We are a community of believers in Jesus Christ who invite and welcome all people to discover and deepen their relationship with God through the study of and submission to God’s Word, responding in a life of worship unto Him, and living faithfully in a biblical community with one another. With an emphasis on equipping our people for ministry inside and outside the church, we reach wide to join on God’s mission by sharing the Gospel and demonstrating His love to our neighbors, to our city, and to the ends of the earth.
The Triune God: We believe in one God, eternally existing in three equally divine Persons: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who know, love, and glorify one another. This one true and living God is infinitely perfect both in his love and in his holiness. He is the Creator of all things, visible and invisible, and is therefore worthy to receive all glory and adoration. Immortal and eternal, he perfectly and exhaustively knows the end from the beginning, sustains and sovereignly rules over all things, and providentially brings about his eternal good purposes to redeem a people for himself and unite all things in Christ, to the praise of his glorious grace.
The Word of God: We believe the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments, to be the verbally inspired Word of God. It is the final authority for doctrine, practice, and life, and all believers are to study and to apply its teachings to their lives. It is free of error in the original writings, and in all it teaches.
God the Father: We believe in God the Father, the Creator of heaven and earth. He daily sustains all His creation. He rules overall and, together with the Son and the Spirit, is the only Sovereign. His plans and purposes cannot be thwarted. He is faithful to every promise, works all things together for good to those who love Him, and, in His unfathomable grace, gave His Son, Jesus Christ, for mankind’s redemption. He made all things for the praise of His glory and intends for mankind, in particular, to live in fellowship with Himself.
God the Son: Jesus Christ: We believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, who became man without ceasing to be God, was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary in order that He might image God and redeem sinful mankind. We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished our redemption through His death on the cross as a sinless, substitutionary sacrifice, and that our justification is made sure by His literal, physical resurrection from the dead. We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ ascended into heaven and is now exalted at the right hand of God where, as our High Priest, He fulfills the ministry as Representative, Intercessor, and Advocate. We believe Jesus is coming again to judge the living and the dead: some to eternity with Him and some to eternal punishment. He is the Head of His body and the Church and should be adored, loved, served and obeyed by all.
God the Holy Spirit: We believe that the Holy Spirit is the person who convicts the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. Through the proclamation of the gospel, He is the agent of regeneration by making men alive to repent of their sins and confess Jesus as Lord. He dwells in all the regenerate, teaching, comforting, encouraging, and leading people in progressive sanctification. To those made alive by the Spirit, He gives gifts for the purpose of strengthening and equipping the Body of Christ. He is to be respected, honored, and worshipped as God, the Third Person of the Trinity.
Mankind: Sin: We believe that mankind was perfectly created in the image and likeness of God, with the result being an innate dignity worthy of respect. But, tempted by Satan, mankind rebelled, and sinned against God causing the fall. Mankind now inherits a sinful nature, and is alienated from God. Mankind is totally depraved and of himself utterly unable to remedy his lost condition. All are in need of redemption, restoration, forgiveness of sin, and reconciliation to God.
Salvation: The Gospel: We believe that the Gospel is the good news of salvation in what God has graciously accomplished to reconcile all things to Himself through the sinless life, sacrificial death, and bodily resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ, namely the forgiveness from sin and complete justification before God. Christ’s death is a substitutionary and propitiatory sacrifice to God for our sins. It satisfies the demands of God’s holy justice and appeases His holy wrath, and demonstrates the unfathomable depths of God’s love for sinful people. There is no other name by which men must be saved. The proper response to the gospel is faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ, a faith that is naturally accompanied by repentance from sin.
Salvation, the free gift of God, is provided by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Anyone turning from sin in repentance and looking to Christ and His substitutionary death receives the gift of eternal life and is declared righteous by God as a free gift. The righteousness of Christ is imputed to him. He is justified and fully accepted by God. Through Christ’s atonement for sin, an individual is reconciled to God as Father and becomes His child. The believer is forgiven the debt of his sin and via the miracle of regeneration, liberated from the law of sin and death into the freedom of God’s Spirit.
Sanctification: We believe that, once justified, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit we begin a progressive sanctification. He seeks to produce fruit in us as we are transformed into the image of Jesus Christ. This happens as the believer prays, worships, serves, studies the Bible, strives in obedience, repents from sin, and is in relationship with God’s people. This progressive sanctification will be made complete only upon the believer’s death or on the return of Christ.
Ministry and Spiritual Gifts: We believe that the baptism of the Holy Spirit occurs at conversion and is the placing of the believer into the Body of Christ. The Holy Spirit desires to continually fill each believer with power to witness and imparts spiritual gifts on every believer. It is, however, the believer’s responsibility to attempt to develop their sovereignly given spiritual gift(s). We also believe that particular spiritual gift(s) are neither essential, nor prove the presence of the Holy Spirit, nor are an indication of deep spiritual experience. We believe that it is the privilege and responsibility of every believer to minister according to the gift(s) and grace of God that is given to him.
The Church: We believe that the church, which is the body and bride of Christ, is a spiritual organism made up of all born-again persons. The Church is not a religious institution or denomination. We believe that the establishment and continuance of local churches is clearly taught and defined in the New Testament Scriptures. The local church is a community of believers who confess Jesus Christ as Lord. In obedience to Scripture they organize under qualified leadership, gather regularly for preaching and worship, observe the biblical sacraments (ordinances) of Baptism and Communion, are unified by the Spirit, are pursuing growth in Christ, and go to fulfill the Great Commandment (Acts 1:8) and the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20) as missionaries to the world for God’s glory and their joy.
The Consummation: The consummation of all things includes the future, physical, visible, personal, and glorious return of Jesus Christ, the resurrection of the dead and the translation of those alive in Christ, the judgment of the just and the unjust, and the fulfillment of Christ’s kingdom in the new heavens and the new earth. In the consummation, Satan, with his hosts and all those outside Christ, is finally separated from the benevolent presence of God, enduring eternal punishment, but the righteous, in glorious bodies, shall live and reign with Him forever, serving Him and giving Him unending praise and glory. Then shall the eager expectation of creation be fulfilled, and the whole earth shall proclaim the glory of God, who makes all things new.
