What We Believe
The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God’s revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy. 2 Tim 3:14-17; 1 Peter 2:2; 2 Peter 1:16-21; Matt 4:4; Heb 4:12-13; Is 40:8; 55:10-11; Rom 10:17
There is one and only one living and true God. He is an intelligent, spiritual, and personal Being, the Creator, Redeemer, Preserver, and Ruler of the universe. God is infinite in holiness and all other perfections. God is all powerful and all knowing; and His perfect knowledge extends to all things, past, present, and future, including the future decisions of His free creatures. To Him we owe the highest love, reverence, and obedience. The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being. Gen 1:1; Ps 14:1-3; 19:1-3; Rom 11:33-66; Is 6:1-3; 45:5-7; 55:8-9; Matt 28:18-20
Man is the special creation of God, made in His own image. Every person of every race possesses full dignity and is worthy of respect and Christian love. He created them male and female as the crowning work of His creation. In the beginning man was innocent of sin and was endowed by his Creator with freedom of choice. By his free choice man sinned against God, brought sin into the human race, and fell from his original innocence. Only the grace of God can bring man into His holy fellowship and enable man to fulfill the creative purpose of God. Every person of every race possesses full dignity and is worthy of respect and Christian love. Gen 1:26-28; Rom 3:23; 5:12; 6:23; Jer 9:23-24; 1 Peter 1:13-19; 1 John 3:4-9
Salvation involves the redemption of the whole man, and is offered freely to all who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, who by His own blood obtained eternal redemption for the believer. In its broadest sense salvation includes regeneration, justification, sanctification, and glorification. There is no salvation apart from personal faith in Jesus Christ as Lord. Is 55:1-3; Rom 10:13; 1 Cor 15:1-4; John 3:3; 3:14-18; Mark 10:45; Rom 5:8; Ps 86:15; Luke 19:10; Titus 3:4-7
The grace of God is consistent with the free agency of man. It is the glorious display of God’s goodness in redeeming and restoring mankind to himself. It is entirely the work of God and is offered freely as a gift to those who will receive it by faith, and therefore excludes boasting and promotes humility. Those whom God has accepted in Christ, and sanctified by His Spirit, will never fall away from the state of grace, but shall persevere to the end. John 1:14; Is 55:6-7; Titus 2:11-14; Eph 2:8-10; James 4:6; Rom 6:14; Heb 4:16
A New Testament church of the Lord Jesus Christ is an autonomous local family associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel; exercising the gifts, rights, and privileges invested in them by His Word, and seeking to extend the gospel to the ends of the earth. 1 Cor 12:12; Col 1:18; Eph 4:12; 5:23-32; 1 Peter 2:4-5
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. It is a testimony to his faith in the final resurrection of the dead.
Communion is a symbolic act of obedience whereby followers of Christ, through partaking of the bread and the cup, memorialize the death of Christ and anticipate His second coming. Matt 28:19-20; Acts 2:38-42; 19:4; Rom 6:3; Matt 26:26-28; 1 Cor 11:24-30; John 6:53-58
It is the duty and privilege of every follower of Christ and of every church of the Lord Jesus Christ to endeavor to make disciples of all nations. The new birth of man’s spirit by God’s Holy Spirit means the birth of love for others. Missionary effort on the part of all rests thus upon a spiritual necessity of the regenerate life, and is expressly and repeatedly commanded in the teachings of Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ has commanded the preaching of the gospel to all nations. It is the duty of every child of God to seek constantly to win the lost to Christ by verbal witness undergirded by a Christian lifestyle, and by other methods in harmony with the gospel of Christ. Mark 16:15; 1 Peter 3:15; Rom 1:16; Acts 1:8; Matt 9:37-38; Is 6:8
All Christians are under obligation to seek to make the will of Christ supreme in our own lives and in human society. Christ lived a life of ‘radical departure’ from cultural norms, holding to what honored God and speaking strongly against what did not. As followers of Christ, we do not embrace cultural ideas, norms or behaviors that are contrary to the clearly spoken Word of God. Eph 5:1; Acts 13:47; John 15:8; Matt 5:15-16; Rom 10:10; Is 12:4; Titus 3:1-2
God has ordained the family as the foundational institution of human society. It is composed of persons related to one another by marriage, blood, or adoption. Marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime. It is God’s unique gift to reveal the union between Christ and His church and to provide for the man and the woman in marriage the framework for intimate companionship, the channel of sexual expression according to biblical standards, and the means for procreation of the human race. Gen 2:24; Ex 20:12; Prov 22:6; 1 Tim 5:8; Josh 24:15; Ps 127:3-5
God, in His own time and in His own way, will bring the world to its appropriate end. According to His promise, Jesus Christ will return personally and visibly in glory to the earth; the dead will be raised; and Christ will judge all men in righteousness. The unrighteous will be consigned to Hell, the place of everlasting punishment. The righteous in their resurrected and glorified bodies will receive their reward and will dwell forever in Heaven with the Lord. Acts 1:11; Matt 16:27; Heb 9:27-28; Isaiah 2:4; John 14:1-3; Titus 2:13-14