LovesTruth
Puritan Board Freshman
We are new to reformed theology and looking for a church in our area. We live in Sparta, TN. Cookeville is the closest city. We would appreciate any recommendations. Thank you.
Looking for a church
- Thread starter LovesTruth
- Start date
- Status
The Doctor
Puritan Board Freshman
Theoretical
Puritan Board Professor
Since your profile indicates you're confessing the Westminster Standards, these look like the main two options:
Grace PCA Cookeville is here: https://gracecookeville.org/ - 20-30 minutes away per Google
Faith OPC in Silver Point is here: https://www.faith-opc.org/ - 30-40 minutes away per Google. Bonus, it has an evening service.
Grace PCA Cookeville is here: https://gracecookeville.org/ - 20-30 minutes away per Google
Faith OPC in Silver Point is here: https://www.faith-opc.org/ - 30-40 minutes away per Google. Bonus, it has an evening service.
LovesTruth
Puritan Board Freshman
We’ve looked at them but the worship style is more modern than we would prefer. I will check out the 9 marks finder however. Thank you.
[automerge]1762792234[/automerge]
I’m looking at these two currently. Could you tell me what the difference is between PCA and OPC churches? Feel free to link any threads discussing them. Thank you.
Theoretical
Puritan Board Professor
By confessional standards, they're exactly the same. The church government is still Presbyterian, but there's some differences in practices between the two denominations. History is the biggest difference by far with the OPC being the breakoff from the Northern Presbyterian Church in 1937 led by J. Gresham Machen and the PCA being the breakoff from the Southern Presbyterian Church in 1973 and based in the south. The PCA is about 10x the size of the OPC and tends to be a little more self-contained, while the OPC is smaller at about 30K members but has much closer relations to other smaller groups within the Presbyterian and Reformed world in the US and internationally.
In some places, there's minimal overlap where the OPC is distinctly more conservative and closer to the Confession and in others there's such heavy overlap that on some issues the PCA may be more closely aligned to the confessions than the OPC in a particular area is.
Because I have a very strong belief that evening worship and the Lord's Day go hand in hand, my personal preference is always towards a church with evening worship, but there are both good and bad reasons for a church to not have evening services, plus extra minutes driving do add up, especially 2x on a Sunday.
In some places, there's minimal overlap where the OPC is distinctly more conservative and closer to the Confession and in others there's such heavy overlap that on some issues the PCA may be more closely aligned to the confessions than the OPC in a particular area is.
Because I have a very strong belief that evening worship and the Lord's Day go hand in hand, my personal preference is always towards a church with evening worship, but there are both good and bad reasons for a church to not have evening services, plus extra minutes driving do add up, especially 2x on a Sunday.
LovesTruth
Puritan Board Freshman
Thank you for your reply on this. Very helpful!!
You can finds excellent churches in both the PCA and OPC but more consistency in the OPC, generally. Churches in the OPC in Tennessee are part of the Presbytery of the Southeast which is very strong with growing church plants, openness to singing psalms, and influences from Greenville Seminary and its incorporation of Biblical theology.
Matthew McMahon (here on the board) has a congregation in Crossville, (which looks like about a half hour form you). I'd definitely recommend that! https://gracechapeltn.com/
Edward
Puritanboard Commissioner
I'd summarize it as traditionally the OPC has emphasized standards over growth, the PCA has emphasized growth over standards. The PCA is currently dealing with the problems created by its approach. But they are dealing with them, which is a good thing. You'll see more consistency in the OPC, and it's hard to find a bad one. With the PCA, you need to use more discernment as to what you are getting.
Chris is one of the moderators here, the PCA church he goes to is probably less than 5 air miles from the PCA chruch I go to (several miles longer by car), but the experience would be completely different. You would be unlikely to find that range in the OPC.
Here's the web page for the OPC church https://faith-opc.org/
And for the PCA church. https://gracecookeville.org/
What you've been told about the OPC vs. PCA already, I'd agree with, so I don't really have anything to add there, other than that you should always feel welcome to contact the pastors directly to learn more about the church and ask your particular questions.
I can comment about Grace PCA in Cookeville, though, or at least about their pastor, Step Morgan. I know him personally; we went to seminary together (RTS Jackson), and we were also coworkers there for a little while. I think he's been the pastor at Grace PCA for close to 5 years now. He's a wonderful, godly man, and someone under whose ministry I'd be happy to sit. If you happen to visit, tell him Matt Pinckard says hi!
I can comment about Grace PCA in Cookeville, though, or at least about their pastor, Step Morgan. I know him personally; we went to seminary together (RTS Jackson), and we were also coworkers there for a little while. I think he's been the pastor at Grace PCA for close to 5 years now. He's a wonderful, godly man, and someone under whose ministry I'd be happy to sit. If you happen to visit, tell him Matt Pinckard says hi!
LovesTruth
Puritan Board Freshman
Thank you!!
[automerge]1763647119[/automerge]
Thank you!!
[automerge]1763647357[/automerge]
Thank you!!
[automerge]1763647423[/automerge]
Thank you!!
[automerge]1763647471[/automerge]
Thank you!!
[automerge]1763647526[/automerge]
Thank you!!
Last edited:
LovesTruth
Puritan Board Freshman
Thank you!!
darrellmaurina
Puritan Board Junior
Others have commented on the differences between the OPC and PCA.
Some amplifications:
The OPC is far stricter than the PCA, not in its official doctrinal standards, but in what it tolerates. You will find PCA congregations that are all over the map, theologically speaking. Nearly all of the time, you can assume that a PCA congregation affirms infant baptism and the Five Points, but worship practices and the level of commitment to teaching the Reformed faith can widely vary. (Before people tell me, "What are you talking about?" -- you don't want to know some of the stuff that goes on at the fringes of the PCA. It's not the norm, but in a denomination where the head of home missions attended a church with "shepherdesses" serving communion and blessing a PCA minister leaving for the Roman Catholic Church, don't be surprised at some of what goes on in "outlier" churches in the PCA.) However, the vast majority of the PCA is at least loosely Reformed, and the outliers are that -- outliers, and don't represent the norm. Diversity in worship practices and downplaying Reformed doctrine while not denying it are the two areas on which a higher level of diversity will be seen more commonly in the PCA than in most of the rest of the NAPARC denominations.
You won't see that level of diversity in the OPC. People who want to "push the envelope" on worship practices or downplay teaching of the Reformed faith are not going to seek out or stay in the OPC. But conversely, there are many conservative PCA congregations that would fit well into the OPC. Don't dismiss a PCA just because of the name on the sign. Give it a chance and see what it actually is doing on the local level. Due to the sheer differences in size, I wouldn't be surprised if there are more members of strictly conservative PCA churches than the total number of members in the OPC.
The biggest practical differences between the PCA and the OPC have to do with their different sizes and the different cultural origins. The OPC is a much smaller denomination and there is much more awareness of what is going on in across the denomination, and therefore much more mutual accountability. The PCA, being a Southern denomination in its roots, has sometimes been described as "culturally Baptist, but baptizing babies." There's a lot of truth to that and two or three decades ago, there was more truth to it than there is today, now that the PCA has expanded and has many Northern churches.
The one OPC/PCA difference which is at the level of formal structure is the PCA's emphasis on a "two office" view in which the offices are elder and deacon, rather than a three-office view of pastor, elder and deacon. When the minister is viewed as a teaching elder called to a special function, but holding parity with his brother elders, it makes a significant difference in how church governance operates. That isn't something that the ordinary layman will encounter on a daily basis -- an OPC pastor and a conservative PCA pastor will think and act mostly the same way most of the time. Also, to their credit, many OPC ruling elders are really, really, really good at what they do, and that means their pastors and lay members often highly respect the ruling elders because they've earned that respect. But the difference in two-office/three-office theory is important even if it doesn't show up very much in ordinary church life.
Bottom line: denominational affiliation matters, but what is coming out of the local pulpit matters far more. If the Reformed options in your area are PCA and OPC, give both a chance and make your decision based on the local church, not primarily based on the denomination. There are plenty of good men in both.
Theoretical
Puritan Board Professor
I have three things I'd add to illustrate this point from my 4 years in the OPC. First, I visited a couple of churches when traveling and there was an immediate, oh yeah Pastor so-and-so and "we've served together at XYZ" but ALSO Elder so-and-so or even lay-person so and so. Second, when our church was hosting Presbytery, I got to pick up from the airport and volunteer at the meeting, and there was a deep connectedness there that I've seen to some degree at my local PCA Presbytery but not quite to the same degree of tightly-shared fellowship. Third, when someone from another OP church was visiting, that same level of fellowship was evident with them and their church.
darrellmaurina
Puritan Board Junior
Spot on.
Now change the denominational name from "Orthodox Presbyterian" to "United Reformed," "Canadian and American Reformed," "Netherlands Reformed," "Protestant Reformed," "Free Reformed" or "Heritage Reformed," or even to "Christian Reformed," and you've just defined "Dutch Bingo," in which two Dutch people will start talking and most the time, very quickly come up with some mutual friendship, church connection, or family tie by blood or marriage.
That's one of the ways "there was a deep connectedness" and "degree of tightly-shared fellowship" manifest themselves among the Dutch Reformed. No surprise with the smaller Dutch Reformed denominations that are about the same size as the OPC or smaller, but it's true even in the two large ones, the RCA and CRC, that are comparable in size to the PCA.
The good part is that in the OPC (and also the Dutch Reformed), while it may not be true that "everybody knows each other," it **IS** true that "everybody may not know each other, but pretty much everybody knows somebody who does know somebody else."
With the OPC, it works because if someone "gets out of line" or starts doing something "iffy," word will quickly spread and the concern will get addressed. People who are being wrongly accused of something that is unusual but legitimate will get the opportunity to address the concerns, and they will either be resolved or dealt with, if necessary by ecclesiastical process in which the person doing something "iffy" will get the opportunity to explain and defend himself as being legitimately within the Reformed tradition. That's a good thing.
Where it goes bad among the Dutch Reformed -- and I'm thinking here of the CRC and RCA, not the smaller denominations -- is that if a person starts doing something "iffy," because he is related to many people by ties of blood, marriage, being a fellow student (perhaps at Calvin or Dordt or some other college), or other decades-long ties of friendship or family, there are people who will defend the "iffy" thing, not because it's legitimately defensible, but because of personal ties rather than doctrinal defensibility. A serious effort to being "Rev. Vander Something" or "Elder De That" to account for what he is doing or teaching runs a very real risk of disrupting entire extended families and friendship networks that date back decades and generations. Conversely, in the smaller Dutch Reformed denominations, the problems probably never would start because an "iffy" man, before he ever went to seminary, would have people in his extended family and friendship network say, "I'm not sure about young Gerrit going to seminary. Maybe we'd better have a talk with his parents, and if that doesn't work, with his pastor."
Things just don't work that way in the PCA. Problems can and do "percolate" in churches for years and even for decades before they come to public attention.
There is simply no way in the world that what happened with the head of MNA at his family's church in metro Washington DC, with "shepherdesses" standing up front serving communion to congregants, would happen in the OPC. It also wouldn't happen in the vast majority of PCA churches. The difference is that in the PCA, the problem didn't get found out for a long time until it blew up on social media, not because of the shepherdesses, but because of the pastor leaving for the Roman Catholic Church. To the PCA's credit, that incident cost the head of MNA his job. But it not only would not have happened in the OPC, it not only would not have happened in the OPC, it would be inconceivable for that to happen. People know each other too well for things to get anywhere close to that point.
Many of the issues in the PCA can best be explained by saying that people in the PCA just don't know each other to the same extent as they do in the rest of the North American world of Reformed and Presbyterian denominations.
Edward
Puritanboard Commissioner
I would say the opposite is true. Particularly in the geographically small PCA presbyteries, the problem is that there seems to be a go-along, get-along mentality among the teaching elders that live in close proximity.
darrellmaurina
Puritan Board Junior
Agreed on the PCA presbytery level. I was speaking of the denomination as a whole.
I think the vast majority of people in the PCA had no idea that the head of the denominational home missions agency had his family attending a church where female "shepherdesses" were standing up front giving the Lord's Supper to congregants until that video went viral -- and it went viral not because of the communion practices, or even because of the "shepherdesses," but because of the blessing being given to a PCA minister leaving for the Roman Catholic Church.
Edward, to give ammo to your argument, I live in Missouri. I saw, up close and personal, the problems in the PCA's Missouri Presbytery and the damage it has done to Reformed outreach all over the rural part of this state, and I saw it many years before most people in the PCA realized how bad things were. It's hard for me to say exactly when I realized the damage, but I began to be aware of the problems almost two decades before things blew up publicly.
The Federal Vision controversy in the Missouri Presbytery didn't do it. (And yes, I know that was more complicated than a simple liberal-conservative split, and good people were on what I believe was the wrong side of that fight, largely because of the longstanding diversity in covenantal views among the Dutch Reformed.) It took the Memorial Presbyterian mess over an openly gay minister, and the Revoice conference in a PCA church, to finally call attention to what people in Missouri have known for many years, namely, that things had gone bad in the Show-Me State.
There is no possible way in the world that the Missouri Presbytery's problems would have gone unnoticed for so long, or to remain unaddressed, in any other NAPARC denomination. It happened because of what you say, correctly so, was "a go-along, get-along mentality among the teaching elders that live in close proximity."
And it's not just the Missouri Presbytery, as the "Shepherdess" video showed.
Last edited:
LovesTruth
Puritan Board Freshman
Thank you, this is where we have been going for a few weeks and are very happy with it!!
LovesTruth
Puritan Board Freshman
Thank you very much.
[automerge]1764683194[/automerge]
Thank you very much.
[automerge]1764683272[/automerge]
Thank you very much.
[automerge]1764683355[/automerge]
Thank you very much.
Mountain Presbyterian
Puritan Board Freshman
I don't know anything about the PCA church in Cookville, so for whatever it's worth I would recommend the OPC church down there. The pastor of that church is Matt Figura, and I know the Figura family fairly well. They are in the same presbytery as my home church in Johnson City.
LovesTruth
Puritan Board Freshman
Thanks so much. We’ve been attending Grace Chapel in Crossville and think it’s the place for us.
- Status
