Our Statement of Faith

The one true God is the source of all life and all love. He is good, all-powerful, and intimately connected with all He has made. He is Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer, Lord over all, and friend. He is simultaneously beyond our ability to fully understand yet completely knowable. He has chosen to reveal Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and has opened the way for mankind to walk in an intimate relationship of love with Him — our highest privilege and priority.

God as Father is tenacious in His protection of all He made, yet tender with our hearts. He is not distant or angry, but His perfect love casts out all fear. He speaks to, leads, protects, comforts, and matures us as a great “daddy” does with a child he adores. Indeed, He is the very picture and definition of fatherhood: every ‘good’ image we’ve seen of a dad comes from Him. He is the father of the fatherless and stands with arms wide open.

Jesus is the eternal Son of God: fully God and fully man. In love, He chose to empty Himself and take the full form of humanity when He came to earth to be born of the virgin Mary. During his life on earth, he came as the second Adam and the firstborn of the new creation. He walked in intimacy with God, his Father, only doing what the Father told him to do. His miracles were not merely acts of deity, but rather of submitted sonship and union with the Father. This is why he said anyone who walked with him would do the same things he did. Jesus lived free of sin and on the cross paid the price for every sin, disease, penalty, and perversion. He resurrected from the dead, ushering in the present Kingdom of God whereby mankind can reign alongside him as a new creation. Jesus ascended into heaven and will return to establish the fullness of His Kingdom forever.

The Holy Spirit is the eternal Spirit of God and friend of mankind. It is the Spirit (breath) that first breathed life into humanity and the Spirit who breathes upon each beloved son or daughter as they are born again. The Holy Spirit dwells in believers from the moment of salvation, teaching them all things and reminding them all they may have forgotten (John 14:26). The Spirit is a “called alongside friend,” fully enabling mankind to walk with God. The Spirit enables believers to fulfill their calling from God through Fruit (Gal. 5:22) and Gifts (Rom. 12, 1 Cor. 12, Eph. 4). All of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit are active and important, and we encourage the exercise of the Gifts in a fitting and orderly way (1 Cor. 14:40). The most obvious evidence of someone being filled with the Holy Spirit is a life that exhibits the Fruit of the Spirit, especially love (Gal. 5:22, 1 Corinthians 13).

The Bible is God’s revelation of Himself and His relationship with humanity. It was given through men divinely inspired by the Holy Spirit. It is fully trustworthy — the authority by which all of our beliefs should be tried. The Bible has been used by many as a weapon to divide people made in the image of God. Its passages have often been lifted out of context and used in a way the Divine Author never intended. Therefore, the Bible is only profitable to the degree the person holding it is yielded to walk with and love like God. It is a “living book,” only seen clearly in active union with its author. As people yield, they discover the Bible as a treasure of intimacy, hope, and joy beyond anything they could ask or imagine.

God created mankind in a special and unique relationship to Himself. We were created in God’s image so we would be able to walk in a relationship of love with Him and each other. We were made to be like God so we could reign with Him. God’s first action to us revealed His heart: He “blessed” us — a word meaning “to bend down from a high place to a low one, to lift the head, to look in the eyes with delight, and to furnish with everything we need.” In Eden, we had all we needed and were all we needed. But, through the choice to listen to a lying serpent, we fell away from God and welcomed sin, disease, death, and brokenness into the world God made. From the foundation of the world, God purposed to be made into the image of man He created so He could rescue us and restore us to our original image and union. The sacrifice of Jesus and grace of God is fully sufficient to fully redeem and transform all who look to Him. In Christ, man is given a new heart and new nature — invited to live in union with God in peace, victory, joy, and hope as beloved ‘saints’!

Man is saved from his sin and brought into relationship with God solely by God’s grace. We can do nothing to earn God’s favor or salvation, other than accept Jesus as Savior. By faith, man accepts the free gift of salvation from sin that God has made available through His Son, Jesus. Any person who receives Jesus as their Savior becomes a new creation and will never fall away from their state of grace and forgiveness. We will be with Him and reign with Him forever!

Walking with Jesus is our greatest privilege and priority. The goal of all of life is summed up in the command to love God with all of our hearts and, from that relationship of love, to overflow in a love for our neighbors that is consistent with how we now love ourselves. As the Holy Spirit comes to indwell every believer, He completely transforms our nature: we are a new creation, pleasing to God and created to walk with Him. Man does not need to jump through hoops to please God, but simply to choose to walk in continual intimacy with the God that delights in them. All fruit in the Christian life does not come from effort, but as a byproduct of abiding in Him. As we abide, we bear fruit.

In Christ, man is given victory and a lifestyle of sin becomes unnatural — no longer true to our nature. Followers of Jesus no longer ‘need’ to walk in sin, but nonetheless can find themselves facing struggles from past or present mindsets. Sin is always a reflection of what one believes in their heart. In any place a believer wrestles with sin, there is no condemnation, but rather the invitation to walk with Jesus and uncover the lie they are believing and to receive the freedom Jesus already purchased for them. Often, the wisdom and love of other brothers and sisters in Christ in the Body of Christ is a great help to align our lives with the truth and freedom that is already ours.

Christ built the church as a family who walk in devotion to Him and each other as they overflow His hope, love, joy, freedom, and life to the entire world. Life was never meant to be lived in isolation, but in the joyous celebration of our communion — our common union with Christ and each other. In the church, God raises up the offices of Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Shepherd, and Teacher to equip the saints for the maturing function of these graces everywhere they go. Believers are encouraged to be committed to a local family they share their life with — a family where they grow together and go together to release God’s love to everyone, everywhere.

The present realm we see in the “here and now” is only here now. We are eternal beings, invited to live forever with God in a glorious heavenly realm more real than anything we’ve yet experienced. Heaven and hell are actual places. God’s heaven is perfect and therefore cannot permit sin into heaven. Those who accept Jesus as their personal Savior are forgiven of their sin, allowing them to have eternal life with God in heaven when they die, or when Christ returns. For those who refuse to accept Jesus as Savior, they will stand in judgment in a place God never desired they go. In light of this, we are to be diligent in prayer and action to help people know Jesus.