A church in Glendale, Arizona posted its About Us page on the internet and assumed nobody would read it carefully. That was a mistake.
Pella Communities describes itself as "a gathering body of believers" committed to "gospel proclamation and community presence." It says it is grounded "first and foremost in the Scriptures." It uses warm, inviting language. It sounds like every other church website you have ever read.
And then you look at what they actually wrote. Not what they meant to communicate. What they committed to print. When you test this page against the text it claims to be grounded in, the cracks are not subtle. They are structural.
Their lead pastor, Sean, has said plainly: "We are Calvinists, but do not want to be known that way."
That sentence tells you everything you need to know before you read a single line of their theology. They know the label creates resistance. So they hide it. That is not humility. That is marketing. And it is the first sign that what follows deserves a closer read.
Let's give it one.
"Inspired by the Spanish Mission Model"
This is the second sentence in their mission statement. It appears before a single word about Scripture, Yeshua, Torah, or covenant.
The Spanish missions were instruments of colonization. In the American Southwest, Franciscan missions forced indigenous populations into labor, stripped them of their languages and spiritual practices, punished resistance with violence, and operated as extensions of the Spanish crown. The mission system in Arizona, where Pella Communities sits, is directly connected to the displacement and subjugation of the O'odham, Yavapai, and other peoples whose land the church now occupies.
To claim the Spanish mission model as inspiration, in Arizona, without a single word of acknowledgment, is either ignorance of the history or indifference to it. Neither is an acceptable foundation for a community that claims to follow a Jewish rabbi who said, "Whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did for me" (Matthew 25:40).
A refuge for those in need, they say. The missions were the need.
"Grounded First and Foremost in the Scriptures"
Read the next sentence: "We also have great respect for the lives and faith of those who have gone before us. Both the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed provide an overview of the essentials of our Christian faith."
Scripture is first, they say. Then in the same breath, the creeds define "the essentials."
The Apostles' Creed was not written by apostles. It is a later summary, dated no earlier than the fourth century. The Nicene Creed was produced at the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, a council convened by Emperor Constantine, not by a prophet, not by an apostle, not by a Torah scholar. A Roman emperor decided what the church would believe about God, and the product of that decision is what Pella calls "foundational."
Scripture is not first here. It is first in the sentence and second in practice. The creeds function as the interpretive lens through which Scripture is read. The text is subordinated to the tradition before the reader gets past the introduction.
"Corrupted in Every Aspect of Their Being"
Under "The Fall," Pella states: "All human beings are alienated from God, corrupted in every aspect of their being (e.g., physically, mentally, volitionally, emotionally, spiritually) and condemned finally and irrevocably to death."
This is total depravity. The first petal of TULIP. Augustine's framework, systematized by Calvin, presented here as biblical truth.
The proof texts they cite are Genesis 3, Genesis 6:9, Romans 5:12, and Jeremiah 9:23. Not one of those passages says what this statement claims.
Genesis 3 describes the consequence of disobedience: exile from the garden, pain in childbirth, toil in the ground, mortality. It does not say the human being is "corrupted in every aspect." Genesis 6:9 says Noah was "righteous in his generation." If total depravity were the condition of all humanity at all times, Noah's righteousness is incoherent within their own framework.
The Hebrew model is not total corruption. It is yetzer, inclination. Every person has a yetzer hatov (inclination toward good) and a yetzer hara (inclination toward evil). Torah's entire purpose is to instruct the human being in choosing well. If the human faculty of choice were totally corrupted, Torah would be pointless. HaShem does not give instruction to beings incapable of following it.
Deuteronomy 30:19 is direct: "I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life." Choose. The verb is bachar. It requires a functioning will. Total depravity makes that verse incoherent.
They are not teaching Scripture. They are teaching Augustine wearing a Scripture reference.
"From All Eternity God Determined in Grace to Save a Great Multitude"
Under "The Plan of God": "We believe that from all eternity God determined in grace to save a great multitude of guilty sinners from every tribe and language and people and nation, and to this end foreknew them and chose them."
This is unconditional election. TULIP's second petal. The claim that God, before anyone was born, selected who would be saved and who would not.
They cite Romans 10:13 as a supporting text. Romans 10:13 says: "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."
Everyone. Pas in Greek. Not "the elect." Not "those foreknown." Everyone. The verse they use to support limited election explicitly states the opposite. Either they did not read it, or they are hoping you will not.
Ezekiel 18:23 settles the character question: "Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign LORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?" The Hebrew is shuv, to turn, to return. HaShem's desire is not the damnation of the unchosen. It is the return of all.
"Eternal Conscious Punishment in Hell, as Our Lord Himself Taught"
Under "Things to Come," Pella states belief in "the bodily resurrection of both the just and the unjust, the unjust to judgment and eternal conscious punishment in hell, as our Lord Himself taught."
"As our Lord Himself taught." That is the claim. Let's test it.
Yeshua used the word Gehenna, not "hell." Gehenna is a real place. The Valley of Hinnom, south of Yerushalayim (Jerusalem). In the Tanakh, it was the site where children were sacrificed to Molech (2 Kings 23:10, Jeremiah 7:31). It became a symbol of judgment and destruction.
The Hebrew concept of the afterlife is Sheol, the grave, the place of the dead. It is not a realm of eternal conscious torment. It is the end. Psalm 6:5: "Among the dead no one proclaims your name. Who praises you from the grave?"
"Eternal conscious punishment" is a doctrinal conclusion drawn from one contested Greek phrase in Matthew 25:46, kolasis aionios. Kolasis means correction or pruning, not torture. Aionios means age-long, pertaining to an age, not necessarily "everlasting" in the modern English sense. The phrase is debated among serious scholars. Pella presents it as settled and attributes it directly to Yeshua. That is not scholarship. It is assertion dressed as exegesis.
"The Sixty-Six Books of the Old and New Testaments"
Under "Revelation": "We believe that God has inspired the words preserved in the Scriptures, the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments."
Sixty-six. Stated as if the number were revealed from heaven.
The canon was debated for centuries. The book of Hebrews was disputed. Revelation was nearly excluded. James was questioned by Luther himself. The Ethiopian canon includes 81 books. The Catholic canon includes 73. The Protestant 66-book canon is a product of tradition and council decisions, not divine decree.
To state "sixty-six books" as the definitive Word of God is to present a human editorial decision as a settled theological fact. It is a tradition. Not a text.
"Husbands Exercising Headship"
Under "Creation of Humanity," Pella constructs a complementarian framework: "The husband exercising headship in a way that displays the caring, sacrificial love of Christ, and the wife submitting to her husband in a way that models the love of the church for her Lord."
They cite Genesis 1:27-28 as their anchor. Genesis 1:27-28 says: "So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.'"
There is no hierarchy in that verse. None. Male and female, both in the image of God, both given the same mandate. The hierarchy they describe comes from a specific reading of Sha'ul (Paul) filtered through the complementarian tradition, not from Genesis.
The word for the woman in Genesis 2:18 is ezer kenegdo. Ezer appears 21 times in the Tanakh. In 16 of those instances, it describes HaShem Himself as Israel's helper. It is a word of strength, rescue, and power. Kenegdo means "corresponding to," "facing," "equal and opposite." The woman is not a subordinate. She is a counterpart of equal force.
Pella cited a verse that does not support their claim and built a hierarchy the Hebrew text does not contain.
"You Should Belong to a Church"
Under Membership: "Here at Pella, we believe that you should belong to a church. Whether that is here at Pella or elsewhere, you should know and be known by where you call home."
Scripture says belong to the qahal, the covenant assembly. A gathering of people bound together by shared covenant with HaShem. The qahal is a relationship, not a membership roll.
"Why aren't you a member already?" they ask. That is not an invitation. It is a sales close. It assumes that attending, serving, and being present is not enough until you have formalized your belonging in the institution's terms. The early ekklesia in Acts 2 had no membership application. They broke bread. They shared life. They were known by their love, not their enrollment status.
This section tells you more about the institution's needs than about HaShem's design.
What Is Not on This Page
This is the finding that matters most.
Read the entire About Us page of Pella Communities. Every word. Then search for these terms:
Torah. Not there.
Covenant. Not there.
Israel. Appears once, in a doctrinal paragraph about Yeshua being "the promised Messiah of Israel." Nowhere else.
Passover. Not there.
Shabbat. Not there.
The Feasts. Not there.
Hebrew. Not there.
Jewish. Not there.
They have built an entire belief system about a Jewish Messiah, grounded in Jewish Scriptures, fulfilled through Jewish covenants, and removed every trace of His Judaism.
Yeshua kept the feasts. He observed Shabbat. He wore tzitzit. He taught Torah. He was circumcised on the eighth day. He quoted Moshe more than any other source. His last meal was a Pesach Seder. His death corresponds to the slaughter of the Passover lamb. His resurrection falls during the Feast of Firstfruits.
None of this exists on Pella's page. What remains is a theological system that floats free of its own roots. A Jesus disconnected from Yeshua. A faith disconnected from the covenant that gave it meaning.
That is not an oversight. It is the finished product of two thousand years of institutional drift. And they have no idea they are exhibit A.
Where I Stand
Pella Communities is not unique. This page could belong to hundreds of churches in the American Southwest. That is precisely the problem. The errors are so normalized that they no longer register as errors. They register as orthodoxy.
They hide their Calvinism because they know it creates resistance. They invoke the Spanish mission model without reckoning with its violence. They say Scripture is first and then let the creeds define the essentials. They teach total depravity from verses that do not say it. They cite Romans 10:13 to support a doctrine that Romans 10:13 explicitly contradicts. They present "eternal conscious torment" as the words of Yeshua when Yeshua said Gehenna. They build a gender hierarchy from a verse that contains none. They equate belonging to God's people with institutional membership. And they have erased every trace of the Jewishness of the faith they claim to follow.
None of this survives a word study. None of it survives contact with the original languages. None of it survives being read by someone who has been trained to check.
That is what this category exists to do.
Selah
If your church posted its beliefs online, would the original text survive the scrutiny, or would the tradition collapse under its own weight?
How many of the doctrines you hold as "biblical" have you actually traced back to the Hebrew, and how many did you inherit from a system that told you not to ask?
If Pella's page mirrors your church's page almost word for word, what does that tell you about where your theology actually came from?
And if a church has to hide what it believes in order to attract you, what exactly are they inviting you into?
Shalom v'shalvah, your brother in the Way,
Sergio
