Church Membership

We believe that the New Testament teaches the principle of church membership and require that all who desire to be members of our church follow a formal membership process that is overseen by the elders of the church. While there are certain privileges and responsibilities that members enjoy, we do not limit our ministry to members alone and practice open communion by which any believer in right standing may join us in this ordinance. Furthermore, regular attendees are subject to the same loving service of being reproved, rebuked, exhorted, and even disciplined as described below.

Church Discipline

As a necessary outflow of our beliefs related to Scripture, the Gospel, and Christ’s authority over his church, we practice church discipline as commanded in the New Testament. Our desire to love and serve one another means that we will reprove, rebuke, and exhort one another to pursue a life of holiness and progressive sanctification and that anyone who makes a practice of sinning must be called to repentance and disciplined if it proves necessary. This process is one of love and a desire to see the erring member restored, but it also includes the removal of an unrepentant sinner from our fellowship.

Family

We believe that the basic building block of society is the family and that God has designed the nuclear family to be critically important. To that end, God has given specific roles and instructions to the family that we hold to.

Roles of Men and Women

We distinctively believe in the complementarian view of the roles of men and women. God has designed husbands to be the heads of their families and to take the lead in such a way that he brings protection, provision, and blessing to the wife and children he has stewardship to care for. God has designed wives to serve their families by devoting themselves to the home as a helper to her husband and the one primarily entrusted with the care and nurture of the children. Together the parents are entrusted with the stewardship of training their children to fear God, obey his Word, and place their faith in Christ.

Authority

We believe that the only absolute authority is that of Yahweh as the only true God who is both Creator and Sustainer. We further believe that all other
authority is delegated by God and that he has ordained certain authorities to rule over limited spheres. God has given husbands and fathers to rule the family; he has given a plurality of qualified elders to rule the church; and he has given governments of various forms and complexities to rule over nations and their subordinate structures.

Church and Government

We affirm the need for believers to submit to the government as a means of submitting to God who has established those governments. However, we distinctively hold to the belief that such submission is limited to the legitimate exercise of this authority as delegated by God. This means that we will refuse to obey any authority, be it in the family, church, or civil government, that requires us to disobey God. As the church has always maintained, obedience is firstly and primarily to the Lord. We further teach that the government is limited in the sphere of its authority and, particularly, has no standing in relation to the faith and practice of the church as historically described in the doctrine of the separation of church and state.