OUR BELIEFS

God is the loving Creator of all that exist, both seen and unseen. God is eternal and completely good, knowing all things, having all power and majesty. God exists as the Trinity, in three persons, yet one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God passionately desires relationship with us and towards this end continually invites us into a relationship of faith, friendship, learning, and service.
[Genesis 1:1, John 14:6-9. 15-17]

God expressed Himself in human form through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary. He lived a sinless life, was crucified for the sins of all of us, was buried, rose again from the dead, and ascended into heaven. [Colossians 1:13-23]

The Holy Spirit, sent from God to live inside all who believe in Jesus Christ, teaches, comforts, and empowers us, giving every follower diverse gifts, fostering unity, interdependence, productivity, Christ-like character, and love among Christians. The empowering of the Holy Spirit, the Promise of the Father, is available to every believer. [Acts 1:8, 2:4]

We believe that God speaks to us through the Bible, and that it is our privilege to seek to understand God’s message and apply it responsibly to our lives. The Bible is our standard in all that we say and do. We believe the timeless truths of God’s biblical message ought to be presented with timely methods, understandable to the people of our community. [Matthew 5:17-19]

All people are created with dignity and value in the image of God, to live in a vital relationship with God. However, through our sin (failing to live by God’s moral standards), we break our intended relationship with God and experience the destructive consequences of that broken relationship, spiritually and socially, in this life and beyond. However, God sent his son, Jesus Christ, to rescue us from those consequences and to restore our broken relationships with God and others, through Christ’s death on the cross, a perfect act of redemption for each of us. Salvation comes to people on the basis of God’s grace through their faith in Jesus alone. They receive the free gift of forgiveness and are spiritually reborn through repenting of their sin and believing in Jesus Christ. Good works and a holy life, although totally unable to save anyone, are the natural product of repentant, believing people. [1 Peter 2:24]

Every person who has believed in Christ should take the next step to get baptized! We believe we should be baptized to follow the example set by Jesus as well as because Christ commands it. Baptism is our opportunity to go public with our faith and is an outward expression of what Christ has done in our lives. Baptism illustrates Christ’s burial and resurrection. Baptism doesn’t make you a believer, but it shows that you already are one. Only our faith in Christ saves us. We believe in baptism by immersion because Jesus was baptized in this manner. [Matthew 3:13 –15, Colossians 2:20, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Ephesians 2:8-9, Acts 2:41, Acts 8:13]

We believe marriage is defined in the Bible as a covenant, a sacred bond between one man and one woman, instituted by and publicly entered into before God. [Matthew 19:4-6]

As followers of Jesus, we celebrate communion to remember all that Christ did for us on the cross because of his great love for us. Communion is an opportunity to look back and remember Jesus forgives us our past, thank Him for providing access to his presence in our present life, and celebrate that our future is secure in his love. [1 Corinthians 11:23-25]