ESSENTIALS OF BELIEF

     What We Believe, Our deepest convictions, affect every decision we make as a church. While the Bible itself is our formal document of faith, this document includes statements that should help you understand those biblical ideas that fundamentally define who we are.

  1. We believe the Bible is the Word of God. It is divinely inspired and the supreme and final authority for faith and life. (II Timothy 3:16, 17)
  2. We believe in one God, eternally existing in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. (II Corinthians 13:14)
  3. We believe that man was created in the image of God: That he sinned and thereby incurred not only the physical death, but also spiritual death which is separation from God; and that all human beings are born with a sinful nature, and in the case of those who reach moral responsibility, become sinners in thought, word and deed. (Romans 3:23; Romans 5:12)
  4. We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures as representative and substitutionary sacrifice and that all who believe in Him are justified on the grounds of his shed blood. (Colossians 1:14; Romans 3:23-26)
  5. We believe in the resurrection of the crucified body of our Lord, in His ascension into heaven, and His present life for us as High Priest and Advocate. (I Corinthians 15:4; Acts 1:9-11; I John 2:1-2)
  6. We believe in the “second coming”; the personal return of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. (I Thessalonians 4:13-18; Matthew 24:29-31)
  7. We believe that all who receive by faith the Lord Jesus Christ are born of the Holy Spirit and thereby become children of God, a relationship in which no one may remove them. (Acts 16:31; Romans 8:38-39; Hebrews 3:5)
  8. We believe that faith involves belief in Jesus Christ as God’s Son, repentance from sin, (Acts 3:16,7:30-31) public confession of Christ, (Matthew 10:32; Romans 10:9-10) and baptism by immersion for remission of sins. (Acts 2:38; Romans 6:1-6)
  9. We believe in the bodily resurrection of the just and the unjust: the everlasting blessedness of the saved and the everlasting conscious punishment of the lost. (I Thessalonians 4:16-17; Revelation 20:11-15)