Faith Statement

 I believe in God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, eternally existent as a single Triune Godhead. God is the Creator, Sustainer, and Savior of our universe.

God created the world in perfection, and created people as the last and best creation, and as stewards of all other creatures and the environment. We were created for God’s pleasure and for eternal communion with God. Human beings bear God’s image and thus are spiritual, rational, articulate, and creative. As male and female, people were created equal; created into community with God and each other.

Humans fell from their state of created perfection through disobedience, becoming sinful and losing their intimate communion with God. God compensated for their destructive act by expelling them from their perfect environment and blessing them with mortality. God covenanted with them to redeem the creation. God further provided the Law, and covenanted with the ancients to choose a nation and bring from Israel a redeemer.

At the pivotal moment in history, God fulfilled the covenantal promises and prophecies by providing that Redeemer in God’s own Self. God’s Son, Jesus Christ, came to earth incarnated as a human child outside the natural order of biology, being both man and God, conceived in a virgin by the power of the Holy Spirit. He lived a sinless life, and taught, proclaiming the Kingdom of God among the people of Israel. He was arrested as a political prisoner, falsely accused and wrongfully convicted, tortured and crucified. This perfect and willing gift of Himself was not only a temporal act of ultimate obedience, but also a spiritual sacrifice in His own blood, that once for all satisfied the holiness of God, providing atonement and access for all people back into intimate communion with God. On the third day Jesus Christ rose from the dead, and made a bridge from the mortal world back to the immortal perfection for which we were created. He ascended into Heaven to sit in victory at the Father’s right hand. As He left, He will return, on clouds of glory to gather all of His own to Himself and to usher in an eternal age of paradise. The Son, now glorified at the Father’s right hand, is also present to the Church in the Eucharist and in the person of the Holy Spirit. 

The Holy Spirit is the Author and Interpreter of the Scriptures, the canon of the Old and New Testaments which are the ultimate and only standard of faith and practice for a Christian. In response to the Spirit’s pervasive call, those who are called believe in and confess Jesus Christ as Savior receiving the indwelling Holy Spirit. God’s Spirit is active in individual believers to empower our submission to the Lordship of Christ, to give, identify, and enable our gifts, and to direct us in ministry. Salvation of souls always brings people into the community of faith, the Church – a local church family as well as the Church Universal. Two sacraments define our faith community: baptism, the outward sign of inclusion in Christ; and communion, the common meal that unites us to Christ and each other in grateful commemoration of the death and sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the joyous assurance of union with Christ now and in life eternal. The Holy Spirit is active in the Church (i.e. any gathered group of Christians) to unite us in love, guide us in truth, enable us in ministry, and send us out in mission. God reaches out to this fallen creation through believers who share the Gospel of reconciliation through their myriad gifts and contacts as the Spirit directs and enables them. Our task is to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth. At the end of the age, redeemed people of all nations and languages will gather at the throne of God to glorify Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and to celebrate the completion of all covenantal promises.