The following is an adapted version of the first video recorded for our website to introduce people to who we are and what we are about at CRC. You can find both parts by visiting our website - www.covreformedchurch.org
“What’s in a name?” Juliet spoke these words to Romeo in an attempt to convince him that a name is just a label, a convention of language, that carries no meaning within or behind it. She is trying to tell him that she loves him and it is sad and silly that the family names each of them bear are what is keeping them apart.
I would disagree. At least I would not be as absolute as she is in her declaration. A name, at least in some situations, is very important as it conveys what that thing is and what it is about. The naming of a church would fall exactly into this category. It conveys much information about the nature of the group and it is a label that should be worn proudly by those in the group because it truly represents them and what they are about.
So what’s in our name? Why did we call ourselves Covenant Reformed Church? If you’ve ever wondered that, or didn’t until now, here is your answer.
Our church began in August 2016, and when we did we joined a very long list of churches in the South-East of Manitoba. Why did we add to that list? The answer reveals a lot about the name of our church as well as points to who we are, or who we aspire to be, as a church.
At that time there really wasn’t another church in this area that preached the Christian faith as articulated by historic reformed theology. There were a lot of other churches -- anabaptist churches galore, a Lutheran church, a united church, a Baptist church, a catholic church, a free church, and a bunch of other broadly evangelical churches -- but no church built on the principles of historic reformed theology which is, as Cornelius Van Til has said, is “Christianity come into its own.”
But the decision to start a new church brought about an immediate challenge, a significant challenge -- What are we going to call this new church? We all agreed that we needed to name it properly. By that I mean we needed a name that would be appropriate to who we are, what defines us, and what we aspire to be. We wanted something that would do that and be distinctive.
In short, we wanted to be completely honest with people about who we are. In order to do this we immediately realized we should throw the word reformed into the name. The label ‘reformed’ in an overwhelming anabaptist / Arminian community is anathema. Which was kind of the point. Even though most of the people I encounter have no idea what reformed actually means - either historically or theologically - almost immediately it gives people pause. They need to think about what reformed means and then again about whether or not they should come to a church with the word “reformed” in it. That was a good thing in my mind.
But our church has a first name - covenant. Why add that? Why not just call yourself ‘Steinbach Reformed Church’ or something like that?
The reason for the addition of this word to our name is due to the long tradition of reformed theologians who emphasize that reformed theology is covenant theology and, obviously, vice versa. So Covenant Reformed Church is kind of redundant, but its full name demonstrates two essential realities -- The word covenant emphasizes that we're committed to scriptural interpretation that is characteristic of covenant theology. And obviously, then, that will lead us to reformed theology, and then obviously, we're a church… so Covenant Reformed Church becomes a pretty easy name for our group.
If you want to know what we believe in light of the name of our church - if you want to know what covenant reformed actually is - you can go to a number of different places. You can check out our Abridged Doctrinal Statement on our website or you can watch several short videos available on our website or YouTube channel that explain the basics of reformed covenantal theology. Since the website statement is abridged it doesn’t give you everything that we believe nor does it cover all of the topics of theology that our full statement does. This abridged version is our attempt to be upfront with you about what we believe. The full statement is available upon request from one of the CRC elders.
So that’s what’s in our name. In the next blog I’ll give you more insight into what we are all about. We will cover the four things that form the foundation for all we do.
Soli Deo Gloria