What We Believe

We strongly believe that the Bible is God’s Word. It clearly tells us what we are to believe about God and how we are to live before Him. So, the first thing you will notice about our Fel­low­ship is that we read, dis­cuss, teach, sing, and live the Word. We are con­vinced that all of life — includ­ing the church’s preach­ing, wor­ship, gov­ern­ment, and dis­ci­pline — must be brought into con­for­mity with Scrip­ture. The Church must preach the Bible (not mere human opin­ion­s), wor­ship God in a man­ner which He has appointed in His word, and be gov­erned and dis­ci­plined by a plu­ral­ity of godly elders, accord­ing to the Scrip­tural pat­tern.

Yet many groups claim that they believe in the Bible. So, what do we mean when we say that we believe the Bible? We are a Protes­tant Church stand­ing as the heirs of the great Ref­or­ma­tion of the 16th cen­tu­ry. We can accu­rately describe our­selves as Ortho­dox, Evan­gel­i­cal, Reformed, and Con­fes­sional Pres­by­te­ri­ans.

Ortho­dox

We hold to the cen­tral tenets of Chris­tian­i­ty. There is one God exist­ing in Three Per­sons — Father, Son, and Holy Spir­it. Jesus Christ is the vir­gin-born Son of God — the God-­man who is the only Sav­ior of fal­l­en, sin­ful man. The ortho­dox faith is sum­ma­rized by the great con­fes­sions of Nicea and Chal­cedon pre­pared dur­ing the early church.

Evan­gel­i­cal

How are you, as a sin­ner deserv­ing of eter­nal pun­ish­ment, made right before God? Only by trust­ing in Christ alone as the Sav­ior. This truth is sum­ma­rized in the Ref­or­ma­tion watch­words of being saved by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, revealed in the Scrip­ture alone.

Reformed

“Re­formed” describes the Bib­li­cal doc­trines clearly pre­sented dur­ing the Great Ref­or­ma­tion of the Church of the six­teenth cen­tu­ry. This the­ol­ogy is often nick­named “Calvin­is­m”, for John Calv­in, the great the­olo­gian of Geneva. Reformed teach­ing under­stands God as supre­me, the Lord God Almighty. It is He Who saves fallen sin­ners since they are unable to save them­selves. In eter­ni­ty, God deter­mined to save His peo­ple from their sins. In his­to­ry, God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to live a sin­less life in their place and die on a cross to pay for their sins. In time, God changes the indi­vid­u­al’s heart from hatred toward God to a heart that seeks God and believes in the per­son and work of Jesus Christ as Sav­ior and Lord. The indi­vid­ual God saves does not lose his new rela­tion with God, but per­se­veres in holi­ness and good works until the day when God takes the Chris­tian to his or her eter­nal reward.

Pres­by­terian

The word “Pres­by­te­ri­an” comes from the Greek word for “elder”. Pres­by­terian describes how the Church is gov­erned. Each Reformed Pres­by­terian Church has a group of elders, as described by 1 Tim­o­thy 3:1-7, who are elected by the con­gre­ga­tion. The elders lead the Church as shep­herds over the spir­i­tual life of God’s peo­ple. The Churches of a geo­graph­i­cal region are con­nected together as their elders meet in a “Pres­bytery” (a meet­ing of “pres­byters” or elder­s). Final­ly, all the Churches meet together at a “Syn­od”, where the elders from all the Churches work together for the advance­ment of the gospel of Christ.

Con­fes­sional

We believe what the Bible teaches con­cern­ing God, man, sin, and sal­va­tion. Exactly what we believe is care­fully and clearly set out in our Con­sti­tu­tion, which con­tains the West­min­ster Con­fes­sion of Faith, the West­min­ster Larger and Shorter Cat­e­chisms, and our Tes­ti­mony. These doc­u­ments describe what our Church believes, teach­es, and prac­tices. Our elders and dea­cons take vows to believe and uphold these stan­dards. Our mem­ber­ship vows are more sim­ple, empha­siz­ing faith in Christ, com­mit­ment to the Bible, and the will­ing­ness to be teach­able and to serve. The Covenant vows which mem­bers take are:

 

Covenant of Church Membership

  • Do you believe the Scrip­tures of the Old and New Tes­ta­ments to be the Word of God, the only infal­li­ble rule for faith and life?
  • Do you believe in the one liv­ing and true God — Father, Son, and Holy Spir­it, as revealed in the Scrip­tures?
  • Do you repent of your sin; con­fess your guilt and help­less­ness as a sin­ner against God; pro­fess Jesus Christ, Son of God, as your Sav­ior and Lord; and ded­i­cate your­self to His ser­vice; do you promise that you will endeavor to for­sake all sin, and to con­form your life to His teach­ing and exam­ple?
  • Do you promise to sub­mit in the Lord to the teach­ing and gov­ern­ment of this church as being based upon the Scrip­tures and described in sub­stance in the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Reformed Pres­by­terian Church of North Amer­i­ca? Do you recog­nize your respon­si­bil­ity to work with oth­ers in the church and do you promise to sup­port and encour­age them in their ser­vice to the Lord? In case you should need cor­rec­tion in doc­trine or life, do you promise to respect the author­ity and dis­ci­pline of the church?
  • To the end that you may grow in the Chris­tian life, do you promise that you will dili­gently read the Bible, engage in pri­vate prayer, keep the Lord’s Day, reg­u­larly attend the wor­ship ser­vices, observe the appointed sacra­ments, and give to the Lord’s work as He shall pros­per you?
  • Do you pur­pose to seek first the king­dom of God and His righteous­ness in all the rela­tion­ships of life, faith­fully to per­form your whole duty as a true ser­vant of Jesus Christ, and seek to win oth­ers to Him?
  • Do you make this pro­fes­sion of faith and pur­pose in the pres­ence of God, in hum­ble reliance upon His grace, as you desire to give your account with joy at the Last Great Day?