THE TRIUNE GOD
We believe in one true and living God, who exists eternally in three equally divine and glorious Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Dt. 6:4; Is. 45:21-22; Mt. 28:18-20; 2 Cor. 13:14
GOD’S PURPOSE AND PLAN
We believe that God’s grand purpose for creation and all of human history is the glorification of His holy name. Before the ages began, the Father lovingly purposed to save a multitude of sinners. He foreknew this vast company, choosing them before the foundation of the world. He predestined them for adoption through Jesus Christ. In the fullness of time, He sent forth His Son, who accomplished all His Father’s will, ransoming this people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, all to the praise of His glorious grace.
Is. 48:9-11; Jn. 12:27-28; Rom. 8:29-30; 11:36; Eph. 1:3-14; 1 Tim. 1:8-9; Rev. 5:9-10
CREATION
We believe that God created all things for His glory, both visible and invisible, out of nothing, in the space of six days, and all very good. He created our first parents, Adam and Eve, equally in His own image, to reflect His glory by enjoying fellowship with Him and each other. He made Adam and Eve male and female, with differing and complementary roles in marriage as a type of Christ and the Church.
Gen. 1; Ps. 19:1-6; Heb. 11:3; Eph. 5:31-32
THE FALL
We believe that Adam and Eve, being tempted by the subtlety of Satan’s deceit, doubted the goodness of God and so willfully ate the forbidden fruit. By this cosmic rebellion, they fell from their original innocence and perfect fellowship with God. We believe Adam’s fall became the fall of all mankind, he being the head of the human race. Consequently, all people are by nature alienated from God, dead in trespasses and sins, corrupted in every aspect of being, and without hope apart from Christ.
Gen. 3:1-6; Jn. 8:44; Eph. 2:1-3; Rom. 3:10-20; 5:12-21
THE SAVING WORK OF CHRIST
We believe that, in the fullness of time, the eternal Son most willingly took on human flesh to save sinners. He was miraculously conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. We believe that Jesus Christ, by His incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension, acted as our representative and substitute. He was crucified, died for our sins, was buried, and on the third day rose bodily from the dead. As Immanuel, truly God and truly man, He became the only mediator between God and man.
Mt. 1:20-23; 1 Cor. 15:3-4; Gal. 4:4; Php. 2:5-8; 1 Tim. 2:5
THE SAVING WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
We believe that apart from the effectual work of the Spirit no one would come to faith. For God’s chosen people, the Spirit triumphs over all resistance, raising them from spiritual deadness and causing them to be born again to new and everlasting life. The Holy Spirit is Himself the seal and guarantee of their promised inheritance as adopted sons and daughters, until they acquire possession of it at the day of redemption. They receive His sovereignly distributed gifts for the purpose of building up the church and reaching the lost.
Ez. 36:26-27; Acts 1:8; 1 Cor. 12:7; Eph. 1:13-14; Ti. 3:5
JUSTIFICATION
We believe that justification is a free act of righteous grace wherein God pardons and accepts repentant sinners by their faith in Christ, apart from works. Faith is the sole instrument by which they, as sinners, are united to Christ, whose perfect righteousness and substitutionary sacrifice for sins is alone the ground of their acceptance with God.
Lk. 18:9-14; Rom. 3:21-28; 4:5; Gal. 2:16
SANCTIFICATION
For those who are justified, the dominion of sin is decisively broken. Christ is Lord! By means of their union with Christ, their old self is crucified with Him and buried and their new self is raised with Him to walk in newness of life. His grace holds dominion over them such that, though once slaves of sin, they are now slaves of righteousness. As they continue, by the Spirit, through faith, to grow in grace, sinful desires are progressively weakened and mortified. They are increasingly strengthened to practice all true holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.
Rom. 6:1-4, 12-14; Gal. 2:20; Heb. 12:14
PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS
Those whom God has chosen in Christ, and has effectually called and justified, can neither totally nor finally fall away. They will certainly persevere to the end and be saved. He who began a good work in His own will be faithful to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus.
Rom. 8:29-39; Jn 6:37-40; Php. 1:6
THE CHURCH
We believe in the one universal Church, composed of all those, in every time and place, who are chosen in Christ and united to Him through faith by the Spirit. They are all members of one Body, with Christ Himself as the all-sufficient and supreme Head. We believe it is God’s will that the universal Church find expression in local churches in which believers, as members of one another, covenant together to grow in grace and glorify God.
Rom. 12:5-13; 1 Cor. 12:4-7; Eph. 3:20-21; 4:11-16; Col. 1:18
THE ORDINANCES
We believe that baptism and the Lord’s Supper are both ordained by the Lord Jesus Himself, as means of grace to His people. We believe that baptism is the ordinance in which those who have believed the gospel display their union with Christ in His death and resurrection by being immersed in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We believe that the Lord’s Supper is the ordinance in which gathered believers eat bread and drink the cup of the Lord in remembrance of His dying love, thus proclaiming His death until He comes.
Mt. 28:19; Lk. 22:15-20; Rom. 6:3-4;1 Cor. 11:23-26
THE CHURCH AND CIVIL GOVERNMENT
We believe that the Scriptures teach that civil government is of divine appointment, ordained by God to be under Him, over the people, for His own glory and the public good. Because civil magistrates are established by God for these purposes, we ought to pray for, honor, and be subject to them, except only in things opposed to the word of our God, who is the King of kings and Lord of lords.
Acts 5:29; Rom. 13:1-7; 1 Tim. 2:1-2; 1 Pet. 2:12-17
THE MISSION
We believe that the commission given by the Lord Jesus to make disciples of all nations is binding on all His disciples to the end of the age. The task is to spread His gospel urgently, indiscriminately, and graciously, both near and far, to every tribe and tongue and people and nation, baptizing those who respond in faith, teaching them the words and ways of the Lord, and gathering them into churches able to fulfill their Christian calling among their own people. The church can confidently carry out this mission, empowered by King Jesus, who possesses all authority in heaven and on earth and who promises to be with them to the very end of the age.
Mt. 24:14; 28:18-20; Rom. 10:8-13; 2 Cor. 5:14-21; Col. 4:5-6; 1 Pet. 3:15
THE RETURN OF CHRIST
We believe in the blessed hope that at the end of the age Jesus Christ will return to this earth personally, visibly, physically, and suddenly in power and great glory; and that He will gather His elect, raise the dead, judge the nations, and consummate His kingdom. We believe in the bodily resurrection of both the just and the unjust—the unjust to everlasting conscious misery in hell and the just to eternal blessedness in the presence of Him who sits on the throne and of the Lamb, in the new heaven and new earth, the home of righteousness.
Mt. 25:31-46; Acts 1:9-11; Php. 3:20-21; 1 Th. 4:15-17; Ti. 2:13; Heb. 9:28; 2 Pet. 3:13
To learn more, click HERE to read our full Statement of Faith.