Statement of Faith

We believe that God is our Creator.  He is the Creator of all of life and therefore is the One who knows how life is to be lived.  As our Creator God has created us to be in relationship with Him and to live in His world as His representatives helping to serve the world and shape the world so that life lived in this world is done according to what He originally had in mind.

We believe that God is our Redeemer and our Restorer.  While He created us to live life according to His original plans and intentions, the reality is that we do not.  This inclination to rebel against God’s intentions for our lives began with Adam and Eve and this sinful rebellion remains true of us today.  When humanity decided to rebel against God and when we continue to rebel against God it makes this life something God never intended.  However, since Adam and Eve first rebelled God has been working to redeem and restore humanity to His original intention for our lives and His world.

We believe that God is our Father.  As our Father God loves us, cares for us, and genuinely wants what is best for us. However, also as our Father, He is the one who knows what is best for us in ways that we do not always know. Furthermore, because He knows what is best for us as a loving Father, when we do not live according to His plans and purposes He is the one who disciplines us for the purpose of bringing us back into relationship with Him.

We believe that Jesus is fully God and fully human.  Jesus is the Son of God and is therefore distinct from God and yet Jesus is God Himself in human form.  Because Jesus is fully God He is the perfect display of God’s nature. Because Jesus is fully human He is the perfect example of how we are to live.

We believe that Jesus is our Savior and Lord, and it is only through him that we can be saved. Because of our sin and our rebellion our lives in this life are damaged and distorted and our lives in the next life are lost.  Jesus' death on the cross and resurrection make it possible for us to be saved from the destructiveness of our sin in this life and the next.  But, Jesus did not just come to save us from what we have done wrong but to lead us into a new kind of life as our Lord.  As our Savior Jesus offers us forgiveness and healing.  As our Lord Jesus offers us restoration and a new kind of life now.

We believe that Jesus desires to be in relationship with us.  This relationship brings us into relationship with the Father.  This relationship makes it possible for God’s Spirit to be released into our lives.  We enter into this relationship by trusting that Jesus’ death on the cross was God’s way of satisfying the penalty for our sin.  We mark this relationship by being joined with Jesus through baptism.  We live out this relationship by dying to our own desires and living according to His will for our lives.

We believe that the Holy Spirit is God living in our midst.  As such we believe God gave His Spirit to each individual who trusts in Jesus as his or her Lord and Savior.  The Holy Spirit is the One who enables us to live as redeemed and restored people each day.  The Holy Spirit is the One who enables us to live according to God’s original intention for our lives.

We believe that the Holy Spirit is Who breathed God’s thoughts into the minds and hearts of the authors of the Bible. The Bible is the story of God’s relationship with humanity and how He has revealed Himself to a world broken by sin and yet with whom He is desperate to be in relationship.  Studying the Bible is the way we come to understand who God is and the way we come to see the world through His eyes.

We believe that the Holy Spirit has fashioned a Family of Faith called the Church.  It is the Holy Spirit that calls us into relationship with God through Jesus.  It is the Holy Spirit that marks us individually and collectively as God’s people.  It is the Holy Spirit that shapes our lives together within the Family of Faith.  Within our Family of Faith we attempt to foster an environment where the Holy Spirit has the freedom to move in our midst.  We do this by loving each other, serving each other, praying with and for each other, studying the Bible with each other, accepting each other, confronting each other, encouraging each other, forgiving each other, hearing God’s Word proclaimed with each other, celebrating Communion with each other, caring for and providing for the needs of each other, sharing our possessions with each other, sharing our lives with each other, and living out our understanding of what it means to follow Jesus with each other.  As a Family of Faith we are focused on loving each other, but as a Family of Faith following Jesus we are intentional about welcoming any and all into that Family regardless of who they have been or what they have done.  As a Family of Faith we are called to do that with our specific local Church, but we know that our Family of Faith is a part of God’s larger Family of Faith across the globe with whom we are joined by the Holy Spirit.