Statement of Faith

Having been enabled, through divine grace, to give up ourselves to the Lord, and to one another by the will of God; we consider it our duty to make a declaration of our faith and practice, to the honor of Christ and the glory of His name; knowing, that as with the heart man believes unto righteousness, so with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Our declaration is as follows:

1.We believe that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are the Word of God and the only rule of faith and practice. (We affirm the divine inspiration, inerrancy, infallibility, preservation, and sufficiency of the sixty-six books of the Holy Bible.)

2.We believe that there is but one only living and true God; that there are three Persons in the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, who are equal in nature, power, and glory; and that the Son and the Holy Ghost are as truly and as properly God as the Father.

3.We believe that, before the world began, God did elect a certain number of men unto everlasting salvation, whom He did predestinate to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ, of His own free grace, and according to the good pleasure of His will: and that, in pursuance of this gracious design, He did contrive and make a covenant of grace and peace with His Son Jesus Christ, on the behalf of those persons, wherein a Saviour was appointed, and all spiritual blessings provided for them; as also that their persons, with all their grace and glory, were put into the hands of Christ, and made His care and charge.

4.We believe that God created the first man, Adam, after His own image, and in His likeness; an upright, holy, and innocent creature, capable of serving and glorifying Him; but, he sinning, all his posterity sinned in him, and came short of the glory of God: the guilt of whose sin is imputed, and a corrupt nature derived, to all his offspring, descending from him by ordinary and natural generation: that they are by their first birth carnal and unclean, averse to all that is good, incapable of doing any and prone to every sin; and are also by nature children of wrath, and under a sentence of condemnation, and so are subject not only to a corporal death, and involved in a moral one, commonly called spiritual, but are also liable to an eternal death, as considered in the first Adam, fallen and sinners; from all which there is no deliverance but by Christ, the second Adam.

5.We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ, being set up from everlasting as the Mediator of the new covenant, and He, having engaged to be the surety of His people, did, in the fulness of time, really assume human nature, and not before, neither in whole nor in part; His human soul, being a creature, existed not from eternity, but was created and formed in His body by Him that forms the spirit of man within Him, when that was conceived in the womb of the virgin; and so His human nature consists of a true body and a reasonable soul; both which, together, and at once, the Son of God assumed into union with His divine Person, when made of a woman, and not before; in which nature He really suffered and died as their substitute, in their room and stead, whereby He made all that satisfaction for their sins, which the law and justice of God could require, as well as made way for all those blessings, which are needful for them both for time and eternity.

6.We believe that that eternal redemption which Christ has obtained, by the shedding of His blood, is special and particular, that is to say, that it was only intentionally designed for the elect of God, and sheep of Christ, who only share the special and peculiar blessings of it.

7.We believe that the justification of God’s elect is only by the righteousness of Christ imputed to them, without the consideration of any works of righteousness done by them; and that the full and free pardon of all their sins and transgressions, past, present, and to come, is only through the blood of Christ, according to the riches of His grace.

8.We believe that the work of regeneration, conversion, sanctification, and faith, is not an act of man’s free will and power, but of the mighty, efficacious, and irresistible grace of God.

9.We believe that all those who are chosen by the Father, redeemed by the Son, and sanctified by the Spirit, shall certainly and finally persevere, so that not one of them shall ever perish, but shall have everlasting life.

10.We believe that there will be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust; and that Christ will come a second time to judge both quick and dead, when He will take vengeance on the wicked, and introduce His own people into His kingdom and glory, where they shall be for ever with Him.

11.We believe that Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are ordinances of Christ, to be continued until His second coming; and that the former is absolutely requisite to the latter; that is to say, that those only are to be admitted into the communion of the church, and to participate of all ordinances in it, who upon profession of their faith, have been baptized by immersion, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

12.We believe that singing of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, vocally, is an ordinance of the gospel to be performed by believers; but that as to time, place, and manner, every one ought to be left to their liberty in using it. 

Additionally

13.We believe that the evidence and true assurance of salvation can only be found in the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. We also believe that all the regenerate are created in Christ Jesus unto good works, and that good works follow faith as a fruit of it. God works in His people both to will and to do of His good pleasure and it is by their fruits that they are known. We reject and abominate any form of Antinomianism. We delight in the Law of the Lord and believe in the application of His Law to the elect sinner’s conscience by the Spirit of God.

14.We believe that the sanctification of a believer is both definitive and progressive; that is to say, it has positional and transformative elements to it. Definitive sanctification refers to the one-time, irrevocable act of God, at the moment of a believer’s conversion, in which the believer is set apart as holy and declared righteous before God. This positional element of sanctification signifies the believer’s separation from the bondage of sin and the world, affirming their status as belonging to God, according to His will. It is accomplished solely through the work of Christ and is not dependent on the believer’s actions, moral progress, or spiritual growth. Progressive sanctification is the ongoing, transformative work of God’s grace in the life of a believer, whereby the Holy Spirit enables them to put sin to death in their lives and conforms them more and more to the image of Christ. Unlike definitive sanctification, which addresses the believer’s legal standing before God and signifies that they have been declared holy in God’s eyes by the work Christ, progressive sanctification is an ongoing process of growing in grace, knowledge, and Christlikeness.

Now, with each one of these doctrines and ordinances, we consider ourselves under the greatest obligation to embrace, maintain, and defend, believing it to be our duty to stand fast in one spirit and with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel.

We believe marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in a covenant commitment for a lifetime. It is God's unique gift to reveal the union between Christ and His church, to provide for the man and the woman in marriage the framework for intimate companionship according to biblical standards, and to serve as the means for the procreation of the human race. A husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. He has the God-given responsibility to provide for, protect, and lead both his wife and his family. A wife is to submit herself graciously to the leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ.

We believe that effeminate men, homosexuality, sodomy, lesbianism, bisexuality, incest, transgenderism, cross-dressing, body mutilation, immodesty, immorality, pornography, idolatry, coarse gesturing, fornication and adultery are abominations and condemned by God. But there is forgiveness in Jesus Christ, through repentance of sin and faith in the gospel of grace. The Bible says "…and such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God" (1 Corinthians 6:11). We believe that God intends sexual intimacy to occur only between one biological male and one biological female who are married to each other. Furthermore, we believe that God has commanded that no intimate sexual activity be engaged in outside of a biblical marriage between a biological male and a biological female.

We believe that God has endowed Christian parents with the responsibility of training their children in the faith. While the church is called to make disciples, it is clear that God has given the family as the primary means of discipleship. Therefore, the church must encourage, equip, and empower parents, especially fathers, to perform this God-given mandate. The church must not replace or displace Christian parents in this task. Its function is not to segregate families, but to unify them, respecting the spiritual headship of first, the Christian father, and then the Christian mother, over their home. Children, from the moment of conception, are a blessing and heritage from the Lord. Parents are called to model God's design for marriage and to teach their children spiritual and moral values. This is done by leading them in consistent daily family worship, through godly lifestyle example, providing loving discipline, and making decisions based on biblical truth. In turn, children are called to honor and obey their parents in all things. Since God has commanded parents to teach their children in all aspects of life, we believe the biblical model for educating Christian children should be carried out primarily through the parents. We encourage homeschooling as the preferred method for this purpose. While we understand that homeschooling may not be feasible in every situation, we firmly believe that allowing our children to be fully indoctrinated into secular culture within the public school system should, in every way possible, be avoided by God’s people. We encourage families to pursue a Christian education for their children.