We are committed to providing information about how to plant new Old School Presbyterian Churches and Reform existing Churches along Old School lines. The Contributors to this blog are pastors who have had practical experience planting Old School Presbyterian churches. Theologically we are Reformed, Evangelical, Conservative, and Presbyterian.
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Building Old School Churches 
I just saw this blog posted on Clark’s HB. Looks fairly new. I am part of a very small group here in Grand Rapids, MI that is interested in a work such as this, possibly.
Are you the same A Webb that moderated that famous debate between Hart and Frame?
Steve
Hi Steve,
Welcome! Yes, I’m the same Andy Webb who moderated the Frame Hart Debate on the Warfield List way back in my Seminary days.
May your group be used to bring another OSP church into being.
– Andy
What a fabulous blog (so far)! I’m sure this will become an increasingly helpful resource.
I am a little bit more old school than the “old school” hailing from the “Second Great Awakening” period in America… but I’m encouraged by your work. Thanks so much.
You mentioned basic OSP commitment to:
— Regulative Principle of worship
— Jure Divinio Presbyterian government
— Confessionalism in theology
— Spirituality of the church
— Preaching “at the heart”
I wanted to say that Thornwell, somewhere, refers to the “regulative principle” of doctrine and government, as well as worship… and I think you capture that well.
You left out the sacraments, however! At least explicitly. Please be explicit about OSP view of means of grace (in addition to preaching) and sacraments as key to the churchly mission. Improving baptism, and catechesis, and (corporate) prayer, for example.
One of the very non-OSP emphases is not only to bring into the church that which is non-ecclesiastical, but also to seek non-churchly devotional exercises over-above those of the church. This should be a stated key distinctive for OSP, don’t you think?
Anyway, perhaps it goes without saying, but you could add “educated officers” as an OSP distinctive too.
Could you also say a word about the place of adiaphora in OSP thinking, and how that relates to ‘essential’ and ‘secondary’ doctrines and discipline, and to the “circa sacra”/circumstantial determinations of the elders for decent, peaceful, and edifying order?
So little is said about this explicitly, and yet it governs most of the non-OSP vs. OSP difference, it seems to me.
Just recently learned of your web site through “Faith on Line”. Our Session was thankful to find “likeminded” examples of our desire to remain faithful to the Word and Confession. Is there a list of OSP that will be posted? I look forward to future developments.
Would a OSP Conference be in the planning? If so I have some suggestions for you to consider.
God Bless
Just came across your site.
It took me a while to understand the connection between the name of the blog and its contents, and all for the lack of a hyphen (Building Old-School Churches); I thought it was about educational institutions associated with churches. I wonder if the omission was intentional.
I was impressed by the meaningful articles in the blog, once I understood what it was about.
I, too, have only recently come across this site. Talking on the phone with Peter last week, he relayed the story of the SGF Revival (that is, the ‘Shepherding Goats Fiasco’), and promptly emailed me the link.
Excellent writings, my friend and brother, absolutely delightful and challenging reads. Ever since I enrolled in college, intelligent and educational discourse has become a bit of a rarity, but these posts take me back to the time I spent under your pastoral care.
You may be interested to know (and hopefully excited, or at a bare minimum not repulsed), that Adrienne and I appeared before our Session last week, and they have decided to recommend me to Presbytery to be taken under care to attend seminary next Fall.
Thanks again, for your dedication to the Lord, and to Biblical principles. God has used you in mighty ways, and He obviously continues to do so.
Hi courage to tremble,
Thanks for your comments and sorry about the misunderstanding. I would gladly add in a hyphen to prevent future misunderstandings but “Old School Presbyterian” and Old School as applied to a particular school of theology as in JC Ryle’s quote from Holiness: “I suppose I belong to the old school of evangelical theology…” isn’t hyphenated.
– Andy
Hey Jonathan,
Good to hear from you brother! We were extremely encouraged to hear about your mission trip to Uganda and prayed for its success. I’m also very glad to see that it looks like the Lord is extending a call to you and it doesn’t surprise me that you are moving in the direction of seminary. I pray that the Lord would give you the gifts and calling necessary to minister in his name (actually, I’ll be posting an article about that in a little while – not you specifically, but the necessity of gifts for biblical ministry.) Please stay in touch.
– Andy
Do OSP churches have Instruments?
Hi Andy. Enjoy your blog. Any chance of switching on full RSS feeds, rather than just partial feeds?
Sure Hobbes, but I’m not sure how to do that, any advice you could give me?
Andy, it should be under “Settings” and then “Reading” and the option is “For each article in a feed, show”. Select “Full Feed”.
That will help us who read your blog using an RSS reader.
Thanks.
Hi Andy,
I am not sure whether we qualify as an OSP church. But I am a German pastor/church planter in Heidelberg, Germany. I passed ordination exams, waitiing to be ordained in a couple weeks, d.v.
I would characterize our church plant as a hybrid between an OSP and an “Old Reformed” church plant, meaning we are Presbyterians, but with a good dose of Continental polity and ecclesiology, or we are Continental Reformed with a good dose of Old School Presbyterianism.
Anyway, if you want to add as to the OCP church locator, great! (See link above; also see http://www.reformation2germany.org).
I do appreciate you website very much! Thanks for the work and good, courageous articles.
Following on Sebastian’s comment, I assume he was offering that to suggest a church to add to your locator on the right. I’m curious, Andy, do you want to list there only “new” OSPs, celebrating them as being “built” per the hopes of the blog? Or are you also open to listing older ones, to both serve as models and to help folks when they may be traveling or moving?
If the latter is true,I hope you may consider adding Chalcedon Presbyterian in Cumming GA (http://www.chalcedon.org) and indeed perhaps listing the RPCUS denomination (http://www.rpcus.com) as all being in the fold of OSP churches.
Having read the list of principles in the introductory entry, these all apply (even point 4). And having read many of the entries, we would be in agreement on them (yes, I am a member of Chalcedon), and of course we also love and promote great men of the OSP past like Dabney and Thornwell. 🙂
Thanks for all that you do, here, on the Warfield list, and elsewhere, in the service of Christ our king and for His bride, the church.
Any “Old School” churches in the Verona, VA or surrounding area?
Why don’t you answer ?