"Statement
Of Faith"
WE BELIEVE that God is the Eternal
King . He is an infinite,
unchangeable Spirit ,
perfect in holiness,wisdom,
goodness, justice, power
and love. From all eternity. He exists as the One
Living and True
God in three persons of
one substance, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, equal
in power and glory.
WE BELIEVE that God's kingdom is everlasting. From His
throne, through His Son, His eternal Word, God created,
upholds and governs
all that exists: the
heavenly places, the angelic hosts, the universe, the earth,
every living thing and
mankind. God created all things very good.
WE BELIEVE that Satan, originally a great, good angel,
rebelled against God, taking a host of angels with him .
He was cast out of God's presence and, as a usurper of God's
rule, established a counter-kingdom of darkness
and evil on the earth.
WE BELIEVE that God created mankind in His image, male
and female, for relationship with Himself and to govern
the earth. Under the temptation of Satan, our original parents
fell from grace, bringing sin, sickness
and God's judgment of death to the earth. Through the fall,
Satan and his demonic hosts gained access to God's good
creation. Creation now experiences the consequences and
effects of Adam's original sin. Human beings are born in
sin, subject to God's judgment of death
and captive to Satan's kingdom of darkness.
WE BELIEVE that God did not abandon His rule over the
earth which He continues
to uphold by His providence. In order to bring redemption,
God established covenants
which revealed His grace to sinful people. In the covenant
with Abraham, God bound Himself to His people Israel, promising
to deliver them from bondage to sin and Satan and to bless
all the nations through them.
WE BELIEVE that as King, God later redeemed His people
by His mighty acts from bondage in Egypt
and established His covenant through Moses, revealing His
perfect will and our obligation to fulfill it. The law's
purpose is to order our fallen race and to make us conscious
of our moral responsibility. By the work of God's Spirit,
it convicts us of our sin and God's righteous judgment against
us and brings us to Christ alone for salvation.
WE BELIEVE that when Israel rejected God's rule over her
as King, God established the monarchy in Israel and made
an unconditional covenant with David, promising that his
heir would restore God's kingdom reign over His people as
Messiah forever.
WE BELIEVE that in the fullness of time, God honored His
covenants with Israel and His prophetic promises of salvation
by sending His only Son, Jesus, into the world. Conceived
by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, as fully
God and fully man in one person, He is humanity as God intended
us to be. Jesus was anointed as God's Messiah and empowered
by the Holy Spirit, inaugurating God's kingdom reign on
earth, overpowering the reign of Satan by resisting temptation,
preaching the good news of salvation, healing the sick,
casting out demons and raising the dead. Gathering His disciples,
He reconstituted God's people as His Church to be the instrument
of His kingdom. After dying for the sins of the world, Jesus
was raised from the dead on the third day, fulfilling the
covenant of blessing given to Abraham.
In His sinless, perfect life Jesus met the demands of
the law and in His atoning death on the cross, He took God's
judgment for sin which we deserve as law breakers. By His
death on the cross He also disarmed the demonic powers.
The covenant with David was fulfilled in Jesus' birth
from David's house, His Messianic ministry, His glorious
resurrection from the dead, His ascent into heaven and His
present rule at the right hand of the Father. As God's Son
and David's heir, He is the eternal Messiah-King, advancing
God's reign throughout every generation and throughout the
whole earth today.
WE BELIEVE that the Holy Spirit was poured out on the
Church at Pentecost in power, baptizing believers into the
Body of Christ and releasing the gifts of the Spirit to
them. The Spirit brings the permanent indwelling presence
of God to us for spiritual worship, personal sanctification,
building up the Church, gifting us for ministry, and driving
back the kingdom of Satan by the evangelization of the world
through proclaiming the word of Jesus and doing the works
of Jesus.
WE BELIEVE that the Holy Spirit indwells every believer
in Jesus Christ and that He is our abiding Helper, Teacher,
and Guide. We believe in the filling or empowering of the
Holy Spirit, often a conscious experience, for ministry
today. We believe in the present ministry of the Spirit
and in the exercise of all of the biblical gifts of the
Spirit. We practice the laying on of hands for the empowering
of the Spirit, for healing, and for recognition and empowering
of those whom God has ordained to lead and serve the Church.
WE BELIEVE that the Holy Spirit inspired the human authors
of Holy Scripture so that the Bible is without error in
the original manuscripts. We receive the sixty-six books
of the Old and New Testaments as our final, absolute authority,
the only infallible rule of faith and practice.
WE BELIEVE that the whole world is under the domination
of Satan and that all people are sinners by nature and choice.
All people therefore are under God's just judgmen. Through
the preaching of the Good News of Jesus and the Kingdom
of God and the work of the Holy Spirit, God regenerates,
justifies, adopts and sanctifies through Jesus by the Spirit
all who repent of their sins and trust in Jesus Christ as
Lord and Savior. By this they are released from Satan's
domain and enter into God's kingdom reign.
WE BELIEVE in the one, holy, universal Church. All who
repent of their sins and confess Jesus as Lord and Savior
are regenerated by the Holy Spirit and form the living Body
of Christ, of which He is the head and all are members.
WE BELIEVE that Jesus Christ committed two ordinances
to the Church: water baptism and the Lord's Supper. Both
are available to all believers.
WE BELIEVE that God's kingdom has come in the ministry
of our Lord Jesus Christ, that it continues to come in the
ministry of the Spirit through the Church, and that it will
be consummated in the glorious, visible and triumphant appearing
of Christ His return to the earth as King. After Christ
returns to reign, He will bring about the final defeat of
Satan and all of his minions and works, the resurrection
of the dead, the final Judgment and the eternal blessing
of the righteous and eternal conscious punishment of the
wicked. Finally, God will be all in all and His kingdom,
His rule and reign, will be fulfilled in the new heavens
and the new earth, recreated by His mighty power, in which
righteousness dwells and in which He will forever be worshipped.