How everything begun - Como tudo começou
The first challenge: To buy a building - O primeiro desafio: Comprar um templo
OUR HISTORY - SOCIOLOGICAL AND THEOLOGICAL APPROACHES
The Historical Journey of the Work of Restoration of All Things Church:
A Brief Guide to Its History and Beliefs (1962 – 2019)
The Work of Restoration of All Things Church (WRATCH) has its roots in the New Testament. Going back all the way through the history of the Christian Church and passing carefully through the Reformation of the sixteenth century, we have tried to achieve the lifestyle of the New Testament church. We consider ourselves a product of rethinking the contemporary trends of the evangelical church worldwide in the light of the Word of God to reach a Mitte, which is a balancing point of tension between contextualization and the entire teaching of the Bible to the Church. Of course, in common with the other evangelical Reformed churches, the base of our belief is that we cannot earn our salvation through good works, and that the Scripture is the guide by which we evaluate our practices as Christians. However, we do believe that the true believer must prove his faith through good works, especially toward those who are of the household of the faith.
The beginning
Historically, we started in Brazil in the sixties, 1962, to be precise. The former Baptist pastors Rev. Dr. Magno G. Simões and Rev. Dr. Elmir G. Maia, moved by God and responding the flood of changes in values, lifestyles, and social interactions, precipitated in the 1960s, when many evangelical denominations were profoundly affected, decided to found the Work of Restoration of All Things Church. At that time, tidier patterns of church life gave way to a rising disenchantment and disagreement over how believers should respond to the social chaos around them. The growth of the commercialization of the Word of God in our country transformed many churches into mere companies only to enrich their leaders. Then, the spiritual guidance and real care for the members had been almost completely forgotten and became something practically foreign to the social agenda of the local churches. Our first leaders understood that the simple teaching of the New Testament must be followed and that it included as its base the mutual care of the church’s members because of the greatest teaching of Christ that we ought to love one another.
Our vision of the Church
We are a family-centered church because we believe in the importance of the family. We encourage worship as families because we believe that the church is the family of God and that we must live as brothers and sisters under the authority, love and care of our heavenly Father. We recognize that sometimes the family faces many difficulties, but we know what it means to be together. The Bible teaches us to bear each other's burdens, increase each other's joys and enrich each other's lives. We desire to teach the Word of God with integrity and to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit, shaping and equipping our church family so that it will be spiritually nourished and empowered to fulfill its God-ordained purpose and ministry individually and collectively. We seek to develop disciples who genuinely care for one another, and who, with sensitivity and dignity, reach out to others wherever they are so that they might experience the saving love and power of Jesus. We believe that the best way to show others that the Gospel is by witnessing. A few acts of love speak louder than millions of words, and our lives must be the synthesis of our beliefs. We desire to bring ministry inside of our building with strong emphasis on teaching, but outside of it with our lives as the best illustration of our teaching and preaching. This must also include the task of serving our community and becoming a church without walls.
Distinctive theological features
What sets the Work of Restoration of All Things Church apart from many other denominations, except the Reformed ones, is its embrace of key teachings of New Testament. Concisely, these all center on the sovereignty of God. The biblical teachings of predestination and election give us comfort because they assure us that no one and nothing, not even our own bad choices, can snatch us out of God's hand. Moreover, the realization that God owns all of creation and continues to assert His rule over it gives us a secure hope for the future.
We also recognize that many denominations began to show their share of moral decay and theological liberalism - the latter was largely spurred on by the Enlightenment, an intellectual movement that idolized human reason at the expense of Bible-based faith. As was predicable, they grew on a large scale. In response to this trend, we consider ourselves to be a church developed among believers who clung to a simple, practical faith based on traditional New Testament doctrines. Therefore, we worship in small groups in response to the trend of the megachurch, so that the leaders might give complete assistance to their members.
Practical implications of our theological vision
The Order of Pastors is the non-profit institution that maintains the Theological Seminary, gathers the churches, ordains pastors, evangelists and deacons, and supervises the pastors’ work. It also has the responsibility of providing the necessary support to the pastors and their families, so they can do their work happily and productively, especially when starting a new local church.
After the establishing, supervising, and waiting for the growth, a time comes when a new local church recognizes that it can maintain its pastor and family on its own. When this occurs, the help of the Order of Pastors becomes unnecessary and the new local church lets the Order of Pastors know that it is able to support itself, the pastor and his family.
How do the three altruistic projects work in Brazil?
Through volunteers from every church’s community, we have found many ways to get every member involved with their own communities and with all the local church communities. All the churches working together permit us to buy land (vacant lots) and build chapels and houses to the benefit of all the churches, and these actions motivate members to participate, by donating their time, money, talent, and expertise. These theological principles work to defeat egocentrism and fill the mind and heart of the believer with the necessary altruism to improve the quality of life of local church members and the entire church community.
The Word of God is central to our worship services.
For this reason, the focal point in our churches is the open Bible on the pulpit and the focal point in our worship together is the sermon. The songs and hymns we sing in our churches are based on the Scriptures. We believe that all of life is governed by our faith.
Our faith in God helps us to make the important decisions in our lives, not only on Sunday but every day of the week. We have a strong commitment to Christian education.
Because of our concern for family and our belief that our faith is important in all areas of our lives, we support Christian schools and offer many programs to help families grow spiritually. We want all members to be informed Christians.
Our Theological Seminary focuses on the preparation of teachers and preachers who are able to recognize that every aspect of preaching will require a number of key homiletical tools. It requires a good imagination as we think and imagine our way into the lives of the real people who sit before us. Having good illustration sections in our sermons requires reading widely, letting the world around help us to enter into situations we haven’t experienced ourselves but that others in the congregation have experienced. It requires being very aware of current events, being a well-informed observer of culture, and quite simply being honest about the challenges of living for Christ every moment of our lives.
Our main purpose in providing our leaders the instruction they need is to convince them that good sermons show people the truth of the gospel as it applies to the nitty-gritty realities of life. All the deep and hard preparation in the original languages of the Bible (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek), historical background, and many other related theological topics will, in the end, teach them to consider their flocks as human beings who every week face temptation, sorrow, frustration, anger, and sometimes cynicism. The pastors may always be able to go from text to sermon. If they can show these people the gospel in action in the midst of their own reality, we will have gone a long way toward doing what preachers should always want to do, namely: make God and His gospel more credible, more believable. This is the main purpose of our commitment to Christian education.
The basics of Christian education
Concerning the basics of theological education, we follow Dr. Wayne Grudem in his Systematic Theology and presuppose that a leader and every believer need:
1) A clear biblical bases for doctrines;
2) Clarity in the explanation of doctrines;
3) Application to life;
4) Focus within the evangelical world;
5) Hope for the progress in doctrinal unity in the church (this makes less sectarians);
6) Sense of the urgent need for greater doctrinal understanding within the whole church.
Called to serve
Despite the deeply divisive spirit that has caused so much pain in the denominations throughout the centuries, there has been much evidence of God's grace as well. People on both sides have reached out in forgiveness and love. While many leaders have worked to make the believers leave their own local churches over their disagreements, we work to make them stay. In addition, we try to make them continue to be committed to living together and working together in this part of the body of Christ. Despite the variety of different positions and viewpoints held by members of the denominations, we think it is still bound together by a deep commitment to respond to the good news that our world belongs to - and is being redeemed by - our faithful God. In the unity and empowerment of that conviction, WRATCH members join in an amazing variety and scope of ministries. We have cooperated in the projects of many other denominations. Among them is the recent translation into Portuguese of the magnum opus of Dr. Bruce K. Waltke, Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax. The Presbyterian Publishing House, of the Presbyterian Church of Brazil, released on July 1, 2006. This translation was accomplished by Rev. Fabiano Antonio Ferreira (organizer and main translator) and Rev. Adelemir Garcia Esteves, both members of Work of Restoration of All Things Church, and the Baptist Prof. Dr. Roberto Alves. Reverend Ferreira was the organizer and the main translator and reviewer of the translation. The team spent three and a half years working hard to accomplish this project to provide Portuguese speakers pastors and students with this excellent work, so they con improve their abilities to interpret and preach the work of God from the original languages. In fact, we believe that there is only one body of Christ, the Church, which expresses unity in diversity and diversity in unity.
Beliefs I
Biblical Standard
The beliefs and doctrine of the Work of Restoration of All Things Church are based on the Holy Bible, God's infallible written Word contained in the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments. We believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and that it is the supreme and final authority in all matters on which it speaks.
Bible Translations Approved for Worship
The following translations of the Bible are approved for worship in the Work of Restoration of All Things Church:
Almeida Revista e Corrigida (ARC) - Portuguese
Almeida Revista e Atualizada (ARA) - Portuguese
Nova Versão Internacional (NVI) - Portuguese
King James Version (KJV)
American Standard Version (ASV)
Revised Standard Version (RSV)
New International Version (NIV)
New American Standard Bible (NASB)
New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
Today’s New International Version (TNIV)
Doctrinal standards
The Work of Restoration of All Things Church subscribes to the following confessions:
The Belgic Confession
The Canons of Dort
The Heidelberg Catechism
The WRATCH Confession of Faith
Universal Creeds:
The Work of Restoration of All Things Church subscribes to the following three universal creeds:
The Apostles Creed
The Athanasian Creed
The Nicene Creed
Beliefs II
Our Brief Confession of Faith
I - We believe in the Bible as God's Word written for our teaching.
II - We believe in all the New Testament apostles' doctrines as divine teachings and commandments.
III - We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Creator and Sustainer of all things that exist in heaven and on earth, as established in the Athanasian Creed.
IV - We believe in Jesus Christ as the only Savior of our souls: the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary, generated by the work and grace of the Holy Spirit.
V - We believe in the human and divine nature of the Son, His death on the cross, His glorified corporal resurrection, His assumption to heaven, and His eternal power.
VI - We have faith in the Holy Spirit as the Comforter of the church that inspires the preaching of the Gospel, that convinces man of sin, of justice, and of judgment.
VII - We believe in the eternal safety of the saved believer regenerated by the power of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
VIII - We believe in the three symbolic ordinances given by the Lord Jesus Christ to be practiced by the church until He comes to take us to His Glory:
First - The baptism by immersion in running water, in a river, as symbol of the burial and resurrection of he who died for the world and was resuscitated as a new creature in Christ.
Second - The Lord’s Supper, with unleavened bread and grape juice, as symbol of the body and the blood of our Lord Jesus.
Third - The washing of the feet after the Lord’s Supper with water, basin, and towel, as a symbol of humility and equality.
IX - We believe in the contemporary validity and manifestation of the spiritual gifts of the Holy Spirit.
X - We believe in the restoration of the Church in general in the entire world, in the growing obedience to all the New Testament doctrines, and that the Church will give the final testimony on the earth, in these final times.
XI - We believe in the great pouring of the Holy Spirit, with signs, prodigies, and wonders before the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
XII - We believe in the visible Second Coming of Jesus, the resurrection of the dead, the final judgment, the condemnation of the impenitent wicked, and the reward of faithful believers.
(Sola Gratia, Sola Fide, Sola Scriptura, Solus Christus, Soli Deo Gloria)
PHILADELPHIA, PA