What We Believe
Bible
We believe the Bible to be the complete Word of God; that the sixty-six books, as originally written, comprising of the Old and New Testaments were fully inspired by the Spirit of God and therefore infallible and entirely free from error; that the Bible is the final authority in all matters of faith and practice as well as the true basis of Christian union.
God
We believe in one God, Creator of all, holy, sovereign, eternal, and existing in three equal Persons – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Christ
We believe in the absolute and essential deity and humanity of Jesus Christ, in His eternal existence with the Father in preincarnate glory, in His virgin birth; sinless life; substitutionary death; bodily resurrection; triumphant ascension; mediatorial ministry; and personal and visible return.
The Holy Spirit
We believe in the absolute and essential deity and personality of the Holy Spirit, who convinces of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment; who regenerates, sanctifies, illuminates, indwells, and comforts those who believe in Jesus Christ.
Human Beings
We believe that human beings were divinely created in the image of God and that they sinned, becoming guilty before God, resulting in total depravity, thereby incurring physical and spiritual death.
Salvation
We believe that salvation is by the sovereign, electing grace of God that by the appointment of the Father, Christ voluntarily suffered a substitutionary and redemptive death; that justification is by faith alone in the all sufficient sacrifice and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ; that those whom has effectually called shall be divinely preserved and finally perfected in the image of God.
Future Things
We believe in the personal, bodily, visible, and glorious return of the Lord Jesus Christ; in the bodily resurrection of the just and the unjust; in the eternal blessedness of the redeemed and in the judgment and conscious eternal punishment of the wicked.
The Local Church
We believe that a church is a community of believers, called out from the world, separated unto the Lord Jesus, voluntarily associated with the ministry of the Word, the mutual edification of its members, the propagation of the faith and the observance of the sacraments. We believe it is a sovereign, independent body, exercising its own divinely awarded gifts, precepts, and privileges under the Lordship of Christ, the Head of the Church.
Marriage
We believe that marriage is a lifelong covenant ordained by God between a man and a woman. Marriage is designed to be the exclusive domain for sexual intimacy and procreation of children.
Ordinances
We believe that there are only two sacraments the Church regularly observed in the New Testament:
- Baptism by water, whereby the believer obeys Christ’s command and sets forth identification with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection.
- The Lord’s Supper, which is the partaking of the two elements, bread and cup, whereby the believer remembers the Lord Jesus Christ, proclaiming His death until He comes.