What we believe
We stand in the ancient tradition of Christian belief expressed in The Apostle's Creed and Nicene Creeds. We also affirm the 1689 London Baptist Confession.
Regardless of what you believe, we would love to connect with you.
At our heart, we are a Christ-centered local church family who believe that God is restoring the world through King Jesus. The best way to discover how this belief shapes the life of our church is to come get to know us!
THE GOSPEL
The main theme of the entire Bible is the Gospel. Gospel means “good-news”. The Good-news is that God rescues and restores people from sin and death and adopts them into his family through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus in our place. In Christ, we are forgiven and welcomed home. Jesus died to pay, a life for a life, for our rebellion against God, He rose three days later conquering sin and death, and He works in us through his Holy Spirit to give us the fullness of life that God intended. One day God will restore and renew all of creation once and for all and “everything sad will become untrue”. The Gospel teaches that though there is nothing we can do to work our way to God, he has worked his way to us. Because of the Gospel we are invited into his family to glorify and enjoy him forever!
THE TRIUNE GOD
We believe in one God, who has existed from eternity past in three equally divine yet wholly distinct Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This one true and living God is infinitely perfect in his love and holiness. He is the Creator of all things, visible and invisible, and is therefore worthy to receive all glory and adoration. He sustains and sovereignly rules over all things, and brings about his eternal good purposes to redeem a people for himself and restore his fallen creation, to the praise of his glorious grace.
(Deuteronomy 6:4; Psalm 145:3; John 1:3; Romans 11:36; 1 Corinthians 8:4-6; 10:31; Ephesians 1:1-11; Colossians 1:16-17; 1 Timothy 1:17)
GOD, THE FATHER
We believe in The Father, who is fully God, and who, for his glory and our good, created the world out of nothing. He perfectly foreknows all that shall come to pass and invests himself in humanity; hears and answers their prayers; and by His unfathomable grace, authored salvation and gave his Son, Jesus Christ, for mankind’s redemption and adoption into his family.
(Matthew 23:9; Luke 10:21-22; John 3:16; 6.27; Romans 1:7; 1 Timothy 1:1-2; 2:5-6; 1 Peter 1:3; Revelation 1:6)
GOD, THE SON
We believe in The Son, who is fully God; the divine Word who is eternally begotten of the Father, not created. He came to earth born a human being and has been known henceforth as Jesus the Christ (anointed savior). Jesus is fully God and fully man. He was miraculously conceived by the Holy Spirit, and lived a perfect life on earth. He accomplished our salvation by shedding his blood to death upon the cross as a substitution for sinners. Through death in our place, he revealed divine love and upheld divine justice, removing our guilt and reconciling us to God. He rose bodily from the grave, victorious over Satan, sin and death. He ascended into heaven where, at God’s right hand, He rules over and intercedes for His people. At the end of the current age, he will visibly return to earth and establish his kingdom in fullness.
(Isaiah 53:10-12; Matthew 1:18-25; 20.28; Luke 1:26-38; John 1:1, 14; 20:28; Acts 1:9-11; Romans 5:6-8; 6:9-10; 1 Corinthians 15:3-4; Ephesians 1:4; Hebrews 1:1-3; 1 Timothy 2:5; 1 Peter 2:21-23)
GOD, THE HOLY SPIRIT
We believe in the Holy Spirit who is fully God, and who was sent from the Father and the Son to dwell with and in God’s people. Through the proclamation of the Gospel, he persuades us to repent of our sins and submit to Jesus as Lord. He brings about the new birth, unites us to Jesus and his church, empowers the whole body for righteous living, and gifts us for effective ministry in the world. He will lead the Church into a right understanding and rich application of God’s Word as revealed in the Scriptures.
(John 14:16-17, 26; 15:26-27; John 16:9-14; Romans 8:9, 14-17; 1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19; Galatians 5:22-26; Ephesians 1:13-14)
REVELATION & THE SCRIPTURES
We believe God’s revelation is the basis for all knowledge, morality, and beauty. He has graciously revealed his existence, power, and character through three primary means; creation, his inspired written Word, and in the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ. We believe the written Word of God, the Holy Scriptures, are necessary for a full knowledge of God. He inspired the men who wrote and preserved the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments. These writings alone constitute the verbally inspired Word of God, which is authoritative and without error in the original manuscripts, complete in its revelation of God’s will for salvation, sufficient for all that God requires us to believe and do, and final in it's authority over every domain of knowledge to which it speaks. We confess that both our finitude and our sinfulness preclude the possibility of knowing God’s truth exhaustively, but we affirm that, enlightened by the Spirit of God, we can know God’s truth truly.
(Psalm 19:7; Mark 13:31; John 20:31; Acts 20:32; 2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:20-21)
IMAGO DEI
We believe that every human being is created in the image of God, and therefore carries inherent value and dignity. In God’s wise purposes, he created humanity, and men and women especially in deeply unique ways to complement one another in their roles and to reflect the Trinity in unity amidst diversity. We believe the variety of human cultures on earth is a beautiful expression of God's creativity and character. God’s consummated Kingdom will be a place of rich diversity and cultural expression. The church is called to be a community that reflects that future Kingdom in the way we love and value one another and celebrate the beauty of our differences.
(Gen. 1:26, Gen. 9:6, Ps. 8, 1 Cor. 15:49, Eph. 2)
FALL AND SIN OF HUMANITY
We believe that though God made man and woman as the crown of creation that they might have fellowship with Him, they willfully sinned by rejecting God’s good authority in a desire to be gods themselves. This rebellion has led to physical, spiritual, emotional and relational brokenness and death; and subjugation to the dominion of sin and Satan. As a result, all of us are born with a nature that is corrupt and opposed to God. We all have a marred character, are sinners by choice, and are subject to God’s justice without excuse.
(Genesis 1:26-27; 2:17; 3:1-7, 19;; Jeremiah 17:9; Romans 3:9- 20; Ephesians 2:1-3; 1 John 3:14)
PLAN OF REDEMPTION
We believe that from eternity past God determined to save a great multitude of people from every tribe language, people and nation, and to this end has loved and pursued them. The plan to redeem was signified in the many covenants of Grace which God made with his people leading up to the coming of Jesus. God now redeems those who by grace have faith in Jesus and one day he will glorify them—all to the praise of his glorious grace. God’s plan will never be thwarted despite the corruption of man and the devices of Satan. In love God commands and implores all people to be drawn into and further extend his eternal saving purposes throughout the world.
(Duet 7:7; Isa. 44:1; John 6:44, 15:16; Rom. 8:28-30; Eph. 1:1-11; Col. 3:12, 1 Pet. 1:1-9)
REPENTANCE AND FAITH
We believe that salvation is conditioned upon genuine repentance and faith, which follow upon God’s drawing through the Gospel. Repentance occurs when, by the Holy Spirit, a person is made sensible of the evil of his sin, detests and forsakes it, humbles himself and endeavors to walk before God so as to please Him in all things. Saving faith is the belief, on God’s authority, of whatever is revealed in His Word concerning Christ and accepting and resting upon Him and his grace alone for justification and eternal life. It is accompanied by all other saving graces and leads to a life of holiness.
(Proverbs 28.13; Matthew 3.8-10; Mark 1.15; John 3.16, 36; 5.24; 6.40, 44, 65; Acts 2.37-38; 11.18; 13.38-39; 17.30; 20.21; Romans 2.4-5; 3.21-28; 4.1-5; 4.17-25; 10.3-4; 2 Corinthians 5.21; Philippians 1.29; Ephesians 2.8-10)
JUSTIFICATION
We believe that Christ, by his obedience and death, fully discharged the debt of all those who are in him. By his sacrifice, he bore in our place the punishment due for our sins, making a proper, real, and full satisfaction to God’s justice and wrath on our behalf. By his perfect obedience he satisfied the just demands of God on our behalf and his perfect righteousness is imputed to us in the sight of God. Thus, those who are in Christ are made right with God. Justification is solely a gift of free grace, in order that both the full justice and the lavish grace of God might be glorified. Because of our justification, God adopts us into his family and views us with unending love and delight.
(Rom. 3:28, 4:3-5, 5:1, 11:6; 2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 2:16, Eph. 2:8, Phil. 3:9)
SANCTIFICATION
We believe that Sanctification is both a permanent act whereby God declares his people to be holy by way of their union with Christ, and a process by which we are made partakers of his holiness throughout life. Sanctification is growth in Christ-likeness. In this, we believe sanctification is a progressive work, begun in regeneration, and that it is carried on in the hearts of believers by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, the Sealer and Comforter, in the continual use of the means of grace- especially the Word of God, the sacraments of baptism and communion, worship, prayer and fellowship.
(John 17:17, 19; Romans 12:1-2; 15:16; 1 Corinthians 1:30; 6:11; 2 Corinthians 3:18; Ephesians 1:4; Philippians 1:9-11; 2:12-13; 3:12-16; Hebrews 2:11; 6:1; 7:1; 10:10; 12:10; 1 Peter 2:2; 2 Peter 1:5-8)
PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS
We believe that those whom God has accepted in Christ will never totally nor finally fall away from relationship with him but shall certainly persevere to the end and though they may fall, through neglect and temptation, into sin, they will surely be renewed again and again and be held by the power of God.
(Jeremiah 32:40; Matthew 13:20-21; John 8:31; 6:66-69; Romans 8:28-39; Philippians 1:6; Hebrews 13:5; 1 John 2:27-28; 3:9; 5:12, 18)
THE CHURCH
We believe in the universal Church, the living spiritual body and family of which the Lord Jesus Christ is the head and all regenerated persons are members. This universal church is manifested through local churches; thus each local church is, in fact, the church, the covenant community, the household of God, the assembly of the living God, and the pillar and foundation of the truth. Local churches consist of baptized believers in Jesus Christ, who have given a credible profession of faith and have covenanted together for worship, edification, discipline, fellowship, and spreading of the Gospel. The Church grows through the ages and stays healthy as it lives on mission in the world.
(John 10:16; Acts 1:8; 2:42; Ephesians 1:22; 2:19-22; 4:11-16; 5:19-21, 23; Colossians 1:18; 3:16; Hebrews 3:13; 10:24-25)
SACRAMENTS OF THE CHURCH
We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ has committed two sacraments, or ordinances, to the local Church; baptism and the Lord’s Supper. They are both a sign and a seal of the believer’s inclusion into the new covenant relationship in Christ. Baptism is a sign given to every believer, wherein they are immersed in water in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, to mark their fellowship in the death and resurrection of Christ. We believe that the Lord’s Supper was instituted by Christ to commemorate his death, confirm the faith of Christians, bestow a blessing of grace to the believer’s heart, and to act as a pledge and renewal of their communion with Him and with each other. We believe that these two ordinances should be observed and administered until the return of the Lord Jesus Christ.
(Matthew 26:26-29; 28:18-20; Acts 2:38; Romans 6:3-5; 1 Corinthians 10:16-17; 11:23- 31; 12:13)
THE KINGDOM OF GOD
We believe that those who have been saved by the grace of God enter the kingdom of God and delight in the blessings of the new covenant. Living as salt in a world that is decaying and light in a world that is dark, believers should neither withdraw into seclusion from the world, nor become indistinguishable from it: rather, we are to do good in the world, for the glory of God who is King over the nations. Citizens of the kingdom are to love their neighbors, doing good to all. The kingdom of God, already present in the Church but not fully realized, is the exercise of God’s sovereignty in the world, working towards the eventual redemption of all creation. The kingdom of God is an invasive power that plunders Satan’s dark kingdom and renovates the world through lives changed by the Gospel.
(Ps. 45:6, 89:19-37, 2 Sam. 7:16, Isa. 32:1, Matt. 4:17, 5-6, 16:19; John 18:36; Rom. 14:17, 2 Cor. 5:17, Gal. 3:27-29)
THE RESTORATION OF ALL THINGS
We believe in the personal, visible and bodily return of the Lord Jesus Christ to earth and the consummation of his kingdom. We believe in the resurrection of the body, the final judgment, the eternal delight of those in Christ and the eternal death of those who reject him. On that day the church, full of people from every tribe, tongue and nation, will be presented faultless before God by the triumph of Christ, with all sin done away with and its wretched effects forever banished. God will forever be with his people and they will be enthralled by the immediacy of his beauty. All of the new heavens and new earth will be to the enjoyment of the new humanity and to the praise of God's glorious grace.
(John 5:28-29; 14.3; Acts 1:11; 17.31; Romans 2:6-11; Philippians 3:20; 1 Thessalonians 4:15; 1 Corinthians 4:5; 15:12-28; 2 Corinthians 5:1-10; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10; Revelation 20:4-6,11-15)
* Our Confessional Statement is an adapted articulation drawn from The Gospel Coalition.
