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What We Believe
- The Bible
- We Believe that The Bible is The Word of God, supernaturally inspired so that it is inerrant in the original manuscripts and preserved by God in its plenary verbal inspiration. It is a divine authoritative standard for every age and every life.
- The Trinity
- We Believe that The Godhead exists eternally in three persons: The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit and that these three persons are one God.
- God's Love for Man
- We Believe that God, by his sovereign choice and out of love for men, sent Christ into the world to save sinners.
- God With Us
- We Believe that Jesus Christ was both God and man in the flesh, that He was born of a virgin, and that He lived a sinless life. During His life He taught and wrought mighty works, wonders and signs exactly as revealed in the four Gospels. He was crucified as a penalty for our sins and was raised from the dead on the third day. Later He ascended to The Father's right hand where He is head of the church and intercedes for believers, and from whence He is coming again personally, bodily and visibly to this earth to set up His millennial Kingdom.
- Salvation
- We Believe that salvation is of pure grace. With its forgiveness of sins, new nature and hope of eternal life, salvation is entirely apart from good works, baptism, church membership or one's effort.
- Once Saved Always Saved
- We Believe that a true believer is eternally secure and that he cannot lose his salvation. Sin may interrupt the joy of the true believer's fellowship with God and bring the loving discipline of his Heavenly Father upon him.
- Our Destination
- We Believe that all who receive Christ become joint-heirs with Him. At death their spirits depart to be with Christ in conscious blessedness and at the rapture their bodies will be raised to the likeness of the body of His glory and dwell in divine presence forever.
- Spiritual Growth
- We Believe that it is the goal of every Christian to grow in spiritual maturity through obedience to the Word of God and the indwelling Holy Spirit.
- The Holy Spirit
- We Believe that The Holy Spirit is a person and God and possesses all divine attributes. He indwells all believers, baptized and seals them at the moment of their salvation and fills them in response to confession of sin.
Amendment to The Baptist Faith and Message
A Statement Adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention, June 1998
God has ordained the family as the foundational institution of human society. It is composed of persons related to one another by marriage, blood or adoption.
Marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime. It is God's unique gift to reveal the union between Christ and His church and to provide for the man and the woman in marriage the framework for intimate companionship, the channel for sexual expression according to biblical standards and the means for procreation of the human race.
The husband and wife are of equal worth before God since both are created in God's image. The marriage relationship models the way God relates to His People. A husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. He has the God-given responsibility to provide for, to protect and lead his family. A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. She, being in the image of God, as is her husband, and thus equal to him has the God-given responsibility to respect her husband and to serve as his helper in managing the household and nurturing the next generation.
Children, from the moment of conception, are a blessing and heritage from the Lord. Parents are to demonstrate to their children God's pattern for marriage. Parents are to teach their children spiritual and moral values and to lead them through consistent lifestyle example and loving discipline to make choices based on biblical truth. Children are to honor and obey their parents.