Welcome to the First Puritan Assembly of Fort Worth
a church in the Reformed Tradition of the Calvinist, the Particular Baptist, and the Presbyterian
The Reverend Dr. Thomas Solín, V.D.M., Senior Pastor
pastor@firstpuritan.com (or) 817-879-0021 (human, text & voicemail)
This new version of the website will become fully operational when we begin our new worship schedule on Saturday, 15 April (Rye Chapel) and Sunday, 16 April (Tavolo Park); please refer to the Chuch Calendar for details. Links to additional content on this website will be added as it becomes available. In the meantime, please let us know if you find yourself being called to serve God and this ministry on a launch team or on a short crew of Elders of both men and women. The work is much, the time is short, the hands are few . . . and it will matter for eternity.
If you’re going to be with us solely online, give us a shout so we’ll know that you’re out there and so you can have access to a slightly different version—all the goods but without the clutter, plus a few extras. And then, after taking a look, let us know how we can better involve you in our ministry programs even if you can’t be with us to worship (and eat) in person!
Dear Brother/Sister
Where art thou? It is how the Lord God called to Adam in the Garden of Eden; it is the first question recorded in Scripture.
This was not God calling for information. It is God revealing that He seeks “us” even when we hide from Him; it is God calling us to allow Him to make right what was made wrong by our hearts and hands; it is God calling Adam (man) to come forth to admit his sin, to be forgiven, and to be healed.
We use the same to invite you to our Assembly. Whether you are a religious fanatic or wondering why God hasn’t answered your prayers or asking if God even exists, please know that you have a home at First Puritan.
Nevermind about the worship or the prayer; begin with an e-mail or phone call and then come to eat and make merry with us—without worrying about commitment or obligation or about what you’re supposed to “do.”
(Regarding the practical side of “what to do” next—where to go, when to come, where to park, what’s going to happen after you arrive, how you get to the food, etc.—visit “12 Steps to Jesus“).
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COVID-19, and the subsequent attempts by the government to keep people from physically assembling in our houses of worship, led many congregations to restructure their ministries. As in all times of trial throughout history, the Church emerges stronger than before. The Elect are energized; the never-saved succumb to its inconvenience and fall away from walking the path of our Lord Jesus.
And so, thanks to COVID and to so many occasions to worship in smaller groups in “house churches,” we’ve discovered our collective passion for working around the cookstove and our interest in “food ministry.”
Charles Spurgeon, the great 19th-century preacher (a Particular Baptist-Calvinist), taught that so often the best way to call people to Christ is through a ham sandwich. So come for the ham sandwich, or for the (French) coq au vin and roasted banana soufflé, or the (Moroccan) chicken over pistachio-pomegranate couscous, or the (French) sous-vide tarragon-braised lamb shank and roasted root vegetables, or the (New England) lobster thermidor, or the (Czech) roast goose with cranberry dumplings.
Each and every one of us is a sinner and, while we may not agree in theology or politics or lifestyle, all of us like to eat. And so everyone is welcome to “come-as-you-are” to the house of God to hear what He has to say.
There is but one caveat. We are not here to “argue” about what God says; we’re here to hear what God says. If you would like to know where the promise or the prohibition appears in Scripture, I would be happy to direct you to the location; if you wish simply to argue so that you can “have it your way,” I’ll ask that you and God take it out to the schoolyard.
And so, welcome aboard! Step one is simply to show up—without any obligation—to see “what’s going on in what’s going on”; step two is to “eat.” And then you can go home to think about “step three.”
Give us the opportunity to feed your belly as we feed your soul! And let us show you what it means to visit with the area’s friendliest Christian community of food connoisseurs.
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In addition to being available to you 24/7 by e-mail, text, and human, we meet as a small conventicle¹ on the Sabbath on the west side of Fort Worth for a midday service (at “six bells,” 11:00 a.m.) and for an evening service (likewise at “six bells,” 7:00 p.m.); dinner is offered after the evening service.
And, although the New England Puritans would not have celebrated these as “religious holidays,” we also meet on our twelve Particular Days of Christian Fellowship in a calendar that follows the creation of the world until its coming rebirth—Michaelmas (The Day of Good and Evil), Creation Eve, Reformation Sunday, Advent Sunday, Christmas Eve (The Fire-Burning of Our Transgressors) and Christmas Day, Epiphany (The Chalking of Doors), Wurstessen (The Affair of the Sausages), Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Resurrection Sunday and, finally, “The Mid-Summer Sunday of Baptisms and Bonfires.”
The Work
As we witness the breakdown of the moral and civic fabric of a once-great nation, we are called to stand for Christ. The call is radical and it is not for everyone, but the Lion of the Tribe of Judah will be neither canceled nor “woke’d” nor silenced.
Inside our walls:
The pulpit at First Puritan will not hesitate to preach against the cancer of evil that cripples our society, against the sins that you commit as you rewrite the Word of God for your own convenience, and against the sins that you commit behind closed doors when you think that no one is watching, not even God.
Our is a pulpit ministry devoted to bringing the non-believer to Christ, to strengthening the faith of the already-believer, and to boldly speaking the Word of God to a fallen people who worship before the altar of secular religion.
But, unlike so many of our lukewarm churches, we are committed to losing our 501(c)3 tax-exempt status as quickly as possible as we have every intent to speak against the sins of the nation and the abuses of our nation’s leaders.
Christ’s Pulpit in the Overthrow of the Standing Government
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Ours is a ministry with a focus on practical theology, with get-to-the-point discussions about sex, love, marriage & divorce, money, stress, depression, loneliness, and the uncertainty of living in a post-Christian society. It is a ministry that addresses head-on the particular concerns, issues, and questions that young adults face on a daily basis. In the main, it is a ministry of how the Word of God relates to our daily lives.
The pulpit at First Puritan is not one that preaches a modernist progressive Gospel, loathe to call out the sins of the nation and of our nation’s leaders, a pulpit too embarrassed (for fear of “offending someone”) to address the awkward questions of young adults that go beyond Jedidiah and animals two-by-two, or a pulpit too afraid to preach the Word of God for fear of being “canceled” by those who seek to conform the world to their fallen image.
If you want answers and you’re ready for hard 19th-century conservative preaching that throws political correctness under the bus and that’s not afraid to draw the line between good and evil and right and wrong according to the Word of God, or whether you’re seeking a church home of people “just like you,” or whether you’re still struggling with the question of whether God really does exist and you want to be in a place where it’s okay to even ask such a question, please know that you are welcome in this Assembly.
Outside our walls: The primary external ministry of First Puritan is “First Love: The Battle of Adultery and Divorce.”
It is a ministry devoted to the preservation and development of a lifelong Christian marriage between one man and one woman,² a ministry devoted to covenant promise, and a ministry focused on the married, the soon-to-be-married, on those thinking to become unmarried, and those separated from both spouse and God.
It is a ministry not of what God “suggests” but of what God commands may or may not be done in the matter of divorce, of what must be done if a divorce occurs, and under what circumstance the departing spouse must be received back into covenant.
It is a work that we are called to do and one that may seem impossible to do but which, in fact, is not so impossible and—even if the work were to be so impossible and is work we think cannot be done, it is still a work we are called to do.
It is a ministry that provides comfort to the injured spouse while it warns the adulteress³ who has broken her covenant—a covenant promise made before Almighty God and a covenant promise that can be neither undone nor altered.
It warns the adulteress of the sure and certain punishment that will come to her no matter how she excuses her behavior.
It reminds the adulteress of a punishment that will remain reserved for her soul even should she remarry to move on with her life in the misguided assumption that God will “forgive and forget.” Nowhere in Scripture do we find such a thing. Ever.
Likewise, its words trumpet Heaven’s ominous warning to anyone who would now lie in the arms of the divorced adulteress, condemned in his own adultery for taking what is not his to take, given by one who has no right to give.
Its words further give Heaven’s warning to those—parents, family, and friends—who have enabled or supported the illegal disunion of the covenant promise.
Its words are words of death, and of eternal darkness.
And yet its words offer the hope of unimaginable forgiveness and reconciliation after adultery and divorce, even after the murder of an unborn—a path so often thought necessary because of the adultery.
In the community: Locally, we host “Dinner-and-a-Bible” nights for those who are beginning their walk with Christ and we’re engaged in an active street ministry called the “Spurgeon Drive-By” for those in need.
We also support a prison ministry at the Noble Correctional Facility in Caldwell, Ohio, providing such commissary items as food (including the trademark ham sandwich), gloves, hats, shoes, etc.
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On the first-third-fifth Sundays of the month—we invite you to join us, on the west side of Fort Worth, for midday and evening services; chef’s dinner is offered after the evening service.
On the second and fourth Sundays—if you wish to experience the Sabbath as it was observed in the early Puritan communities, we invite you to grab a folding chair or a blanket and join us in south Texas (Rye Chapel) for Saturday’s outdoor preaching at our “Sermons under the Stars” evening service—our “ham-sandwich-and-a-lawn-chair” revival series.
Or, if your work schedule on the Sabbath leads you to the 21st-century “take-out” version of First Puritan, you can access the content of this ministry on this website. Audio files of the sermons—with text-transcriptions and extensive footnotes—are available for download to your laptop, CD, flash drive, or cell phone; you can also access the sermons and our Table-Talk panel discussions on our YouTube channel.
The Website
Please take some time to browse through our new website
The TOTS³ are still experimenting with the format; much content remains to be uploaded. If you have a suggestion or notice a typo or misspelling or missing word or broken link, please notify the TOTS at Contact Us .
In the first set of widgets (the big circles on the homepage) you’ll find accurate information about “The Puritans” as well as our “Statement of Faith & Practice.” The fourth widget links to a welcome letter from our minister.
In the second set of widgets, the first links to our conventicle worship and dinner service at Tavolo Park while the second links to our Assembly at Rye Chapel. The third links to “Ask! Anything!,” where Biblical answers are posted to anonymously asked questions submitted through the “Ask!” tab in the menu bar at the very top of the page. The fourth links to “Table Talk,” a fast-paced discussion forum that is posted on this website and on YouTube.
The third set of widgets—at the center of the homepage—links to the latest sermon given at Rye Chapel at morning, midday, and evening services; when the next lesson is posted, this particular lesson will be moved to the sermon archive (fifth set of widgets).
The fourth set of widgets links to the “State of the Assembly” address in which the minister was (and is) expected not only to explain his understanding of theology but also to set the tone of his ministry, to explain where he hopes to lead the Assembly and how his congregation is going to get there, how and where the preaching should be done, the ordinances, your role in the church, tithes & offerings, etc. Everything one would ever want to know about the workings of First Puritan is contained in this three-part address. A Table of Content is provided in the first widget of the set.
The fifth and final set of widgets links to the overflow.
Note the “Search All Topics” tab in the menu bar. This will take you to a list of all topics addressed from the pulpit, in an “Ask!” or in a “Table Talk”; these will link to a full lesson, a quick answer, or a spirited discussion among a group of women who aren’t shy about expressing their opinions.
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You can contact us through the “Contact Us” tab in the menu bar.
There is also a tab to “Register.” Registration (which does not require “membership”) will enable you, as a “registered user,” to receive church announcements related to our Tavolo Park and Rye Chapel congregations, receive invitations to our Particular Days of Christian Fellowship and other events, schedule a pastoral visit, make arrangements to receive the ordinances, rites, and covenants, and to get the skinny on our “Dinner-and-a-Bible” and “Spurgeon Drive-By” ministries as well as our work at the Noble Correctional Facility.
Registration will automatically generate a public screen name (e.g., “Lazarus” or “Martha”) and a password (something easy to remember) so that you can post anonymously to “Ask!” without anyone—not even the staff at First Puritan—knowing who’s doing the asking.
Registration will also enable us to notify you—should the government continue its silencing of the Word of God—of our back-up address hosted on a European server.
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And so welcome aboard! Put the icon for First Puritan on the home screen of your cell phone (if you need help, simply ask the TOTS at Contact Us ) so you can get in touch and keep in touch.
Contact Us if you have any questions or would like to get together for that ham sandwich and a cup of coffee.
And please let us know if you find yourself being called to serve God and this ministry on a launch team or on a short crew of Elders of both men and women. The work is much, the time is short, and the hands are few (Matthew 9:36-38).
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¹ In the time of the English Puritan, a “conventicle” was an unlawful and secret gathering of the larger Assembly in the form of a “house church,” prohibited by the English government that sought to force everyone to worship either as a Catholic or an Anglican (depending on which group held the throne). Emphasizing prayer and the reading and explanation of Scripture with its application to the lives of those present, it was the “small-enough” vehicle by which the Puritan matured in Christian faith and fellowship. In short, a “conventicle” is a church that’s at the polar end of the mega-church or even a large brick-and-mortar church—not better, not worse, just with a different focus.
² In this matter of “sins of the flesh,” how we are to treat our Brothers and Sisters in the LGBTQ+ communities is addressed in footnote 3 of “Christ’s Pulpit in the Overthrow of the Standing Government.”
³ In Scripture, the term “adultery” (as is “divorce,” “harlotry,” and “whoredom”) is used in metaphor for a turning-away from one’s First Love, God. It is used less in reference to the physical adultery of a spouse and more-oft directed toward the female bride (the Church) leaving the male bridegroom (Christ). For more, see footnote 1 in Made Whole, Elder’s Preface.
³ Having now called Prof. Solín as pastor for the reorganization of Rye Chapel, we’ve assembled our TOTs (Team of Teens) to help with the recording, managing the different websites related to our ministries, keeping the calendar, printing the bulletins, mailing materials, etc. Whether you’re a techno-wizard or simply willing to lend a hand in managing the day-to-day tasks of the church at either Tavolo Park or Rye Chapel, we’d love to have you as a part of the team. Just write directly to the TOTS at Contact Us .
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The legal stuff: Although not required in most cases, attributions and sources for all images used on this website may be found at Images. If there’s a error in attribution or licensing, etc., please notify the TOTS at Contact Us so that we may immediately address the oversight. Images on this website may not be downloaded and reposted. Remember: Thou shalt not steal!