OUR BELIEFS

we agree with most creeds & confessionals, but we don’t endorse them without qualifications.

here’s a big picture look of our beliefs.

• one God, eternally existing as three distinct divine persons: Father, Son, & Holy Spirit.

• Jesus Christ is truly God & truly man. He is the unique, sure, & sufficient revelation of God's nature, character, & purposes. there is no other God, & no other name by which men & women can be saved.

• the only basis for our acceptance by God is the saving work of Jesus Christ. through His death on the cross & risen life, He died for our sins, broke the power of sin & death, reconciled us to God, & today gives new life through His Holy Spirit. we bring nothing to our salvation but receive God's redemption by grace alone through faith.

• spiritual rebirth, given supernaturally through spiritual regeneration, is God's gift and every person's need. this includes repentance & baptism in water & Spirit. new life begins a lifelong work of sanctification, producing a changed heart & way of life. the power to live faithfully & godly comes only through the risen Christ & the Holy Spirit.

• Jesus modeled what our attitude should be toward scripture, having affirmed the total truthfulness & supreme authority of scripture. therefore, we receive the Bible as God's inspired Word & our final authority for what we believe and how we live.

• being a disciple of Jesus means following Him in every area of life. we love Him in both the ordinary & the sacred, in public & in private, through both our words & our actions. like Jesus, we love the lost & show compassion to the poor, the sick, the hungry, the oppressed, & those rejected by society, while faithfully stewarding God's creation.

• the personal return of Jesus Christ is our blessed hope. this hope provides both strength & substance of our work today as the church, just as what we’re doing is a sign of the hope of where we’re going, pointing us toward the day when God will bring history to its fulfillment & establish His everlasting kingdom.

• every follower of Christ is called to know & love Him through worship, love His church through friendship, grow in Him through discipleship, serve others in His name, & share the gospel, inviting people from the ends of the earth & everywhere to the end of time to become Jesus’s followers.

if you’re curious for more, we recommend reading the historic creeds & confessions that have shaped the christian church for centuries.

what’s consistently affirmed across the historic creeds and confessions is generally what we believe. where they differ, we believe faithful christians may reach different conclusions.

we encourage putting theological matters in their proper order of importance, ranking theological issues by their authority rather than treating every tradition or disagreement the same, with love having the highest place inside the church.