At an Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals conference a few years ago, hosted at the historic Fourth Presbyterian Church in Bethesda, Maryland, I met a single father and impassioned brother in the Lord named Jason Punches.
Jason had listened extensively to White Horse Inn and had fallen in love with God's Word in accordance with a Reformed view of what God says in His Word. As a result, Jason had started a fellowship of largely-unchurched believers in eastern Maryland, hoping that the fellowship would eventually become a recognized church.
He was not presumptuous in his labors. He desires to go to seminary and would occasionally lead worship services as a lay leader, but more often than not, he tried to draw in ordained pastors to fill the pulpit. He also had no interest in gathering his own cultish following--he wanted his humble fellowship to become part of a Reformed denomination and to call its own ordained pastor.
Within the coming year, all of those dreams will become reality. The fellowship will officially be a church plant of the United Reformed Churches and will be calling an ex-classmate and old friend of mine from Westminster Seminary California, Reuben Sernas, to be its pastor.
Read more about the Somerset Reformed Fellowship.
One of the beautiful things about God's work in this body is the sense of unity fostered between a number of Reformed denominations and churches in helping see Jason's vision realized, by God's grace.
Jason and I became good friends, and I had the pleasure of preaching there on several occasions, as did the Regional Home Missionary (church-planter) of my Presbytery (the pastors/elders of our denomination in a particular region), Steve Doe. Another WSC alum and friend of mine, Dr. Brian Lee, pastor of a URC church in DC, took a more active hand in shepherding the congregation along.
While I would've loved to see this church in my denomination, the OPC, I am thrilled that it is now a sister church in the URC. I noticed that Steve Doe preached there again this month and I will preach there one last time in March. At some point after that, my friend Reuben will take the helm.
In all of this, there has been no spirit of competition for denominational flag-planting. Instead, we have seen the quiet labors of a small host of pastors, with the backing of their churches and denominations, to support the faithful laborers in this small corner of God's vineyard. I desire both my denomination and my church to grow numerically, but ultimately, I desire to see Christ's Church grow, robed in the righteousness of Christ and waving the banner of His grace.
In Princess Anne, Maryland, another banner is planted, bearing all to come and see and know that the Lord is faithful and true.
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