what we believe

GOD
We believe in a God of all-inclusive love and grace who has made all things and made them good. We believe that God is expressed as three persons in one: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God reigns over the universe that God has created and sustains it by being active and intimately involved in creation. While humanity will be judged by God, in God’s infinite love for us, God offers us redemption through salvation in Jesus Christ.

JESUS CHRIST
We believe Jesus Christ fully embodies God’s true nature and humanity’s intended nature. In his teachings and his life, we have the lessons and examples of how to live so that God’s Kingdom comes on earth. We believe that Jesus is our Lord and our Savior. We believe that Jesus fulfilled God’s promise to us by overcoming the power of sin and death on the cross by his resurrection.

HOLY SPIRIT
We believe that the Holy Spirit is the power that emanates from God, was in Jesus, and now lives within each believer in the body of Christ that we call the church.

THE BIBLE
We believe the scriptures, as recorded in the Old and New Testament, are God’s inspired and living word and the primary source to inform a Christian’s faith and life.

HUMANITY
We believe that God created human beings with the potential to live in right relationship with God and one another, but too often choose selfishness rather than sacrificial love, thus condemning ourselves to the ongoing pattern of human suffering. This continuous pattern of selfishness confirms our need for a loving, redeeming God.

SALVATION
We believe salvation is the gift of God’s grace in Jesus Christ, who saved us from the human pattern of consistently turning away from God’s will when he remained obedient in his witness to God’s steadfast love, even though it meant his death on the cross. Christ’s work saves us from the reality of life without hope of redemption.

THE CHURCH
We believe the church, in a human sense, is the extended family of humanity caring for one another, and in the divine sense, it is the heart and hands of Jesus Christ alive in the world.

MISSION
Our mission is “Helping Christians Grow and Growing New Christians.” We believe a personal relationship with a God of unconditional love, made real to us in Jesus Christ, is the transforming relationship all persons need to fulfill their God-given potential for good.

STEWARDSHIP
We believe we hold all things in trust for God. The earth, its inhabitants, and its resources do not belong to us. All are gifts of God, and in thanksgiving for what God gives us, we are called to give a portion of what we have to others with a generous and thankful spirit so that all may know the blessings we know.

SACRAMENTS
We believe in the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Our Lord has promised that the Grace of God is most powerfully present to us in these places and practices. Baptism is the entrance into the Christian faith and family, and the Lord’s Supper is the meal that sustains us in our faith.