View Points / FAQ
Many people often have a lot of the same questions about a church. These statements, and excerpts from our operating documents, should help to answer some of the questions you may have about our church. As always, for more information or to answer specific questions, you can contact the church office.
Click on each View Point to learn more.
Believer's Baptism: This is the restriction of baptism to persons who make a personal profession of faith. A brief verbal testimony is required by the candidate before baptism. From both a theological and a practical point of view, this practice is significant. In the first place, Baptists believe that New Testament baptism signifies faith and repentance, and therefore it is to be administered only to those who are old enough to make a responsible decision.
Our Pastor(s) do have personal convictions as to how old a person must be in order to make a responsible decision. A child can repent and believe at a very young age. Pastor Reimer has set the age of 10 as the youngest age for any public baptism he is asked to do.
For a copy of our Baptismal Instructions please call the church office.Role of Women in the Church: American River Community Church therefore affirms women in all ministry and leadership positions within the church, both lay and clergy. We believe that the biblical basis for service in the body of Christ is giftedness, a call from God, and godly character – not gender.
Reference: American Baptist Policy Statement on Women and Men as Partners in Church and Society 7038:12/85
AFFIRMATIONS:
- We affirm that the Gospel of Jesus Christ liberates all persons, female and male, to serve in any ministry to which they have been called by God and for which they have God-given talents. This means that women, as well as man, should have access to and serve at all levels of church and society—local, regional, national, and international—in the roles of policy makers and implementers.
Human Sexuality: Because we are all wounded and broken people in need of the healing power of God’s grace in Christ Jesus, and being aware of the confusion of voices pertaining to human sexuality, the following statement defines our common understanding for sexual behavior.
Because we affirm the Bible as our rule for faith and practice and embrace its ethic of compassion, love and ministry to all persons and the availability of God’s grace through repentance and Christ’s transforming power;
Luke 5:30-32; John 8: 1-11, 1 Corinthians 6:11
We affirm that God’s gracious creation intent for human sexual conduct as defined in scripture is faithful, lifelong heterosexual union for married persons and committed celibate behavior for unmarried persons. All other sexual practices are clearly identified as sinful and destructive of individuals, of community, of the fellowship of believers, and the missional purposes of the church, and like all sin, calls for repentance, submission to the transforming power of God, and restoration to the community of faith.
Gen. 1:27, 2:24; Lev. 18:22, 20:13; 1 Thess. 4:3-8; Heb. 13:4; Rom. 1:18-32; 1 Cor. 6:9-10
This moral standard gives absolutely no permission for violence against any person who engages in sexual practices contrary to scripture, nor does this standard give permission for demeaning any person’s value in God’s sight. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” And, “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save it.”
Romans 3:23; John 3:17
Therefore, we encourage grace-motivated ministries that respond to human need and offer Christ’s transforming love and healing to all wounded and broken people, including those who habitually engage in various sexual sins, heterosexual and homosexual alike. Acknowledging the high calling of the church we oppose the ordination, or recognition of the preexisting license or ordination, of any person practicing, affirming, endorsing and/or celebrating adultery, fornication, gay/lesbian/bisexual behavior, or any other practices that are contrary to God’s creation intent as defined above. Because of our commitment to do mission together, all persons entering into membership affirm this scriptural and ethical standard.
Marriage: We believe marriage has been ordained by God. This church recognizes marriage as exclusively the legal union of one man and one woman in which such union is a lifetime commitment. Same-gender ceremonies will not be performed.
Child Dedications: Since ARCC is in the Baptist tradition we don’t baptize infants with water, please see our statement on Believers Baptism above, however we do believe in child dedication. It is a privilege and responsibility of the church to encourage and assist parent in the proper training and spiritual development of their children. Therefore it is appropriate for home and church to unite in a ceremony of Child Dedication. The act of dedicating children is in keeping with the teaching of God’s Word. See Deuteronomy 6:4-7, Psalm 127:3, Luke 2:22-35, and Mark 10:13-16.
In the ceremony of dedication the parents and church come together to publicly do three things. 1. We acknowledge that this child and all children are created in God’s image and are a gift from God. 2. We promise or dedicate ourselves, parents and church family, to nurture and instruct the child in spiritual things by word and by example. 3. We offer a prayer of dedication and blessing upon the child.
The Parents Promise: Do you parent(s) promise in dependence upon God’s grace and upon the partnership of this church family, to accept him/her as a gift from God? Do you promise to set before him/her a Christ-like example in both word and deed? Do you promise to teach him/her the truths of the Christian Faith and encourage him/her to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior at the appropriate time in their life?
The congregation makes an identical promise
A certificate of Dedication is given to the parents at the conclusion of the ceremony. Children may be of any age.
Pastor Reimer is willing to do this ceremony for individual families on a date convenient to all or have several parents do a group dedication of their children.
The Pastor’s Preaching Style: Pastor Rich preaches approximately 46 Sundays each year. In his absence he has a staff or lay person preach.
His preaching style does vary between exposition and topical sermons. Exposition is when the preacher covers one biblical text in a detailed manner. What some people call “verse by verse – line upon line”. For example he may preach through a book of the bible paragraph by paragraph. The content of the sermon is dictated by the content of the text but under the leading of the Holy Spirit Pastor is able to apply the biblical teaching to the daily life experience of the congregation. Topical sermons are on topics that he selects after he has discerned some “felt need” in the congregation. Each year he takes time to consider each name in the data base and thinks about the stage of life they are in and the issues they are facing. Then he will collate those issues and needs and prepare short 4 week series of messages to address those needs from a biblical and spiritual perspective.
The length of his sermons: He will typically preach 25 – 35 minutes. Communion Sunday’s he tries to keep it to 20 minutes.
The length of a series is no more than 4-6 Sundays on one topic. When preaching through a book of the Bible it will take longer depending on the length of the book and the number of paragraphs Pastor chooses to consider.
Does the pastor give “altar calls”? Pastor always provides a sermon outline in the worship folder and at the end of the message always asks two questions. So what? and Now What? He usually invites congregants to respond by marking the back side of the Communication Card. At times he may ask people to raise their hand or to come forward to the front to show visibly that a commitment or spiritual decision has been made. The goal is to have people respond to God not the preacher.
Preparation time: Pastor reserves all day Monday and Tuesday morning each week to prepare the Sunday message. It is the priority of his work week. To protect this Study and prep time he makes no appointments and doesn’t return phone calls or emails until the end of the day. His goal, with the help of the Holy Spirit, is to hear from God and deliver a fresh message each week. Pastor rarely recycles sermons. Pastor does use the internet at times to aid his study or to find illustrations, but he does not preach “internet sermons” taken from other preachers.
Does the Pastor use PowerPoint? Yes! Each Wednesday morning pastor provides our volunteer graphic artist a full sermon manuscript with the content he wants displayed in bold print. The graphic artist spends the day selecting or designing the sermon slides. Her graphics always seek to aid and enhance the spoken word. At times the Pastor may use video clips to illustrate a biblical point.
What is the pastor’s view of the Bible? The Bible is the Word of God written by men inspired by the Holy Spirit. Pastor is preaching the Word of God and relies on the Holy Spirit to aid him in understanding, interpreting and applying it to human life. He uses Scholarly commentaries of the evangelical persuasion, grammatical study of the original languages, and historical research to help him understand what the message meant to the original audience and then what it means to the audience today.”