About the Trinity Reformed Church Plant
All of Christ, for all of life, for all of Butler County
Our Mission
The mission of this bible study is to gather like-minded men, women, and children in the Greater Pittsburgh Metropolitan area, to form a worshiping body, to teach about the glory of Christ through his word, and establish a faithful church (in the CREC) as a light set upon the hill of Pittsburgh to burn brightly for generations to come.
Our Vision
Our vision for the study, is for the individuals and families that gather together to form into a full-fledged, autonomous, covenanted and particular church. We want to gather on a weekly basis, and cultivate relationships as brothers and sisters in Christ, and grow to have the same vision for Christ’s Kingdom on the Earth, starting in Cranberry/Mars, PA.
Our Current Efforts
We are a mission church-plant under the oversight of the elders of Christ Church of Morgantown, WV. Presently, we are gathering families committed to forming a worshiping body of believers determined to bring Christ to all of life. We expect to begin to worship in May of 2025 and are currently gathering families to that end.
The Planters
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Jon Sheldon
Jon lives in the Greater Pittsburgh area with his wife and 7 children. Jon’s has a background in engineering and works in the oil and gas industry. He enjoys practicing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu with his family, going hunting, playing golf, and homesteading.
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Nick Muyres
Nick is a Navy veteran and lives in Pittsburgh PA with his wife and 5 children. He is a graduate of Liberty University, and has been a certified biblical counselor with the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC), for 4 years. Nick is pursuing a Master of Arts in Theology from Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary and he is co-founder of Reformed & Confessional
CREC Introduction
The CREC is an international, vibrant, and festive community of evangelical believers shaped by the Reformation. We are deeply committed to the evangelical tenets of biblical authority and sufficiency, the free grace of God in Christ, the Kingship and Lordship of Jesus Christ over all heaven and earth, and are resolute in the churches commissioning to carry the Gospel of the Kingdom to the ends of the earth, beginning on the living room floor.
Join us in the feast and celebration!
CREC Distinctives
Although the CREC is well within the stream of reformed orthodoxy, nevertheless, it has distinctives that make it a unique gift of God.
Visit the CREC website here.
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Throughout the scriptures we see God renewing covenant with his covenant people. When we gather for worship on the Lord’s day, we recognize that this is what the Lord is doing for those he has called to himself, once again! Covenant renewal worship consists of 5 elements: Call to worship, Confession of sin, Consecration, Communion, and Commissioning.
God Calls Us.
The Minister recites a portion of God’s Word (usually a Psalm) calling us into His presence. By this, we are reminded of our covenantal relationship to Him as His people.
We Confess Our Sins.
Because sin cannot be tolerated in God’s presence, we must confess our sins individually and corporately in prayer. God responds with His assurance of pardon, the wonderful promise that all of our sins are forgiven in Christ, which the Minister recites from Scripture.
God Consecrates Us (Makes us Holy). God teaches His people through prayer and the Word. There are three parts to this section of the service.
Reading and Preaching of the Word. A central aspect of our maturing in Christ is growth in our grasp of the Word of God. We devote a considerable portion of time to the reading and expositional preaching of the Word.
Prayers of God’s People. Following preaching, we pray to the Lord for the kingdom of God, our national and local leaders, missions, and our own needs.
Confession of Faith. This time is concluded by God’s people affirming our identity in Him by confessing our faith using the historic creeds of the Church.
God Feeds Us at Communion.
Communion is a means of grace. We celebrate communion weekly. All who are baptized and not under church discipline are warmly welcomed to the Lord’s Table to eat and drink with Him.
God Sends Us Out. (Commissioning or Benediction)
We are sent from our gathering in His special presence to serve Christ in our daily vocations. We receive the benediction (blessing) of God at the close of the service.
Finally, our worship is historically informed. We seek to use those universal patterns—creeds, confessions, prayers, and responses—that the Church through the ages has cherished because they are biblically rooted and edify God’s people.
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The confessions of the CREC, although diverse, are unified, and reflect the catholicity of the denomination. Within the CREC each church will adopt into its statement of faith the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Definition of Chalcedon
Each church in the CREC also adopts into its statement of faith at least one of the following documents:
1. Westminster Confession of Faith (1647)
2. American Westminster Confession of Faith (1788)
3. Three Forms of Unity (Belgic Confession, Heidelberg
Catechism, and Canons of the Synod at Dordt)
4. Belgic Confession (1561)
5. Heidelberg Catechism
6. London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689)
7. Savoy Declaration (1658)
8. Reformed Evangelical Confession (see Article XI)
9. Second Helvetic Confession
10. 39 Articles of Christian Religion
Additionally, each church adopts into its statement of faith the CREC’s Confessional Statements on Sex, Gender, and Marriage.
This unity and diversity is part of what makes the CREC so unique. The CREC holds firmly to its creeds, confessions, and statements of faith, while allowing for variations of expression among the brotherhood. These are the pillars of the more than 130 churches in the CREC.
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A Christian’s views of how God moves throughout history, how things will progress, and how the world will ultimately end up colors all of life, and all of our doctrine. Our postmillennialism, therefore, is deeply embedded in our lives. This is more than a preference for historical optimism, however. Postmillennialism is how we see the Bible moving. It is far from a mere academic discussion. It impacts everything from our preaching and teaching, to our interpretation of the times, to how we educate our children. It’s importance cannot be overstated.
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Covenant communion, or paedocommunion is the way we enflesh our theology of children. We affirm what the scriptures affirm, that baptized children shall receive all the covenant blessings and benefits afforded to them. We also believe that they are integral members of the body of Christ, without whom worship would be incomplete, for Christ says that it is from their mouths that the Lord has established praise. While some congregations can function outside this system, they must understand that they are co-laboring with an others who believe life and table, water and word, bread and wine, worship, and participation belong unto them.
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The use of wine in the church for communion has become a controversial topic over the last 50 years, or so, and the CREC does not think this should be. Many argue that to drink wine, including at the Lord’s Supper, is sin. Others argue that there should be wine and grape juice present at the Lord’s Supper so that those who do and do not consider that drinking wine is Biblical can partake of the cup. Finally, there are those who think wine and only wine should be used. The CREC, and this church plant, falls into this last category. While we acknowledge these other positions, we believe that they do injustice to the plain teaching of Scripture. Because this is a controversial topic among Christians, we think it is important to state the reasons for our position.
Jesus Used Wine
The Scriptural teaching concerning wine is uniform. Wine has always been considered one of God’s good gifts to man. Melchizedek gave wine to Abraham after he returned from the slaughter of the kings. (Genesis 14:18) God commanded that wine be offered to Him as part of the Levitical sacrificial system. (Exodus 29:40, Leviticus 23:13) At King David’s coronation banquet in I Chronicles 12:38-40 the men drank wine. In Psalm 104:15, wine is said to be a gift from God to gladden man’s heart. The great coming kingdom and the gospel are often envisioned by the prophets as having an abundance of wine. (Is. 25:6, 55:1, Hosea 14:7, Joel 3:18) The loss of wine is considered a great tragedy and a sign of God’s curse upon Israel. (Isaiah 16:10, 24:7, Lamentations 2:12).
The New Testament teaching is the same. Wine is seen as a good thing when rightly used. In 1 Timothy 3:3, the elder of a church is not forbidden wine, but is told to not be addicted to it (New American Standard Version) or a drunkard (English Standard Version). Wine is a picture of the Gospel. (Luke 5:36-39) Jesus drank wine. (Luke 7:34) Paul instructs Timothy to drink wine for medicinal purposes. (I Timothy 5:23)
There is some debate about whether or not Jesus used wine at the Last Supper. Here are the reasons why we know that He did use wine during the Last Supper. First, the Passover was celebrated in the spring. Grapes were harvested in the fall. Without refrigeration there is no way the wine would not ferment. Second, the term “the fruit of the vine,” which Jesus uses throughout the Last Supper accounts, was a term the Jews used during their Passover celebrations. They drank wine during Passover. There is no doubt that “fruit of the vine” equals wine, not grape juice. The “fruit of the vine” is a a specific term applied to liturgical wine- the blessing of the cup by the priest would begin with holding up the glass of wine and thanking God for the fruit of the vine. When Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper he is using the very same, very specific language. For a first century Jew that is all it could have referred to. Third, it is clear from Paul’s account in I Corinthians that people were getting drunk at the Lord’s Supper. This means they were drinking wine. When Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper he used wine.
There are multiple reasons not to substitute grape juice for wine in the Lord’s Supper. Wine is a gift from God symbolizing the gospel and the glorious Kingdom of God. Christ used wine at the Last Supper. The apostolic church used wine in their Communion meals. We should use wine during our Communion services. This is what Christ commanded.
What About the Drunkard?
One of the more common objections to the use of wine in the Lord’s Supper is the drunkard. What about the man tempted to abuse alcohol? Should we give him grape juice in order to prevent him from stumbling? Clearly the Scripture condemns drunkenness. Both the Old Testament (Proverbs 20:1) and New Testament (Ephesians 5:18) forbid drunkenness. Despite these strong warnings, we have several Old Testament and New Testament examples of wine being drunk. Let’s look at the two New Testament examples.
In John 2:1-10 we have the familiar story of our Lord turning water into wine. Jesus had no problem giving dozens, possibly hundreds, of people wine. The amount of wine was somewhere between 120-180 gallons. At the end of a wedding feast, when people are more likely to be getting drunk, Jesus made more wine when requested to do so.
A second passage, and one more to the point about the Lord’s Supper, is I Corinthians 11:18- 34. Here Paul is condemning the church at Corinth for their misuse of the Lord’s Supper. They are not waiting for one another, but rather are eating and drinking as soon as they arrive. Thus some members of Christ’s body are being left out. What is pertinent for our discussion is that there was enough wine for people to get drunk on. (I Cor. 11:21) Despite this, Paul never tells the church not to use wine. Here the problem is not that people might get drunk. They are actually getting drunk. Yet, Paul does not take this opportunity to tell them to avoid wine altogether, since it might cause the drunkard to stumble.
We are sympathetic to the temptations that some of us have. We know that there may be those at Christ Church who believe that they cannot drink the wine because it might cause them to stumble with regard to alcohol. We pray that this would be a temporary situation. We pray that in due time those who struggle with drunkenness would overcome that temptation by faith and the strength of the Spirit and would be able to partake of the wine as a gift from Christ for our spiritual growth.
What About the Weaker Brother?
After the drunkenness argument, the other common objection to serving wine at the Lord’s Supper is that it can offend the weaker brother. Paul specifically warns Christians not to cause the weaker brother to stumble. (Romans 14, I Cor. 8) The point Paul is making in these chapters is vitally important to the life of a church. There will always be weaker and stronger Christians. How they treat one another is a sign to the watching world of their love for Christ. However, there are good reasons for concluding that the admonitions Paul gives in these passages do not prevent churches from using wine in Communion.
First, these passages have nothing to do with the Lord’s Supper. That does not mean they have no bearing, but one must be careful in drawing sweeping conclusions from passages that do not deal with the subject at hand.
Second, if drinking wine in Communion causes a weaker brother to stumble then why would Paul not forbid it in I Corinthians 11, where people were getting drunk? In this passage, it is not just the possibility of stumbling that is present, but actual sin. Here we have a passage speaking explicitly of the Lord’s Supper where people are getting drunk and Paul never says to not use wine.
Third, if drinking wine is a stumbling block, why are pastors not forbidden from drinking it? And why is Timothy commanded to drink it? If the point in Romans 14 and I Corinthians 8 is that drinking wine is a stumbling block then why should the leaders of the Church be allowed to do it?
Fourth, the point in these passages is not liturgical practice, but personal deference to a weaker brother. A church should not adjust liturgical practice because of a weaker brother. They should teach the weaker brother how to mature so he can fully participate in the service. They should not judge him. That means the stronger brother should not show contempt for the weaker brother. (Romans 14:10). However, this does not mean that liturgical practice should be adjusted because someone has a scruple.
Finally, the Lord’s Supper is not a scruple/doubtful thing/opinion. (Romans 14:1) Christ commanded us to keep the Supper. He used wine. We are not justified in changing what He commanded. The Communion table is not the same as drinking wine around the dinner table. There are many issues in the Christian life, which are matters of opinion. On those issues we should be careful not to cause our brother to stumble. The Lord’s Supper is not one of these issues.
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The CREC is a denomination/communion of churches that desires to recognize the variety of believers that exist in the universal church and acknowledge all those whom Christ has died for. Because of this, the CREC is not monolithic in who is permitted to be in the communion. Although the majority of churches are Presbyterian (paedobaptist) in orientation, there are a number of Baptist (credobaptist) churches as well some others that have found their home here.
Additionally, we want to welcome all those into membership that the Lord has granted entrance and access into his Kingdom. This means we do not prohibit membership on account of disagreement on secondary issues like paedo vs. credo baptism, or whether children can come to the table or not. While we have convictions on these matters, they do not determine your eligibility to be a member nor do they determine the love we will have for you or the peace we desire with you. If you can profess the Apostles creed by faith, and desire to be part of a church/faith community and family that desires to see the world in humble submission to King Jesus, then the CREC welcomes you!