What we Believe

Declaration:
We as a group of believers who gather together in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, hereby declare the following to be our Statement of Faith.

God
There is one God, creator of all things, infinitely perfect, holy, eternally existent in three equal persons - Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Father
The Father is gracious, merciful, compassionate and abounding in stead-fast love.

Son
The Lord Jesus Christ is truly God and truly man, from eternity past to eternity future He is the Son of God, begotten by the Holy Spirit, born of a virgin, perfect, i.e. sinless. He died sacrificially as our substitute for our salvation and justification. He rose bodily from the dead and ascended to His Father's right hand where He now ministers as our Great High Priest.

Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit is a person and is fully God, possessing all the distinctively divine attributes. He convicts the world of sin, righteousness and judgment. At conversion, He baptizes each believer into the Body of Christ and comes to indwell them permanently, and sets them apart to a holy life.

Bible
The Bible is verbally inspired by God, inerrant in the original documents, and the sole authority in matters of faith and practice.

Mankind
Mankind was made in the image of God; but every member of the human race is sinful. As a result, mankind incurs both physical death and spiritual death which is separation from God.

Salvation
God has provided a remedy for man's sin in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ who died for us bearing the punishment for our sin that was our own responsibility to pay. All who accept His sacrifice are referred to as believers.

This acceptance includes:
● repentance (turning to God from sin)
● being born again through regeneration by the Holy Spirit
● redemption by the blood of Christ and
● salvation by grace through faith

The redeemed are kept eternally secure by the power of God, the intercession of the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. We hold that all believers still succumb to temptation and sin, but that God has made full provision whereby His children may be more than conquerors through Jesus Christ by the power of His Holy Spirit who indwells each one.

The Church
There is one church. It is not an organization but a living organism, known as the Body of Christ, and is made up of all born again believers. The local church is composed of believers in a locality. Though autonomous, the local church exists in vital union with all believers. They gather in Christ's name as a corporate testimony to the Lordship of Christ and to the oneness of the Body of Christ. They gather specifically to learn God's Word, for fellowship and edification, to commemorate the Lord's Supper, to worship and for prayer. In addition, they evangelize unbelievers and make disciples of those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Leadership
The New Testament teaches that the local congregation is under the direction of a plurality of elders. These men are responsible to the Lord as shepherds of the assembly and have final ultimate responsibility for the local church under God. Elders are ordained by the Lord and recognized by the assembly.

The Ordinances
● The Lord's Supper was commemorated by the early churches on the first day of the week and we believe it is the privilege and duty of every believer to heed the Lord's command, "This do in remembrance of me."
● Baptism by immersion is an expression of a person's identification with Christ and signifies that the one being baptized has been crucified with Christ unto sin, has been buried with Him and is risen with Him to walk in newness of life. Baptism is not a means of nor an aid to, salvation, nor a prerequisite to fellowship at the "Lord's Supper." It is however, expected of all believers in obedience to our Lord and is administered on confession of the person's faith in the Lord Jesus.

Spiritual Gifts
The Holy Spirit has blessed the church with specific abilities that are expressed as "gifts" to and through the believers. In His wisdom and sovereignty, God designed certain gifts primarily for the foundational period of the church, while the majority are available for exercise today.

Believers' Responsibility
A person who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ immediately becomes a member of the Church universal, the body of Christ. God's will is that all who belong to Him commit themselves to a local church for worship, fellowship, prayer, instruction, service and discipline. As a royal priesthood it is the responsibility of all believers to love God, other believers and their neighbour, to worship God in spirit and in truth, to study the Scriptures and pray continually in order to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ in daily living. We are to be filled with and controlled by the Holy Spirit, be truthful, share the Good News of salvation through Christ, and encourage one another in the faith as we look expectantly for the coming of our Lord.

Marriage
We believe that marriage as ordained by God is, "The union between one man and one woman to the exclusion of others" (Gen 2:24). This is also confirmed in the words of our Lord Jesus Christ in Matt. 19:4-5

Future Things
We believe in the bodily resurrection of the just and the unjust, the everlasting blessedness of the saved and everlasting conscious punishment of the lost. We believe in the imminent return of the Lord Jesus in the air to call to Himself all the believers from this world, commonly known as the rapture of the church.