BELIEFS
To understand the Christian faith we must look to Jesus because the Christian life is centered on Jesus.
Don’t hesitate to contact the church office to talk with a pastor. The best way to consider Jesus is in the company of the local church. We’d love to help you as you consider Jesus.
The Bible declares that Jesus is God the Son who in His incarnation (birth into human history as fully God and fully man) provided for us the clearest and most important revelation of God that has ever been or ever will be and can alone forgive our sins and grant us salvation. In Hebrews 1:1-3 we read, “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.”
The question of Jesus is of vital importance. The Apostle Paul spoke of this propensity to reduce the majesty of the real Jesus in favor of a diluted and diminished Jesus that in the end is no longer truly Jesus at all. In 2 Corinthians 11:3-4 Paul writes, “But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.”
To help you determine your own personal belief about Jesus we have compiled the following eight reasons and hope they will compel you to receive Him as your God. Jesus was put to death for continually declaring Himself to be God and in the end it really comes down to whether or not each of us believes Him and on that point His words become incredibly personal and pertinent.
- Jesus said He was God
- Jesus said He came from heaven (John 6:38)
- Jesus said He was sinless
- Jesus forgave sin (Mark 2:5)
- Jesus said He was the only way to heaven (John 14:6)
- Jesus confirmed to others He was God
- Jesus accepted worship as God
- Jesus performed miracles including rising from death
The word gospel simply means “good news.” The central message of the Bible is the gospel, or good news, about the person and work of Jesus Christ. In 1 Corinthians 15:1–4, Paul provides the most succinct summary of the gospel: the man Jesus is also God, or Christ, and died on a cross in our place, paying the penalty for our sins; three days later He rose to conquer sin and death and give the gift of salvation to all who believe in Him alone for eternal life.
The great reformer Martin Luther rightly said that, as sinners, we are prone to pursue a relationship with God in one of two ways. The first is religion/spirituality, and the second is the gospel. The two are antithetical in every way.
Salvation involves the redemption of the whole man, and is offered freely to all who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, who by His own blood obtained eternal redemption for the believer. In its broadest sense salvation includes regeneration, justification, sanctification, and glorification. There is no salvation apart from personal faith in Jesus Christ as Lord.
A. Regeneration, or the new birth, is a work of God’s grace whereby believers become new creatures in Christ Jesus. It is a change of heart wrought by the Holy Spirit through conviction of sin, to which the sinner responds in repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance and faith are inseparable experiences of grace.
Repentance is a genuine turning from sin toward God. Faith is the acceptance of Jesus Christ and commitment of the entire personality to Him as Lord and Saviour.
B. Justification is God’s gracious and full acquittal upon principles of His righteousness of all sinners who repent and believe in Christ. Justification brings the believer unto a relationship of peace and favor with God.
C. Sanctification is the experience, beginning in regeneration, by which the believer is set apart to God’s purposes, and is enabled to progress toward moral and spiritual maturity through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in him. Growth in grace should continue throughout the regenerate person’s life.
D. Glorification is the culmination of salvation and is the final blessed and abiding state of the redeemed.
Genesis 3:15; Exodus 3:14-17; 6:2-8; Matthew 1:21; 4:17; 16:21-26; 27:22-28:6; Luke 1:68-69; 2:28-32; John 1:11-14,29; 3:3-21,36; 5:24; 10:9,28-29; 15:1-16; 17:17; Acts 2:21; 4:12; 15:11; 16:30-31; 17:30-31; 20:32; Romans 1:16-18; 2:4; 3:23-25; 4:3ff.; 5:8-10; 6:1-23; 8:1-18,29-39; 10:9-10,13; 13:11-14; 1 Corinthians 1:18,30; 6:19-20; 15:10; 2 Corinthians 5:17-20; Galatians 2:20; 3:13; 5:22-25; 6:15; Ephesians 1:7; 2:8-22; 4:11-16; Philippians 2:12-13; Colossians 1:9-22; 3:1ff.; 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24; 2 Timothy 1:12; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 2:1-3; 5:8-9; 9:24-28; 11:
From BFM2000
There is one and only one living and true God. He is an intelligent, spiritual, and personal Being, the Creator, Redeemer, Preserver, and Ruler of the universe. God is infinite in holiness and all other perfections. God is all powerful and all knowing; and His perfect knowledge extends to all things, past, present, and future, including the future decisions of His free creatures. To Him we owe the highest love, reverence, and obedience. 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.
From BFM 2000
Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Saviour, the believer’s death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus. It is a testimony to his faith in the final resurrection of the dead. Being a church ordinance, it is prerequisite to the privileges of church membership and to the Lord’s Supper.
Matthew 3:13-17; 28:19-2; Mark 1:9-11; Luke 3:21-22; John 3:23; Acts 2:41-42; 8:35-39; 16:30-33; Romans 6:3-5; Colossians 2:12.
From BFM 2000
God has ordained the family as the foundational institution of human society. It is composed of persons related to one another by marriage, blood, or adoption.
Marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime. It is God’s unique gift to reveal the union between Christ and His church and to provide for the man and the woman in marriage the framework for intimate companionship, the channel of sexual expression according to biblical standards, and the means for procreation of the human race.
The husband and wife are of equal worth before God, since both are created in God’s image. The marriage relationship models the way God relates to His people. A husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. He has the God-given responsibility to provide for, to protect, and to lead his family. A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. She, being in the image of God as is her husband and thus equal to him, has the God-given responsibility to respect her husband and to serve as his helper in managing the household and nurturing the next generation.
Children, from the moment of conception, are a blessing and heritage from the Lord. Parents are to demonstrate to their children God’s pattern for marriage. Parents are to teach their children spiritual and moral values and to lead them, through consistent lifestyle example and loving discipline, to make choices based on biblical truth. Children are to honor and obey their parents.
Genesis 1:26-28; 2:15-25; 3:1-20; Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 6:4-9; Joshua 24:15; 1 Samuel 1:26-28; Psalms 51:5; 78:1-8; 127; 128; 139:13-16; Proverbs 1:8; 5:15-20; 6:20-22; 12:4; 13:24; 14:1; 17:6; 18:22; 22:6,15; 23:13-14; 24:3; 29:15,17; 31:10-31; Ecclesiastes 4:9-12; 9:9; Malachi 2:14-16; Matthew 5:31-32; 18:2-5; 19:3-9; Mark 10:6-12; Romans 1:18-32; 1 Corinthians 7:1-16; Ephesians 5:21-33; 6:1-4; Colossians 3:18-21; 1 Timothy 5:8,14; 2 Timothy 1:3-5; Titus 2:3-5; Hebrews 13:4; 1 Peter 3:1-7.
From BFM 2000
VALUES
We’re all driven by something, market forces, popular opinion, personal gain. At LifeConnection we are driven by deep motivations that arise from the scriptures. Our goal as followers of Jesus is to become a missional community of truth, beauty, and generosity.
Mission
The Church exists for mission.
The church has been thrust into the grand mission of God, who is transforming our lives and our world through the gospel of Christ. And in this mission, the church is the hope for our world because she has this life giving message of the gospel.
John 20:21; Matthew 28:16-20
Community
The context of life and mission is Community.
God created humanity to live in relationship with one another, life was not meant to be a solo endeavor. God is in the business of creating a people for his own name’s reputation, thrusting his people into his grand mission. Life transformation and partnership for God’s grand mission happens in the context of community.
Genesis 2:18-25; Ephesians 2:11-22
Truth
The supreme exemplar of Truth is the embodied Word of God, Jesus, our center.
The scriptures form the center of LifeConnection’s missional community, precisely because it is here, in the scriptures (the Old & New Testaments), that we encounter Jesus, the one true God, who is the hero of every story. For us Jesus Christ is the point of life.
John 14:6; 2 Timothy 3:16-17
Beauty
The creativity of God leads us to value the arts and innovation.
No mistake about it, God is gloriously beautiful in all his perfections. And his world is created to display this glory. This is seen from the earliest chapters of Genesis where at the mere utterance of a word the universe springs into existence. And his glory is no more profoundly displayed than in the message of the cross – a confounding message to some but to those who believe a message of life.
Psalm 19:1-6; Psalm 50:1-2
Generosity
The radical generosity of God moves us to serve our world.
God’s great generosity is displayed in the mere fact that he created anything at all. God did not need to create, he wasn’t lonely, he wasn’t wanting for attention. But his greatest display of generosity is seen in the mangled, crucified body of his son, Jesus. It is through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection that we can experience life. Because of God’s great generosity displayed in Jesus, we seek to become generous with our lives, our talents, our resources, and our finances for the benefit of our city.
2 Corinthians 8:9; John 10:10
Personal Disciple-Making
Living for the great commission.
Matthew 28:18–20; Ephesians 4:11–12; 1 Thessalonians 2:8