Beliefs

Vision

We aim to be a place:

where sin-prone, sin-bound people regularly experience God’s grace, so that they might be saved and eagerly grow in Christ.
where grace-loved people are trained to apply relevant biblical truth, so that grace rebuilds lost foundations of spiritual, personal, family, and community life.
where grace-loved and truth-trained people gratefully pass along the good things in Christ that they’ve received so that the chain of grace continues unbroken.

Values | Teaching and living the truth of God’s grace.

Teaching – Believing that the Bible is God’s inspired word, we place a high priority on understanding and applying Scripture. Central in our teaching is the gospel of God’s grace – the good news that God has made it possible for us to know him. And he’s done this as an act of mercy and grace.

Living – More good news! God not only accepts us by grace, based upon Christ’s death for us. It is by grace that we live as followers of Christ. From beginning to end, the Christian life is lived by grace.

Our desire to become fully devoted followers of Christ is not motivated by a desperate desire to earn God’s favor. He’s already extended his favor to us in Christ. So now, as we seek to know him and make him known, we do so as a joyful willing response to his great love for us.

This is the power of the gospel. God’s grace not only makes it possible for us to know God through Christ. It is God’s grace that motivates us to love and serve him. And it is God’s grace that empowers us as we use the gifts God has given us to love and serve others.

The Truth – Grace does not involve self-deception. It doesn’t ignore the truth about ourselves – that we are broken, and lost and cannot reach God by our own efforts. That we are sinful people who deserve only judgment.

Nor does grace minimize sin. Even as God’s children we fall short of living as he wants us to live. We say and do things that displease God and hurt one another. But the truth of God’s grace means that we can be honest with God and one another about our sins and weaknesses, and can find mercy and forgiveness.

God's Grace – A well-known acrostic defines grace as God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. It’s God’s undeserved kindness, his unmerited favor.

There’s nothing we can do to make ourselves clean in God’s eyes. Salvation is a free gift that God has made available through the death of Jesus on our behalf, for our sins. We don’t deserve this gift. We can’t earn it. We can only gratefully receive it by trusting in Christ as our Savior and following him as Lord.

Mission

Our mission is Christ’s mission – extending his kingdom by sending out his people to reach the world with his gospel. This will be done:

by equipping our members to become effective disciple-makers in their personal sphere of influence.
by planting disciple-making churches in Lewis County, and
by adopting an unreached people group and laboring to see them won to Christ.

Beliefs

God

1. We believe in one God, Creator of all things, holy, infinitely perfect, and eternally existing in a loving unity of three equally divine Persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Having limitless knowledge and sovereign power, God has graciously purposed from eternity to redeem a people for Himself and to make all things new for His own glory.

The Bible

2. We believe that God has spoken in the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, through the words of human authors. As the verbally inspired Word of God, the Bible is without error in the original writings, the complete revelation of His will for salvation, and the ultimate authority by which every realm of human knowledge and endeavor should be judged. Therefore, it is to be believed in all that it teaches, obeyed in all that it requires, and trusted in all that it promises.

The Human Condition

3. We believe that God created Adam and Eve in His image, but they sinned when tempted by Satan. In union with Adam, human beings are sinners by nature and by choice, alienated from God, and under His wrath. Only through God’s saving work in Jesus Christ can we be rescued, reconciled and renewed.

Jesus Christ

4. We believe that Jesus Christ is God incarnate, fully God and fully man, one Person in two natures. Jesus—Israel's promised Messiah—was conceived through the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. He lived a sinless life, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, arose bodily from the dead, ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father as our High Priest and Advocate.

The Work of Christ

5. We believe that Jesus Christ, as our representative and substitute, shed His blood on the cross as the perfect, all-sufficient sacrifice for our sins. His atoning death and victorious resurrection constitute the only ground for salvation.

The Holy Spirit

6. We believe that the Holy Spirit, in all that He does, glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ. He convicts the world of its guilt. He regenerates sinners, and in Him they are baptized into union with Christ and adopted as heirs in the family of God. He also indwells, illuminates, guides, equips and empowers believers for Christ-like living and service.

The Church

7. We believe that the true church comprises all who have been justified by God's grace through faith alone in Christ alone. They are united by the Holy Spirit in the body of Christ, of which He is the Head. The true church is manifest in local churches, whose membership should be composed only of believers. The Lord Jesus mandated two ordinances, baptism and the Lord’s Supper, which visibly and tangibly express the gospel. Though they are not the means of salvation, when celebrated by the church in genuine faith, these ordinances confirm and nourish the believer.

Christian Living

8. We believe that God's justifying grace must not be separated from His sanctifying power and purpose. God commands us to love Him supremely and others sacrificially, and to live out our faith with care for one another, compassion toward the poor and justice for the oppressed. With God’s Word, the Spirit’s power, and fervent prayer in Christ’s name, we are to combat the spiritual forces of evil. In obedience to Christ’s commission, we are to make disciples among all people, always bearing witness to the gospel in word and deed.

Christ’s Return

9. We believe in the personal, bodily and premillennial return of our Lord Jesus Christ. The coming of Christ, at a time known only to God, demands constant expectancy and, as our blessed hope, motivates the believer to godly living, sacrificial service and energetic mission.

Response and Eternal Destiny

10. We believe that God commands everyone everywhere to believe the gospel by turning to Him in repentance and receiving the Lord Jesus Christ. We believe that God will raise the dead bodily and judge the world, assigning the unbeliever to condemnation and eternal conscious punishment and the believer to eternal blessedness and joy with the Lord in the new heaven and the new earth, to the praise of His glorious grace. Amen.

We are grateful to the Evangelical Free Church