What We Believe

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When you start looking for a church home or even one to visit, it is natural to want to know what the people there believe. There are so many different ideas and teachings in our world, that you might be shocked when you walk into a church for worship. So, we want you to know clearly what we as a church believe.

1. We believe in the God described in the Bible as the creator of the universe and made humans in his own image and likeness. He gave to us authority over the creation that He had made. God so loved us as one’s made in his image, that he longed for a relationship with us. When he put Adam and Eve in the Garden, he walked in the Garden to visit with them. When sin entered the world through Eve’s eating the forbidden fruit and giving it to Adam so that he also ate, it changed the world. Man was no longer allowed in the beautiful paradise called Eden. Instead, he was driven from the garden and faced the trials and temptations of life every day. God’s love for people didn’t stop when they sinned. Instead, He began then to work out a plan by which we could be saved and spend eternity with him in a new heaven and new earth. 
2. We believe that God is one, yet there are three personalities that possess the one divine nature. All through the Bible we see the world of the three persons, whether it is at creation or as the Israelites walked in the wilderness toward the Promised Land. Jesus’ best explained the three in one concept in John 17:20-21. He was praying as he moved toward the cross where he would die for our sins and the sins of the whole world. He had been praying for the apostles, then he said, “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me, and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” Jesus prayed that all followers of his would be one in the very same way that he and the Father are one. They aren’t one person. But they share the same vision for the world, the same longing for people to be saved, the same ultimate desire for us to be with them in heaven and the same willingness to pay the price for us to be saved. Jesus wants disciples to have unity in mission, purpose, desires, and longings to be used by him to lead others to salvation. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all referred to as God in the Bible (John 1:1-2; Acts 5:3-5; John 3:16). But they certainly aren’t the same persons. Think of Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist. He was in the water; the Holy Spirit came to him in the form of a dove and the Father spoke from heaven saying, “this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.” 
   1. Think of a man and woman standing before a preacher about to be married. They are two people. But as the preacher pronounces them husband and wife he will say, “These two are now one flesh.”
   2. Husbands and wives are certainly still two people, but they are one flesh in that God intends for them to be together in every way.
3. We believe the Bible is God inspired word. It was written down by over forty different people over a period of some 1500 years. Yet God is the one who called them to write it and guided their words as they did. In 2 Peter 1:20-21 God had Peter to write, “Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” While we believe all the Bible is inspired of God, we don’t believe that all of it is still bound on us today. Jesus said that not the smallest letter or markings of the law would pass away until all of it was fulfilled, but then declared that he had come to fulfill it. When he was dying on the cross, he cried out, “It is finished.” At least part of his point was that the law was now fulfilled. He had completed his mission on earth. Paul writes in Romans 7:4 that we are now dead to the law by the body of Christ so that we might be married to another, Jesus Christ and bring forth fruit unto God.
   1. Today we are bound by the New Testament. In 2 Corinthians 3 Paul described the Old Testament law as a ministry of death, written and engraved on stones.
   2. But the New Testament was called a ministry of life. Notice as he closes the argument in the final verses of the chapter, “But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”
   3. The New Testament is called the Law of Christ in Galatians 6:2. It’s called the law of liberty in James 1:25.
   4. It is intended to be clear and understood by all who go there. Our challenge is to pray to God to give us the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that we may know him better. Pray that we may have eyes that are enlightened for us to know the hope of his calling, the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints and what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe. (Ephesians 1:15-19).
   5. Our challenge is to always be studying, learning, and growing to be more like Christ in all we do.
4. We believe that Jesus built his church as he promised he would in Matthew 16:18-20. He wants that church that is His body, and His bride, to be a people who are striving to follow him in everything we do. Think about his prayer for us to all be one as he and the Father are one.
   1. Division, denominationalism and all the church fussing that goes on in the world aren’t what he longs for with his church. If we are his body as the church, it certainly makes no sense for us to be fighting each other. When the body turns on itself, it has some terrible disease like cancer that will destroy it.
   2. But how can we have oneness in a world full of division over all kinds of things? It certainly won’t come from an “I’m right and you are wrong” mindset. The more our longing is to follow Christ in His attitude, his love for people, and his determination to do God’s will instead of his own the more we can reach unity of any kind.
   3. When the gospel was preached to the Gentiles for the first time in the Book of Acts it resulted in others going out to preach to those who were different from them. The church in Antioch was established. Barnabas came down from Jerusalem to help them and he sought Saul who became Paul to help him. It was there that the followers of Christ were first called Christians. I don’t know if the name came from the Lord or was given in derision by the people around them. However, it originated, it became the name they used for the followers of Jesus. Peter would later write that we shouldn’t suffer as murderers, thieves, busybodies, or such like, but if anyone suffers as a Christian, they shouldn’t be ashamed but glorify God in that name. (I Peter 4:16) There isn’t a time in the Bible where anyone was referred to as a certain kind of Christian. Instead, it was the name for followers of Christ. Our longing as God’s people is to just be Christians.  
5. We believe that God gave a very simple plan for worshiping him. He longs for us to worship him in spirit and in truth according to what Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well. He said, “The time is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” (John 4:23-24). Notice the Father seeks for true worshipers who worship Him in spirit and in truth.
   1. What is involved in such worship?
   2. To be in spirit means to worship with our whole being. It is to pour ourselves into the worship and give it our whole self. In Hebrews 10:24-25 we are challenged to provoke one another to love and do good works. Then he challenged us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together like some were doing, but to encourage one another and to do so with ever increasing effort as the time comes closer. Worship isn’t primarily about what I get from it. It's about putting ourselves into it and praising God together.
   3. To be in truth means to follow God’s directions in his New Covenant with us. In Acts 2:42 Peter had just preached on Pentecost and 3,000 people had believed, repented of their sins, and been baptized into Christ. “They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” This verse reveals much of God’s plan for our worship to Him today. One purpose of Worship is to proclaim the apostles teaching or the New Covenant or the gospel of Christ with all our power. If the gospel isn’t preached, then worship will never be what God intended. It is also vital to have fellowship when we gather. Interestingly, this same word here translated “fellowship” is used in I Corinthians 10:16-17 it says, “Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf.” The word “Participation” is the same word used for “fellowship” in Acts 2:42. So we worship God in taking of the communion and sharing his body and blood. Also, in I Corinthians 16:1-2 Paul challenged the church to give of their money on the first day of the week. “Now about the collection for the Lord’s people; Do what I told the Galatian churches to do. On the first day of the week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with your income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made.” So, when the church comes together, they give of their income to the Lord’s work. They also continued in breaking of bread. This phrase is used both for eating together in a meal and for taking the Lord’s supper together. Also, they continued in prayer. We certainly want to spend time praying as the church gathers. One thing that isn’t mentioned here but is later is the church at its gathering was to sing. In Ephesians 5:19 the church was challenged to “speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord.” Notice we are to sing songs that praise the Lord and do so with such heart that we are said to play the strings of our own heart in our worship to him.
6. We believe that Jesus gave us the mission for the church just before he ascended back to the Father after his resurrection from the dead. In Matthew 28:18-20 he said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”  
   1. Our mission is to MAKE DISCIPLES.
   2. It is done as we go about in the whole world. Wherever we go and whoever I’m with I’m to be about making disciples for Christ.
   3. Disciples are made by baptizing those who have come to faith in Christ into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 
   4. After disciples are baptized, they must be taught to observe all that the Lord has commanded us.
   5. We must remember that we are never left alone in our mission. Instead, we have Jesus with us and empowering us all the time.