OUR BELIEFS

SCRIPTURE

We believe and maintain that the Bible was written by men and women divinely inspired and is God’s revelation of Himself to mankind. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth without any mix of error for its matter. We hold all scripture as true and trustworthy. It reveals the principles by which God judges us, and therefore is, and will forever 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 be tried. All scripture is a testimony to Christ who Is Himself the focus of divine revelation.

GOD

We believe and maintain that there is one, and only one, living and true God. He is intelligent, spiritual, and personal. He is the Creator, Redeemer, Preserver, and Ruler of the universe. He is infinite in holiness. God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and always present. His knowledge is perfect and extends to all things past, present, and future, including the future decisions of his free creations. To Him, we owe the highest love, reverence, and obedience. He exists in three persons - God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Each personhood is unique and maintains distinct personal attributes.

GOD THE FATHER

The Father reigns with providential care. He serves as Father to all those who become children of God through faith in Jesus Christ. He is fatherly in his attitude toward all mankind.

GOD THE SON

The Son is Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God. He was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin, Mary. Jesus perfectly revealed and did the will of God the Father, taking upon himself human nature with its demands and necessities and identifying himself completely with mankind, yet without sin.

He honored the divine law by his personal obedience and, in his substitutionary death on the cross, he made provision for the redemption of mankind from sin. He was raised from the dead with a glorified body and appeared to his disciples as the person who was with them before his crucifixion. He ascended to heaven and is now exalted at the right hand of God the Father where He is the One Mediator, fully God and fully man, in whose person has perfected the reconciliation between God and mankind. He dwells in all believers as the living and present Lord.

GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God, fully divine. He inspired the men and women of old to write the scriptures and, through illumination, he allows mankind to understand the truth. He exalts Christ, convicts mankind of sin, righteousness, and judgement, and calls us to the Savior, effecting regeneration. He baptizes each believer into the Body of Christ and cultivates Christian character, comforts believers, and bestows the gifts by which individuals serve God through the Church. His presence inside the Christian is the guarantee that God will bring the believer into the fullness of the stature of Christ. He enlightens and empowers the believer and the Church in worship, evangelism, and service.

MANKIND

We believe and maintain that mankind is the special creation of God, made in his own image. He created them male and female as the crowning work of his creation. The gift of gender is thus part of the goodness of God’s creation. In the beginning, mankind was innocent of sin and was endowed by their Creator with freedom of choice. By their own free will, mankind sinned against God and brought sin into the human race. Through the temptation of Satan, mankind transgressed the commands of God and fell from their original innocence, whereby all descendants now inherit a nature and environment inclined toward sin. Therefore, upon becoming capable of moral understanding, individuals become transgressors and are under condemnation. Only the grace of God can bring mankind into his holy fellowship and enable them to fulfill their creative, God-given purpose. The sacredness of human personality is evident in that God created mankind in his own image and that Christ died for man. Therefore, every person of every race possesses full dignity and is worthy of respect and Christian love.

SALVATION

We believe and maintain that 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.

REGENERATION

Regeneration is a work of God’s grace whereby believers become new creatures in Jesus Christ. It is a change of heart wrought by the Holy Spirit through conviction of sin, to which the sinner responds in repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance and faith are inseparable experiences of grace. Repentance is a genuine turning from sin toward God. Faith is the acceptance of Jesus Christ and commitment of the entire person to him as Lord and Savior.

JUSTIFICATION

Justification is God’s gracious and full acquittal upon principles of his righteousness of all sinners who repent and believe in Christ. Justification brings the believer into a relationship of peace and favor with God.

sanctification

Sanctification is the experience, beginning in regeneration, by which the believer is set apart for God’s purpose and is enabled to progress toward moral and spiritual maturity through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in them. Growth in grace should continue throughout the believer’s life.

GLORIFICATION

Glorification is the culmination of salvation and is the final blessed and abiding state of the redeemed.

GRACE

We believe and maintain that grace is the undeserved favor of God. It is by his grace mankind is saved through faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Grace discourages boastfulness and promotes a spirit of humility and servitude.

THE CHURCH

We believe and maintain that this Church is an autonomous local congregation of baptized believers, associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the Gospel, observing baptism and communion, governed by the laws established throughout the scriptures, exercising the gifts bestowed by the Holy Spirit, and seeking to extend the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth. We operate under the Lordship of Jesus Christ through democratic processes. As such, each member of this Church is responsible and accountable to Christ as Lord. We esteem and establish that both men and women are gifted for service in the Church.

BAPTISM

We believe and maintain that Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. This is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Savior, the believer’s death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus. It is a testimony to one’s faith in the final resurrection of the dead. Baptism does not provide salvation, but is a perfect opportunity to make one’s faith public.

COMMUNION

We believe and maintain that communion is a symbolic act of obedience whereby members of the Church, through partaking of the bread and juice, memorialize the sacrifice of the Redeemer.

MISSIONS

We believe and maintain that it is the duty and privilege of every follower of Christ and every Church of the Lord Jesus Christ to endeavor to make disciples of all nations. The new birth of the believer’s spirit by God’s Holy Spirit means the birth of love for others. Missionary effort on the part of all rests thus on a spiritual necessity of the life of the redeemed, and is expressly and repeatedly commanded in the teachings of Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ commanded the preaching of the Gospel to all nations. It is the duty of every believer to win the lost to Christ by verbal witness, undergirded by a Christian lifestyle, and by other methods in harmony with the gospel of Christ.

STEWARDSHIP

We believe and maintain that God is the source of all blessings, temporal and spiritual. All that we have and are we owe to him. Christians have a spiritual debtorship to the whole world, a holy trusteeship in the gospel, and a binding stewardship in their possessions. As such, they are therefore under obligation to serve Christ with their time, money, talent, and knowledge. Christians should contribute these gifts cheerfully, regularly, systematically, proportionately, and liberally for the advancement of the Redeemer’s cause on earth.

COOPERATION

We believe and maintain that Christ’s people should, as occasions require, organize such associations and conventions as may best secure cooperation for the great objects of the Kingdom of God. Such organizations have no authority over one another or over the churches. They are voluntary and advisory bodies designed to elicit, combine, and direct the energies of our people in the most effective manner. Christians should cooperate with one another for the purpose of extending Christ’s Kingdom so long as such cooperation involves no violation of conscience or compromise of loyalty to Christ and his Word.

DEFINITION OF MARRIAGE

We believe and maintain that marriage is the uniting of one individual who was biologically male at the point of birth and one individual who was biologically female at the point of birth, both over the age of eighteen, in a covenant commitment for a lifetime. This covenant is the only proper channel for sexual expression according to God’s Word. Both partners in this covenant are of equal worth before God.

RECOGNITION OF MARRIAGE

This Church hereby establishes that it shall only accept and recognize that marriage that meets the definition established herein by this Statement of Faith.

OFFICIATION OF MARRIAGE

This Church hereby prohibits the officiation of any marriage that does not meet the definition established herein by this Statement of Faith and that all officers and staff are held to this standard. Failure to comply with this provision will result in their immediate termination.

POLITY AND RELATIONSHIPS

The government of the Church is vested in the body of believers who compose it. Persons duly received by the members shall constitute membership. All organizations created and empowered by the Church shall report to and be accountable to the Church. The Church is not subject to the control of any other ecclesiastical body, but it recognizes and sustains the obligations of mutual counsel and cooperation which are common among Baptist churches. The Church will voluntarily cooperate with and support any organization to which it chooses to, so long as it does not conflict with the Church’s own best interests.

COVENANT

Having been led, as we believe, by the Spirit of God to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior and, on the profession of our faith, having been baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we do now, in the presence of God and this assembly, most solemnly and joyfully enter into this covenant with one another as one body in Christ.

We engage, therefore, by the aid of the Holy Spirit, to walk together in Christian love, to strive for the advancement of this Church in knowledge, holiness, and comfort, to promote its prosperity and spirituality, to sustain its worship, ordinances, discipline and doctrines, to contribute cheerfully and regularly to the support of the ministry, the expenses of the Church, the relief of the poor, and the spread of the gospel throughout all nations.

We also engage to maintain family and private devotions, to religiously educate our children, to seek the salvation of our kindred and acquaintances, to walk through the world with guarded eyes, ears, and minds, to be just in our dealings, faithful in our engagements, and exemplary in our deportment, to avoid sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties and other sins like these, and to be zealous in our effort to advance the Kingdom of our Savior.

We further engage to watch over one another in brotherly love, to remember one another in prayer, to aid one another in sickness and distress, to cultivate Christian sympathy in feeling and Christian courtesy in speech, to be slow to take offense, but always ready for reconciliation and mindful of the rules of our Savior to secure it without delay.

We moreover engage that when we, as members, remove ourselves from this place, we will, as swiftly as possible, unite with some other church where we can carry out the Spirit of this covenant and the principles of the Word of God.