We believe that there is only 1 God, but 3 distinct persons that make up the Trine Godhead: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. This is the tri-unity, or the Trinity, which is not mentioned in Scripture by name, but is clearly seen in both the Old (Genesis 1:1-3) and New Testaments (Matthew 3:16-17; Matthew 28:19).

Each person who makes up the Trinity is fully God (in essence and in nature) and none are inferior or ‘lower’ than the others. Each has distinct personhood and distinct roles. God the Father is Creator (Genesis 1:1) of all Creation (1 Cor. 1:6). He has no beginning or end (Psalm 90:2) and planned the redemption of all mankind from eternity choosing the Son to be the One who would come and save. Everything the Son did, He did in obedience to God the Father (John 5:19).    

God the Son is the exact image and imprint of the Father (Col 2:9) and is the Word of God become incarnate flesh (John 1:14). He was present with the Father in the beginning (John 1) and is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29; Galatians 2:20). Jesus Christ is both 100% fully man (Phil 2:8), and 100% fully God. Born of a virgin (Galatians 4:4), he is our great high priest who fully empathizes with our weakness, tested in every way we are, yet did not sin (Hebrews 4:15). Jesus is the messiah, the fulfillment of OT prophecy (Luke 24:13-35); he is kind, humble, perfectly obedient to the Father (Phil 2:6-7) and lives to intercede for the saints (Hebrews 7:25). We believe in Christ’s life, death, resurrection, ascension, and that He will return again!

God the Holy Spirit convicts people of sin, and reminds them of the testimony of Jesus (John 16:8). The Holy Spirit fills and empowers believers and plays a pivotal role in both the sanctification and the perseverance of the saints. He also gives spiritual gifts to believers that they might edify the Church and be a faithful and powerful witness to an unbelieving world, fulfilling the mandate of Matthew 28 to go and make disciples of all nations. The Holy Spirit is also a comforter who comforts us so that we can comfort others (2 Cor. 1:4) and encourages the believer, teaches the believer (John 14:25-26), and helps us to make war against sin and embrace righteousness (Galatians 5:16) conforming us to the image of the Son (Romans 8:29).

The Trinity is a fundamental doctrine of the Church because the Trinity is the very nature of God. We should desire to know God and His nature! But also, the doctrine of the Trinity shows that God created all things in and of Himself. He did not need help and He did not need anything outside of Himself to create anything that was created. He is all powerful, all sustaining, and needs nothing. Thirdly, the Trinity displays the communal nature of God. God Himself existed in perfect relationship and community within the Trinity. This shows that God values relationships and community, but it also shows that God did not create mankind out of loneliness or need for relationship/community.  

We believe that all fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) and that man is totally depraved in that he is both unwilling, and unable to choose God in and of himself. Man is naturally an enemy of God, is at war with God, and loves sin and darkness, not light. The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23) and while we were dead in our sins, Christ died for the ungodly (Romans 5:6) for God so loved the world, that he gave His only begotten son, that whoever should believe in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16). God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him (2 Cor. 5:21).

Jesus has come to rescue sinful man (Galatians 1:4) and to make the Father known (John 14:6) that all those who confess with their mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in their heart that God rose Him from the dead (Romans 10:9) might through faith, receive the free gift (Eph 2:8-9) of grace: the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.

We believe that Jesus and Jesus alone is the propitiation for our sin (1 John 22), that he Himself, bore our sins in His body on the tree, as the penal substitutionary sacrifice for the atonement of our sin. Our sins were imputed to him canceling our debt (Col 2), forever and perfectly satisfying the wrath and justice of God for those who would believe. The righteousness of Christ, is by faith, imputed to the believer.

We believe that Scripture is the Word of God and that it is inerrant, free from any and all errors, and infallible- perfect. It is authoritative for all of life and is as 2 Timothy 3:16 states,” given by God (written by human authors through the verbal, plenary inspiration of His Holy Spirit), and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, [and] for instruction in righteousness”. We believe that the canon is closed, and that the Church must be guided and nourished primarily by His revealed will as is written in the Christian Old and New Testaments. The Word of God is truth (John 17:17) and in it, “… His divine power has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue (2 Peter 1:3).” It is important that the Church clings to this doctrine as orthodoxy (correct/right belief and/or doctrine) leads to orthopraxy (correct/right practice and/or living). We believe that the Word of God that we have, is exactly what God perfectly in His wisdom, has ordained and purposed for us to have.

We believe that Baptism is a sacrament that is instituted by God for the church functioning as a means of grace. Baptism is both a sign and seal for the believer to declare publicly, their faith in Jesus but also, an external sign of an inward, spiritual reality that we are all united to Christ in his life, death, and resurrection. Through Baptism, we see that just as Christ died once and for all, we die with Him as we go under the waters of Baptism and just as He was raised from the dead, so too are we raised out of the waters, to new life in Him (Col 2:12; Romans 6). We believe in full immersion Baptism.

For the full doctrinal statement of faith and belief, click here for a downloadable pdf of the Westminster Confession of Faith in modern english.