The Bible:
We believe that the Bible, the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments, is the inspired word of God, without error in the original writings, the complete revelation of His will for the salvation of humankind, and the Divine and final authority for faith and life.
God:
The Godhead / Trinity: We believe in one God, the creator and sustainer of all things, infinitely perfect, and eternally existing in three co-equal persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. God the Father: We believe in the sovereignty of God the Father who decreed all that comes to pass for His own glory according to His own counsel. He is the Father the Lord Jesus Christ and of those who are in Christ.
God the Son: We believe that God the Son became fully human in the person of Jesus Christ while remaining fully God, having been conceived of God the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, in order that He might reveal God and redeem sinful humankind. He lived a sinless life and died on the cross as the complete sacrifice for our sins. He then arose physically from the dead and ascended into heaven, where, at the right hand of God the Father, He is now our High Priest and Advocate. He will come again to the earth – personally, visibly, and physically – to judge the living and the dead, and to consummate history and the eternal plan of God the Father.
God the Holy Spirit: We believe that God the Holy Spirit works in the hearts of humankind for the glorification of God the Father and God the Son. He is the giver of new life, convicting individuals of sin and enabling saving faith in Jesus Christ. He permanently indwells individuals from the moment of new birth, and is the seal or guarantee of their full salvation. He fills believers as they yield to Him, guiding, instructing, and empowering them for godly living and service.
Salvation:
The Human Condition: We believe that humankind was created by God to glorify and enjoy Him forever. Through Adam’s rebellion humankind fell into sin, came under God’s righteous condemnation, and experienced spiritual death. All people have inherited Adam’s sinful nature and are, by themselves, unable to live righteously or to remedy alienation from God.
Justification: We believe that God the Father, in gracious unmerited love and in fulfillment of His promise, sent Jesus to die on the cross, the perfect and consummate blood sacrifice, bearing the punishment for sin. God the Father credits Christ’s righteousness to all those who, through the work of the life-giving Holy Spirit, earnestly confess their sinfulness, put their faith in Christ alone for salvation, and commit themselves to Him. Through this justification, God the Father ends the believer’s alienation and adopts him or her as His child for eternity.
Sanctification and Christian Living: We believe that God intends each believer to live in active recognition of having died and been resurrected with Christ, nourishing his or her new nature and putting to death his or her old nature through dependence on the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. As a result, believers will continually grow in Christlikeness through devotion to God, understanding and application of the Bible, personal holiness, and unselfish love, leading others to Christ by their lives and words, and building one another up as followers of Christ.
Glorification and Eternal Destiny: We believe that upon physical death a believer enters God’s presence and is delivered from the presence of sin. When Christ returns, his own, both living and dead, will receive their resurrection bodies and experience the perfect completeness of their redemption, being fully fitted to glorify God and enjoy him forever. All who have rejected God’s way of salvation in this life will face His judgment and will consciously experience His everlasting punishment.
The Church:
We believe that the one true Church is composed of all persons who, through saving faith in Jesus Christ, have been justified by God the Father and united together by the Holy Spirit in the Body of Christ of which Christ is the Head. This one true Church finds her visible, yet imperfect, expression in local congregations. These congregations meet for the purposes of worshiping God, growing in knowledge and application of the Bible, celebrating the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s supper, fellowshipping to build one another up in Christlikeness, and being equipped to serve as God’s ambassadors to a lost and dying world. For her perfecting, the Church awaits the return of the Lord.