God: The Christian faith and life is God-centered, not human-centered. While God in love lavishes us with innumerable gifts, and in Christ Jesus has indeed made much of us, the culmination of His love consists of enabling us to delight in making much of Him. He loves us not because of who we are, but because of who He is–”God is love”! His love to us should by no means cause us to regard ourselves as at the center of His universe, rather to restore Him to the center of ours!
Jesus Christ: The Christian faith and life is all about Jesus Christ, who is not simply its historic founder, but a resurrected, eternally living person. He is the Son of God come in human form to reveal God, rescue us from sin, and reconcile us with God. Our preeminent pursuit is to know Christ, to follow Christ, and to proclaim Christ.
The Holy Spirit: The Holy Spirit (1) bears witness to the truth of Christ–illumining the Scriptures and engendering faith, (2) manifests Christ’s presence–indwelling and spiritually uniting Christ’s people, and (3) ministers Christ’s power–birthing and growing spiritual life. Acknowledging that apart from the Holy Spirit we are utterly helpless in the Christian faith and life, we seek to be a congregation depending upon, filled with and led by the Holy Spirit. Our fervent desire is not to entertain or to impress at a human level, but for the Holy Spirit to so minister the presence and Word of Christ in our gatherings that even a visiting non-disciple would exclaim, “Surely God is in your midst!”
The Bible: Our preeminent pursuit of knowing, following and proclaiming Christ entails the foundational priority of the Bible in our congregational life, for the Bible is God’s appointed means by which we come to know, believe, and follow Christ. Just as Christ declared that all He did and said was the fulfillment of the Scriptures, even so the Christian faith and life is built upon and the outflow of the Scriptures.
Prayer: Our spiritual helplessness apart from the Holy Spirit calls for an urgent dependence upon prayer, individually and corporately, for prayer is God’s appointed means for aligning us with the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit.
The Church: To be a disciple of Christ is to be a member of the Church–the family of Christ, and engaged in vital relationship with a local extension (church) of the family. Under the scriptural instruction and spiritual “shepherding” of biblically-qualified overseers, as the members engage in the “one another” expressions of the love of Christ and the gifts of the Spirit, they grow in spiritual maturity together and unleash their most powerful witness for Christ.
Grace: Because God is unwaveringly, eternally “for us,” who belong to Christ, we commit to living in authenticity and not pretense, to speaking the truth in love, and to obeying and serving from love and freedom and not the burden of striving to measure up. As God “is for us” in Christ, so we commit to “be for” one another and all people, in our attitudes, relationships and conduct, earnestly desiring and pursing their truest well-being, happiness and prosperity according to Christ.