The story of the world begins with God (Gen. 1:1). He is eternal, with no beginning or end (Ps. 90:2). God is the one true God (1 Cor. 8:5-6) who exists in three person - the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Mt. 3:16-17). Though God can be known (Jn. 17:3), He can never be fully comprehended (Rom. 11:33-36). He is the most high God (Ps. 97:9) who is holy (Is. 6:3), glorious (Hab. 3:4), powerful (Ps. 147:5), righteous and faithful (Ps. 145:17), just (Deut 32:4), good (Ps. 34:8), gracious and merciful (Ps. 145:8), and beyond just being “loving”, God is love (1 Jn. 4:8).

God must be viewed for who He is. To approach God on our own terms is to miss the starting point - it all begins with God. Worship and the proclamation of God’s Word should be our entry point to experiencing the revelation of who God is. In order for God to be known, we must first behold Him. We live in times where people come to God with their own ideas of who God is. It is the job of the church to reveal who God is by teaching of His attributes, worshipping Him fervently, and desperately seeking His presence at all times.

Jesus Christ is the Messiah promised by God who would come to save His people (Lk. 2:11). He is the Son of God sent to this world to give everlasting life (Jn. 3:16). To know Jesus is to have eternal life (Jn 17:3). Jesus is one with the Father (Jn. 10:30) and the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:4-6). Salvation from sin, death, and condemnation is given to those who believe in Jesus Christ (Acts 16:31). When Jesus laid His life down on the cross (Jn. 10:18), He was sacrificed once for all (Heb. 10:12) for the forgiveness of sins (Jn. 1:29). Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life (Jn. 14:6). The central message of the Gospel is found in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 15). One day, Jesus will return in glory to judge the living and the dead (1 Tim. 4:1). No one knows the hour or the day, but we’ve been given the promise that He will return for His church (Mt. 24:36).

To miss the message of Jesus is to miss the entire message of the Bible. There is no life in God without believing in Jesus. To believe in Jesus is to place full trust and faith in Him. It means placing our very being, past, present, and future, in His hands and believing what He says. It means accepting all the teachings of Jesus as true. The good news is that there is a way to know God and be known by God - to be reconciled with Him. This ministry of reconciliation to God is now handed to the Church to continue in the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ must be proclaimed boldly to the ends of the earth.

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God who has existed eternally and is present at the beginning of creation (Gen. 1:2). He is the Spirit of truth promised by Jesus to His followers (Jn. 14:15-16). He makes the world aware of their sin (Jn 16:8), testifies of Jesus Christ (Jn. 15:26), and will guide us into all truth (Jn. 16:13). The Spirit now dwells in the followers of Jesus (1 Cor. 3:16) and will be with them forever (Jn. 14:16) as proof of belonging to God and the guarantee of what is to come (2 Cor. 1:21-22). The Holy Spirit gives spiritual gifts to the Church (1 Cor. 12:4,11) for the common good (1 Cor. 12:7) and the Church is called to eagerly desire these gifts (1 Cor. 14:1). The Holy Spirit is the source from which believers are able to live a godly life (2 Pet. 1:3) and is the evidence of supernatural living in the natural world (Gal. 5:19-26). The Holy Spirit is portrayed as living water (Jn. 7:37-39), a dove (Matt. 3:16-17), a seal (Eph. 1:13-14), oil of anointing (1 Sam. 16:13), wind (Jn. 3:8), and fire (Acts 2:1-13). We pray for people to be baptized in the Spirit (Eph. 5:18) and empowered to carry out the Great Commission (Acts 1:8).

The Church should be praying and laying hands on people who seek the filling of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit. There needs to be a yielding and openness to the work of the Holy Spirit. And when that happens, there is power to experience transformation, gifting for the work of the Kingdom beyond ourselves, and the empowerment for the Christian life. Things can move from death to life because of the resurrection power of the Spirit.

To worship God is to ascribe worth to Him (Ps. 29:1-2). Our true and proper worship is to present ourselves as a living sacrifice (Rom. 12:1). Worshipping God with other believers is one of the ways we are filled with the Holy Spirit (Eph. 5:18-20).  We are to continue bringing to God the kind of worship He requested in the Psalms (Col. 3:16). This includes worshipping God with our singing (Ps. 95:1), speaking (Ps. 63:5), shouting (Ps. 66:1), clapping (Ps. 47:1), bowing down (Ps. 95:6), dancing (Ps. 149:3), jumping (Ps. 68:3), raised hands (Ps. 134:2), new songs (Ps. 33:3), and musical instruments (Ps. 150). God is seeking those who will worship Him in spirit and truth (Jn. 4:21-24). We want to bring God offerings of praise that cost us something (2 Sam. 24:24).

God must remain central in worship. He is the one we worship and we are those who worship Him. Worship is how we gain a greater view of who God truly is. It is the way we present ourselves to God as a living sacrifice. We are committed to expecting God to meet us when we worship Him. We don’t want to fall into monotonous routine-like worship. We pour out everything we are in the presence of God because He is worthy of it. When we gather, we bring to God the worship He has asked us to bring - with our whole heart, exalting God as our Father, Jesus as our Savior and the Spirit as our Power.

Prayer is spending time with and communing with God as modeled by Jesus when He was on the Earth (Mark 1:35). We are called to pray at all times of day (Psalm 92:2) and all throughout the day (1 Thess. 5:17). Prayer was one of the commitments of the early church we seek to continue today (Acts 2:42). We are to pray like Jesus taught us (Matt. 6:9-13): authentically (Matt. 6:5-8), persistently (Lk. 18:1-8), with confidence (Heb. 4:16), with gratitude (Phil. 4:6-7), with faith (Mt. 11:24), in agreement with others (Mt. 18:19), in the Spirit (Eph. 6:17), and in the name of Jesus (Jn. 14:13), for ourselves and others (1 Tim. 2:1).

Prayer is the great test of our willingness to rely on God. Prayer is not an event or a program; it is the way we spend time with God individually and communally. When we pray together we remind each other of our need for God. If He doesn’t go with us, we don’t want to go. Prayer is the way in which we partner with God and align with His guidance and purposes. If we want to see a move of God in our lifetime, prayer must be at the center, and prayer must lead the way.

At creation, God placed His image (Imago Dei) in both woman and man (Gen. 1:27) and communed with them in the garden of Eden (Gen. 3:8). In Genesis we see both the creation of marriage as well as the creation of the beautiful, interdependent relationship God placed between men and women (Gen. 2:18-25). Creation is distorted when Adam and Eve disobey God and are separated from Him (Rom 5:12). This disobedience affects humanity’s relation to God as well as the relationship between men and women (Gen. 3). Though separated from God, God’s heart is to call all of humanity back to Himself (2 Pet. 3:9). This is why Jesus came to earth - to save a people who had been lost (Lk. 19:10). The story of humanity will culminate in Heaven where Jesus makes all things new again (Rev. 21:5).

From the beginning, the creation narrative emphasizes the equality between women and men. They correspond to each other and only together hold the image of God. We hold that all hierarchy in the relationship between husbands and wives, as well as all hierarchy in the church between men and women, came as a consequence of sin entering the world. In the kingdom of God, people are given a place in the body of Christ based on the gifts the Spirit gives, not based on gender, ethnicity, or social class. The passages that have often been misinterpreted to limit the role of women in the church and in the home have not been treated with the same vigorous hermeneutic as other difficult passages. We must contend for the full and complete image of God to shine in the local church. We believe God’s design for serving in the Kingdom is based on the gifts He has placed in each believer rather than the gender of the believer. We are a church that seeks to observe and affirm the gifts the Spirit has placed in all people.

Salvation from sin, death, and condemnation is available to everyone (Heb. 7:25). This salvation is only found through Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12). It is a gift from God that cannot be earned (Eph. 2:9). The past tense of salvation refers to being saved from the penalty of sin (Rom. 3:23). The present tense of salvation refers to being delivered from the power of sin over our lives (Gal. 2:19-20). The future tense of salvation refers to being spared from spending eternity separated from God (Rom. 13:11). To be separated from God for eternity is hell (Rev. 21:8). But through salvation we can spend eternity in heaven with God (Jn. 14:3).

If we wish to preach a real heaven we have to be willing to preach a real hell. The good news of Jesus is “good” because something happened to Jesus (He was crucified and then resurrected), something will happen because of Jesus (He will return again for His Church and will begin a new creation), and something is happening in the in-between with Jesus (He is our anchor of hope in a dark world). Jesus made a way for humanity to be reconciled to God, delivered from sin, and live with Him forever in His new creation. Sharing this good news is central to the idea of what the New Testament calls “preaching”. It is our calling to proclaim this message and trust God with how it’s received by others. We are to keep scattering the seed of the gospel wherever we go. We are not in charge of the outcome, we are responsible to proclaim this salvation to everyone we can.

Making disciples of Jesus is the mission of the Church (Mt. 28:19). The gathering of believers should be something that radiates the glory of Jesus (Eph. 3:21) to the point where unbelievers in the gathering will say “God is really among you!” (1 Cor. 14:25). The Church is entrusted with continuing the worship of God prescribed in Psalms and to teach the Word to each other (Col. 3:16). The Church is the place where all the gifts of the Spirit are to be exercised for the common good (1 Cor. 12) and where miracles are to be expected (Gal. 3:5).

We are passionate about in-person ministry in the local church. While the use of technology has it’s place as a powerful means of spreading the gospel, we are convinced that the primary work of the Church must be accomplished in the presence of other believers. It is our conviction that the worship of God and the teaching of the Word are best done in person. We are saved by Jesus into a family. And as family, we must become familiar with each other and be able to observe each others’ lives. In this context, the gifts God places in His people can come to fruition for the building up of the body.

The Scriptures have been inspired by the Holy Spirit (2 Tim. 3:16) and are given for the equipping of the servants of God for every good work (2 Tim. 3:17). While the various writers of the Scriptures have individual personalities and styles, they all spoke as led by the Spirit (2 Pet. 1:21). One of the ways the Holy Spirit guides us is through the Holy Scriptures (Psalm. 119:105).

To know the voice of the Scriptures is to know the voice of the Holy Spirit. These writings are authoritative in our lives because they are inspired by God Himself. While we must teach the Scriptures responsibly with historical context and the author’s intent, we must never apologize for the things God has spoken. If the world senses the Church half-heartedly embracing the authority of Scripture, then why would they want to listen to it? We must carry the message of Jesus with the authority given to us by Jesus. God spoke through Scripture by the inspiration of the Spirit, God speaks through the guidance of the Spirit, and God speaks through what He spoke by the illumination of the Scriptures by the Holy Spirit.