What We Believe

Our message is that “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.” We require no other creed than this one. He alone is Lord and Savior.

The church belongs to Him. We have no authority to change the teachings, rewrite the rules, offer altered membership requirements, or usurp His authority. In the strictest sense, the church is not a democracy in which the vote of the people can overrule the commands of the Lord.

Like the Campbells and Stone and thousands of others in the early 19th century, and others down through history, members of this church seek to be one in Christ with all others whom He calls His own.

As much as possible, we are trying to imitate the New Testament precedents. That is why our baptism is by immersion, our Communion is every Lord’s day, our leaders are called elders, our preaching is about Christ, and our prayers are in Christ’s name.

The church, Ephesians 2:19,20 states, was “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the chief cornerstone.” Whatever we know about Christ and the church we have learned through the teachings and writings of Jesus’ closest companions, the apostles. We want to build on no other foundation than the one Christ intended.

In the same Ephesians letter, Paul prays that God will give us “the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know Him better… that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you….” Christian faith demands the best our minds can give. So we are a studying church, wanting to know what the Bible teaches and how we can intelligently apply its teachings to today’s world.

Ours is not a dryly intellectual approach to God, however. We rejoice in the Lord, we praise and pray and love and serve from the heart. We are as excited about our Lord and our service for Him as any football fan is about his team’s games. We are not ashamed of the gospel and we are not embarrassed to let our excitement be seen.

Because of our excitement about Christ, we eagerly share the Good News about Him with others. We want to win as many other persons to life in Him as possible. So we share our faith.

We also share our possessions. Our money, our property, our lives belong to the Lord; we want to use everything we have to help His cause and be good neighbors to all we touch.

Like the earliest churches, our’s is an independent congregation. We have no denominational bishop or superintendent or national headquarters to determine the policies here. As a congregation we elect our own leaders, call and support our ministers, decide where the mission money will go, and in every way determine the program of the church. We are not too independent to cooperate with other, though. We freely associate with other congregations and Christians who share our convictions. Realizing that we cannot carry on an effective mission program alone, for example, we cooperate with other churches in supporting missionaries and mission causes that merit our money. In this sense we are an interdependent , not independent, church.

We want to grow numerically, because we are under Christ’s commission to disciple the whole world.

We want to grow spiritually, because we know that we have not achieved all Christ wants us to be.

We want to grow as individuals, because the Christian who has stopped developing in service and love for Christ has lost the joy of his or her salvation.

We want to grow in faith, because Jesus promised that those who truly believe in Him can ask whatever they want, and is shall be done for them. We want to be able ask much so that we can do much and thus help do His will “on earth as it is in heaven.”