Thank you for the generous 4star review of our church - Grace Brethren. It is always nice to have the perspective of those coming from “outside”. Though a 4/5 ranking on “doctrine” is good I’m very curious what would have helped you be convinced that we are a 5 out of 5 in this area. I raise this question as someone from the “inside” who observes the care, attention, training and concern we have with doctrinal clarity and orthodoxy. Are you looking for attachment to a broader confessional statement (Westminister for example)?

Thank you,

Pastor Bob Covolo

Thank you for your comment. I am more than happy to answer questions. Perhaps the criteria listed under how we rank churches could be a little more specific. What we are looking for a 5 ranking doctrinally is reformed theology. We believe that reformed theology most accurately represents a thorough study of the Bible. There are two places we look for this, in a church’s statement of faith and in what is said in the service time. So yes, the Westminister Confessions would be something we look quite favorably upon, though a church does not have to have it listed in their statement of faith to receive a five ranking. The things I look for in a service and in doctrinal statements are things like an emphasis on the Sovereignty of God, Christ’s satisfying of the just wrath of God (propitiation), election, predestination, justification by faith alone through grace alone in Christ alone for the glory of God alone etc. In addition, I also try to get a general sense of whether this church is one who is focused on the glory of God or whether it is more man-centered in its orientation. Doctrine is of utmost importance to us and believe that the church ought to openly display it as her treasure. At the same time we believe that there ought to be a consistency in our practice with our doctrine. On one hand, many reformed churches seem to be very legalistic regarding Christian living despite their strong convictions about justification by faith alone. Many of them also seem undesirous of reaching out to their culture with the gospel. We believe that churches ought to endelve themselves in culture because we see the Bible teaching that God has ordained for people to hear and believe the gospel through us taking it to them. Our Lord is perhaps the best example, many of Jesus’ “friends” were drunks, whores, and thieves. But today most Christians wouldn’t be caught dead in bars and most churches operate with an unspoken rule that people must come through the church doors all fixed up, looking and acting a certain way, before they can hear about our treasure. On the other hand, we see churches who care about reaching out to culture thinking that in order to do so they need to either hide their doctrine or just have it be very weak (general, broad, or Arminian). Churches like this seem to care more about whether their church is “cool” or not (whether they have a cool website, cool powerpoint, cool atmosphere inside the church), than doctrine or sound expository preaching. To summarize in the words of Mark Driscoll, we are looking for churches that reach out but don’t sell out. If you have not yet read or are unfamiliar with it, his book, “Radical Reformission: Reaching Out Without Selling Out” addresses this issue very well. Hopefully I have answered some of your questions. If you have any more I would be glad to answer them. I don’t know if you guys are reformed in your theology or not, but if you are we would love to know. We realize that our reviews are based on a one-time visit and that sometimes a single visit does not paint the whole picture.

Soli Deo Gloria

I concur with many of your sentiments.

In answer to your question about our church’s relationship to reformed theology - our church is part of a larger movement of churches called “Grace Brethren”. The tradition comes from the late reformation and from a hybrid of anabaptist/lutheran heritage. The tradition is predominantly reformed in theology though (due to our pietistic roots) our doctrinal statement does not restate classic Reformation creeds (Westminister,etc.). Your assessment was right on this. There are pluses and minuses to having a detailed precisely forumlated credal development within a church tradition. One of the interesting positives has been a lack of temptation to find our identity in a creed vs. in Christ (not that these are naturally opposed). Our greatest treasure being the Bible - we will have to settle with holding this forth. (A little humor here.) All joking aside…the pastors do love reading broadly from the best of them - Edwards, Sproul, Kuyper and have been deeply influnced by a host of churches including Tim Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian in NYC as well as the teaching ministry of John Woodhouse Christ’s Church St. Ives (Sydney). We also have a fond appreciation for the ministry of Dick Lucas (Proclamation Trust - London). Our church is primarily known for passionate dedication to clear exegesis of scripture and a rich cultural theology that causes us to bridge into our city in significant ways. I have not read Mark’s book but have been tracking with his ministry (my wife is from Seattle and her family attends) and will look for it.

For the Kingdom,

Bob Covolo

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