Are you looking for a church that takes all aspects of your life seriously?
We are a Bible-centered church
We believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be the Word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice. With this, we do not believe the Bible is merely a good book of moral stories. It is the special revelation of God redeeming a lost humanity through the death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ. Therefore, we teach and preach the whole counsel of God, focusing on this Christ-centeredness that is in the Bible. Indeed, we believe that the biblical Christ is the only hope and true comfort in this life and the next for a lost and dying world. We also hold that the Bible is the authority from which we learn how to live and how to worship God. Click here to read the Principles of Public Worship which we follow.
We are a decidedly confessional church
The Bible is our only rule for faith and practice. So what does the Bible say about our faith and practice? You can read about what we believe in our Confession of Faith and Catechisms.
When the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America was formed in 1788, it adopted (with minor revisions) the Westminster Confession of Faith, Larger and Shorter Catechisms (1647), as its secondary standards (the Bible itself being the only infallible rule of faith and practice). Officers in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church take a vow to “sincerely receive and adopt” these confessional documents “as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures.”
We believe that the church is to be governed by a plurality of elders (“presbyters”) elected by the members of the local congregation. The elders are responsible “for the preservation both of truth and duty… seeking the honor of Christ’s name, the good of his church, and the reclamation of the offender.” (OPC Form of Government IV:2). The elders, as the session of a local church are further accountable to the Presbytery of Southern California (i.e. the regional church), which in turn is accountable to the General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (i.e. the national church).
Are you looking for a church that provides direction in a world that is wandering?
Unlike many evangelical churches that have sprung up in recent times and that are independent from any other church, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church was formed in 1936 in response to the growing liberalism of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. J. Gresham Machen and the other founders were concerned to maintain a faithful witness to the doctrines of the Protestant Reformation, which in itself was a movement to recover the faith and practice of the Apostolic church. Covenant Orthodox Orthodox Presbyterian Church gladly confesses the mottos of the Reformation, which are the five “solas” (sola scriptura, solus Christus, sola gratia, sola fide, soli Deo gloria). To find out more on these statements, we offer the Cambridge Declaration. We are glad for our connection to the larger, universal church which not only spans geography but also time.
Like Abraham, we are looking “for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (Heb. 11:10). We believe we are called to be a pilgrim people, being in this world but not of it (John 17:14, 16), longing for the resurrection at the coming of our Lord Jesus in eternal glory (John 5:28-29), and so our lives are affected by this particular world-view, having an eye to God’s glory. Therefore, the church is to turn away from false teachers and doctrines, becoming separate from the philosophy of the world. “So, let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach. For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come” (Heb. 13:13-14).
Are you looking for a church that cares for families and individuals?
We hold to what is known as Covenant Theology. The covenantal promise is summed up in that God promises to be a God to His people and to their children. We, therefore, believe and practice infant baptism. With the chosen covenant community of all ages, we turn away from stark individualism and place a strong emphasis on church membership, seeing ourselves as being united to each other through our union in Christ. We are called the “family of God” and understand that Christians are called to devote themselves to others in love and fellowship. We also believe that our baptized children, as members of the church, should be in the worship service where God’s special presence is. Therefore, we encourage parents to train their children to worship God from tender years and bring them into the service. (We realize though that sometimes you must leave with a child and so we broadcast the service into a cry room.) Furthermore, we believe that worship is a covenantal meeting of the Triune God with His people and understand worship to be a dialogue between God and His people. God speaks to us in the reading and preaching of the Word and in the sacraments, and we respond with singing, prayer, and cheerful giving.
Are you looking for a church that sees the real need of the world?
As we worship together as God’s people, we desire that others may join in the fellowship of Christ. Therefore, we preach the wisdom of the cross, which is foolishness to those who are perishing but to those who are being saved it is the power of God unto salvation. But we do not merely call men to repentance and faith in Christ, we seek to disciple them (Matt. 28:19) and so we seek to offer opportunities where we may grow as disciples. We pass on gimmicks or techniques to build the church, but rest on God’s unchanging grace. We believe the best advertisement is in changed lives, and we are excited to tell others of this life-changing power of the Gospel. We strongly want Jesus’ statement to be true of us, “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another (Jn. 13:35).
All these convictions place us in what is known as the Reformed branch of the Protestant churches. The Reformation was defined by the reformers in terms of scripture: the goal was not impose some new order in the church, but to get back to the old one. To be Reformed is to be re-formed by God according to his Word. And so, being Reformed means being free from the doctrines and commandments of men so that we might put our faith only in Jesus Christ and live by his grace for him.