All of Christ, for all of life, for all of Rotorua

Redwood Reformation Church is a new plant, working to build the kingdom of the Lord Jesus in Rotorua.

We meet every Sunday at 10:30 a.m., in St Chad’s Church building, on the corner of Devon and Fenton Streets, Rotorua.

What kind of church are we?

We are heavily focused on teaching our people to know all of God’s revealed will, and helping each other to walk in all of his ways.

Here’s a slightly longer summary of our core beliefs:

• Christ is Lord of every person & institution —and only by bowing the knee to him as King can anyone become a member of his kingdom, and so be saved. This is the gospel.
• The purpose of being saved is to participate in Christ: walking in his ways, becoming like him, and ultimately partaking of his divine nature itself (2 Peter 1:4). In other words, the life of the Christian is a life of discipleship toward glory.
• Christ has commisioned his church to be the instrument of his discipleship. As we teach everything he has commanded, he will eventually make even the nations themselves into disciples (Matthew 28:18–20).
• Christ’s scriptures are completely sufficient for this task. The Bible is profitable for completely training us in righteousness, and fully equipping us for every good work. In other words, it reveals God’s way for rightly ordering life at every level—from the individual to the corporate, from fathers to households, from pastors to churches, from presidents to nations (2 Timothy 3:16–17).

And here is how these beliefs work out in our practice, both on Sunday, and throughout the week:

• We teach our people how to know all of God’s ways. At Redwood, it is normal to hear preaching not just on Jesus and Christian living, not just on sin and the gospel, but on issues like how to properly and deeply read and interpet scripture…what the limits of government authority are…why masculine leadership and feminine submission matter…how biblical symbolism works…the way scripture teaches us how to think (as well as what to think)…and much else besides.
• We help our people to walk in all of God’s ways. We are ready every day with practical counsel and encouragement on issues like how to do family worship…ways to strengthen marriages and navigate disagreements…repenting of porn…raising and teaching children…dealing with thorny workplace conflicts…and any other questions our people face.

Where we stand on…

If you’re looking for a church, there are probably some key doctrines you want them to be firm on. We planted Redwood self-consciously in the tradition of the Reformation because we see such great need for reform in the Western church. Here’s our position on some of the major issues you may be wondering about:

• We uphold the inerrancy and sufficiency of scripture—that God truthfully conveys all that he intended to in the Bible, with all the accuracy possible given the contrivances of human expression, on every matter necessary for us to live as he requires.
• We have a Reformed view of salvation—that God must change our hearts and mystically unite us to Christ, our righteousness, before we can exercise faith.
• We are postmillennial—the Lord Jesus is presently reigning from heaven, and will continue to reign until all of his enemies are made a footstool for his feet. He will return only after this, to defeat the last enemy: death.
• We are patriarchal—God the Father Almighty made human fathers to rule on his behalf in the household, the church, and the state (this is a view often called gendered piety).
• We insist that Christ has sole authority over worship—not the New Zealand government, not medical experts, not the World Economic Forum, but Jesus alone, who requires that we gather together in person every Lord’s Day, and especially when people are afraid and isolated because of disasters like plagues.