Our Beliefs

Article One – The Scriptures

• Both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament is divinely inspired by the Holy Spirit, and given to us by the Father through human authors in order to understand His will, His story, and His purpose in both creating us and offering us salvation through Jesus Christ.

• To fully understand the Hebrew Scriptures, we interpret and view them through the life and teachings of Jesus Christ – through Christ alone can we fully understand and comprehend the poems, stories, laws, and prophetic teachings.

• The Bible is the source of all doctrine, instruction, correction, and reproof. It contains all that is needed for guidance in godliness and practical Christian conduct.

Article Two – The Trinity

• God the Father is the creator and sustainer of all things, and He created the universe in love. He created man in His own image for fellowship and called man back to Himself through Christ after the rebellion and fall of man.

• Jesus Christ is the fullness of God in bodily form. He is the 2nd person of the trinity – equal in both divine nature and status with the Father. Jesus Christ is unique in that He is truly human and truly God in eternal bodily form. Through Jesus Christ alone can one be saved and restored to original intent of the Father’s creation of mankind.

• The Holy Spirit is the 3rd person of the trinity – equal in both divine nature and status with Jesus Christ and The Father. He is responsible for convicting mankind of His sin, persuading mankind to trust and accept Jesus Christ as Savior, and leading believers of Jesus Christ in how to follow and obey Jesus Christ in unity with fellow believers.

Article Three – Salvation and Atonement through Jesus Christ

• Christ’s vicarious death on the cross paid the penalty for the sins of the whole world, but its benefits are only applicable to those who willfully receive Jesus as their personal Savior. Healing—body, soul, and spirit—and all of God’s provisions for His saints, are provided for in the atonement.

• The Word of God declares clearly that salvation is a free gift of God, based on the merits of the death of His Son, and is appropriated by faith. Salvation is effected by personal repentance, belief in the Lord Jesus (justification), and personal acceptance of Him into one’s life as Lord and Savior (regeneration). The new life in Christ includes the privileges of adoption and inheritance in the kingdom of God’s beloved Son. Salvation is an act of free will in response to God’s personal love for mankind. It is predestined only in the sense that God, through His omniscience, foreknew those who would choose Him. It is secure in the eternal, unchanging commitment of God who does not lie and is forever the same.

Article Four – Christian Life and the Body of Christ

• The goal of the Church is to make disciples of all nations and to equip the saints complete in Jesus Christ. We uphold that Jesus Christ is the Head of the church and that leadership of His church will be done with integrity and complete devotion to His teachings in the New Testament of what it means to follow and obey Him as Lord and Savior through the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit.

• In order to grow as a disciple of Jesus Christ, we must enter into covenantal relationships with other believers in order to learn how to love one another and to live out the command to make disciples of Jesus Christ. We accomplish this together as we agree to serve one another with our gifts given to us by the Holy Spirit, to generously bear one another’s burdens through the Spirit, and work together to invite others into these covenantal relationships through Jesus Christ.

• Baptism, is the outward celebration and proclamation of what God has already done in the individual’s life and is a testimony to all that the person now belongs to Jesus. It is identification with Jesus and is effected in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Lord’s Supper is a commemoration of the death of the Lord and is done in remembrance of Him until He comes again; it is a sign of our participation in and with Him.

• We affirm the bodily, personal, second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, the resurrection of the saints, the millennium, and the final judgment. The final judgment will determine the eternal status of both the saints and the unbelievers, determined by their relationship to Jesus Christ. We affirm with the Bible the final state of the new heavens and the new earth.