Statement of Faith

Generally, this is also what we teach. If your denomination or congregation differs, prefers us not to touch on certain topics or to articulate something in a different or more nuanced way, please contact us to discuss. We reserve the right to refuse working with those we disagree with but for the sake of unity we will do our best to accommodate your preferences.

The 66-book Protestant Bible, and only this Bible, is the authoritative Word of God. It alone is the final authority in determining all doctrinal truths and rules for faith and life. In its original writing, it is inspired, infallible, and inerrant.

There is only one God, with no gods created before or after Him in all of existence, in all places, in all time. He has always been God and was never anything else. He is YHWH (Yahweh/Jehovah), the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He eternally exists in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All three are co-eternal and co-equal. We’re to worship God alone.

Jesus Christ is the eternal Word of God, the second person of the Trinity. All things were created through Him and for Him. He lived a sinless life, performed miracles, voluntarily died on a cross to atone for the sins of humankind, to restore us back to the Father. He arose bodily from the dead on the third day, according to the Scriptures, in His glorified eternal body, ascended to the right hand of the Father, and will return again in power and glory.

Jesus was incarnated: miraculously conceived through the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. He was fully God and fully man, adding human nature to His divine nature. The natural conception process was interrupted so He did not inherit a sin nature. Thus, He’s the only-begotten Son of God. As the God-man, He intercedes for us forever as our perfect high priest.

The Holy Spirit is the third person of the triune godhead: the Spirit of God. He’s not an impersonal force, energy, or feeling. He is co-eternal and co-equal with the Father and Son. He is sent to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. He witnesses to Jesus, indwells every born again believer as a guarantee of their inheritance, guides and empowers them, providing them gifts for ministry, interceding in accordance with the will of God.

Humankind is made in the image of God: a soul, spirit, and body. Every race is equal under God, deserving dignity and love. God created humanity good and innocent, but by voluntary transgression they fell, bringing sin into the human race. Every person inherits a corrupted nature inclined to sin, causing separation from God and death. All have sinned, fall short of the glory of God, and stand guilty and condemned before God. Their only hope of redemption is in Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Jesus paid the penalty of death, as a legal substitute in our place, suffering all the consequences of God’s law being broken. God’s righteous justice was fully satisfied and the debt our sin brings against us has been canceled. God’s wrath of our evil deeds was appeased and everything needed to reconcile our relationship with God was accomplished by Jesus on the cross.

God declares us innocent and in right standing with Him by His grace alone, through our faith alone, in the atoning substitutionary death of Christ alone. Inherit human goodness, religious works, or good deeds do not play a role. It is the gift of God. God was motivated to do this by what most glorifies Him, and His love for fallen humanity and desire to restore our relationship with Him.

For anyone to know God, regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential. We must be spiritually born again. God causes this new birth, giving us the Holy Spirit to live in us forever, sealing us, adopting us as a child into the family of God. By the person of the Holy Spirit, mysteriously, the Father and Jesus also indwell the believer.

We are saved by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone (His incarnation, atonement, death, burial, resurrection). It is the gift of God, and cannot be added to by good works or human efforts. Salvation is both a one-time event (justification and regeneration) and ongoing, in which we are in the process of being saved. A person’s life reflects their salvation status, showing if their repentance, faith, love, surrender, and obedience to Jesus are genuine, either revealing or denying their salvation, through the evidence of their sanctification or the lack of it.

Repentance is a change of beliefs, desires, and direction away from sin and toward God. It’s commitment to turn away from sin in every area of our lives to follow Christ. We’re saved by faith alone but not by a faith that is alone. Our faith is demonstrated through repentance and obedience. Only believers who repent and live godly have a saving faith and assurance of salvation.

Sanctification is the ongoing process of yielding to God’s Word and the Holy Spirit to become more like Jesus in every way. It is the process of healing, deliverance, character development, and growth into spiritual maturity. Through the present ministry of the Holy Spirit, in cooperation with the Word of God and the church, the Christian is enabled to live a godly life.

Heaven is the eternal dwelling place of God and all believers in the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is a real, holy, and perfect place without sin, death, sorrow,  pain, hunger, thirst, or separation from God. All who die in the Lord will go to meet Him there. Heaven and earth will be united after the return of Jesus and the resurrection.

Hell is a destination of eternal death without God’s presence. After living one life on earth, unbelievers who persist in their sins and reject Jesus’s sacrifice, will die in their sins and be judged by God and sent to Hell where they will be eternally tormented with the devil and his fallen angels. Hell is not inconsistent with the boundless love of God, but is an expression of His holiness and justice.

Jesus Christ was bodily resurrected, from the realm of the dead, in the same physical-but-glorified body three days after His death. He ascended bodily into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father, and rules heaven and earth. Jesus was the first of the resurrection. Both the saved and the lost will be resurrected; the saved unto the resurrection of eternal life, and the lost unto the resurrection of eternal shame and torment.

Jesus Christ will physically, visibly, and gloriously return to earth for the second time to establish His kingdom. All who belong to Christ, whether living or dead, will be bodily resurrected, transformed, glorified, and meet Him in the air. This will occur at an undisclosed date known only by God. We’re to stand ready and watchful for the signs Jesus warned would come first.

The Church is the spiritual fellowship and unity of all believers in Jesus, and consists of everyone born of the Holy Spirit. It’s the Body of Christ, of whom He is head, and the Bride of Christ, of whom He is husband. The local church is to be a loving community of Christ’s followers who gather for worship, prayer, instruction in the Word, mutual encouragement, discipline unto godliness, and training for ministry. The Church is to display God’s holiness, bear His fruit, and bring people into relationship with God. The Church is to embody the pervasive, life-transforming power of God by equipping the saints for the work of ministry, bearing witness to the truth, and exerting influence into every realm of culture. The Church is to proclaim the gospel and make disciples of everyone everywhere. Every single believer is called, anointed, and gifted by God, to serve in the corporate assembly, the edification of the saints of God, and the fulfillment of the Great Commission.

Water Baptism: Following a person’s repentance of sin, faith in the Gospel, and decision to follow Jesus, the convert is to be baptized in water, in the name of the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit. It symbolizes the spiritual union that every believer has with Jesus in His death, burial, and resurrection. We believe the biblical pattern is that it should be administered by full immersion whenever possible.

The Lord’s Supper: A sacred and reverent time of spiritual communion, in the presence of God, when the elements of bread and fruit of the vine are taken, representing the broken body and shed blood of Jesus, in remembrance of His sacrifice on the cross. This is a vivid memorial and proclamation of His death until He returns. It should accompany self-examination, be celebrated joyfully and regularly, and is open to all who are followers of Christ.

Given at Pentecost, it’s the promise of the Father, sent by Jesus after His ascension, to empower the Church to preach the gospel, be a witness for Him, and live a life pleasing to God. Baptism with the Holy Spirit and fire comes with endowment of power for life and service, spiritual gifts, deeper consecration to God, and greater fullness of the infilling of the Spirit. It’s distinct from the new birth, and can occur simultaneously or afterwards. It can, but will not necessarily, accompany the initial sign of speaking in other tongues and prophesy, as the Spirit gives utterance.

The Holy Spirit manifests through a variety of spiritual gifts to edify and expand the church, demonstrate the validity of the resurrection, and confirm the power of the gospel. All of the gifts are available and active today. All believers are commanded to earnestly desire the manifestation of the gifts in their lives. The gifts always operate in love and in harmony with the Bible and should never be used in violation of biblical parameters.

Angels are spirit beings, created by God, to be His servants and messengers. Satan is a fallen cherub angel who led many angels to use their free will to pursue a rebellion against God. They were defeated and cast out of Heaven, thrown down to the spiritual realm on earth. These “fallen” angels are what we call demons. Demons are personal, intelligent, malevolent spirit beings that exist in a spiritual realm that underlies our physical realm. These unseen forces of darkness, in conjunction with sin, are the great enemy of God and mankind, often disguising themselves as angels of light, but they are liars who seek to kill, steal, and destroy all humanity, and especially the Church. They will be eternally punished in the lake of fire.

Through cohabitation of humans, dwellings, and objects, and means like curses, witchcraft, divination, and occult powers, demons influence world affairs and people’s lives, leading them from God and towards lies, sin, and destruction. Deliverance is the process of God setting people free from demonic influence (spiritual, mental, emotional, physical, etc.). Jesus gave His Church authority and power to cast demons out of people. It’s always God’s will for believers to have total spiritual freedom. The Holy Spirit lives in the spirit of the regenerated believer, but they must still submit to God, trust God’s Word, resist the devil, deny the sinful desires of the “flesh” (body and soul). If believers fail to surrender to the Holy Spirit in this sanctification process, they may be vulnerable to demonic influence.

It’s God’s will for His children to be whole, healthy, fulfilled, and prosperous. But because of the sinfulness of man, our love of gifts over the giver, selfish motives in prayer, the fallenness of the world — and God’s paramount priority to be glorified, make us more like Jesus, and be a witness in the world — we will not receive the full benefits of God’s prosperity in this life. Nonetheless, this should not prevent believers from seeking the full benefits of Christ’s atonement and provision, to be blessed and be a blessing to others, including spiritual, mental, emotional, physical, financial, protection, and justice blessings.

Healing of the sick is illustrated in the life and ministry of Jesus and included in the commission given to His disciples. It’s given as a part of the Gospel, a sign requiring the same faith, providing a foretaste the reversal of the curse of this world and to eternal life. Healing is a sign that will follow believers, and authenticates the Gospel proclamation the believer should also be providing with their prayer for healing. It’s a provision of the atonement, and a spiritual gift of God’s grace and blessing, given to the Church by the Holy Spirit. Physical healing is not guaranteed this side of Heaven, and God sometimes sovereignly uses illness to accomplish a greater good. However, this should never prevent believers from always praying and believing for healing, and trusting that if it’s His will to heal, it will happen.

The testimony of the God-breathed Holy Scriptures is that the marriage covenant shall be reserved only for one man with one woman. It was our Creator, the Lord God, Who decided the man should not be alone, who specifically fashioned the woman as the suitable helper for the man, Who literally made the woman from a part of the man and in the woman made the man complete, Who designed sexual union to be with a husband cleaving to his wife as one flesh, Who bestowed His divine blessing upon the unity of a man and a woman, Who gave the man and the woman the ability to fulfill his charge to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, and Who ordained the pattern for human existence that a man and a woman would pair up and cleave to each other in one flesh. No other relationship can ever be the holy unity between one man and one woman established by our Creator, which the Apostle Paul frequently compared to the holy unity of Christ and the church, and man has no authority to alter the divine order of the unity between one man and one woman.

Sexuality and the divinely-prescribed boundaries for the expression thereof is covered clearly in the Bible, which limit all sexual expression to the marital relationship of one man with one woman. Homosexual acts, adultery, incest, bestiality, all forms of fornication (any sexual contact whatsoever between strangers or romantic relationships); sexually immoral entertainment such as strip clubs, voyeurism, pornography, sexually explicit TV, movies, or games; perverse behavior, and every lustful desire and behavior is categorically condemned in the Holy Scriptures.

God wonderfully and unchangeably creates each person as male or female. These two distinct, complementary sexes together reflect the image and nature of God. Likewise, gender identity is biologically (physiologically) determined by God, equivalent to one’s sex, rather than being dependent on self-perception. Rejection of one’s biological sex is a persistent rejection of the image of God within that person, as well as the roles and calling God has assigned to them. It is rebellion to God’s divine order, disobedience to the commands in His Word, and an idolatrous worship of self. It’s distrust in God’s sovereignty and providence, and trusting in the sinful, broken desires of the flesh we’ve been commanded in the Holy Scriptures to crucify with the help of God’s Word and Spirit.

All human life is sacred and created by God in His image. Human life is of inestimable worth in all its dimensions, including pre-born babies, the aged, the physically or mentally challenged, and every other stage or condition from conception through natural death. In Scripture, God conferred blessing on the unborn and penalized actions resulting in the death or injury of the unborn (eye for eye, life for life). Abortion for reasons of personal convenience, social adjustment, or economic advantage is morally evil. Medical conditions which pose serious threat to the life of the mother may cautiously necessitate therapeutic abortion. The Scriptural answer for pregnancy due to rape or incest is not to end the new life, but minister to the well-being and support of the mother and family. We’re called to defend, protect, and value all human life. Local churches and individual members must accept responsibility, for the acceptance and loving care of those born as a result of our strong stand against abortion, and ministries offered to support those who are struggling as a result.

No one can come to Jesus unless the Father draws them first. However, individual people are NOT elected (chosen) or reprobate (not chosen) by God before birth, to be the only ones capable of believing in Jesus. Rather, God has provided the means for ALL people to be saved, and the ability to respond to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, recognize their sinfulness and need for a Savior, and believe in Him to receive eternal life. Individuals BECOME God’s elect once they belong to Christ after putting their trust in Him. All who belong to Christ are the elect of God.

Predestination is not fate, or determinism, where an individual’s end was already decided. God did not pre-select some to be capable of believing in Jesus, or irresistibly force them to. God gives each person free will, including the ability to love God and desire to spend eternity with Him, or not. God foreknows who will ultimately be saved through Jesus, because He’s outside of time. From eternity-future, He knows who eventually becomes transformed into the image of Christ and lives with Him forever. Every person being saved is predestined for this.

This statement of faith does not exhaust the extent of our faith. The Bible itself, as the inspired and infallible Word of God, that speaks with final authority concerning truth, morality, and the proper conduct of mankind, is the sole and final source of all that we believe. For purposes of MPowered Christian Ministries Inc's faith, doctrine, practice, policy, and discipline, our Governing Board of Elders is the final interpretive authority on the Bible's meaning and application.