what we believe

  • We believe in the Holy Scriptures; accepting fully the writings of the Old and New Testaments as the very word of God, verbally inspired in all 66 books and therefore wholly without error in the original text, altogether sufficient in themselves as our only infallible rule of faith and practice.

  • We believe in the one Triune God, who is personal, spirit, and sovereign; perfect, infinite, and eternal in His being, holiness, love, wisdom, and power; absolutely separate and above the world as its Creator, yet everywhere present in the world as the Upholder of all things; self-existent and self-revealing in three distinct persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, each of whom is to be honored and worshipped equally as true God.

  • We believe in the fall of man; that by personal disobedience to the revealed will of God, man became a sinful creature and the progenitor of a fallen race, universally sinful in both nature and practice, alienated from the life and family of God, and has within itself no possible means of recovery or salvation.

  • We believe in salvation by grace through faith; that salvation is the free gift of God, neither merited nor secured in any part nor in whole by any virtue or work of man, but received only by personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom all true believers have as a present possession the gift of eternal life, a perfect righteousness, justification, sonship in the family of God, and every spiritual resource needed for life and Godliness; that this salvation includes the whole man, spirit, soul, and body; and apart from Christ there is no possible salvation.

  • We believe in righteous living and good works, not as the procuring cause of salvation in any sense, but as its proper evidence and fruit; that therefore as Christians we should keep the Word of the Lord, seek the things which are above, walk as He walked, be careful to maintain good works, especially accept as our solemn responsibility the duty and privilege of bearing the Gospel to a lost world in order that we may bear much fruit; remembering that a victorious and fruitful Christian life is possible only for those who have learned that they are not under law but under grace, and in gratitude for the infinite and undeserved mercies of God have presented themselves wholly to Him for His service.

  • We believe in the future life, bodily resurrection and eternal judgment; that the spirits of the saved go at death immediately to be with Christ in Heaven, where they abide in joyful fellowship with Him until His second coming, when their bodies shall be raised from the grave and changed into the likeness of His own glorious body, at which time their works shall be brought before the judgment seat of Christ for the determination of rewards, a judgment that may issue in the loss of rewards but not the loss of the soul; that the spirits of the unsaved at death descend immediately into Hades where they are kept under punishment until the final day of judgment, at which time their bodies shall be raised from the grave, they shall be judged according to their works, and cast into the lake of fire, the place of final and everlasting punishment.

  • We believe in two scriptural ordinances; baptism and the Lord's Supper; that Christian baptism is the single immersion of the believer in water (thereby excluding infants) unto the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, to show forth in solemn and beautiful emblems our faith in the crucified, buried, and risen Lord, with its effect in our death to sin and resurrection to a new life. That the Lord's Supper is the partaking of the bread and the cup by which believers commemorate together the death and Second Coming of Christ, preceded always by solemn self-examination.

For a more detailed account of our beliefs and practices, please view a copy of our constitution here.