Our Beliefs
“In the essential beliefs, we have unity; In the non-essential beliefs, we have liberty; In all our beliefs, we show charity.”
–Augustine
God
We believe in one God, Creator of all things, holy, infinitely perfect, and eternally existing in a loving unity of three equally divine Persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Jesus Christ
We believe that Jesus Christ is God incarnate, fully God and fully man, one Person in two natures. Jesus-Israel’s promised Messiah-was conceived through the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He lived a sinless life, was crucified, arose bodily from the dead, ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father as our High Priest and Advocate.
Holy Spirit
We believe that the Holy Spirit convicts the world of its sin and regenerates sinners, in Him they are baptized into union with Christ and adopted into the family of God. He indwells, illuminates, guides, equips and empowers believers in Christ.
The Bible
We believe that God has spoken in the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, through the words of human authors. As the verbally inspired Word of God, the Bible is without error in the original writings and the complete revelation of His will for salvation. It is to be believed in all that it teaches, obeyed in all that it requires, and trusted in all that it promises.
The Church
We believe that the true church comprises all who have been justified by God’s grace through faith alone in Christ alone. They are united by the Holy Spirit in the body of Christ, of which He is the Head. The true church is manifest in local churches, whose membership should be composed only of believers.
The Human Condition
We believe that God created Adam and Eve in His image, but they sinned when tempted by Satan. In union with Adam, human beings are sinners by nature and by choice, alienated from God, and under His wrath. Only through God’s saving work in Jesus Christ can we be rescued and restored.
The Work of Christ
We believe that Jesus Christ, as our representative and substitute, shed His blood on the cross as the perfect, all-sufficient sacrifice for our sins. His atoning death and victorious resurrection constitute the only ground for salvation and eternal life in heaven.
Christ’s Return
We believe in the personal, bodily return of our Lord Jesus Christ. The coming of Christ, at a time known only to God, demands constant expectancy and, as our blessed hope, motivates the believer to godly living, sacrificial service, and energetic mission.
Response & Eternal Destiny
We believe that God commands everyone everywhere to believe the gospel by turning to Him in repentance and receiving Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. We believe that God will raise the dead bodily and judge the world, assigning the unbeliever to condemnation and eternal conscious punishment and the believer to eternal blessedness and joy with the Lord in the new heaven and the new earth.
Baptism & Communion
Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Savior, the believer’s death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus. Communion is a symbolic act of obedience whereby followers of Jesus memorialize his death and anticipate His second coming using the symbols of bread and juice.
Marriage & Human Sexuality
Because the teachings of the Bible are our guide and authority for living, we believe that the only marriages sanctioned by God are ones that join a man and a woman in a single, exclusive union. We believe that God intends sexual intimacy to occur between a man and a woman who are married to each other and that any form of sexual immorality or any attempt to change one’s sexual identity is outside of God’s original design and does not meet with God’s approval based on the precepts of the Bible.