What We Believe

1. The 66 books of the Holy Bible are the inspired, inerrant, infallible word of God. They are our supreme authority in all matters of doctrine and practice. This, our statement of faith, is always subject to the Scriptures.(See Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy)
2. God created the entire universe ex nihilo (“out of nothing”) and man from the dust of the earth to be a special creature bearing His image.
3. In the unity of the Deity, there are three persons of one substance, power, and eternity. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are co-equal and co-eternal while relating to each other and revealing themselves to us as three distinct persons with distinct activities and accomplishments.
4. We believe in the virgin birth, sinless life, miraculous works, and substitutionary atoning death of the Lord Jesus Christ, God incarnate (in the flesh). We believe that He was buried and three days later arose from the dead in essentially the same physical body in which He died. In its resurrection, His body was glorified. This glorious resurrection is a sign of the defeat of death by the victorious Christ.
5. We confess our own and every human being’s desperate need for salvation. Every person outside of Christ’s redemption is utterly guilty and corrupt before a Holy God. The new birth (regeneration) is absolutely essential for salvation.
6. Salvation is by God’s loving, free grace in Christ. It is received by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Good works give evidence of true faith but cannot merit God’s saving grace.
7. The Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity, is given to and indwells each true Christian as the “earnest” of his or her inheritance.
8. On a day known to no man, the Lord Jesus Christ will return bodily to earth in glory. This event will be manifest to all mankind.
9. There will be a bodily resurrection and final judgment by God of every person who has ever lived, which will result in everlasting bliss for His elect and everlasting torment in the lake of fire for the impenitent, those whose names are not written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
10. The Church Universal, or Body of Christ, consists of all those united to Jesus Christ, their only Head by His Spirit and by faith. Such are also united to one another. This organic unity is neither established nor obstructed by human organization, and it is not destroyed by disagreement among church members on doctrines secondary to these essentials.
11. Congregations or associations of congregations abandoning all or some of these essentials but which formerly held to them are churches tending to apostasy. A cult is typically a religious organization, the tenets of which are substitutes for all or some of these essentials, and it confessionally opposes them. Cults typically view salvation (however, they define salvation) as inseparably connected to cult membership.
12. There is a personal, malevolent being called Satan. We acknowledge the existence of demons and of God’s holy angels.
13. Human Sexuality – We believe that marriage is a conjugal, covenantal, and non-incestual union ordained by God, of one adult, biologically born male and one adult biologically born female, and historically understood by the Church to be the most basic societal institution and the exclusive institution appointed by God for sexual intimacy.(See The MCOI Statement on Human Sexuality)
14. Sanctity of Human Life – We believe that all human life is created by God in His image, including fetuses, the aged, the physically or mentally challenged, and every other stage or condition from conception through natural death. We are therefore called to protect and value all human life.
15. Social Justice – We believe primary human identity lies in being made in God’s image (Gen. 1:26-27), and this bestows intrinsic dignity that is worthy of Christian compassion and justice. Sin is the ultimate problem, and Christ’s redemption is the ultimate solution. Redeemed people should promote genuine Social Justice within a biblical framework (Col. 2:8). So-called Critical Social Justice is corrupted by a focus on power and privilege rather than truth as the way to understand human relationships. “Social Justice” corrupted in this way misconstrues justice, grace, and compassion and ultimately undermines the mission of the church and its gospel. We reject as anti-biblical any interpretation of Social Justice as a metanarrative inspired by the false components of Critical Theory (or Cultural Marxism). This view defines primary human identity in terms of opposing oppressor/oppressed groups along the axes of race, class, sexuality, gender, etc., granting special knowledge found only in the “lived experience” of the oppressed.