Being a new church in Cartersville, we are often asked what kind of church we are at Riverside Community Church. While that can mean a lot of different things, most often what people are asking is: what denomination is your church affiliated with? Riverside Community Church is a part of the Presbyterian Church in America, or the PCA, for short. What that means is that we are not an independent church, but rather, we are a part of a denomination that has roots that extend all the way back to the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. Even more important than that, our roots extend all the way back to Jesus and His Apostles. We believe that Christ has given His authority to His church here on earth to carry on His ministry of the good news about Him, which is contained in the Old and New Testaments in the Bible. We believe that the Bible is our ultimate authority because we believe that it is the inspired Word of God given to us.
Ephesians 4:11-13 says “It was he [God] who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12 to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”
The pastors and teachers that the Apostle Paul is talking about here are those who have been given oversight as overseers (elders, shepherds, pastors) which is from the Koine Greek word poimein that coincides with the Greek word presbuteros, or Presbyterians (see 1 Timothy 5:17, Titus 1:5, 1 Peter 5:5).
So one of the distinguishing features of our church and our denomination is that the elders of each particular church have oversight of that body. Together with the other churches in our denomination in our defined geographic area, we constitute a presbytery, which assists in the oversight of the churches in its bounds and under its care. This provides us with oversight and accountability and connects us to other brothers and sisters in Christ in whom we share certain Biblical convictions. There is more to be said for sure, but hopefully, this provides a brief introduction to how our church is governed and why we are called “Presbyterian.”
