What we Believe

Jesus Christ of Nazareth was who He said He was: both God and man. This is a profound mystery. Jesus lived and died as a man. His life was simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary. It was ordinary in the sense that He was truly a man, not unlike any other man in terms of his essential nature and development; it was extraordinary in the sense of His perfect, love-centered, Godward and sinless life and subsequent bodily resurrection. Not only was His life sinless, His death was substitutionary. Salvation can come only through faith in Jesus Christ.

The Bible is God’s Word to mankind. Its claims, content, and consistency are without peer on the vast historical landscape of literature. It is inspired, inspiring, and infallible. It is also historically, scientifically, philosophically, and experientially sound. The Bible contains, among many other useful and essential counsels, the Ten Commandment moral law of God. We affirm God’s perfect law of love including the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, which, tragically, has been largely forgotten, ignored, or otherwise neglected by both the world and the church. We affirm the Protestant axiom of sola Scriptura.

Humankind, both male and female, were created in the image of God. As such, we were created out of love, for love and to love. We do not possess innate immortality, but can receive eternal life as a gift from God. There is a multli-dimensionality to our personhood; we are physical, intellectual, spiritual and social beings. We were made to create, not to control or be controlled. Our greatest happiness is found in fulfilling our creational purpose: to love God supremely and our fellow man genuinely. By physical birth we are fallen and self-centered; by spiritual rebirth we are redeemed, redirected, and restored.

God made the world in six literal, continuous and contiguous days. Over and against the prevailing long-ages evolutionary view of earth and life, we affirm, with Jesus, the historicity and accuracy of the biblical creation account found in the opening chapters of Genesis. We reject as unbiblical and unscientific the various permutations of the evolutionary hypothesis. We recognize and grieve the fallen condition of this world, and look forward to its full recreation and restoration commencing at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. We affirm and anticipate the nearness of His return to earth. In the interim, and by God’s enabling grace, we are committed to bettering ourselves, our relationships and communities, and our planet.