STATEMENT OF FAITH
We believe that all original
scripture of the Old and New Testaments is the verbally inspired
and
inerrant Word of God, the divine and final authority for Christian
faith, life, and conduct.
We believe there is one
true and unchanging God who is infinitely perfect, the Creator
of all things, and
eternally existent in three persons; the Father, Jesus Christ
the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
We believe that Jesus
Christ, while being true God, also became true man through conception
by the
Holy Spirit and His virgin birth. He lived a sinless life and
died on a cross as the perfect and complete
substitutionary sacrifice for our sins. He arose bodily m the
dead, ascended into heaven to be with the
Father, and acts as our High Priest and advocate.
We believe that the Holy
Spirit convicts everyone of sin, baptizes believers into the Church,
makes
intercession for believers in heaven, and indwells believers to
guide, instruct, and empower them for godly
living and service.
We believe that man was
created by God in His own image, but because of imputed and personal
sin,
all mankind became separated from the righteous and holy God.
God in His love and grace gave His only
Son to die on the cross as the atonement for our sin. Only through
repentance, confession, and personal
faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior can we be justified and
reconciled to God. The atoning blood of
Christ and regeneration and baptism by the Holy Spirit seal the
believer forever as Children of God.
We believe that all believers
are united together in the body of Christ and that they l should
live to honor
and glorify their Lord as head of the body. Believers are to love,
worship, and praise God, love one
another, edify each other, and be His witnesses and examples in
the world.
We believe that Christ
established the ordinances of baptism and communion for the Church,
not as
essential parts of salvation, but as a means of confession of
our faith in Jesus Christ. Baptism by
immersion identifies the believer with the death, burial, and
resurrection of Christ. The Lord's Supper is a
heartfelt reminder of what Christ did for us through His broken
body and shed blood on the cross.
We believe in the personal
return of Christ, the bodily resurrection of the dead and in the
taking up
of the living saints to be with Him. Christ will come to rule
for a thousand years, defeat Satan in a final
confrontation, judge the unsaved be forever punished and separated
from God, and establish a new heaven
and the saved where they will live forever with God.