Our Beliefs
We are affiliated with the Church of God (Anderson, IN), which is a non-denominational church movement.
You can learn more about the Church of God by clicking here
WE BELIEVE in one eternal, holy, and loving God who calls us to respond in faith. We, therefore, give the following testimony of our faith, realizing that for testimonies of faith to be Christian, they must conform to God’s revelation in the Holy Scriptures. Although we can never put into a short document all that we are taught in the Bible, we affirm the following:
We believe in one God in three persons — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — who created all things visible and invisible and, out of chaos, created order. Our hearts are glad that God is fully revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, who was born to the Virgin Mary through the agency of the Holy Spirit and lived on earth as both fully human and fully divine. We are grateful that the Holy Spirit leads us into all truth, convicts us of sin, leads us to and incorporates us into Christ, and empowers us for Christian witness.
We are grateful that in fulfillment of Jesus’ promise, God poured out the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. We believe that the evidence of this outpouring is the personal holiness of God’s people and their empowerment for the divine mission in the world. The Holy Spirit distributes various spiritual gifts among all church members to accomplish this mission.
We believe in, treasure, and cherish the Bible as the written Word of God and hold that the sixty-six books of the Protestant biblical canon constitute the Holy Scriptures. We believe that both the Old and New Testaments are necessary for understanding God’s revelation in Scripture, which is to be interpreted in light of the revelation given to us in Jesus Christ. God inspires the Bible and is fully authoritative and sufficient for Christian life and practice. We further believe that the Bible is historically reliable and that its message is faithfully preserved in the textual tradition.
We acknowledge that all have sinned, thus breaking our relationships with God, self, others, and the whole created order, but give thanks for God’s salvation from sin. We believe that, through his exemplary life, sacrificial death, and bodily resurrection, Jesus Christ is the only sufficient atonement for our sins. In keeping with the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament, Jesus died on the cross and was raised for our salvation. He returned to the Father, and there, intercedes for us. God’s work of salvation is all by grace, not by our merits. We receive this great salvation when, by the convicting power of the Holy Spirit, we repent of our sins and believe in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. We hold that we are secure in our salvation so long as we remain faithful to Christ. We are grateful that the same power that raised Christ from the dead raises us from spiritual death, saving us from sin to follow Christ in this life and to live with him eternally.
We believe that it is God’s will for us to live in holiness. Indeed, it is God who makes us holy. We, however, are called to present ourselves as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God for the sake of God’s mission in the world. We understand that a life of holiness is about having wholehearted love for God and neighbors. Although we are never to seek suffering for the sake of suffering, we are convinced that holiness is often deepened through life’s inevitable sufferings. Furthermore, Christ invites us to participate in his sufferings in this fallen world.
We recognize with Scripture that Satan and demons exist as spiritual realities in opposition to God. But we are grateful that God has conquered all sin and evil, thereby giving us victory both now and forever.
God is revealed generally in the created order and in the human conscience. This Living God, however, has spoken especially to us in the covenantal story of the whole of Scripture and definitively in Jesus Christ.
With gratitude, we believe that we experience the Reign of God as the presence, love, and power of God in our lives, in the church, in history, and in the whole created order, now and in the future consummation.
We believe Jesus lived and proclaimed the Reign of God, a life of reconciliation and peacemaking fulfilling the Law and Prophets. Under the Reign of God, we are required to do justice, to love in kindness, and to walk humbly with God.
We believe that God comes alongside the vulnerable and oppressed, and stands against every form of evil, even when found in the institutional church. As the people of God, we, too, are called to make justice and to intervene when injustice occurs.
We anticipate the future consummation of the Reign of God at the time of the one and only return of our Lord, who will carry out final judgment separating the righteous and the unrighteous.
We believe the church is the fellowship of the redeemed, the body of Christ, the people of God, chosen by God for mission in the world. At the beginning of time, God created humankind to be mission partners. However, humanity failed in this partnership. Over time, though, God chose Israel to bless all peoples. But in the fullness of time, it was in Jesus Christ that God brought salvation for all people. And until the end of time, God has chosen the church to be the body of Christ with the mission of making disciples. For this purpose, God continually reforms the church so that it will be conformed to the image of Christ.
We believe God calls all people to respond in faith to the gospel of Jesus Christ, whereby they become members of the universal church of God. With Christ as the head, this community is the body of Christ on earth. We understand each local congregation to be an expression of this universal church, and that it is God’s will for each believer to be a committed member of a local congregation.
In obedience to our Lord, we baptize believers by immersion as a sign of death to sin, resurrection to new life in Christ, and incorporation into the mission of the people of God. We celebrate the Lord’s Supper by participating in the proclamation of the death and resurrection of our Lord until he comes. We wash each other’s feet, following Jesus, who assumed the role of servant by washing his disciples' feet. We anoint with oil in the name of the Lord and pray that people may be healed.