Guiding Beliefs

There is one living and true God. 
God is a spiritual and personal being, the creator, redeemer, and ruler of the universe. God is infinite in holiness and love, and we owe God the utmost love, reverence, and obedience. God is beyond human conceptions of gender, although male and female are both reflections of God's nature. The eternal God is revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, yet is indivisible in nature and essence. God is creator of heaven and earth. God’s parenthood is expressed particularly in relationship to Jesus Christ and by extension to those who become God's children through faith in Christ. God's parental care extends to all creation. Christ is the eternal Son of God. In his incarnation as Jesus Christ he was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. In an act of sacrificial love he gave his life for our redemption, suffering crucifixion, death, and burial. After three days he was resurrected. He ascended to the Creator, with whom he reigns forever. He will return in power and glory to complete his redemptive mission. The Holy Spirit is God's ongoing presence in the world, inspired the writing of the Scriptures, and through illumination enables human beings to understand truth. The Holy Spirit shows us our need for God’s love and abides in believers' hearts, thereby producing the fruits of holiness and love.

The Bible was inspired by God. 
It is the record of God's self-revelation to humanity and is our guide in faith and practice. The criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted is Jesus Christ. Every Christian has the right and responsibility to interpret and apply the Bible under the leadership of the Holy Spirit.

Human beings are created in the image of God. 
Because of sin, however, we have separated ourselves from fellowship with God and are in need of reconciliation. Only God's grace can restore that fellowship. Because human beings are created in the image of God, each individual merits respect and consideration as a person of infinite dignity and worth. All people are competent under God to make their own moral and religious decisions and are responsible to God in all matters of moral and religious duty. Every person has the right to embrace or reject God and to witness to religious beliefs with the proper regard for the rights of others.

God’s unconditional love is a gift of divine grace, accepted by the individual through personal faith in Jesus Christ.

The church is the tangible expression of Christ in the world. 
The New Testament speaks of the church as the body of Christ both as the communion of believers throughout the ages and as local communities of Jesus followers. The church in its local sense is a fellowship of believers, voluntarily joined together for worship, nurture, and missions. Baptism and the Lord's Supper, two ordinances of the church, are symbolic of commitment and connection to God, and their observance involves spiritual realities of Christian experience. The local church is an autonomous body, operating through democratic processes under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. As such, it is free to determine its membership and leadership, to order its worship and work, to ordain whomever it perceives gifted for ministry, and to participate as it deems appropriate in the larger Body of Christ. The autonomy of the church and its democratic form of governance are expressions of the priesthood of every believer. A free church in a free state is the Christian ideal. Church and state should be separate; neither should attempt to use the other for its own purposes. The state owes to the church protection and full freedom in the pursuit of its spiritual ends. However, the church should not resort to the civil power to carry on its work. The state has no right to impose penalties for religious opinions of any kind or to impose taxes for the support of any form of religion.