Beliefs

We believe there is only one real God who made the universe and all that is in it. He is one, pure, spiritual being that exists in a tri-unity of: The Father, The Son and the Holy Spirit. It is a mysterious concept, but we can somewhat visualize it like a triangle: a triangle has 3 distinct points, yet it is one geometric figure. Each point is inseparable from the whole object but there is no confusion between the points either. God is not three gods, only one God in three persons.

We believe that God loves people, so God took on a human nature, by a miraculous virgin birth – what better way to really communicate with us than to come down to our level? Jesus is the God-man. You can picture it like adding a balloon to one point of a triangle – the triangle never changes, it just adds the balloon. In the same way, God never changes but Jesus took on a human nature (he was born and grew up – just like a balloon can start out small and inflate) – so Jesus is both fully God and fully man at the same time. This means that Jesus was able to live a perfect life because He was God in the flesh. He was also able to give His human life as a payment for our bad choices, our sins, because He was also a perfect man. Since the Bible says, “the wages of sin is death,” but Jesus never sinned, when He gave up His life on the cross it caused a spiritual explosion – in fact, it literally caused death to work backwards and Jesus rose from the dead. His death on the cross and His resurrection paves the way so that anyone who puts their trust in Him can have a real relationship directly with the real God.

The evil things we do and say and think – our sins – are like cancer in our souls. If you had cancer, no matter how many vitamins you might take, it just won’t cure it. It’s the same with sin – just living a good life (like taking vitamins) won’t cure the sin problem. To God, sin is spiritual cancer and just a little bit of sin will keep us separated from truly knowing the real God. People can only be saved from this terrible separation by admitting they have a sin problem, then turning away from a self-directed lifestyle (the Biblical word for this is repentance) and placing all hope and trust in the payment for sin that Jesus made when he died on the cross. This process is called being “born again”.

We believe Christians are those who decide to accept the peace offering made by Jesus. A person accepts this peace offering by a choice (faith) and if your choice is real, from the heart, there will be a change in your everyday actions. In effect, becoming a Christian is making Jesus the Captain of your life. Think of it like joining the Military. In the Military, you have to turn away from a civilian life, swear to follow the orders of your Captain and train to live out the Military lifestyle. In the same way, Christians are people who turn away from living just any way they want (repentance), swear to follow Jesus as their Captain (pray and accept Him as master of all life choices) and begin to train in how to live the Christian life (learning from other Christians and from the Bible, serving others – this is what church should be all about).

Once we become Christians, God’s Spirit begins to change us from the inside out. The Holy Spirit also gives us the power to live lives that reflect God’s goodness. It isn’t our good life that puts us right with God, but our changed lives show that we really have put our trust in Jesus. Just as a bad tree cannot grow good fruit, so we can see by a person’s actions if they have indeed asked God, from their heart, to make Jesus their substitute and the Captain of their life.

The 66 books of the Bible are God’s only and complete revelation to people about spiritual truth. The Bible, and the Bible alone, is the final rule and authority over how Christians should live. There are many English translations of the Bible and we believe those translations which most accurately reflect the oldest copies of the originals should be our guides. We often check our scripture references against word for word translations of the oldest Greek and Hebrew Bible versions available. We primarily use the New American Standard Bible and the New King James Version but refer to others on occasion.

The Church is not a building or an organization. Instead, the church is made of all people who are born again. Since people make mistakes and the church is full of people, it is necessary that all church teachings and practices be confirmed by the Bible.

Jesus instructed us to be baptized as a public demonstration of our faith in Him as our Master in life and our savior from sin. We baptize people by dipping them completely in water, in the name of the triune God, after a person declares faith in Jesus.

The Lord Jesus instructed us to remember his death and resurrection by observing the “Lord’s Supper” on a regular basis. The ceremonies of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper do not save us, it is our trust in God’s mercy alone (our faith alone) that saves us, but these works are public declarations of our faith and important reminders to us of what we believe.