WHAT WE BELIEVE

We believe in God as revealed in the Bible: one true, holy, sovereign God, eternally existing in three persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, – each of Whom is fully God, possessing distinct personality. God is the all-powerful, all-knowing Creator and Sustainer, present everywhere at all times He is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in holiness, justice, mercy, love, power, wisdom, and truth. By His providence He is working throughout history to fulfill His redemptive purposes.

We believe God the Father, the first Person of the Trinity, orders and disposes all things according to His purpose and grace. The Father initiates relationship, salvation, and reconciliation with all mankind, and serves as the sending agent out of the Godhead. The Father is always at work, drawing to Himself through Jesus. His fatherhood involves both His designation within the Trinity and His relationship with mankind. As Creator, He is Father to all mankind, but He is spiritual Father only to believers, adopting them into His family. No one can come to the Father except through Jesus.

We believe Jesus, the Christ, is fully human and fully God, the two natures being distinct, unchangeable, indivisible, and inseparable. He exists eternally with and equal to the Father, and is the Maker, Sustainer, and Lord over all. He is the only begotten Son of the Father, conceived of the Holy Spirit, and born of the virgin, Mary. Jesus lived a sinless human life and offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice for the sins of all people by suffering and dying on the cross. He is the Savior and the one Mediator between God and man, as Prophet, Priest, and King. He has been proven to be the Son of God by His deeds, fulfillment of the law and prophecy, crucifixion, bodily resurrection, and ascension. He is seated at the right hand of the Father, interceding and advocating for His people, and will return to the earth on a day and time known only to the Father to bring about the completion of His kingdom.

We believe the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity and truly divine in all His attributes. He was and is active and working, bringing into being God’s will. He was sent into the world by the Father and the Son to apply to mankind the saving work of Christ. The Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. It is the Holy Spirit who brings about the work of regeneration and sanctification in the believer. At the point of salvation, He permanently indwells every believer and is their source of assurance, strength, and wisdom, guiding and empowering them for Christ-like living. He uniquely endows each believer with gifts for the building up of the church body. The Holy Spirit guides believers in understanding and applying the Scripture, which He inspired. We are called to walk in the Spirit to bring about the obedience of faith, bearing fruit to the glory of the Father.

We believe God created the heavens and the earth and everything in them. God created mankind in His image and likeness, male and female, to walk in relationship with Him and to glorify, love, worship, and obey Him. God declared that all of His creation was very good. God blessed mankind and charged them with multiplying throughout the earth. Mankind is to exercise dominion over creation and bring order through the development and maintenance of family, work, government, and culture and to carry God’s model and work of the Garden of Eden, which reflects His character and nature, into the rest of the world.

We believe that Adam and Eve, due to Satan’s deception, freely chose to disobey God in eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. By this, they broke relationship with God and brought physical and spiritual death and decay into all creation and suffered the consequences of their disobedience. As a result, mankind is corrupt by nature - we sin both because of our choice and because we carry the nature of sin within us as the offspring of Adam and Eve. Because each of us are sinners, we are condemned to die in our sin, sealing our eternal destiny.

We believe the central purpose of God’s revelation is to call all people into fellowship with Him through repentance of sin. In spite of mankind’s sinful nature, God continued to love them and desired to restore the relationship which they forfeited with Him by their sin. God sent His Son Jesus Christ to be the atoning sacrifice on the cross, shedding His blood for the forgiveness of our sin and being resurrected for our redemption to be Lord and Savior for all who believe in and receive Him. Therefore, those who receive Christ are in Christ, with Christ in them, and are no longer under the condemnation they deserve. They are set apart to walk in the newness of life as adopted children of God, being given the righteousness of Christ and the promised Holy Spirit, with the hope of eternity with Him. This salvation is entirely a work of God’s free grace, not the result, in whole or in part, of human works or goodness, but received by faith alone, which itself is a gift from God.

We believe Scripture, composed of the 66 books of the New and Old Testaments of the Holy Bible, is God-breathed. He has accurately preserved His word from the original manuscripts. The Bible is God’s inerrant, infallible, authoritative, and final word of truth, useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness so that we may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. Scripture contains the complete revelation of God’s will for the salvation of mankind.

We believe God calls us to be holy, because He is holy. The process of becoming holy, known as sanctification, is God’s will for every believer. This is a work of God through the power of the Holy Spirit and Scripture, rooted in relationship with the local church body, making the believer more and more Christ-like. The Holy Spirit indwells the believer at the moment of their conversion and regeneration. He then begins the progressive work of bringing the believer to total commitment and dedication to holiness and Christ-like character and living, a process that is completed upon our glorification.

We believe the church is the bride of Christ. Jesus has ordained His church as the representative of His kingdom here on earth, to be in the world but not of the world. We are to gather together regularly for the purpose of building up and preserving the body of believers to carry out God’s plan of redemption. As believers, we are called to make disciples, to love one another, to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ, and to teach and admonish one another with the wisdom that comes from the Word of Christ dwelling in us richly. The church is both the family of God, with members being adopted as children by the Father and living as brothers and sisters of Christ, and also the body of Christ, with Christ as the head and each member being a part and fulfilling their individual function. The local body is shepherded through the Holy Spirit by the elders collectively. Under the authority and accountability of Jesus as the Chief Shepherd, elders exercise judgment in matters of doctrine, faith, practice, and the discipline of believers.

TWO ORDINANCES

Instituted by Christ, taught by the apostles, practiced by the early church

#1: BAPTISM

We believe that baptism in water of a professing believer is the biblical baptism, done in obedience to the example and command of Christ, which we practice by immersion. This one common baptism into Christ is symbolic of our union with Him in His death, burial, and resurrection and the putting off of the old person and the putting on of the new. Although it is a one-time event, it is a tool of grace used by the Holy Spirit to continually remind us of the benefits that come with our union with Christ.

#2: THE LORD’S SUPPER

We believe the Lord’s Supper is the remembrance that Christ’s body was sacrificed and His blood of the new covenant was shed for the remission of our sins, and it proclaims the Lord’s death until He returns. This remembrance cannot take place without faith and must be done so in a worthy manner, examining and judging yourself soberly, recognizing the sacrifice of Christ and not walking in hypocrisy.

We believe that at a time known only to the Father, Jesus Christ will return to the earth in His glorified body, an event for which we are called to be continually ready. He will return in fulfillment of prophecy to judge all people of all time, and to reign over all creation as King of kings and Lord of lords. Until that time, death seals the eternal destiny of each person, with believers immediately entering into the presence of God. For all mankind, there will be a physical resurrection and a judgment that will determine the eternal fate of each individual. For all believers, there will be a complete redemption of the body for the new heavens and the new earth. Satan, sin, and death will suffer their ultimate defeat. Believers will be with God in the fullness of peace and joy as God intended in the Garden of Eden, no longer hindered in our worship by the limitations of our present situation, and will be rewarded for works done in this life. Unbelievers will be separated from God into the eternal condemnation of hell. The new heavens and earth, and hell, are real places of eternal existence.