Heritage Baptist/Presbyterian Church

[dkicklig]

Someone on this board attends Heritage Baptist Church in Lawrenceville GA, and I can't remember who it was. Rumor has it that the sign now reads Heritage PRESBYTERIAN Church.

Can anyone confirm the story? If not I'll have to swing by there or email the pastor (if he's actually still there)

 

[dkicklig]

Found him!! This looks to be an interesting story... I'll post more when I know something.

 

[dkicklig]

Heritage Baptist Church in Lawrenceville, GA has in fact become a Presbyterian church. They moved from the London Baptist Confession and now hold to the WCF.

Here's their site for those interested http://www.hpcministry.org/default.php

[Edited on 10-11-2004 by dkicklig]

 

[Scott Bushey]

David,
There is no mentioning on the website of the change of heart. I would love to hear the testimony.

 

[dkicklig]

Originally posted by Scott Bushey
David,
There is no mentioning on the website of the change of heart. I would love to hear the testimony.

I've sent an email to the pastor, I'll post the answer as soon as I get it.

 

[crhoades]

Check out this article on their website:
Why Did We Change the Grape Juice to Wine in the Communion Cup?
http://www.hpcministry.org/PDF/WineinCommunion.pdf

Looks like they didn't stop with the WCF! Noticed they are wanting to join the RPCGA. Sproul Jr. and Don Kistler of Soli Deo Gloria is a part of.

 

[dkicklig]

Here\'s the transition story

Thanks for your interest in our ministry. Our transition may not be much different from your own. I will write a brief history to post on our website in the near future. For now let me give a brief overview.

As a Baptist, I thought it dishonorable to the Lord and His Church not to allow into membership those (as a class) who Christ does not prohibit in His Church. After all, the Church is His not ours. We are stewards. Our congregation was about to vote to allow paedobaptist into membership, as a principle. In order to establish this in our constitution, we had to figure out the best way to word the membership statements. So we were challenged to go back and answer two questions: 1) what is baptism; and 2) what does baptism have to do with church membership. These two questions, of which I thought I had the intelligent answers, became quite challenging for me as I wrestled with the Scriptures for answers. I am probably preaching to the choir here, but nowhere in the Bible is baptism defined for us, explicitly and directly. Even my own Baptist confession defined baptism by using inference. It calls baptism a sign. And while I agree, in part, with that definition, I had to admit that the Scripture doesn´t call baptism a sign. I had to harmonize all of this within the borders of Scripture itself. To make a long story a little shorter, both elders at our ministry were studying this issue and simultaneously, yet independently (unknown to the other for we were not corroborating in our studies), came to the paedobaptistic viewpoint. When the cat was finally let out between us, we honestly didn´t know what to do. We are an elder-governed ministry. If both elders left the church "“ the current ministry would have ceased to exist. We didn´t feel that was the will of God. So we honestly and transparently informed the people of our studies and where it has led us. We spent a little time on the Lord´s Day evening working through some of the study with our folks. Over the course of the next year we became a ministry that, at first, accepted paedobaptism (and of course, non-Baptist), and then finally Presbyterian. The Lord has been very gracious through it all. It was the most difficult time of my ministry, no doubt. We lost only three families over the issue of Presbyterianism: one that came to us from a Presbyterian Church (go figure); and another I am convinced was on the way out anyway and this was just his excuse to leave. We are rebuilding and moving forward.


Hope this helps.

Marion Lovett