What We Believe

The Essentials of Our Faith

All Scripture is self-attesting and being Truth, requires our unreserved submission in all areas of life. The infallible Word of God, the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments, is a unified witness to God’s redemptive acts culminating in the incarnation of the Living Word, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible, uniquely and fully inspired by the Holy Spirit, is the supreme and final authority on all matters on which it speaks. On this sure foundation we affirm these additional Essentials of our faith:

• We believe in one God, the sovereign Creator and Sustainer of all things, infinitely perfect and eternally existing in three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To Him be all honor, glory and praise forever!
• Jesus Christ, the Living Word, became flesh through His miraculous conception by the Holy Spirit and His virgin birth. He who is true God became true man united in one Person forever.
• The Holy Spirit has come to glorify Christ and to apply the saving work of Christ to our hearts. He convicts us of sin and draws us to the Savior. Indwelling our hearts, He gives new life to us, empowers and imparts gifts to us for service. He instructs and guides us into all truth, and seals us for the day of redemption.
• Being estranged from God and condemned by our sinfulness, our salvation is wholly dependent upon the work of God’s free grace. God credits His righteousness to those who put their faith in Christ alone for their salvation, thereby justifies them in His sight. Only such as are born of the Holy Spirit and receive Jesus Christ become children of God and heirs of eternal life.
• The true Church is composed of all persons who through saving faith in Jesus Christ and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit are united together in the body of Christ. The Church finds her visible, yet imperfect, expression in local congregations where the Word of God is preached in its purity and the sacraments are administered in their integrity; where scriptural discipline is practiced, and where loving fellowship is maintained. For her perfecting, she awaits the return of her Lord.
• Jesus Christ will come again to the earth — personally, visibly, and bodily — to judge the living, and the dead, and to consummate history and the eternal plan of God. “Even so, come, Lord Jesus” (Rev.22:20 KJV).
• The Lord Jesus Christ commands all believers to proclaim the Gospel throughout the world and to make disciples of all nations. Obedience to the Great Commission requires total commitment to “Him who loved us and gave Himself for us.” He calls us to a life of self-denying love and service. “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Eph.2:10).

How is your theology different than other Evangelicals?

Like other Evangelicals, we hold to the essentials of the Christian faith, as listed above.  But, as Presbyterians, we have a Reformed and confessional heritage. Our historical and theological heritage is often expressed in the Five Solas of the Reformation (Sola means “only” or “alone” in Latin):

1. God’s grace alone as the only way to be reconciled to God;
2. Faith alone as the only means of receiving God’s grace;
3. Christ alone as the ground of God’s saving grace;
4. Scripture alone as the only infallible authority for belief; and
5. God’s glory alone as the ultimate purpose for the lives of men and women.

We are Reformed in our theology. That means, like other conservative Presbyterians, we trace our roots to the Reformation and believe in the absolute sovereignty of God and that the highest good is God’s glory. This is beautifully expressed in God’s redemption of His people in what we often call the “Doctrines of Grace”: Because each of us sin in thought, word, and deed, our human nature is depraved; yet in His mercy, God chose or elected us unconditionally, without regard for anything we did or will do; through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, He made atonement for the sins of all of His people; draws us to Himself by irresistible grace; and safely keeps us throughout our lives to persevere in our faith.

We are confessional in nature. That is, our understanding of Scripture is summarized in the Westminster Confession of Faith and catechisms. We hold the Bible alone as our infallible authority, but believe that the Westminster Confession of Faith is an accurate summation of what the Bible says about particular doctrines.