Our Beliefs
God
We believe that God is the Creator, Sustainer, and Righteous Ruler of the universe. God is eternal, self-existent, infinite, and immutable. He has revealed Himself in nature, and in the Scriptures of the Holy Bible as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: yet as one God.
Jesus Christ
We believe that Jesus Christ was begotten by the Holy Spirit and was born of the virgin Mary. We believe that He died on the cross as a substitutionary sacrifice for the sins of all mankind and that He rose from the grave on the third day to ascend into Heaven. He is God’s unique Son; the only one of a kind. The Scripture teaches that He is God revealed in flesh. In His Divine nature He is truly God and in His human nature truly man. Jesus is our glorified Savior and Lord who mediates between God and man and who gives us access to the Father through His intercession. None can come to the Father unless they come through Him.
Holy Spirit
We believe the Holy Spirit is a divine person, equal with God the Father and God the Son and of the same nature. All the attributes of God are ascribed to the Holy Spirit by the Scriptures. It is He who convicts and convinces men of their sin. He also convinces man of that which is right, and that a final day of judgment will come. It is He who comes to live in us at conversion, to open our understanding to the Scripture, and to lead us into the truth.
The Bible
We believe the Bible to be the revealed Word of God, fully and verbally inspired of God. God used holy men to write the Scriptures. They are, in both the Old and New Testaments, the very words God intended us to have. They are, as given by God, without error and are our only rule of faith and practice. We profit from them by learning the truth about many things: they also speak to us about wrong doing; they even correct us and get us back on course as well as instructing us in right living.
The Church
We believe that the church began with the calling out of the twelve apostles by Jesus Christ and was empowered on the day of Pentecost. We believe the local church is composed of members who have been saved and baptized according to the command of Christ, and have voluntarily united together for the purposes of worship, fellowship, service, and observance of the ordinances of baptism and communion.
Man
We believe God created man in a state of innocence, and being tempted by Satan, man yielded and willfully disobeyed God, becoming a sinner and incurring God’s judgment upon sin. All of Adam’s descendants inherit his fallen nature and thus have a natural inclination to sin. When one comes to an age of accountability, he is guilty of sinning before God and in need of salvation.
Salvation
We believe that salvation is a gift of God’s grace, and that man receives forgiveness by:
- Repentance, the renouncing and forsaking of one’s sins.
- Faith, the personal acceptance of Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.
This acceptance of God’s great salvation involves belief in Christ’s death on the cross as man’s substitute and the fact of God’s raising Him from the dead as predicted. It is a salvation by grace alone and not of works.