What We Believe

Our doctrinal views should be familiar to many people. What is most important for us though, is that we are becoming more like Jesus every day. We base what we mean by "becoming like Jesus" or "being a disciple" on some doctrinal points - and those appear below - but what we're really after is creating a congregation, a community, and a world filled with people who live as Jesus did. If that is enticing to you, our paths may align and we would welcome you to join us.

So what do we believe? Much of our theology aligns with the ancient Christian creeds. We can affirm and we teach in line with the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed, although we don't view the creeds as Scripture. Here are some specific points that many visitors want to know.

We are Trinitarian. We teach that the Godhead is three divine persons known as the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. All three are of the same divine substance and the three persons are one God.

We teach that God created the world by his speaking it into existence and this through the Logos, the Son, through whom all things were made and by whom all things are sustained. 

We teach that Man sinned and in doing so separated himself from God. In that separation, Man lacks true life and fellowship with God, having failed to live as intended in the image of God - as the image of God.

We teach that the goodness, grace, and love of God for Man resulted in God moving toward Man to reconcile, to heal, to restore the relationship between himself and his creation. God's movement was ultimately seen in the coming of Jesus, the incarnated Logos, the Son of God. 

We teach that Jesus lived on the earth and while doing so, both exampled the life of God among men, and called both the nation of Israel and all other nations back to God. His ultimate act on earth was his death on a cross and in that death, reconciling the world to God. We teach that Jesus was truly killed, was raised to life on the third day, and ascended to the Father where He now intercedes for us.

We teach that the Spirit of God has been active in the world from the very beginning but that upon Jesus's ascension, the Spirit is given to all disciples of Jesus to lead them, to help them pray, to give them power to live the life of a disciple on the earth. 

We teach that Jesus will return one day and on that day, those who have been his disciples will join him in his life most fully, in the presence of the Father to whom Jesus will deliver the church as a bride, cleansed of her sin. Those who are not disciples of Jesus will be separated from the disciples and from God forever. 

We teach that the Bible is God's revelation of both himself and Man. That in the Bible we are shown not only the goodness and grace of God, but the purpose of Man as the image of God, the husband of the Creation, and embodiments of love for each other and the creation. The Bible is sufficient for salvation of human beings and fellowship with God both now and in the eternal day.

We teach that the normative process of coming to God evidenced in the New Testament includes accepting that Jesus was the promised Son of God and joining with him as his disciple. Having made that decision, the coming to Jesus is often called repentance which simply means that instead of continuing to live life the way we have been, we now intend to live as a disciple, learning from and imitating Jesus until we are transformed into his likeness. We baptize believers as that point in time where we publically declare that we are dying to ourselves and living for and with God. 

We teach that even with all we have already said, that God is most interested in our being disciples of his Son even if we disagree on some of the above points. Our failure as people to grasp all the theological details of various doctrines isn't sufficient to keep us from God if we are intentionally being disciples of Jesus. All who have discipleship as their goal are welcome to meet with us. If at some point you want to become "a member," we do ask that you are immersed as a response to God and that you declare to the congregation that you in fact do believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that you intend to follow him the rest of your life.