Beliefs and Covenants

About the Bible
We believe that the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments are the inspired, infallible, immutable, and inerrant Word of God. God Himself, through the Holy Spirit, recorded the words found in Scripture through the means of human writers. Therefore, the Bible shall be our final authority for all belief and practice as followers of God.

We also believe in the preservation of the written Word of God. The Bible states that the words of our God will stand forever and that Jesus' word will never pass away. For this reason, we deny the position that only the original autographs of Scripture were inspired. We affirm that the thoughts of His heart stand to all generations and the man of God today is still thoroughly furnished unto all good works. We only use Textus Receptus/Masoretic based translations in public worship.

About God
We believe in One Triune God, coexisting in three persons: The Father, The Son, and the Holy Spirit. We believe that God is the eternal and uncreated creator of the heavens, earth and all that therein is. We believe that He is omni-potent, omniscient, omni-present and that these attributes are completely unique to Him. The Bible says that God is love, light and a consuming fire. These descriptions mean that He is perfectly holy, completely true and perfect in His judgment.

About Christ
We believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. We believe that Jesus existed as deity for eternity past and is uncreated. He took the form of the seed of Abraham/David and was born of a virgin named Mary. From the moment of His conception, Jesus was fully man and fully God. We deny Jesus was born-again or was at any point separate from His divinity. We believe that Jesus lived a perfect and completely sinless life and was delivered to death on a cross as an innocent man according to the will of the Father. After three days of burial, we believe in the literal bodily resurrection of Christ. After this, Jesus ascended to Heaven where He now sits on the right hand of the Father.

About the Holy Spirit
We believe the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity and is fully God. We believe the Holy Spirit is personal and relatable and is not merely a force of God. We believe the Holy Spirit is actively at work in the world today. He is the convicter of sin to the world, the performer of signs and miracles, the giver of spiritual gifts to every believer and the greatest gift to man as the agent of our regeneration in salvation.

About Creation
We believe that the account of creation found in Genesis 1-2 are actual historical records of how the universe came to be. We believe the universe and mankind was created in six literal 24-hour days. We believe the genealogy from Adam to Jesus in Luke 3 to be accurate and therefore binding the reasonable estimation of the age of creation to no more than 10,000 years. We deny the day-age theory, the gap theory and theistic evolution.

About Satan
We believe that Satan, the serpent of Genesis 3, is merely a created being that incited both a human and angelic rebellion against God. He is in opposition to God but is in no way equal to Him in strength and knowledge. We believe that Satan and his evil spirits are at work in the world today fighting against the mission of God and against the Children of God. However, Satan is an already defeated foe whose final destination is the Lake of Fire which was prepared for him and his angels.

About Man
We believe that every man and woman is created in the image of God. This means that all human life has intrinsic value and is loved by God. This also means that all people have been given a conscience to the existence of God and of morality. We believe that man was created with freewill with the purpose to fellowship with and glorify God. However, since the first man and woman chose to sin, their sin nature has been passed to all of the human race. Therefore, all humans have sinned and come short of the glory of God. All of mankind stands before God, without excuse for sin, worthy of eternal wrath from God and in need of a salvation they will never be able to earn through the power of their will.

About the Gospel
We believe that the gospel is the written or spoken message of the good news of the birth, death, burial and resurrection of Christ, for the forgiveness of sins according to the Scriptures in 1st Corinthians 15:1-4. We believe this is the only gospel that can be believed in for salvation. We deny any other "gospel" that does not contain this written or spoken message.

About Salvation
We believe that salvation can only be achieved by absolute, perfect holiness. Since there is none righteous, no not one, nobody can achieve salvation on their own behalf. Therefore, by the works of the law, shall no flesh be justified before God.

We believe that salvation is found in Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone. We believe that the holiness to satisfy God's standard of perfection is only found in Christ Jesus. We believe that grace is unmerited favor. We believe that faith is defined in Romans 4:20-25 as being fully persuaded that the promise will be performed. One can only be saved from the penalty of sin by placing true faith in the message of the gospel. We deny that one can achieve salvation by placing their faith in being saved by doing good works.

About being Born-Again
We believe that at the moment someone places their faith in the gospel message, the Holy Spirit indwells their body and creates them into a completely new person. This new , inner man is separate and distinct from the mere flesh they were before. We believe that the inner man that is born of God is created after righteousness and true holiness and that sin dwells solely within the flesh. Therefore, the regenerate person has the law of God written in their hearts and will be given the ability to understand spiritual truth. We believe the Holy Spirit is given as earnest of ultimate salvation. We deny that one can be unregenerated for any reason after the Spirit of God has made them new.

About the Church
We believe that a church is a congregation of believers. Though the Body of Christ, or universal church, will one day be assembled in heaven together, we believe that the church in earth are individual, local assemblies. We believe that the local assembly is crucial to the wellbeing of God's mission on earth and to the individual believers with their families. The local congregation is the place that God has specifically designed in the Scripture for His people to partake in the ordinances, remain accountable to brothers and sisters, share their spiritual gifts, teach and encourage one another and to engage in the Great Commission. Ecclesiologically, we believe in the autonomy of the local church. We believe in an every-member ministry and deny sacredotalism. We believe that the office of an elder refers to the ordination of pastors and deacons.

About the Ordinances
We believe in two ordinances, baptism and the Lord's table or communion. We believe in believer's baptism by immersion. We deny that wetting of infants or of others who have not been born-again constitutes biblical baptism. We believe that baptism is the very first step in discipleship and should be done immediately after a profession of faith. We believe that the partaking of the bread and wine as a church is a memorial to the sacrifice of our Lord and sign until He returns.We deny that the elements are transubstantiated into the literal body and blood of Christ. We believe that Lord's table should only be received by those who have been born-again and are in good conscience with God.

About the Mission of God
We believe that the church exists on earth to promote the Great Commission. The three steps of the Great Commission are to preach the gospel to everyone everywhere, baptizing those that believe and the continued discipleship of those that are baptized.We believe that every ministry in the church should ultimately be a means to this end.

About Evangelism
We believe evangelism is the supreme priority of the church in outreach. We define evangelism as the spread of the gospel message. We believe that any activity that does not communicate the gospel message is not evangelism. We believe that every believer has a personal responsibility to evangelize as a Christian practice.

About the End Times
We believe in a premillennial, pre-wrath return of the Lord Jesus. After His return, believers will be rewarded based on their works at the judgment seat of Christ. We believe that His faithful saints will rule and reign with Him on the earth for 1,000 years. After this, God will prepare a new heavens and new earth, where we will dwell in sinless fellowship with God forever. We believe that all unbelievers will be judged at the great white throne according to their works and condemned to eternal torment in the Lake of Fire.