what we believe
- We believe that the whole of the Bible was inspired by God and is His Word. It tells us, with absolute authority, the complete truth about God, what we should believe and how we should live.
- We believe in one God who for all time exists as three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who alone created and controls all things. He is holy and perfect and cannot look on sin or let sinful man into His Presence.
- We believe that everyone one of us has sinned and would therefore be eternally separated from God. However because of His love for us, God provided a means of salvation through Jesus Christ.
- We believe that our Lord Jesus Christ is truly God and was completely man. He was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life and taught with absolute authority. He died willingly in our place, paying the penalty for our sins, shedding His blood as an atoning sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin and then rose bodily from the dead and ascended into heaven where He intercedes at the right hand of the Father on our behalf.
- We believe that we receive this forgiveness through repentance (that means regretting the past and being determined to live differently in the future) and faith in what Jesus achieved for us. By faith we receive Him into our lives and we become God’s sons and daughters and He becomes our Father. In love, God calls us to develop this relationship with Him, to live changed lives, obeying God and producing the fruit of the Spirit. As children of one God, we are called to live in love and unity with all other Christians.
- We believe in the deity of the Holy Spirit, who is one with the Father and the Son. It is through His work alone that men are convicted of sin, brought to repentance, enabled to call Jesus, ‘Lord’ and be born again. The believer is also promised baptism in the Holy Spirit, which fills him with power as the gift of Jesus Christ, distributes spiritual gifts amongst believers and enables them to take part more fully in the ministry of the church, its worship, evangelism and service.
- We believe in the baptism of believers by immersion in water in obedience to the command of Jesus. We believe in observing the Lord’s Supper in remembrance of Jesus’ death until He returns.
- We believe in the ministries that Christ has set in the Church: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers; that the Church is commissioned to preach the gospel to the whole world and fulfil the ministry of healing and deliverance to the spiritual and physical needs of mankind; and that the Holy Spirit has distributed spiritual gifts within the Church to enable it to fulfil this calling.
- We believe in the personal, physical and visible return of the Lord Jesus Christ to reign in power and glory.
- We believe in the resurrection of the dead and in the final judgement of the world.
