Core Beliefs

CORE BELIEFS

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God

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.
(Ephesians 4:4-6)

The Scriptures

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. It reveals the principles by which God judges us, and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried. All Scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is Himself the focus of divine revelation.
(2 Timothy 3:15-16)

Man

We believe man is the special creation of God, made in His own image. He created them male and female as the crowning work of His creation. We believe all have willfully sinned, and as a result, are lost with no hope apart from Jesus Christ. 
(Genesis 1:27, Romans 3:23)

Salvation

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.
(Acts 4:12, Ephesians 2:8-9, 2 Corinthians 5:17)

Grace

Election is the gracious purpose of God, according to which He regenerates, justifies, sanctifies, and glorifies sinners. It is consistent with the free agency of man, and comprehends all the means in connection with the end. It is the glorious display of God's sovereign goodness, and is infinitely wise, holy, and unchangeable. It excludes boasting and promotes humility.

All true believers endure to the end. 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.
(Romans 5:9-10; 10:12-15)

The Church

A 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 the 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. Its scriptural officers are pastors and deacons. While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is 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.
(Colossians 1:18, Ephesians 1:22-23)

Baptism and Lord's Supper

We believe Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 
The Lord's Supper is a symbolic act of obedience, whereby believers in Jesus Christ, through the bread and drink, memorialize the death of our Redeemer. (Matthew 3:13-17, Matthew 26:26-30, Romans 6:3-5)

Last Days

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.
(Revelation 1:18; 3:11)

Evangelism

We believe it is the duty and privilege of every believer of Jesus Christ to take the gospel forward and make disciples of all people through both a verbal witness and a holy lifestyle consistent with our faith.
(Romans 10:13-15, Ephesians 3:1-11, 2 Timothy 4:5)

Stewardship

We believe all we have is God's and we are to be faithful to God with our time, talents, and resources.
(Malachi 3:8-12, Matthew 6:1-4; 19-21)

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