Our Five Principles

If you’re looking for doctrinal statements, you won’t find much here. The one affirmation we ask for agreement on, as a marker for membership, is that we believe in Jesus the Christ, son of the Living God, and accept him as Lord and Savior. 

That’s our very simple Confession of Faith, and it tops the list of basic principles that guide the practice of our faith. 

Next: We practice a believers baptism by immersion – meaning we don’t routinely baptize infants but ask that those who choose to be baptized be old enough to decide that  for themselves. 

(We do dedicate babies into our Chrisitian community, believing that they will someday decide for themselves, and that their families and our church hold them in our collective care and faithful love, meanwhile.) 

While we baptize by immersion in our building, we also honor and recognize other forms of Christian baptism (like sprinkling). If someone who was baptized by sprinkling as an infant later transfers his/her membership to our church, that person would not be asked to be baptized again.

Also: We celebrate the Lord’s Supper, or Communion, every time we gather for worship. We believe Christ holds His Table open to all, so we keep Communion open to all. 

We believe each person has the right and responsibility to read and interpret Scripture (with the Holy Spirit’s guidance). It is not the preacher’s job to tell a congregation what to believe. It is our right/responsibility to read and interpret … and to learn what we believe through the living out of our faith.

We are ecumenical in nature, which means we cooperate with other churches to build and further God’s Kingdom. We believe that all churches with Christ at their center are in the same “business” – of loving neighbors as working for wholeness in a fragmented world.