About Redwood Reformation Church

We are a small, Reformed Presbyterian church, with a focus on Christian piety and deep reading of scripture. We love God’s wisdom and we love God’s people—and we love putting the two together.

Our beliefs

We uphold the ecumenical creeds, including the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Definition of Chalcedon. Our church’s standard is the Westminster Confession of Faith (1647), which we believe is a pretty accurate summary of biblical doctrine and practice. We also uphold the Three Forms of Unity.

Statement of faith required for membership

You do not need to be Reformed to be a member at Redwood, because membership in Christ’s body is not by Reformed orthodoxy, but by faith in the gospel. You therefore need only be willing to submit to our eldership, and affirm our statement of faith:

1. We believe in one God, existing eternally of himself in three Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit; limited by nothing apart from his own nature and character, which is holy, righteous, good, severe, loving and merciful.
2. We believe that God made all things, visible and invisible; that he made man very good, male and female; and that he commissioned them to extend his heavenly dominion into the earth; yet the first man, Adam, broke faith with God, and in so doing separated himself and all his progeny from Life and Light, becoming dead in sin, and unable to love his maker; bringing upon mankind the judgment of eternal death.
3. We believe in Jesus Christ our Lord, fully God, eternally begotten of the Father, made fully man by birth of the Virgin Mary; the seed of David and inheritor of God’s covenant promises; who lived a life of faith without blemish, wholly pleasing to his Father; bore the penalty for our sin by death on a cross; descended to the dead; and the third day was raised bodily by the Holy Spirit for our justification, and declared to be the Son of God now in power. He ascended to the right hand of the Father, with every authority on earth and in heaven being subjected to him; from whence he now reigns until all his enemies are put under his feet.
4. We believe in the Holy Spirit, fully God, eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son, who breathed out and preserved the Bible as his own very words; our only ultimate and infallible authority, sufficient to fully equip all men with wisdom for salvation and godly living.
5. We believe that salvation is wrought by the Holy Spirit adopting us as sons of God, indwelling us as his temple, and uniting us with Christ wholly apart from our own works; whereby we receive everything that is his—from faith, by which we receive his righteousness reckoned to us and rely completely on him to pardon us—to faith, by which we subject ourselves to his rule and represent him in obedient lives, through the power of that same Spirit.
6. We believe in one baptism for the forgiveness of sins, and that all so baptized are united into one holy, catholic and apostolic Church, the body of Christ; in which, if they persevere to the end, they will certainly be saved.
7. We believe in the bodily return of the Lord Jesus to judge the living and the dead; whereupon we who are his, having our sin covered by him, will be acquitted, with our lives of faithful obedience serving as proof that his verdict is just, and as the basis for our heavenly rewards; as we rule forever with him and his elect angels in the new heavens and the new earth. The rest of mankind, along with Satan and his angels, will be rightly condemned according to their works and cast into hell, where they will endure just punishment forever.

Leadership

We have no “professional” clergy or paid pastor. Our shepherds are bivocational men who work real jobs, and contribute the rest of their time and gifting to teaching and discipling in the church.

About our name

• Redwood

  Because Rotorua is known for its redwoods, which are in turn fitting symbols of the kingdom of God. They can grow for thousands of years, resisting both fire and storm, and using cooperative root structures to eventually become greater than all the other trees.

• Reformation

  Because we stand self-consciously in the tradition of the 16th century Reformers. Just as the institutional church of their day had become weak and corrupt, so has ours. Just as they had to labor to restore the purity of the faith, so do we. And just as they emphasized the comprehensive rulership of Jesus over their nations, so we emphasize his total sovereignty as Lord of New Zealand.

• Church

  Because this is the traditional and most readily understood word for the gathering of God’s people. In the New Testament, the original Greek word implies the assembling of God’s people together: church can just as accurately be translated as assembly or congregation.