What We Believe

The child of God has the privilege of walking in fellowship with God. Spirituality, of which fellowship is a part, is sustained by the Christian’s yieldedness to the will of God, and obedience to the word of God. Sin in the Christians life interferes with his fellowship with God. I John 1:9, which promises forgiveness and cleansing when we confess our sins, does not deal with salvation but with the restoration of a child of God to the position where he may again walk in fellowship with God. 

We believe that the new birth results in a completely new creation, not a reformation of the old. The old nature remains as capable of evil as ever after salvation and has not been changed or improved in any way. The old nature can now be controlled by the indwelling power and filling of the Holy Spirit. The true child of God has two births, one of the flesh, the other of the spirit. Therefore he has two natures: a fleshly nature and a spiritual nature, resulting in warfare between the Spirit and the flesh which continues until physical death or the Lord’s return. 

We believe that all believers in the Lord Jesus Christ are called into a life of separation from the world to which they have been crucified by the death of Christ, and should abstain from worldly lust and such practices and habits as will retard spiritual growth or cause others to stumble and thus bring reproach upon the cross of Christ. The believer is called upon to walk worthily, keeping himself unspotted from the world, zealous of good works. 

We believe there will be a resurrection of the saved and of the lost; of the saved unto eternal life and of the lost unto eternal conscious punishment. These two resurrections are separated by at least 1000 years. 

We believe in the personal, pretribulational and premillennial return of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

We believe in the reality of Satan, who is the author of sin, the enemy of God and man, a liar, slanderer, adversary, accuser, and murderer. We believe that Satan and his followers will ultimately be cast into the Lake of Fire. 

We believe that God can heal, but physical healing is not in the atonement. God heals miraculously today when it is His perfect will to do so. Healing cannot be claimed through the guarantee of the atonement. At times it is God’s will for sickness not to be removed. 

We believe the gift of tongues (languages) was a manifestation of the Holy Spirit’s power solely for the demonstration of God’s wisdom, purpose, and power in the establishment of the early church; it was always a language that was in use. 

We believe the true child of God is not under the law, but under grace; he is saved by grace and disciplined by grace. 

We believe salvation is based upon the one condition of faith, of which repentance is a vital part. Repentance is not a separate, independent condition of salvation; repentance (Greek-Metanoeo) means “to change one’s mind.” A change of mind is a necessary part of the process by which a person comes to believe. Much confusion has resulted in repentance being treated as a separate condition of salvation in addition to faith, by such incorrect definitions of repentance as “sorrow for sin”, “turning from sin”, or “willingness to turn from sin”. These definitions, when applied to salvation, add an element of works to salvation and therefore are a perversion and counterfeit of the Gospel. “Shallow Christianity” cannot be cured by adding works to salvation. The believer’s motivation to serving is out of gratitude for God’s grace in saving us. Salvation is not the result of what we do, but is by receiving what God has done for us. 

We believe that it is the explicit message of our Lord Jesus Christ to those whom He has saved that they are sent forth by Him into the world even as He was sent forth of His Father into the world. We believe that, after they are saved, they are divinely reckoned to be related to this world as strangers and pilgrims, ambassadors and witnesses, and that their primary purpose in life should be to make Christ known to the whole world. 

We believe that the plan of salvation in God’s Word can be presented in a brief outline:

1. All men are sinners. (Rom. 3:10; 3:23; Isa. 64:6; Jer. 17:9; James 2:10)
2. The penalty of sin is death. (Rom. 6:23; Ezek. 18:20)
3. One must be perfect to enter Heaven. (Rev. 21:27)
4. Man can do nothing of himself to obtain this perfection. (Eph. 2:8-9; Gal. 2:16; Rom. 4:5)
5. God provided a sin-bearer and imputes to man His righteousness. (2 Cor. 5:21; Phil. 3:9; Isa. 53:6; 1 Pet. 3:18)
6. One needs only to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal Savior for salvation. (John 3:16; 1:12; Rom. 10:9; Acts 16:31)
7. One can be certain of his salvation now, and it cannot be lost because eternal life is eternal. (John 6:27-29; 10:18; 1 Pet. 1:5; Heb. 10:10-14; 1 John 5:13)

Remarks:

Of course, there are not set steps in leading a person to Christ. This is a general plan that has proven very successful in actual practice, the emphasis being shifted from one point to another, depending upon the need of the particular individual.

We believe that God has ordained and credited all authority consisting of three basic institutions: the home, the church, and the state. Every person is subject to these authorities, but all (including the authorities themselves) are answerable to God and governed by His Word. God has given each institution specific Biblical responsibilities and balanced those responsibilities with the understanding that no institution has the right to infringe upon the other. The home, the church, and the state are equal and sovereign in their respective Biblically assigned spheres of responsibility under God. 

We believe that God has commanded that no intimate sexual activity be engaged in outside of a marriage between a man and a woman. We believe that any form of homosexuality, lesbianism, by sexuality, bestiality, incest, fornication, adultery and pornography are sinful perversions of God’s gift of sex. We believe that the only legitimate marriage is the joining of one man and one woman. (Gen. 2:24; Rom. 7:2; 1 Cor. 7:10; Eph. 5:22-23)

We believe that men and women are spiritually equal in position before God but that God has ordained distinct and separate spiritual functions for men and women in the home and the church. The husband is to be the leader of the home and men are to be the leaders (pastors and deacons) of the church. Accordingly, only men are eligible for licensure and ordination by the church. (Gal. 3:28; Col. 3:18; 1 Itim. 2:8-15; 3:4-5, 12)

We believe that human life begins at conception and that the unborn child is a living human being. Abortion constitutes the unjustified, unexcused taking of unborn human life. Abortion is murder. We reject any teaching that abortions of pregnancies due to rape, incest, birth defect, gender selection, birth or population control, or the mental well-being of the mother are acceptable. (Job 3:16; Psalms 51:5; 139:14-16; Isa. 44:24; 49:1-5; Jer. 1:5; 20:15-18; Luke 1:44)

We believe that God hates divorce and intends marriage to last until one of the spouses dies. Divorce and remarriage is regarded as adultery except on the grounds of fornication or desertion due to a refusal of professing faith in Christ. Although divorced and remarried persons or divorced persons may hold positions of service in the church and be greatly used of God for Christian service, divorced and remarried men may not be considered for the offices of pastor or deacon. 

We believe that God has given the church a Great Commission to proclaim the Gospel to all nations so that there might be a great multitude from every nation, tribe, ethnic group, and language group, who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. As ambassadors of Christ, we must use all available means to prepare, support and send missionaries to both foreign and domestic fields. 

We believe that Christians are prohibited from bringing civil lawsuits against other Christians or the church to resolve personal disputes. We believe that the church possesses all the resources necessary to resolve personal disputes between members. We do believe, however, that a Christian may seek compensation for personal injuries or damages to property from another Christian’s insurance company as long as a claim is pursued without malice or slander. 

We believe that every Christian, as a steward of that portion of God’s wealth entrusted to him, is obligated to support his local church financially. We believe that God has established the tithe as a basis for giving, but that every Christian should also give other offerings sacrificially and cheerfully to the support of the church, the relief of those in need, and the spread of the Gospel. We believe that a Christian relinquishes all rights to direct the use of the tithe or offering once the gift has been made.