ESSENTIAL BELIEFS

The topics below represent an overview of our beliefs and convictions.  A full statement of our beliefs may be found on the Southern Baptist Convention website.

THE SCRIPTURES

The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God’s revelation of Himself to man.  It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction.  It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error for its matter.

GOD

There is one and only one living and true God.  The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being.

MAN

Man was created by the special act of God, in His own image, and is the crowning work of His creation.  By his free choice man sinned against God and brought sin into the human race.  The sacredness of human personality is evident in that God created man in His own image, and that Christ died for man; therefore, every person of every race possesses dignity and is worthy of respect and Christian love.

SALVATION

Salvation involves the redemption of the whole man, and is offered freely to all who confess Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior, who by His own blood obtained eternal redemption for the believer.  In its broadest sense salvation includes regeneration, justification, sanctification, and glorification.

THE CHURCH

A New Testament church of the Lord Jesus Christ is an autonomous local body of baptized believers who are associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel…and seeking to extend the gospel to the ends of the earth.  The New Testament speaks also of the church as the body of Christ, which includes all of the redeemed of all the ages.

BAPTISM AND THE LORD’S SUPPER

Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water.  It is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s faith in a crucified, buried and risen Savior, the believer’s death to sin, the burial of the life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus.

The Lord’s Supper is a symbolic act of obedience whereby followers memorialize the death of the Redeemer and anticipate the second coming.

LAST THINGS

God, in His own time and in His own way, will bring the world to its appropriate end.  Jesus Christ will return personally and visibly…the dead will be raised; and Christ will judge all men in righteousness.  The unrighteous will be consigned to Hell…the righteous will receive their reward and will dwell forever in Heaven with the Lord.

EVANGELISM

It is the duty and privilege of every follower of Christ and every church of the Lord Jesus Christ to endeavor to make disciples of all nations…to seek constantly to win the lost to Christ by personal effort.

STEWARDSHIP

God is the source of all blessings, temporal and spiritual; all that we have and are, we owe to Him.  Christians have a spiritual debtorship to the whole world, a holy trusteeship in the gospel, and a binding stewardship in their possessions.  They are therefore under obligation to serve Him with their time, talents, and material possessions.