Our Beliefs

Core Values Statement

We value the lordship of our Savior Jesus Christ. We seek to be completely subject to Jesus, who is the Head of the Church. We acknowledge that the tie that binds us together is our common faith in Jesus Christ.

We value worship and believe that worship should be the center of our lives and our community. It is our conviction that human beings were created to bring honor and glory to Him. Through worship we seek to honor God and strengthen the church for its mission.

We value God’s Word. We take the Scriptures seriously. It is our guide for belief and living out our faith. We seek to read, study, and thoughtfully interpret scripture as led by the Holy Spirit. We strive to faithfully apply the teachings of Scripture to our lives as individuals and as a congregation. We believe that what Scripture teaches takes precedent over church tradition or human opinion. The Bible is God’s “love letter to us” and our desire is that the world see in us a reflection of His love.

We value relationships with other believers. We seek to strengthen those relationships by fellowshipping with and caring for each other. The diversity of young and old, married and unmarried and various ethnic cultures strengthens our relationships.

We value prayer and seek to make it central to our lives. We believe prayer and the related practices of fasting, meditation, solitude, and devotional reading are essential to developing an intimate relationship with God.

We value Christian service. Whether ordained or layman, we believe all Christians have been given gifts by the Holy Spirit and are called to service in the building of God’s kingdom. We strive to equip each member for his or her ministry within the church and community.

We value our community. We seek to be involved in the community surrounding our church building. We will work to create partnerships with people of like faith and practice who are working towards the betterment of the community. The development of these Godly relationships provides unity, shows love, and displays forgiveness among believers.

We value excellence. Excellence is an attribute of God. We believe that excellence both honors God and inspires people. God gave us His best, His Son, His only Son; therefore we seek to maintain excellence in all areas of ministry, proclaiming to the world the awe, the wonder and the love of God.

We value teamwork. The building of God’s Kingdom requires a team effort. Every believer possesses natural abilities and spiritual gifts. As we use these talents and gifts for God, we find significance and purpose for our lives. Therefore every member is called to be a minister, sharing these God-given resources for the good of others.

Statement of Faith

The Scriptures
We believe the Holy Bible (containing the 66 books of the Old and New Testament), as it was composed in the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, to be the inspired, inerrant, infallible, and authoritative Word of God; that by virtue of the superintendence and empowering of the Holy Spirit, the human writers of the scripture wrote not their private interpretations but the very words of God; preserved from error of any kind on any subject whatsoever. We use the King James Version of the Bible for instruction in our Church.

God
We believe that there is one and only one living and true God, whose name is JEHOVAH. He is an intelligent, spiritual, and personal Being; the Creator, Redeemer, Preserver, and Ruler of the universe. God is inexpressibly glorious 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.

Satan
We believe in the reality and personality of Satan; that he is a created being, once known as the “anointed cherub that covereth”; that through pride and ambition to be as God, he fell; that he is now the malignant prince of the power of the air and the unholy god of this world. We believe he is destined to final defeat at the hands of God’s only Son, that the judgment already passed onto him will be executed at the Revelation of Jesus Christ; and that ultimately he will be cast into Hell’s lake of fire, for eternity.

Creation
We believe in the Genesis account of creation, that man is the special creation of God, made in His own image, not by evolution. He created them male and female as the crowning work of His creation. The gift of gender is thus part of the goodness of God’s 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 and brought sin into the human race.Therefore, as soon as man is capable of moral action, he becomes a transgressor and is under condemnation. Only the grace of God can bring man into His holy fellowship and enable man to fulfill the creative purpose of God. The sacredness of human personality is evident in that God created man in His own image, and in that Christ died for man; therefore, every person of every race possesses full dignity and is worthy of respect and Christian love.

Salvation
We believe that 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.

Regeneration, or the new birth, is a work of God’s grace whereby believers become new creatures in Christ Jesus. It is a change of heart wrought by the Holy Spirit through conviction of sin, to which the sinner responds in repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance and faith are inseparable experiences of grace.

Repentance is a genuine turning from sin toward God. Faith is the acceptance of Jesus Christ and commitment of the entire personality to Him as Lord and Savior.

God’s Purpose of Grace
“Once saved always saved.” 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. Believers may fall into sin through neglect and temptation, whereby they grieve the Spirit, impair their graces and comforts, and bring reproach on the cause of Christ and temporal judgments on themselves; yet they shall be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.

The Church
We believe that the New Testament church of the Lord Jesus Christ is an autonomous local congregation of baptized believers, associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel; observing two ordinances of Christ, governed by His laws, exercising the gifts, rights, and privileges invested in them by His Word, and seeking to extend the gospel to the ends of the earth. Each congregation operates under the Lordship of Christ through democratic processes. In such a congregation each member is responsible and accountable to Christ as Lord. The church’s scriptural officers are pastors and deacons; these offices are limited to men as qualified by Scripture. The New Testament speaks also of the church as the Body of Christ which includes all of the redeemed of all the ages, believers from every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation.

Church Ordinances
We believe that the church ordinances are only two in number, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and shall be administered only by the church.

Baptism We believe that Christian baptism is the complete immersion of the believer in water in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit and that baptism is a pre-requisite to church membership. It is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s faith in a crucified and risen Savior, the believer’s death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in the newness of life in Christ Jesus. It is a testimony to the believer’s faith in the final resurrection of the dead.

The Lord’s Supper We believe that the Lord’s Supper is a symbolic act of remembrance and obedience whereby members of the church, through partaking of unleavened bread and the fruit of the vine, memorialize the death of the Redeemer and anticipate His second coming.