Providence Church is a member of the federation of Canadian Reformed Churches. We are a young congregation, our first worship service took place June 24, 2007.

As a Protestant church, our roots are in the Great Reformation that took place almost 500 years ago. God raised up men such as Martin Luther in Germany, John Calvin in France and Switzerland, and John Knox in Britain to return the Church to obedience to the Word of God. That Reformation spread throughout Europe, including the Netherlands, where the Reformed faith thrived, resulting in many Reformed churches.

After World War II, there was a large increase in people from the Netherlands who immigrated to Canada and the USA. The Canadian Reformed Churches came into being with these immigrants. The first Canadian Reformed congregation was instituted on April 16, 1950 in Coaldale, Alberta. Today, our federation includes over 50 congregations and some 15,000 members. As some may consider us a "Dutch" church, it might be good to mention that while a majority of the members are descended from these Dutch immigrants, we are thoroughly Canadian and have members from diverse cultural backgrounds.

God's Word is Our Guide

As a federation, our churches believe that the Holy Scripture or the Bible is the Word of God. This Word is:

 * inspired by God the Holy Spirit
 * infallible, that is, completely reliable and trustworthy
 * inerrant, being without error, contradiction or misrepresentation
 * sufficient, revealing all that we need to believe in order to be saved

This Word is the final rule of faith and life in our churches. The Word functions as the basis for all authority in our churches.

Creeds and Confessions

We also have a set of human documents that serve to help us in our interpretation of Scripture. Of the many summaries of Christian doctrine that have been written, our churches have chosen to adopt three creeds and three confessions.

The ecumenical creeds come to us from the early church. They are the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed and the Athanasian Creed. The confessions, known as the Three Forms of Unity, have come to us from the Reformation of the sixteenth century. They are the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism and the Canons of Dort.

We consider these creeds and confessions to be faithful summaries of the Word of God. Since they are human documents, however, they do not possess the same authority that Scripture possesses. Only the Word of God possesses divine authority. The creeds and confessions possess human authority and are always subject to and are tested by the standard of the Word of God.