There is a movement today in progressive Christianity called “Open and Affirming”.  According to its website:A congregation becomes Open and Affirming when it affirms a public covenant that “lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people (LGBT)” (or people of all “sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions”) are welcome in the full life and ministry of the congregation (e.g. membership,...  Read More

We believe that Satan is the adversary of Christ and the people of God, and that his destiny is everlasting conscious punishment.Here we are at Halloween and I have arrived, unintentionally and perhaps providentially and appropriately, at the last point of our statement of faith – what we believe about Satan!If I remember correctly, we retained this statement when we updated the statement of faith...  Read More

We believe in the bodily resurrection of the dead;of the believer to everlasting blessedness and joy with the Lord,of the unbeliever to judgment and everlasting conscious punishment.Christianity is built on the resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15.1-19).  If Christ was raised, then God is able to raise the dead – and that means He is able to raise any or all of us – and we have a certain...  Read More

We believe in the personal and bodily return of Jesus Christ to this earth…Conservative Christians who believe in the veracity of the Bible often disagree on details of the end times.  We have differing opinions of the tribulation, of the timing of the rapture, of the identity of the antichrist, and of the nature and timing of the ‘millennium’, the thousand-year reign of Revelation 20.  But all co...  Read More

Our church has two “ordinances”, i.e. ordered or appointed rituals:  baptism and the Lord’s Supper or communion.  (A few Mennonite and Brethren groups add a third, foot-washing.)We believe in ‘believer’s baptism’ as opposed to infant baptism.  We believe baptism is something you choose to do, not something others choose to do to you.  We see baptism as an external symbol of one’s internal professi...  Read More

So those who received [Peter’s] word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. (Acts 2.41)This passage describes the first day that Peter preached the good news of the risen Christ.  He called upon the people who had called for Jesus to be crucified to repent of their sins and recognize that same Jesus as the risen Lord and the appointed King of heaven.Three thousand...  Read More

We believe that … every local church has the right under Christ to decide and govern its own affairs.That is from our statement of faith, and in this blog I’d like to point out a few things about how our church governs its affairs.We’ve chosen to be independent rather than part of a denomination.  Decisions about our property, our vision, and our programs are controlled completely and solely by pe...  Read More

We’ve all heard complaints about Christianity being so divided.  So many churches!  So many denominations!Shouldn’t there just be ONE Church where everyone agrees on everything?As good as it sounds on paper, the church has never been that way.Early Christians in churches founded by the apostles often disagreed with the apostles!  Many of the letters of the New Testament were written to persuade be...  Read More

Our statement of faith makes three points regarding our beliefs about the church of Jesus Christ.First, the true Church is comprised of true believers in Jesus Christ.  The “true Church” has no organizational presence in the world, i.e. there is no one denomination or organization that IS the true Church.  People with genuine saving faith in Christ exist within every denomination.The obverse is tr...  Read More

Since January I’ve been explaining our church’s statement of faith.  We began with the Bible as God’s authoritative Word.  We took a long time looking at who God is, how sin broke our relationship with God, and finally how the God worked to turn the human race from sin and back to Himself.I turn now to what we believe about THE CHURCH.  If evangelicalism has a deficiency, it is our underdeveloped ...  Read More

In my previous blog (“Gift Lists”) I noted that many believe (a) spiritual gifts are only bestowed miraculously after one’s conversion to Christ and (b) the only spiritual gifts available are those found in the Bible’s “gift lists”.  All other ‘skills’ are not from the Holy Spirit and are ‘works of the flesh’.I have no opposition to the idea of divinely bestowed gifts arising suddenly and miraculo...  Read More

We believe that the ministry of the Holy Spirit is to … empower the believer for …service.The Holy Spirit, THE gift given to every believer, works through each believer to serve and bless others, and the particular outworking of the Spirit through each believer we call that person’s “spiritual gift”.  Since every believer possesses the Spirit of God, every believer also has a “gift” of some sort t...  Read More