own integrity—a holy commonwealth (Eph 2.12-22). This conviction is the basis for our commitment to a parish approach to ministry. The gospel renews human life in its entirety. It renews our hearts and minds, it renews our relationships, and it renews the social structures that shape our lives.

Church planting then, is co-laboring with the Holy Spirit, putting down deep roots in the communities where God has placed us. We preach to, catechize, and assume the pastoral care of all the people who live in a given community. This pastoral ministry is integrated with and supported by the following:

The first is diaconal ministry. Jesus always preached the Gospel in the context of acts of compassion. We consider this not only one of our chief responsibilities, it is in fact, an integral and very practical effort that supports and advances the other aspects of our ministry. Teaching a congregation to have a conscience for mercy ministry, and how to implement this wisely and usefully, is not always easy, but we make it a major priority.

Second, we desire to engage in theological education under the oversight of local presbyteries (when such exist), training ministers, elders, and deacons for our own work, as well as for the broader Christian community.

Third, we desire to begin a publishing ministry in order to provide useful resources for pastors, elders, and laymen. Most of this will consist of translations of classic Reformed and Evangelical literature, some of it will be original material.

Fourth, we desire to begin university ministries modeled on the Presbyterian Church in America’s Reformed University Fellowship. It is an evangelistic and discipleship effort whose goals include the formation of a new generation of national leaders, who will be able to think, work, and live out their lives from the perspective of a consistent Christian worldview. Among other things, however, this is also an open and unabashed effort to “recruit” and disciple young men, who will be a new generation of ministers and leaders for the Church of Jesus Christ.

Fifth, we desire to begin a biblical counselling ministry relying on the fact that Scripture is sufficient to both faith and life. Here we will be seeking to implement the best of the “nouthetic” counselling movement which seeks to skilfully apply the principles of scripture in counselling situations. (see: www.nanc.com)

Philosophy of Mission

Church planting is done, and the Kingdom of God is advanced, by preaching the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ. The ministry of the Word forms the warp and woof of four strategic and supporting ministries.

I. Worship. All that we do depends upon and is focused around the assembly of the saints of God for worship on the Lord’s Day. Jesus renews and transforms us by bringing us each week into the fellowship of the Holy Trinity. His Word calls us, judges us, consoles us, instructs us, and sends us out to fulfill His will. In response to His Word, we gather at His Table, and share in His life-giving sacrifice. It is to this assembly that we bring our praise and thanksgiving, our prayers and alms, and indeed our whole selves. We present these gifts to God, wrapped up in the offering that Jesus Himself eternally displays in heaven. In themselves, our offerings are no more than filthy rags, but in union with His once-for-all sacrifice, they become sweet smelling incense to our God and King. By sacrificing ourselves in this way, we join with the Apostle Paul in “filling up that which is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the Church” (Col 1.24). Not that our sacrifices add anything to His (!), rather Jesus uses our sacrifices, sanctifying them in His own, in order to advance His cause and accomplish His will on earth. When we worship through the mediation of Christ (Heb 13.15; 1 Pet 2.5), we join with Him in giving ourselves for the life of the world (John 6.51; 1 John 3.16).

a . Our worship is first, covenantal. The people of God have always lived in a bonded relationship, structured, and held together by His covenant love. This relationship is consummated, week-to-week, as the Church comes together to hear His Word, renew their vows, and engage in the most intimate of communion and fellowship in the Holy Supper. The Biblical image of covenantal worship pictures Israel gathered at the foot of Sinai. God assembles and sanctifies them (Ex 19), instructs them (20-23), receives their confession of faith, their sacrifices, and invites them to a fellowship meal in His presence (24). This covenant ceremony became Israel’s archetypal liturgy and the model for ours as well (Heb 12.18-24; cf., Is 2, 25; Mic 4). Our worship then, from start to finish, is structured by this covenant pattern.

b . Our worship should also be understood as the earthly manifestation of (and participation in) Christ’s heavenly ministry. What we do on earth is the reflection of what Christ is doing in heaven. He presides over the celestial assembly of angels and “righteous men made perfect” (Heb 12.23), where he eternally displays the memorials of His body and blood before the Father, interceding on behalf of His elect (Heb 9.24; 10.19; 12.24; Rom 8.34; Rev 5.6). Our assembly is an earthly manifestation of that ministry. As we hear His Word and come to His Table, we offer our praise, our prayers, our alms, and even ourselves, for the sake of the world. These are taken up into, and become part of Christ’s own intercession before the Father, and thus they are strategic for the advancement of His kingdom (Rev 8.1-6). [1]

c . To say that our worship is covenantal, and an earthly manifestation of Christ’s heavenly ministry, is to suggest that it is eschatological. Jesus destroyed the kingdom of the evil one by His own death and resurrection, and although the full consummation of this kingdom must await His final coming on the “Day of the Lord,” nevertheless, as we gather each “Lord’s Day” for worship, we participate already in the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. The future judgment of God in which he vindicates His people and grants them the blessings of heaven, begins to be realized now, as we participate in this worship.

d . This implies that our worship is also essentially a missionary endeavor. Like Israel’s “liturgical warfare” in the Old Testament, our worship is one of the means by which Christ destroys the work of the evil one and subdues the world (e.g., Joshua 6; 2 Chron 20.20-23; 2 Cor 10.4-5; Eph 6.10-18; Rev 8-11). Worship each Lord’s Day changes the course of history. It advances the kingdom of Christ and floods the world with righteousness and peace. The Lord’s Day assembly is a “sacramental” version of the final assembly. By faithful participation, week-to-week, we hasten the day when every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation come to worship the Lamb. Our worship is “Spiritual warfare.” As with Israel at Jericho, so it is in our assembly each Lord’s Day (as we pray: thy kingdom come), that we pull down the walls of the city of Satan and build up the City of God. In Rev 8, the angels can sound their trumpets, signaling the advance of the kingdom, only after the Church prays.

e. The Westminster Confession of Faith Shorter Catechism states, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” The chief end of the church is the same, because “the chief thing in all the world is God’s glory” (Philippians 2:9-11).
God created us to worship Him. The Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter XXI, Section 1, states: “The light of nature showeth that there is a God who hath Lordship and sovereignty over all, is good, and doeth good unto all, and is therefore to be feared, loved, praised, called upon, trusted in, and served with all the heart, and with all the soul, and with all the might. But the acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by Himself, and so limited by His own revealed will, that He may not be worshipped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representation, or any other way not prescribed in the holy Scripture.”

Therefore, the German Reformation Project, is committed to worshiping the Triune God via the ordinary means of grace using historic, biblical patterns of Christian worship. In our worship we shall read the Bible, preach the Bible, pray the Bible, and sing the Bible. With the Holy Spirit’s help, our worship will be characterized by the following attributes:

• Scriptural: Bible-filled and Bible-directed (Psalm 119:104-106);
• Simple: Based on the unadorned and unpretentious principles and order found in the Bible;
• Spiritual: Spirit-gathered (Acts 2:38-39), Spirit-dependent (Ephesians 4:7-8), and Spirit-empowered (Acts 1:8);
• Reverent: Clothed with humility, and awe for the greatness of God (1 Peter 5:5-7);
• Intelligent: Engaging, challenging and conforming the mind as well as the heart (1 Corinthians 14:15-16);
• Majestic: Reflecting the attributes of God, including: His goodness, holiness, justice, mercy and love (Deuteronomy 10:17-18; Job 36:5; Psalm 52:1; Isaiah 9:6; Zephaniah 3:17, etc.);
• Historic: Seeking to apply the principles of Scripture to our worship rather than engaging in cultural accommodation; i.e. worship that would be understandable to the Apostles and the “great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1).
Worshiping the living and triune God may produce deep emotional responses among participants, but our services are not designed to induce a continual emotional high. Worship at Christ Church, Presbyterian, will purposefully avoid emotional manipulation and rely instead on the promised, active presence of the Holy Spirit in our midst (Matthew 18:20) [1] .

II. Pastoral Ministry. Modern Presbyterian and Reformed Churches have often forgotten their theological heritage when it comes to the practice of pastoral ministry. In his famous book, The Reformed Pastor, Richard Baxter set forth what is seen as a classic statement of the imminently practical nature of Reformed ministry. He proposed that the parish ministers recommit themselves to being true spiritual shepherds of all the people of the parish. There are a lot of people who need and genuinely desire the counsel and encouragement of a faithful minister, but who are not extroverted enough to go looking for him. Whether it is shyness, timidity, laziness, or some other weakness that keeps them from seeking out the ministry of the Church, the fact remains that when a pastor makes a conscientious effort to go to his parishioners and attend to their needs and encourage them, beginning where they are (however deep they may be in the filth and mire of sin) much more often than many tend to think, the people are responsive and appreciative. The Reformed Pastor was the plan that Baxter himself followed in Kidderminster Parish with extraordinary success.

We are committed to a parish approach to ministry, however, not simply for the practical benefits. We are committed to it because we are driven there by theological considerations. In the Great Commission, when Jesus charges His Church to disciple the nations, he is intentionally echoing the cultural mandate of Gen 1.26-28. In Genesis 1 we are confronted with the pattern of: Creation, Adam as the first man and God’s vicegerent, and a mandate to continue God’s creative activity by perfecting and glorifying the world, bringing it into conformity with God’s will in all things. In Matthew 28, we find the same pattern. The resurrection on the first day of the week is presented as the beginning of God’s new creation. Jesus, the firstborn from the dead (Rom 8.29; Col 1.15, 18; Heb 1.6; 12.23; Rev 1.5), is the new Adam and vicegerent, to whom all authority and dominion is given. Based on this authority the Church is commissioned to disciple the nations, teaching them to obey the will of the new king. The point is that Jesus, by virtue of His resurrection, is enthroned over the universe. The nations have been given to Him as His rightful inheritance (Psalm 2.8). He, by right of inheritance, now owns them all, but . . . all things are not yet under His feet (Heb 2.8). At His final appearing the last enemy, death, will be conquered. In the meantime, however, he is busy subduing the nations that he has inherited (1 Cor 15.25-26). He subdues them from heaven through the ministry of His Church. By His priestly intercession he is a “life giving Spirit” (1 Cor 15.45), that is, he floods the world with His Spirit, who uses the Word and the sacrificial labors of His Church to subdue the nations to His will and to claim the kingdoms that he has inherited (Rev 11.15).

Practically speaking, as Baxter so urgently insists, this means that we will focus our efforts more broadly among the entire parish-community. Our goal is to engage in ministry that will change the old agenda and set a new one, for the entire life of the community. The community should revolve around the Church. We must teach them to “dance to our tune” rather than allowing other influences to set the tone and agenda of the parish. Of course, this is not done by coercion or force. It is done by following Jesus’ own example of self-sacrificial love. As we learn to take up our cross, deny ourselves, and go to Jerusalem to die with our Lord for the life of the world, it will result in the salvation of our world. As we wash the feet of the parish, they will gladly give their hearts and lives to Jesus.

III. Ministry of Service. So how do we “wash the feet” of our parishes? How do we disciple a neighborhood, shaping and forming it into a genuine community, teaching them to live together as the body of Christ? This is done by serving them with the same self-sacrificial love and humility that Jesus Himself demonstrated. The poor tend to be more keenly aware of how precarious their situation is. Thus, ministry to their obvious physical needs (aside from being our duty in and of itself) provides a remarkable entrée for the gospel, and makes them much more open to the kind of community renewal that this gospel requires. In such a context, relief ministry goes hand in hand with longer-term efforts to develop the economy and social structure of each parish.

The dynamic of a middle class parish, however, differs in a number of very important ways from a poor one. Differences in the immediate and obvious needs of the people affect the ways that we serve them and the ways that we try to organize them to serve each other. A middle class neighborhood does not need (and does not respond to) the kinds of relief ministry that are needed in a shantytown. However, the end goal of discipling the neighborhood and shaping them into a genuine community where they serve God and each other in love remains the same. This means that we must have a longer-range approach to reformation and renewal. Key to this longer-range agenda involves education, crisis and family counseling, cultural events and other types of community service (on the Church’s own terms, and with her own specific agenda) to promote the restructuring of the life of the community around Christ and His Church. Ministry in a middle or upper class neighborhood requires shrewdness and ingenuity. As J.I. Packer once put it, “True love for the lost will be enterprising.” This enterprising love will express itself most typically through the variety and ingenuity of the Church’s diaconal ministry. The application to specific contexts may vary, but the principles and the goal remain the same. Our pastoral ministry, therefore, (with adjustments for the needs of each context) is vitally connected to the following types of diaconal ministry.

a. Relief . The Lord identified His ministry in Luke 4.18-19 as not only preaching the Good News, but also proclaiming liberty to captives, recovering of sight for the blind, and setting at liberty those who were oppressed. In short, he proclaimed “the year of the Lord’s favor.” There is no record of Jesus preaching the Gospel outside the context of acts of mercy and compassion, and the ministry that wishes to follow His example will likewise refuse to separate the two. For us, this means that we must be aggressively involved in relief work for the poor, the hungry, the sick, and the exposed.

Another part of relief ministry, however, involves the local parishioners themselves. The sacrificial nature of worship means that one should never “appear before the Lord empty handed” (Ex 23.15; 34.20; Deut 16.16). The early Church had a daily distribution of food for the widows and orphans (Acts 6). When we compare this to what we know about the Agape in the early Church, it becomes clear that the food was collected during worship and presented at the Eucharist as an offering for the poor (the Agape was not simply a “family night supper”). We make it an issue of conscience, in our context, to do the same.

b. Christian Education . A second important area of service involves education. We are committed to Christian Education because we are committed to the formation of parish-communities. A thriving, vital, community of God’s people cannot depend on others (especially unbelievers) to educate her children. One of the most important things that we do as a community—second only to worshipping God—is rearing godly children who will serve Him faithfully and engage the world in the mission he has given us. This means that we, and our parishes, must be unquestionably committed to Christian Education of the highest level.

IV. Leadership Training: Ministers, Elders, and Deacons. One of the great struggles that missions have faced in the past is the formation of mature, wise, godly leadership. The most natural place to expect that the Lord will raise up the new leadership that we so desperately need is from among university students. This is why we hope to develop a ministry to university students patterned after the Reformed University of the Presbyterian Church in America. With the Lord’s blessing, this ministry will not only be a fruitful evangelistic and discipleship effort for the Presbyterian Church, it will also be a “recruiting ground” for future pastors, elders, and deacons. In addition to developing and recruiting leaders we want to develop ways of preparing men for pastoral ministry.

Conclusion

Each of the various aspects of our work is intended to fit together as an integrated whole: worship, parish ministry, mercy, and leadership training. But the key to all of these parts is the idea of sacrificial service. Christian life and ministry are essentially sacrificial. Our Lord demonstrated that the world is won and saved only through self-denying love. Thus as disciples of Christ, our worship is sacrificial, our pastoral and diaconal ministry is sacrificial, and our leadership training focuses on the formation of leaders who embrace this sacrificial calling. We heartily call upon our brothers and sisters in Christ in the Churches of North America to consider how you might sacrifice yourselves to join with us in this ministry.


[1] Whole e) is taken from http://www.christchurchpres.org , Christ Church Presbyterian with friendly permission of its Pastor, The Rev. Dr. Gordon Reed.