A church is fundamentally a covenantal community, founded on the belief that promises power passion, and not the other way around. This is the last in our series on the promises that we make to one another as we join the church. See others in the series here.

“Q: Do you accept that the doctrines and principles of the Standards of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church are founded upon the Scriptures?”

If you were a high school student in Columbia, SC in the late 1990s (like some of my older friends), there was only one place to get any sort of frozen goodness- the TCBY on Forest Drive. All of your friends worked at TCBY, increasing the chance that you could get a decent sized free “sample” from behind the counter. So we were confused when the TCBY shut down, all our friends got fired… and a Baskin Robbins took its place. Wasn’t it all ice cream? Then, not three blocks away, the new ice cream revolution continued- a Marble Slab, followed by a Cold Stone Creamery. Options abounded.

In many ways, denominations are like ice cream stores- they arise in response to different cultural situations, providing unique insights, emphases, strengths and weaknesses to the witness of the church down through the ages. The important thing to remember is that, though there are many options, its still all ice cream. The Associate Reformed Presbyterian (ARP) Church, of which Christ the King-Savannah is a part, delights in the unity we have with any denomination which is founded on the confession that “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God,” (Matthew 16:16) as made explicit in the Nicene Creed. At the same time, we believe that our heritage as ARPs uniquely situates us as a group of churches testifying to the truth of the gospel in our own cultural moment. It is all ice cream, but this is our ice cream, and we love it. To find out more about what it means to be an ARP, click here.