Category: Current Events

At the end of this month, starting from Friday 4/30 at 7:00 in the evening until Sunday 5/2 our church is going to host a conference titled “The Doctrines of Grace:  Defined, Defended, and Discussed.”  We will have 1 session on Friday, and then we will continue on Saturday from 9:00 in the morning until noon with 3 sessions, and we will conclude the conference on Sunday with the last session in our regular 2nd service.  Registration is free; however, to help us with logistics we would like you to register here.

“What church do you go to?”  many times people ask me.  “Covenant United Reformed Church” I would answer.  Then comes the next anticipated question, “Is it a Christian church?”  One time the inquirer further asked, “Do you believe in the Bible?”, and then “Do you baptize people?”  Many church goers today are not aware of 16th century Reformation movement that birthed the Protestant church.  Many people don’t know the history of their faith, let alone the great reformers that God used to keep the Gospel from being distorted further by the contemporary church at that time.  Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Huss, Ulrich Zwingli are as foreign as Greek to many Christians.

Reformed Church is a descendant of the 16th century Reformation movement– a movement that brought about Protestant church.  One of the great reformers was John Calvin who taught the 5 points of Calvinism that were embraced by Reformed churches.  These 5 points are often referred to with its acronym T-U-L-I-P.   (Calvin’s followers actually came with this summation after his death).   What is T-U-L-I-P?

In a nutshell, it’s the framework of Reformed belief, and it’s thoroughly based on the Bible.  In the interest of time and space I will touch on each point briefly.

T stands for “Total Depravity“.  We believe that the fall affected not only our first parents, but also all humanity.  We are not saying that mankind became as bad as they could be; rather, we believe that the fall rotted the very core of our heart so that the Bible says that even our good deed is like a dirty rag.  Further the Bible also declares, “… every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Gen 6:5, 8:21)  Article 2 of the Third and Fourth Head of Doctrine of the Canons of Dordt summarizes it this way, “Man after the fall begat children in his own likeness.  A corrupt stock produced a corrupt offspring.  Hence, all the posterity of Adam, Christ only excepted, have derived corruption from their original parent, not by imitation, as the Pelagians of old asserted, but by the propagation of a vicious nature, in consequence of the just judgment of God.” Continue reading “5 Points of Calvinism”