We Believe

Church Covenant

Having been brought, as we trust, by Divine Grace to embrace the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior; and having been baptized upon the confession of our faith, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, we do now solemnly enter into covenant with one another as one body in Christ. We engage, as God shall enable us, to walk together in brotherly love; to exercise a Christian care and watchfulness over each other; to participate in each other’s joys; to endeavor, with tenderness and sympathy, to bear each other’s sorrows; to strive for the advancement of our Church in knowledge and holiness; to promote its prosperity and spirituality; to sustain its worship, ordinances, and doctrines; to contribute cheerfully to the support of the ministry, the expense of the Church, the relief of the poor, and the spread of the Gospel through all the world; to avail ourselves to the great privilege of prayer for ourselves and for others; to walk circumspectly and watchfully in the world, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts; to abstain from every appearance of evil; to remember our relationship to Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord and to live to His glory.

 

NINE CORE THEOLOGICAL TRUTHS

 

  1. We believe the Bible is THE authority in our church and our lives.

 

We believe that the Holy Scriptures are the only sufficient, authoritative, and infallible rule of saving faith and Christian obedience.  The Bible…as originally written…is in its entirety verbally inspired by God the Holy Spirit, and it is indeed the Word of God.

 

  1. We believe that God is One, self-existent and self-sufficient.

 

We believe that there exists but one living and true God; that in His being He is infinite, eternal, self-existent, immutable and omnipresent; that in His nature He is spiritual, immaterial and personal; that He is perfect and absolute in all of His attributes, including those of His holiness, His power, and His knowledge; that He is therefore sovereign in His position, just in all His decrees, and righteous in all His actions; that He is the cause of all existence beside Himself; and that the full comprehension of His person is beyond the capacity of finite man.

 

We further believe that in His divine and infinite being there is a trinity of personal distinctions, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, sharing equally in every divine perfection while executing distinct but harmonious offices in every divine work.

 

  1. We believe in the objective realities of sin and Satan.

 

We believe in the personality of Satan, the unholy god of this age and energizer of all powers of darkness and sin.  We believe in the objective reality of sin, that sin is a departure from the purpose and will of God, and that the active originator of sin in the universe was Satan.

 

  1. We believe every person is a sinner by nature and by choice, and therefore needs forgiveness.

 

We believe that man is a unique and direct creation of God and that man was created in innocence, but by voluntary transgression, fell from his sinless state.  All of mankind are now sinners by nature and by choice, positively inclined to evil and utterly devoid of that righteousness required by the law of God, and therefore under just condemnation without defense or excuse.

 

  1. We believe that salvation is completed by grace through faith and is a gift of God. It  

     cannot be earned and is not deserved.

 

We believe that the salvation of sinners is wholly and only of God’s grace through the shed blood of the Son of God.  We believe that in order to be saved, sinners must be born again; that the new birth is a new creation in Christ Jesus; that it is instantaneous and not a process; that in the new birth the one dead in trespasses and sins receives eternal life, the free gift of God.

 

  1. We believe that we are now disciples—followers of Christ—set apart for “a long obedience in the same direction.”

 

We believe that all Christians are sanctified, and that sanctification is that divine work whereby they are set apart unto God from sin and dead works through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in the continual use of the Word of God, faith, fellowship with God and His people, and godly exercises and duties.  We believe that sanctification issues in good works and holy living, and that it is progressive, but does not in this life produce sinless perfection.

 

  1. We believe there is a heaven and a hell and all of us will be in one of those two places eternally.

 

We believe there is a radical and essential difference between the righteous and the wicked; that only those who, through faith, are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and sanctified by the Spirit of our God are truly righteous in His esteem while all who continue in unrepentance and unbelief are in His sight wicked, and under the curse; and that this distinction holds among men both in and after death, in the everlasting joy of the saved and the everlasting conscious suffering of the lost.

 

  1. We believe that the Gospel message is the world’s only hope and we (the Church) have been commissioned to proclaim it. It is our sacred duty.

 

We believe that obedience to Christ includes the world-wide proclamation of the Gospel, that evangelism is totally consistent with God’s sovereignty in salvation, and that the use of appropriate means in the reaching of others is proper.  Furthermore, we believe that Biblical evangelism must include the nurture of converts.

 

  1. We believe Jesus Christ will return on day, and after that – the judgment.

 

We believe in the personal, pre-tribulation, pre-millennial return of Christ, the resurrection of the righteous dead, the change of the living in Christ, the resurrection of the unrighteous, and their judgement at the Great White Throne.