Home We would like to introduce ourselves to you. We are the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Mount Laurel. A member congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA).
Evangelical because we hold to the 'evangel' the 'Good News' as proclaimed by the Lord Jesus Christ which has been passed down over the ages. This is the same message which we proclaim to you:
- "For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures..."
I Corinthians 15:3,4 - "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son."
John 3:16-18
Presbyterian because we hold to a church government whereby the Lord Jesus Christ rules his church through a plurality of Elders.
Church because we gather together as the body of Christ to support and encourage one another as the children of God.
Reformed because we hold to the great principles of the Protestant Reformation:
- Justification by faith
- Centrality of the Scripture
- God alone as Lord of the conscience
- Priesthood of the believer
The Presbyterian Church in America is...
A NEW Denomination loyal to the ancient story of God's love demonstrated in Jesus Christ.
We are very new, yet our roots reach to the Protestant Reformation.
We were organized on December 4, 1973.
In 1982 we assimilated the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod, which traces its organization history in North America for 200 years.
Our loyalty is to the Good News stated in the Bible: God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.
The PCA traces its source from many different origins. Many congregations left certain denominations because those denominations became strongly influenced by humanistic philosophy.
They have come together with us affirming their unity around the authority and trustworthiness of the Bible as God's infallible, inerrant word.
The divinely inspired Bible, rather than human philosophy, provides the base for our understanding of God, human nature, and the resolution of our sin predicament.
We affirm a love for God's word, sharing His word with the world, and that word's clear and precise teaching as found in our historic Reformed confession known as the Westminster Confession of Faith, Larger and Shorter Catechisms.
A SCRIPTURAL Denomination
Our fellowship seeks to be scriptural in both its style of government and in its reaching and practice of the faith.
The form of church government most reflective of the biblical pattern is called "presbyterian." The local congregation and the denomination at large are governed by elected "presbyters" or elders.
The pastor and ruling elders compose the Session, which has the oversight of the faith and the life of the local congregation.
In the local congregation the pastor (the teaching elder) moderates the meeting of the ruling elders.
An elder is not necessarily an old person, but rather a person who is spiritually mature and biblically knowledgeable.
This was the kind of government the New Testament Church enjoyed (Acts 20:17, Titus 1:5-7).
This is the form followed by the Reformed and Presbyterian movements of Christendom since the days of John Calvin in Europe and John Knox in England and Scotland.
Representatives from the Session, with the ordained ministers of the churches, compose the "Presbytery."
The Presbytery has oversight of the ministries of the churches in a given geographical area.
Through the Presbytery the work of many churches is coordinated, and their combined efforts enable them to extend the Kingdom of Christ much faster than would otherwise be possible.
