What We Believe

The Bible is the Word of God, fully and equally inspired in the original manuscripts, without error, and written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It has supreme authority in all matters, is relevant for all generation, and is able to fully be understood under the guidance and illumination of the Holy Spirit.

There is one and only one living and true God. He is an intelligent, spiritual, and personal Being, the Creator, Redeemer, Preserver, and Ruler of the universe. God is infinite in holiness and all other perfections. God is all powerful and all knowing; and His perfect knowledge extends to all things, past, present, and future, including the future decisions of His free creatures. To Him we owe the highest love, reverence, and obedience. The eternal God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being.
A.  God the Father
God as Father is infinite, personal, and perfect in holiness, wisdom, power, and love. He infallibly foreknows all that shall come to pass, He concerns Himself mercifully in the affairs of mankind, He hears and answers prayer, and He saves from sin and death all who come to Him through Jesus Christ.
B.  God the Son
Jesus Christ is the eternal and only begotten Son of God. He was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin. Jesus perfectly revealed and did the will of God, taking upon Himself human nature with its demands and necessities and identifying Himself completely with mankind yet without sin. His substitutionary death on the cross made provision for the redemption of mankind from sin. He was raised from the dead with a glorified body. He ascended into heaven and is now exalted at the right hand of God. He will return in power and glory to judge the world.
C.  God the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit is the fully divine Spirit of God. He enables people to understand truth. He exalts Christ. He convicts mankind of sin, righteousness, and judgment. He calls mankind to the Savior, and effects regeneration. At the moment of regeneration, He baptizes each believer into the Body of Christ. He cultivates Christian character, comforts believers, and bestows spiritual gifts for the service within the church. His presence in the Christian is the guarantee that God will bring the believer into the fullness of the stature of Christ. He enlightens and empowers the believer and the church in worship, evangelism, and service.

Mankind is the special creation of God, made in His own image. He created them male and female as the crowning work of His creation. The gift of gender is thus part of the good and sovereign creation of God. Every person of every race possesses full dignity and is worthy of respect and Christian love. In the beginning mankind was innocent of sin and was endowed by the Creator with freedom of choice. By free choice man sinned against God and brought sin into the human race. Now all humanity is born with a sinful nature and into an environment inclined toward sin. Therefore, as soon as they are capable of moral action, all people become transgressors and are under condemnation. Only the grace of God can bring people into His holy fellowship and enable them to fulfill the creative purpose of God.

Salvation involves the redemption of the whole person (body, soul, and spirit) and is offered freely to all who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, who by His own blood obtained eternal redemption for the believer. There is no salvation apart from personal faith in Jesus Christ as Lord. Those whom God has accepted in Christ, and sanctified by His Spirit, will never fall away from the state of grace, but shall persevere to the end. Believers may fall into sin through neglect and temptation, bringing reproach on the cause of Christ and spiritual discipline on themselves, yet they shall be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation. In its broadest sense salvation includes regeneration, justification, sanctification, and glorification.
A.  Regeneration
Regeneration is a work of God’s grace whereby believers become new creatures in Christ Jesus. It is a change of heart brought by the Holy Spirit through conviction of sin, to which the sinner responds in repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance and faith are inseparable experiences of grace. Repentance is a genuine turning from sin toward God. Faith is the acceptance of Jesus Christ and commitment of the entire personality to Him as Lord and Savior.
B.  Justification
Justification is God’s gracious and full acquittal upon principles of His righteousness of all sinners who repent and believe in Christ. Justification is the declaration that the believer has come into a relationship of peace and favor with God.
C.  Sanctification
Sanctification is the experience, beginning in regeneration, by which the believer is set apart to God’s purposes, and is enabled to progress toward moral and spiritual maturity through the presence and power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, who conforms them to the very image of Christ. Growth in grace should continue throughout the believer’s life.
D.  Glorification
Glorification is the culmination of salvation and is the final blessed and abiding state of the redeemed.

The universal church is the living, spiritual body of which Christ is the head, and all regenerated persons are members. The local church consists of a company of believers in Jesus Christ, baptized on a credible profession of faith, for the purpose of worship, work, and fellowship. God has laid upon the members of the local church the primary work of giving the gospel of Jesus Christ to a lost world and discipling those who believe in Him.

The Lord Jesus Christ has committed two ordinances to the local church: Baptism and the Lord's Supper. Christian baptism is the immersion of the believer in water into the name of the triune God. It symbolizes the believer’s faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Savior, the believer’s death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus. The Lord’s Supper was instituted by Christ for commemoration of His death and the anticipation of His second coming. These two ordinances should be observed and administered until the return of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Every human being has direct relations with God and is accountable to God alone in all matters of faith. Each church is independent and must be free from interference by any ecclesiastical or political authority; therefore, Church and State must be kept separate as having different functions, each fulfilling its duties free from dictation or patronage of the other.

Local churches can best promote the cause of Jesus Christ by cooperating with one another in a denominational organization. Such an organization, whether a regional or district conference, exists and functions by the will of the churches. Cooperation in a conference is voluntary and may be terminated at any time. Cooperation is desirable between the various Christian denominations, when the end to be attained is itself justified, and when such cooperation involves no violation of conscience or compromise of loyalty to Christ and His Word as revealed in the New Testament.

God has ordained the family as the foundational institution of human society. It is composed of persons related to one another by marriage, blood, or adoption. Marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime. It is God’s unique gift to reveal the union between Christ and His church and to provide for the man and the woman in marriage the framework for intimate companionship, the channel of sexual expression according to biblical standards, and the means for procreation of the human race. Any sexual relationship outside of the bonds of a man and a woman within the confines of marriage, is sinful and contrary to biblical truth and teaching. The husband and wife are of equal worth before God since both are created in God’s image. The marriage relationship models the way God relates to His people. A husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church, sacrificially serving her. A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. Children are a blessing and heritage from the Lord. From the moment of conception, a child is a human and any termination of that life constitutes murder and sin before the Lord. Each person’s sexuality and gender are determined by God before they are born and cannot and are not to be altered. Parents are to teach their children spiritual and moral values and to lead them, through consistent lifestyle example and loving discipline, to make choices based on biblical truth. Children are to honor and obey their parents.

All Christians are under obligation to seek to make the will of Christ supreme in their own lives and in human society. In the spirit of Christ, Christians should oppose racism, every form of greed, selfishness, vice, and all forms of sexual immorality, including adultery, homosexuality, and pornography. They should work to provide for the orphaned, the needy, the abused, the aged, the helpless, and the sick. They should speak on behalf of the unborn and contend for the sanctity of all human life from conception to natural death. Christians should seek to bring industry, government, and society as a whole under the sway of the principles of righteousness, truth, and brotherly love. In order to promote these ends Christians should be ready to work with all people of good will in any good cause, always being careful to act in the spirit of love without compromising their loyalty to Christ and His truth. God is the source of all blessings and resources. Christians are therefore under obligation to serve Him with their time, talents, and material possessions, and should recognize all these as entrusted to them to use for the glory of God and for helping others.

It is the duty and privilege of every follower of Christ and of every church of the Lord Jesus Christ to endeavor to make disciples of all nations. Missionary effort on the part of all is a spiritual necessity of the believer’s life and is expressly and repeatedly commanded in the teachings of Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ has commanded the preaching of the gospel to all nations. It is the duty of every child of God to seek constantly to win the lost to Christ by verbal witness supported by a Christian lifestyle.

God, in His own time and in His own way, will bring the world to its appropriate end. According to His promise, Jesus Christ will return personally and visibly in glory to the earth, the dead will be raised, and Christ will judge all people in righteousness. The unrighteous will be consigned to Hell, the place of everlasting punishment. The righteous in their resurrected and glorified bodies will receive their reward and will dwell forever in Heaven with the Lord.