Common Questions

We design our gatherings to be filled with God’s Word and showcase God’s glory in Christ. We begin with a ”Call to Worship” and end with a “Benediction”—both quoting from the Scriptures. In between the opening and closing are biblically shaped prayers and hymns (both old and new), the reading of Scripture, and the sermon—the centerpiece of our church’s worship. We pray that our worship together is a wholehearted response to God’s redeeming grace in Christ.

We understand biblical preaching to be the very lifeblood of a church. After all, it’s the Word that gives and sustains spiritual life! While we occasionally have sermons on a theme or topic, the main diet of our preaching ministry is “Christ-Centered Expositional Preaching” (preaching that exposes the meaning and application of a particular text of Scripture). It’s our conviction that preaching straight through books of the Bible best forms followers of Jesus. And since all the Scriptures are fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus Christ, good expositional preaching also highlights the gospel and calls people to faith in Christ. All of that to say, you should expect a lot of the Bible in our sermons!

Check out our Sermon Archive to sort and listen to our sermons by series, Scripture, speaker, and topic.

Yes! Our Nursery (0–3 years) is offered for the entire service. Before the sermon starts, we will dismiss kids 4 years–3rd Grade for the Gospel Project (an age-appropriate curriculum that progressively leads our children through God’s story of redemption). All of our RGC Kids Volunteers submit to background and reference checks and receive abuse prevention training. We work hard to provide a safe, secure, and fun environment for your children to learn about Jesus!

For sure! Our Youth Group (6th–12th Grade) meets every other Wednesday night for fun and Bible teaching. Our teens also participate in Summer and Winter Camps with other like-minded churches in Arizona.

Yes, we gather together on the 2nd and 4th Sunday evenings of the month at 5:00 PM. The 4th Sunday is always a Prayer Meeting, and the 2nd Sunday alternates between Prayer and a Members’ Meeting (which is kind of like a ”family business” meeting).

Yes, our community group ministry—called “House-to-House”—is designed to foster fellowship, spiritual care, and discipleship among our church family. Our groups meet every other week at homes throughout the Southwest Valley.

We are an elder-led, congregational church. This means that while our elders teach the Word, oversee the church, and equip our members for the work of ministry, the congregation itself bears King Jesus’ authority in matters related to our church’s doctrine and membership.

Yes! We’re a founding church in the Grove Church Planting Network, which seeks to establish healthy churches in Arizona. Also, we happily partner with churches in the The Gospel Coalition Arizona, a regional network led by our senior pastor, Jon.

No, Redeeming Grace Church and Vastago Epicentro Phoenix are distinct churches that share the same facility. Given the lack of church spaces in the Southwest Valley, we’re thankful for Vastago Epicentro’s cheerful open-handedness to let us gather there!

If you're looking for a church with state-of-the-art production and a long menu of customized programs, RGC may disappoint you. While we deeply value excellence, we'll channel our best energies toward fostering an ecosystem of church cultures—evangelism, discipling, hospitality, encouragement—rather than an array of church programs. We don’t want our church to turn into a spiritual drive-thru, a mere purveyor of religious goods and services. Nor do we want to endlessly subdivide the congregation along demographic lines. Our collective central identity, after all, is the whole gathering and not the small groupings. Because spiritual growth can't be manufactured, we'll orient congregational life around the ordinary means of grace, emphasizing personal initiative and life-on-life relationships—with corporate worship as both centerpiece and springboard for all we are and do.

Yes, we do! But remember, church membership isn't like joining a club to benefit from its goods and services like Costco or your local gym. In fact, we get the word "membership" from Paul's body metaphor in 1 Corinthians 12:12–27, in which members of the body are mutually committed to the spiritual good of each other.

The New Testament vision for the Christian life is the "churched" life! When believers are baptized into Christ, they enter the life of the people of God in the local church. And then, those who are baptized renew their participation in the body by regularly receiving the Lord's Supper together. Baptism binds the one to the many, and the Lord's Supper makes the many one body. The life of love and commitment that's implied by these ordinances and commanded by the New Testament is what we call "church membership." Through our life together as members of RGC, we prayerfully work to protect and display the gospel of King Jesus.

Any believer baptized after his/her profession of faith who: 1) has a credible Christian testimony, 2) affirms our Statement of Faith, and 3) is eager to covenant together with our church in Christian love is welcome to be part of our church family.

Our membership process is straightforward. First, attend our membership class, RGC Foundations, held periodically throughout the year (email jon@rgcaz.org for info on the next class). Second, schedule a membership conversation with an RGC elder. We want to hear how you became a Christian, understand the gospel, and further communicate expectations for our faith family. The final step in the process is congregational affirmation at one of our Members' Meetings.

We celebrate the Lord's Supper together once a month, on the 1st Sunday of each month.

Celebration of the Lord's Supper is reserved for those who have professed faith in Jesus Christ and have been baptized as believers into the New Covenant community, the church. Most specifically, the Lord's Supper highlights the communion of believers in Christ as a local church. However, if you are a member in good standing of another local church that preaches the same gospel that RGC does, we would welcome you to the Lord's Table as a sign of our fellowship in Christ.

The heart of Christianity isn't a code of ethics or a religious form but a Person. Christianity centers on the person and work of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the centerpiece of the story of redemption that runs throughout the Bible, God's revelation to us. From the initial pages of Genesis to the final chapters of Revelation, the Scriptures reveal God's intention to redeem lost humanity and set right all the brokenness of this world, all through King Jesus.

The story begins with a good Creator who made humanity to live in a perfect relationship with him. But Adam's sin and disobedience severed that relationship and shattered that perfection, introducing suffering and death into the world. However, God didn't give up on humanity, even though he had every right in judgment to do so. In unfathomable love, God sent his Son, Jesus, to save us from the eternal penalty of our sins and restore us to a right relationship with God.

Many think of Jesus as merely a wise teacher or moral example, but that's not how Jesus described himself, nor is it how the authors of the New Testament describe him. Instead, the Bible reveals Jesus to be the very Son of God incarnate, who came to fulfill all God's promises of salvation contained in the Old Testament and restore God's saving reign, reversing the curse of our Fall into sin and death.

The four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John contain eyewitness testimony to Jesus' life and ministry, his death, and his resurrection. During his ministry, Jesus demonstrated his divine authority and validated his divine claims by performing miracles, healing the sick, and forgiving sins.

But instead of being worshipped by all for his goodness, he was betrayed by one of his closest friends and brutally crucified on a Roman cross. Yet, the Bible reveals Jesus' death to be far more than a human miscarriage of justice. The cross was the climax of God's plan to rescue us. On the cross, God satisfied his own perfect justice for our sin so that he could mercifully forgive us and make us new. Jesus didn't die because he was a sinner and deserved God' judgment. He died to be our sin-bearer because we deserve God's judgment.

However, Jesus' death is far from the end of the story. On the third day after being crucified, Jesus rose from the dead – vindicating his innocence, demonstrating God's acceptance of his sacrifice, and proving the dominating power of sin and death is forever broken for all who repent of their sins trust in Jesus to save.

One day, Jesus will come again to bring to full completion the saving work that he began in his first coming. And just like at the cross, it will be salvation through judgment. He will crush death to death, eradicate the presence of sin, judge all those still in their sins, and usher in a world of eternal joy and peace and life prepared for God's people – the New Creation.

Salvation is a gift of grace you can only receive through faith in Christ. It's free to you because it cost him everything.

And yet, to embrace Jesus by faith requires that you make a break from your rebellion against God. You must turn from your sins to trust in Jesus alone to save you. If you'll give your life to King Jesus and follow him by faith, it will be evidence that God has begun to transform your life through his Spirit. God will make you new from the inside out, progressively in this life and completely in the life to come.

So friend, how will you respond to Jesus? If he indeed is the resurrected King, he's the Lord of heaven and earth to whom every knee will one day bow. Submitting your life to Jesus by faith is hard. It requires deep humility. But it is infinitely worth it!

Remember Jesus' words: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it (Mark 8:34-35).

If you have any questions about Christianity or would like another Christian to explain the gospel to you further, please email info@rgcaz.org.