Our History

Our congregation has its roots in the worldwide outpouring of the Holy Spirit of the late ’60’s and 70’s that has come to be known as the charismatic movement. Our church had its birth among a group of students on the Harvard campus, who experienced salvation in Jesus Christ and the new life He has made available to His people through the Holy Spirit. This small group felt called by God to establish a church in Cambridge (1975).

Between 1975 and 1985, our church community relocated from Cambridge to Belmont (1975-1980), then to the Lawrence-Methuen area (1980-1984). The Lawrence years were an experiment in a church merger, which ultimately proved unsuccessful. We decided to re-engage campus ministry in Harvard in 1984 and then elected to relocate into the Arlington area in 1985. We also began our educational ministry, Covenant School, that same year.

For a while, we lived mainly in Arlington but continued to meet for worship on the Harvard campus. As we settled in, we saw the need for an Arlington-based group, and for many years we operated as “one church with two congregations” (Arlington and Cambridge).

Initially, Cambridge was the “main” setting, and Arlington the “satellite”; however, as our lives grew more and more rooted in Arlington, those roles switched. We closed down the campus ministry in the mid-90s.

After renting facilities from the Park Avenue Congregational Church in Arlington for several years, we began meeting in the Arlington Baptist Church in Arlington Heights in 1991, purchased the building in 1994, and moved our school into the facility in 1996. We added a preschool program to our elementary school in 2009, and then spun off this educational ministry into a new tax-exempt corporation, New Covenant School, in 2012.

Erick Schenkel served as our first pastor beginning in 1975. Following the completion of his doctoral degree, Erick relocated to central Asia in 1996 to serve with developing indigenous church movements in the Muslim world. Brian Emmet served as our second pastor from 1996 to 2018. After passing the mantle, Brian continues his ministry and coaching from North Carolina. Zack Phillips currently serves as our third pastor. Zack was ordained in September 2018.

OUR BELIEFS

To state “our” beliefs is difficult—because we do not all believe the same things!

Belief is important—but complicated. Sometimes we hold convictions then act upon them; sometimes the order is reversed. C. S. Lewis [toy soldiers] and Anselm [faith-seeking-understanding] (how we reverse this).

While there are many ways to characterize the beliefs we hold in common, we’d like to begin with what we hold in common with all of Christ’s people, at all times, in all places:

I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again; he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

A creedal statement (like the Apostle’s Creed, above) is a shorthand version of the faith. It’s a summary of the central things, not a list of everything. It is a statement that transcends denominational boundaries, uniting us all in the basics of the faith that is shared by so many.

We believe that Truth matters and God has spoken in His word, so we constantly seek truth in Scripture. And we believe that God has long been-at-work-in-the-world, so we strive for what has historically been called “orthodoxy.” But, because fallible humans always have to interpret texts and life, because different contexts reveals new things about God, and because belief can be complicated, we would be a church of humility and “generous orthodoxy”—a church of differing, shifting beliefs, open to change, pressured by God and one another, always seeking.

This seeking occurs in the context of welcoming hospitality, open-hearted conversation, and deep listening. We would welcome having such conversations with you.

OUR VALUES

WHATEVER IS TRUE, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things (Phil 4:8). God made Creation “very good” (Gen 1:31), and this very-good Creation points us to the Author of Life. So beauty is important to us. Our much-worked garden; the thoughtful settings of our sanctuary; sermons that engage our guts as well as our minds: we seek God in visceral ways because these are the sort of creatures that God made us to be. For some of the recent ways that God has been at work among us in this way, please click here.

DO NOT NEGLECT to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares (Heb 13:2). Even where polarized people talk past one another, we can eat together—and somehow, eating can bind and heal. As Jesus’ ministry was centered on meals, so should ours be. We eat together every week (after our Sunday worship service) and hope to enlarge our table. For some of the recent ways that God has been at work among us in this way, please click here.

BE TRANSFORMED by the renewal of your mind… (Rom 12:2b). Life should be a journey of being changed into who-God-created-us-to-be. So as clay, we would submit to the shaping Potter’s hand. But such submission is not easy. So we work at it together, trying to interrogate the deforming effect of our daily lives upon us (e.g., digital technologies) and to seek whole-bodied transformation (with our right AND left brains). For some of the recent ways that God has been at work among us in this way, please click here.

IF A MAN HAS a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? (Matt 18:12). “Ministry,” even “faithfulness” is so often understood in terms of effectiveness (return-on-investment) and efficiency. Implicit algorithms of churches yield butts-in-seats (or, better, dollars-per-member). We resist this aspect of contemporary evangelical ethos and, instead, regularly engage in “godly wastefulness” with our money and time. For some of the recent ways that God has been at work among us in this way, please click here.

BUT SEEK the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare (Jer 29:7). Instead of “loving” our abstract “neighbors,” we would love our actual neighbor—the imperfect yet God-reflecting person across the street or behind us in line at Trader Joe’s. We want to be in and of the place God has placed us. We strive to learn our place and build relationships within it. For some of the recent ways that God has been at work among us in this way, please click here.

Our Leadership

• Eating

• Holy Spirit

• Action AND contemplation

• Beauty

• Building a strong foundation (i.e., against inerrancy fundamentalism)

• Intentionality about texture of life (digital technologies)

• Priesthood of believers (committing to Covenant before meeting Brian