WHAT WE BELIEVE
(at least)
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We believe in one God above all: Creator of everything seen and unseen.
We believe He is omniscient (all-knowing), omnipresent (all-present), and omnipotent (all-powerful).
We believe He is wholly holy: full of truth, full of grace, combined together as holy love.
(Gen. 1:2, 27 - Neh. 9:6 - Isa. 66:2 - Rev. 4:11)
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We believe that the present version of the Bible is a collection of stories, poetry, and testimonies, written by human authors while guided by God’s Holy Spirit. It is literal in everything pertaining to salvation/being saved.
The Bible provides wisdom on teaching, rebuking, correcting, training, and living in the way of God; the way of Jesus.
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We believe that a man named Jesus from the town of Nazareth is the human manifestation of God, conceived by the Holy Spirit. We believe He is the prophesied Messiah of humanity written about in the Old Testament: fully God and fully man.
In His selflessness, we believe He is the only human to have lived a life not rebelled against God, and that He offered Himself as the perfect, atoning sacrifice for the rebellion of all people by dying a sinner’s death on the cross.
We believe He rose from the dead after three days, demonstrating His power over sin and death.
(Isa. 7:14 - Isa. 9:6 - Luke 1:27-35 - John 1:1, 14 - Matt. 16:13-19)
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We believe that Holy Spirit is present in the world and actively partnering with humanity to convict the truth of their need for Jesus.
We believe the Holy Spirit lives in every believer from the moment of repentance & salvation, daily guiding. We believe He empowers believers to understand spiritual truth, convicts them of righteousness, and produces fruit that reflects the character of God.
(Gen. 1:2 - Job 33:4 - John 16:7-11 - John 14:16-17 - Acts 2:2-4)
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We believe that the Maker/Creator is the origin & embodiment of perfect love, and that the problem with Creation is that it has a tendency to fight against or redefine it (lacking love, or lacking love with grace or love with truth).
If we want to fulfill our God-given purpose, there is no other choice but divine love.
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Sin comes from a word in Hebrew & Greek meaning “mistake…misstep…miss”. A great scholar of Christianity defined it as “a willful transgression against the known will of God”. We cannot willingly choose both self & God: one must “reign supreme”.
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We believe in not just metaphorical or philosophical evil, but in supernatural and conscient ones. The Bible calls them many names: demons, spirits, devils. Just as sin separates humans from God, we believe there are non-human entities encouraging sin in Creation.
(Eph. 6:12 - 1 John 4:4 - Matt. 10:1 - Jude 1:6)
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We believe that the “way forward” in God’s love begins with 1) an inward decision & 2) an outward declaration.
The word in the Bible often used for the inward decision is “repent”: it means to “change one’s mind…turn around”. If we don’t want to change, God won’t make us. We must first decide.
Second, this is not a decision to be quietly lived out in isolation. To live in God’s love, to be changed by it, we must share it…practice it. Being baptized is our first practice of sharing it.
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Salvation is a fancy word for “being saved”, and we believe that we are not able to save ourselves.
If “loving like God” is the way, then we need someone to “save us” from our loveless ways. Living a life lead by and mirrored with Jesus is to be saved.
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Learning to do anything “new” is at times “difficult”. We believe we were never meant to accept, learn, or share the way of God alone. The Church is called to be a living, breathing representation of Heaven: full of truth and full of grace.