In late September 2016 we began a six-week series about the essential tenets of the ECO Presbyterian Church led by our Assistant Pastor, Rev. Dr. Laura Smit.
The following links are to audio recordings of Dr. Laura’s presentations. Click on the play button to activate. By the summer of 2022, we expect to have links to her full video series of classes.
Session 1 – Introduction to the Essential Tenets of the ECO Presbyterian Church:
Session 2 – The Trinity:
Session 3 – The Incarnation:
Session 4 – Sin, Salvation, and Predestination
Session 5 – Covenant Life & the Sacraments
Session 6 – Stewardship & Obedience
Presbyterians have been of two minds about essential tenets. We 
recognize that just as there are some central and foundational truths of the gospel affirmed by Christians everywhere, so too there are particular understandings of the gospel that define the Presbyterian and Reformed tradition. All Christians must affirm the central mysteries of the faith, and all those who are called to ordered ministries in a Presbyterian church must also affirm the essential tenets of the Reformed tradition. Recognizing the danger in reducing the truth of the gospel to propositions that demand assent, we also recognize that when the essentials become a matter primarily of individual discernment and local affirmation, they lose all power to unite us in common mission and ministry.
recognize that just as there are some central and foundational truths of the gospel affirmed by Christians everywhere, so too there are particular understandings of the gospel that define the Presbyterian and Reformed tradition. All Christians must affirm the central mysteries of the faith, and all those who are called to ordered ministries in a Presbyterian church must also affirm the essential tenets of the Reformed tradition. Recognizing the danger in reducing the truth of the gospel to propositions that demand assent, we also recognize that when the essentials become a matter primarily of individual discernment and local affirmation, they lose all power to unite us in common mission and ministry..
Essential tenets are tied to the teaching of the confessions as reliable expositions of Scripture. The essential tenets call out for explication, not as another confession, but as indispensable indicators of confessional convictions about what Scripture leads us to believe and do. Essential tenets do not replace the confessions, but rather witness to the confessions’ common core. The document linked to below is thus intended not as a new confession but as a guide to the corporate exploration of and commitment to the great themes of Scripture and to the historic Reformed confessions that set forth those themes.
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Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church 