What We Teach

Our Statement of Faith captures what we believe, creating a foundation for why we do what we do as a church. The gospel of Jesus Christ is central to who we are and is our primary passion and influence in life together.

We teach that God’s Word is our sufficient authority for foundational truth and real-life function. God’s Word is complete in its inspired formation and inerrant in its original manuscripts. Through careful interpretation and proper application, God’s Spirit uses God’s Word to transform every area of our lives. God’s Word is to be skillfully exposited, confidently proclaimed, and discerningly applied.

We teach that God is supreme over all His creation. His sovereignty is expressed through the multiplicity of His perfections, through His eternal plan for His creation, and through His particular redemption of His adopted children of faith.

We teach that there is ONE God who has equally, eternally, and distinctly existed as THREE persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Each member of the Trinity is fully divine and indispensably involved in all aspects of a foreordained plan of redemption.

We teach that the entire universe was created by the direct act of God who fulfilled His creation work in six literal days. God’s prized creations, Adam and Eve, were intentionally created in His image as male and female. Although common mutations do enhance survivability on this young earth, the observable fact is that God’s beautiful handiwork is not evolving to become increasingly better but is slowly deteriorating to become increasingly damaged. God’s creation groans as it longs for the establishment of the New Heavens and the New Earth.

We teach that the sin of Adam brought corruption and death into all of God’s beautiful creation. Any remaining expression of beauty and consistency in this universe is a general revelation of God’s common grace through corruption. Both through Adam and through rebellious choice, all human beings are sinners deserving the just wrath of a holy God. Man’s sinful condition is not one of being spiritually sick, but of being spiritually dead.

We teach that the gospel—the good news of God’s eternal plan of reconciliation and redemption—is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. This rescue from the condemning effects of sin is entirely undeserved and unearned. It is found only through Jesus Christ—His virgin-birth, His sinless life, His substitutionary death, His victorious resurrection, and His authoritative ascension. Enabling His adopted children to respond in faith, God the Father accomplishes this salvation through the gracious drawing and regenerating work of God the Holy Spirit. Every true believer has been positionally saved from the penalty of sin (justification), is being progressively saved from the power of sin (sanctification), and at the return of Christ will be permanently saved from the presence of sin (glorification). The gospel is not simply meant to transform our eternal standing before God, through the empowering work of the Holy Spirit, the gospel is also meant to transform our daily choices of submission to Jesus Christ, our new Master. 

We teach that in God’s sovereign plan of redemption, He has called out New Covenant believers from every nation, tribe, people, and language. The primary command to the Church is to love God supremely while the primary mission of the church is to make disciples. Although God’s Church, the Body of Christ, is comprised universally of every true believer, it is expressed autonomously through local assemblies. Each church is to enjoy the study and preservation of truth, the promotion and participation of heart-engaged worship, and the practical application of selfless service. Along with providing necessary support and accountability for spiritual growth, each church is to be the tangible expression of Christ’s care to a broken world. Biblically, the primary ordinances of Christ’s church are communion (the Lord’s Supper) and baptism—symbolically commemorating Christ’s death and resurrection. God has designed His church to be directed by pastors/elders/overseers—a plurality of men who seek God’s glory through God’s Word as they shepherd God’s people. Practically, the primary stimulus for accountability and organization is the covenant of church membership.

We teach that God the Holy Spirit regenerates the spiritually dead heart in order to bring about salvation’s faith. Accordingly, the Holy Spirit permanently indwells and actively empowers every true believer. As consistent with the advancement of God’s revealed plan through redemptive history (primarily the completion of the Bible and the establishment of the Church), the Holy Spirit’s present-day ministry is not consumed with supernatural expressions of miraculous signs or giftings; but is a ministry that is consumed with empowering believers with the practical understanding and application of God’s sufficient Word. Through the means of the Bible, the Holy Spirit guides true believers in continual spiritual growth as well as in consistent spiritual battle against the remaining flesh. Although choices of sin may temporarily minimize the vibrant work of the Holy Spirit in the life of a true believer, as the Guarantee of a New Covenant relationship, the Holy Spirit will never fully abandon a true believer. 

We teach that through the dynamic expression of His sovereignty over all His creation, Christ will return to earth at His foreordained time to eternally glorify His own, to eternally punish sinners, to eternally torment Satan and his workers of evil, and to eternally establish a New Heavens and a New Earth. The life-sustaining presence of our Triune God will be the joyful focus of the New Heavens and the New Earth. Although we acknowledge that those who hold other historic views of the timing of Christ’s return are welcome within our church family, we teach a premillennial view of Christ’s return.

We teach that God intentionally created two genders: male and female. The special bond of sexual intimacy is to be found only in a marriage union that is covenanted between one man and one woman for life. Marriage has been designed by God not only for the practical purpose of procreation, but also for the joyful benefit of complementary function. God does not prefer one gender over another, however, both men and woman should embrace their God-designed beauty, function, and giftings as they seek to glorify Him for His intended purpose.

Names of God: In the Scriptures, the name of God is significant and understandably so. Traditionally, the translation “God” renders the Hebrew word Elohim. Likewise, the word “Lord” is a translation of Adonai. In the LSB, God’s covenant name is rendered as Yahweh. The meaning and implication of this name is God’s self-deriving, ongoing, and never-ending existence. Exodus 3:14–15 shows that God Himself considered it important for His people to know His name. The effect of revealing God’s name is His distinction from other gods and His expression of intimacy with the nation of Israel. Such a dynamic is a prevalent characteristic of the Scriptures as Yahweh appears in the OT over 6,800 times.

In addition to Yahweh, the full name of God, the OT also includes references to God by a shorter version of His name, Yah. By itself, God’s name “Yah” may not be as familiar, but the appearance of it is recognizable in Hebrew names and words (e.g. Zechar-iah, meaning Yah remembers, and Hallelu-jah, meaning praise Yah!). God’s shortened name “Yah” is predominantly found in poetry and praise.

The translation “Yahweh” is substantiated by scholarly reconstruction as well as by historical discussions in Theodoret, Epiphanius, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Aquila. Consequently, those latter individuals affirm the usage of God’s covenant name in the period of the early church. Preserving this in translation foundationally records what is present in the OT text. It also allows proper distinction between God’s personal name and the title “Lord” (Adonai), which emphasizes God’s authority. Even more, it helps the reader to engage God with the name which He gifted to His people. Thus, the reintroduction of God’s personal name into the translation of the OT is a feature that enhances the precision, intensity, and clarity of the biblical text in English.

The NT uses the term “Lord” (Kurios) to translate Yahweh. The LSB maintains the translation “Lord” and does not change those instances to Yahweh. In cases when “Lord” explicitly translates Yahweh in a quotation of the OT, a footnote is provided stating such. Nevertheless, the LSB maintains the translation of “Lord” in the NT for the same reason it upholds Yahweh in the OT: because that is what is written in the original text. Just as translations preserve the distinct wording between an OT passage and its quotation in the NT, so this distinction is preserved.

While there may be several factors behind this shift from Yahweh to Lord, for the apostles, one purpose centers on the declaration that Jesus Christ is Lord. Because the NT writers rendered Yahweh as Lord, they showed that Jesus is both Lord over all (even over Caesar, Acts 25:26) and none other than Yahweh Himself (Acts 2:25, 34, 36). Hence, the term “Lord” is a profound title showing Christ’s supremacy in heaven and earth. That being said, the significance of this title presumes that one understands the movement from Yahweh to Lord. By rendering what is written in both OT and NT, one can observe this shift and the fullness of its theological import.