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Good News!
The one and only God who is holy made us in His image to know Him. But we sinned and cut ourselves off from Him. In His great love, God took on flesh. Jesus lived a perfect life, and died on the cross, thus fulfilling the law Himself and taking on Himself the punishment for the sins of all those who would ever turn from their sin and trust in Him. He rose again from the dead, showing that God accepted Christ’s sacrifice and that God’s wrath against us had been exhausted. He now calls us to repent of our sins and trust in Christ alone for our forgiveness. 'If we repent of our sins and trust in Christ, we are given new life, eternal life, which is enjoying God forever! He is gathering one new people to Himself among all those who submit to Christ as Lord.
How We're Different
Every church has distinct priorities. Here are ours:
The Gospel. The gospel is the power
of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, and it is the
only way for sinful people to be reconciled to
a holy God. Everything in a church flows from its
understanding of the gospel, whether preaching, counseling,
discipleship, music, evangelism, or missions.
Expository preaching. An expositional
sermon takes the main point of a passage of Scripture, makes it
the main point of the sermon, and applies it to life today.
We believe that God's Word is powerful and doesn't need fancy
packaging. Preaching that makes the main point of the text
the main point of the sermon makes God’s agenda rule the church,
not the preacher’s.
Theology. Whether you realize it or not, each of us is a theologian, and our theology (beliefs about God) determine our conduct. Every behavior problem is at core a theology problem.
Conversion. A biblical understanding
of
conversion recognizes that only God can save, and that He
saves individuals by enabling them to respond to the gospel
message through repenting of sin and trusting in Christ.
This clarifies how churches should exhort non-Christians—they should
call non-Christians to repent of sin and trust in Christ (rather
than simply apply moralistic "bandaids"). It also reminds that
us church members’ lives should be marked by the fruit of
conversion.
Evangelism. Evangelism is simply
telling non-Christians the good news about what Jesus Christ has
done to save sinners. In order to biblically evangelize we must
preach the whole gospel (even the hard news about God’s wrath
against our sin), call people to repent of their sins and trust
in Christ, and make it clear that believing in Christ is costly,
but worth it.
Church Membership. Church membership
isn’t just names on a list or an emotional attachment to your
childhood church. It’s attending, loving, serving, and
submitting to a congregation of people.
Church Discipline. Should the church look different from the world? The fact that Jesus and Paul commanded churches to practice discipline tells us the answer is “yes.”
Discipleship. Scripture teaches that
a live Christian is a growing Christian (2 Pet. 1:8-10).
Scripture also teaches that we grow not only by instruction, but
by imitation (1 Cor. 4:16; 11:1). So we exhort each other to
both grow in holiness and help others do the same.
Church Leadership. We believe the
Bible teaches that each local church should be ruled by the
congregation as a whole and led by a plurality of godly,
qualified men called elders.