Basic Beliefs

Who God Is:

God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: Three in One. Any other interpretation of God stands directly in contrast with what the Bible declares.
God the Father: God is Holy. God is love. He is the God recorded in the Old and New Testament. He cannot be understood apart from perfect union with the Son and the Holy Spirit.
God the Son: Jesus Christ, from eternity with the Father and the Spirit, came to earth as a man. Fully God and fully man, He died on the cross for our sins and physically rose to life again. He has ascended to be with the Father. He will return to call us home one day. He is the way, the truth and the life and there is no way to heaven without Him.
God the Holy Spirit: The Holy Spirit has coequally existed with the Son and the Father from eternity. He is the promised gift of Jesus, given to His Church at Pentecost. Every believer of Jesus Christ has the Holy Spirit living within him or her. The Holy Spirit displays His power in Christians for love and for the building up of His Church. The Holy Spirit calls the unbeliever, performs the work of conversion, sanctifies a Christian throughout her or his life and helps us to pray to the Father, through the Son.

Who We Are:

All of humanity has been created in the image of God.
We are all sinners in need of a Savior, and along with all of creation, we long for restoration.
Those who receive the gift of Grace from God by faith in His Son Jesus Christ are saved from the consequences of sin and will enjoy eternity in heaven with God in our new and resurrected bodies. Those who reject Jesus will be judged into an eternity of hell, absent from God.
Christians are many parts but one body serving together under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
Through our faith in God’s grace, by the physical death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Christians have been adopted as sons and daughters of the Father.
As Christians, we are filled with the Holy Spirit, empowering us to spread His Good News.
We express this understanding through the Wesleyan lens, understanding we don’t always get it right or have all the answers. We seek to learn from all Christians.

The Purpose of the Church:

Jesus is essential to everything—the only reason we exist as a Church is for and through Him.
The purpose of the Church is to know, love and serve God.
We, as God’s Church, have two essential tasks:
- To love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love others as we love ourselves.
- To make disciples of Jesus Christ.

The Bible:

The Bible is the authoritative and infallible Word of God, written by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and consisting of 66 Books (39 Old Testament and 27 New Testament).
The Bible contains all things necessary for Salvation and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness in order to equip God’s Church (2 Timothy 3:16).

The Christian Life:

Our conversion is not the final step in the life of the Christian. God calls all people. He initiates the relationship with us and we can either choose to accept His grace or deny His work.
Once a person agrees to God’s grace, she or he becomes a Christian through faith. We are saved from the consequences of sin, but will wrestle our entire life with the draw of sinfulness.
After conversion, we begin a process of sanctification (growing in the holy love of God). The Holy Spirit continues to work in and through the believer. Ultimately, the more we grow in Christ’s likeness, the better we are able to love others.
God has designed ways for us to experience Him more fully. We experience this relationship by doing all the good we can, avoiding any kind of evil, and attending to Spiritual Disciplines such as prayer, Bible study, sharing deeply with one another, service to others and fasting.
We celebrate two sacraments (God working the divine through the ordinary): Baptism and Holy Communion. Neither sacrament is necessary for salvation, but they are necessary for obedience and for experiencing all that God has in store for us.
Finally, when a Christian dies, we are glorified with the Father.