🔺 God (Trinity)

God is revealed in scripture as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. One God, eternally existing in three co-equal persons. God is both holy and loving, unlimited in power, wisdom, and goodness, the Creator and Preserver of all things.

👑 Father

We believe in God the Father, maker of heaven and earth, of things seen and unseen. We call God Father as a way of expressing the relational nature of God. We call God ‘our Father’ because Jesus instructs us to do so, and because those who believe in Jesus have become children of God.

✝️ Jesus

Jesus was miraculously conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. As the incarnation of the eternal Son of God, he is both fully God and fully human. He lived a sinless life and voluntarily paid the penalty for our sin by dying on the cross in our place, reconciling us to God. God raised him from the dead, thereby demonstrating His power over sin and death. He ascended to heaven and will return to earth as judge of the living and the dead.

🕊️ Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is present in the world to convict us of sin, guide us into truth, and remind us what Jesus taught. He lives within every Christian, empowering us to live the Christian life and become more like Christ. He gives each Christian spiritual gifts, which we are responsible to use to serve Christ and build up His Church.

📖 Authority of the Bible

The Bible is God’s Word to us that reveals God’s person and purposes to us. Human authors, under the inspirational guidance of the Holy Spirit, wrote the Bible. As a library of books, it reveals God’s truth and wisdom. It contains all that is necessary for salvation and is the final authority for Christian belief and practice.

🧍 Humanity

Human beings are created in the image of God, to be in relationship with God. Because of sin, the image of God is marred and we are marked by an attitude of disobedience toward God. Sin separates us from God, and we are only able to recover God’s image in us by Jesus’s work within us through the Holy Spirit.

💙 Sin, Grace, and Salvation

Sin is disobedience to God—both in what we do and in what we fail to do. It is falling short of God’s will and brings brokenness into our lives and the world. Scripture teaches, and experience confirms, that all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory.

“Grace” is how we talk about God’s unfailing love and his mercy towards creation. We see and experience grace in how God draws us towards himself, how God forgives and justifies those who repent and trust in Him, and how he continues to work through the Holy Spirit to sanctify and lead people in righteousness.

Salvation is God’s gift, received by repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. It begins as we turn from sin and self-reliance and put our full trust in Jesus’s atoning work. Salvation is our deliverance from the penalty of sin and our empowerment by the Holy Spirit to live free from the power of sin.

✨ Holiness

The call throughout scripture is that God’s people would be holy as God is holy. Holiness is an ongoing work of God’s grace in a believer’s life that they take on the mind of Christ and the character of Christ. We grow in holiness as we abide in Christ and as the Holy Spirit works to transform and renew us.

⛪ The Church

The Church is the community of all true believers in Jesus and the body of Christ on earth. The true Church exists where the Word of God is rightly proclaimed and the sacraments are duly administered. Jesus desires that every believer be connected with a local congregation because the Church, empowered and led by the Holy Spirit, is God’s instrument for accomplishing His purposes on earth today. The Church witnesses to the reign of God through how we live together, serve God’s purposes, and proclaim His good news.

🕊️ Sacraments: Baptism and Communion

The sacraments are outward and visible signs of God’s grace at work in individuals and in the church. Jesus ordained two sacraments: Baptism and Holy Communion.

Baptism: Baptism marks entrance into the household of faith. It signifies repentance, cleansing from sin, new birth in Christ, and the beginning of discipleship. We believe children are under the atonement of Christ and, as heirs of the Kingdom, are appropriate recipients of Baptism. Through Baptism, they become a special responsibility of the Church, to be nurtured toward personal faith and eventual confirmation. Because Baptism is God’s work, being baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit once is sufficient. Baptism is rightly remembered and affirmed throughout life, but not a rite to be repeated.

Holy Communion: Holy Communion is both a remembrance of Christ’s atoning work and a real encounter with His presence, received by faith. In it, we look back to the cross, experience Christ’s presence now, and anticipate the heavenly feast to come. Communion unites us with Christ and with all believers, across time and around the world, as one body.

💍 Marriage and Singleness

Scripture presents marriage as a covenant between one man and one woman, designed by God as the proper context for sexual expression and the nurturing of children. Marriage reflects Christ’s relationship with His Church and calls spouses to lifelong faithfulness, mutual submission, and sacrificial love.

Singleness is a gift to be honored by both the individual and the church. Those who are single are called to a life of holiness, including sexual purity.

Human sexuality is given as a means of expressing love, relationship, and self-giving. We reject all expressions of sexuality that distort God’s design or diminish the dignity of others, including exploitation, objectification, and unfaithfulness. In keeping with Scripture, we believe that sexual intimacy is reserved for marriage between a man and a woman, and that all other sexual relationships fall outside God’s will. At the same time, we affirm God’s power to redeem and restore through Jesus Christ, and we are committed to being a community of grace, truth, and healing for all people.

🌿 Stewardship

We owe all that we are to God, and everything that we own comes from God as a sacred trust. We are called to lives of generosity and service rather than the accumulation of material things. We will be held accountable regarding whether we have invested our life, talents, time, and resources in things of eternal value.