About God
We believe there is only one God who has always existed, who is Creator of the Universe. God reveals Himself as God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
About Jesus Christ
God the Son, Jesus chose to be born of the Virgin Mary, conceived by the Holy Spirit. Jesus became human without ceasing to be God. We believe the only way a person can have a true, forgiven relationship with God is thorough Jesus Christ’s willing death on the cross. Our right standing with God is made sure because of Jesus’s literal, physical resurrection. Jesus ascended to Heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father, offering us access to God. We believe in the literal, physical return of Jesus to judge the living and the dead.
About the Holy Spirit
God the Holy Spirit is received by followers of Christ at the moment of salvation. The Holy Spirit reveals truth to people, makes us yearn for God, and takes spiritual truth and makes it understandable to us. The Holy Spirit was active in the Old Testament and given to the church in fullness as promised by Jesus in the New Testament. The Holy Spirit cleanses us from our old ways and shapes us into the image of Christ evidenced by the fruit of the Holy Spirit growing in our lives and unites us in a bond of love. The Holy Spirt continually empowers followers of Jesus for service and witness as evidenced by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which are given to each follower of Christ.
About the Bible
We believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament and New Testament are the inerrant, inspired and infallible Word of God. God’s Word is the final authority for faith and life.
About Human Beings
Out of all of creation, only people are created in the image of God, to be like God in character. People are the supreme object of God’s creation. Although every person has tremendous potential for good, all of us are marred by an attitude of disobedience called sin. Sin separates people from God and causes many problems in life. As a result of the work of Christ in people’s lives through our act of surrender, humans grow into everything they were created to be as masterpieces created by God, to do good works God has already planned for us.
About Salvation
Salvation is God’s free gift to us but we must accept it. We can never make up for our sin by self-improvement or good works. Only by repenting of our attempts to live a self-ruled life and trusting in Jesus Christ as God’s offer of forgiveness can anyone be saved from sin’s penalty. Salvation gives us the gift of peace with God and begins the journey of becoming more like Jesus. Eternal life begins the moment one receives Jesus Christ into their life by faith.
About the Kingdom of God
We believe that the Kingdom of God is the unifying theme of all Scripture and speaks of the rule and reign of God. The Old Testament pointed to its hope. Jesus Christ’s incarnational coming to earth was an inbreaking of the kingdom into human history. It is present now and is not yet present in its fullness. It will be fully present upon Jesus’s return. We experience the kingdom when cultural and social barriers of ethnicity, socioeconomic status and gender are broken, and people are first reconciled to God and then to each other. As citizens of God’s kingdom, we function under God’s authority, and we live under his rule. The mission of God is to see all people reconciled to Christ.
About the Church
We believe the local church is more than a place where people gather. It’s a community of people embedded in the local community who serve others to make our community a better place to live for all. We do this in partnership with other churches and community organizations. God gave gifts to the church in people who are Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers. We see these gifts functioning not as a hierarchy but in relationship together building up the body of Christ. The church not a building nor a group of sinners saved by grace, but rather a community of people transformed by the work of Christ into a holy community who the Bible calls saints. The church is called as citizens of the Kingdom of God to worship God, to instruct one another, to build each other up, care for each other and act as the only God-chosen ambassadors of reconciliation for the world.
About the priesthood of all believers
We believe that men and women have been created co equally under the authority of Christ who is the true high priest and the head of the church. This means there is no other mediator other than Christ between people and God. All believers in Christ have equal access to God and the ground is level at the foot of the Cross. This position before Christ we consider to be both sacred and sacramental as God’s presence is close to God’s people. All believers have the authority to read, interpret and apply the teachings of Scripture.
About Eternity
People were created to exist forever. We will either exist externally separated from God by sin or eternally with God through forgiveness and salvation. To be eternally separated from God is Hell. To be eternally in union with God is eternal life. Heaven and Hell are real places of eternal existence.
About Human Sexuality
We believe in the historically Christian view of marriage and sexual expression; namely that marriage is a one-flesh covenant union between two sexually different persons (male and female) from different families, and that all sexual relationships outside the marriage covenant are sin.