We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 2 Corinthians 5:20
As a church, what we believe defines us and shapes our life together. The truth as God has revealed it in his word is what dictates how we trust, worship, and serve God. Doctrinally we are in line with historic protestant confessions like the Westminster Confession and the London Baptist Confession. Our own detailed doctrinal statement is available upon request. Here is a summary of the important things we believe to be true:
- The Bible is the inspired and inerrant Word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice.
- There is one living, sovereign, and true God who eternally exists in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit who are coequal in power and glory, and have the same attributes and perfections.
- All humankind participated in Adam’s fall from his original sinless state and is lost in sin and totally helpless. Apart from God’s grace no one can enter into a personal relationship with Christ.
- The Sovereign God, for no other reason than His own great love and mercy, has chosen lost sinners from every nation to be redeemed by the power of the Holy Spirit and through the atoning death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ.
- Those sinners who come to believe in Christ as Savior by the Word of God are born again and become true children of God, and will persevere to the end.
- The eternal purpose of God includes all events. Therefore a Christian should look at their life from God’s perspective and not treat part as sacred and part as secular.
- Jesus Christ is all God and all man. He was begotten by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, and lived a sinless life.
- Christ died as the sinner’s substitute, satisfying divine justice, and reconciling a people to God, making perfect atonement for sin.
- Christ ascended to the Father in Heaven where He is the believer’s High Priest and Advocate.
- The Holy Spirit convicts of sin, regenerates, enables men to obey with repentance the call of the gospel, and continually indwells every believer. He is the author of holiness, power, comfort and all Christian experience.
- Justification is by faith and through it the undeserving sinner is clothed with the righteousness of Christ.
- Believers are eternally united to Christ by the Spirit and are eternally secure in Christ and together form the true Church.
- The goal of God’s salvation in the life of the Christian is holiness, good works, and service for the glory of God.
- There is one universal church consisting of all true believers of which Christ is the head.
- Jesus Christ will return to earth, visibly and bodily, at a time when He is not expected, to consummate history and the eternal plan of God.