What We Believe

Our Statement of Faith

We believe God created the cosmos to be good, beautiful, and full of purpose. In the midst of this world, God made a man and a woman—Adam and Eve—to be his unique representatives on the earth, bearing his name and extending his reign while living in dynamic relationship with him.1

Adam and Eve, however, chose to sin when they heeded the voice of evil and betrayed God, hurling all humanity and the good world in which they lived into devastating cycles of shame, guilt, and fear—culminating in death.2

But God chose not to abandon his rebellious creation. Instead, he graciously called another couple, Abraham and Sarah, to lead a faithful family and promised that through them all the nations of the earth would be blessed.3

Throughout history, God has continued to work toward redemption through his people in spite of their habitual inability to live according to his ways.4

We believe that in the fullness of time, God sent Jesus Christ, his eternal Word and true Son, into the world as a man to announce and embody the presence of God’s restorative reign—his Kingdom breaking into brokenness.5

Furthermore, he invited a new group of followers (called “disciples”) to imitate his way of life and learn to love both God and neighbor.6

This same Jesus was crucified like a common criminal, surrendering his sinless life as a ransom for many and drawing all evil onto himself in His death.7

On the third day, however, God raised Jesus back to life as the victor over evil and the physical first fruit of God’s future for his cosmos.8

We believe Jesus is now at his Father’s right hand, reigning from heaven as the true King. He is inviting all people everywhere to trust him for forgiveness and freedom from shame, guilt, and fear because he is our unique source of life both now and forever. In addition, he has given his Spirit to supply direction and power so that we might live fully in the special identity and destiny he has prepared for each of us.9

Today, we live as a community of God’s people on mission together, seeking to love God and follow Jesus by making disciples in the neighborhoods, nations, and next generation around us. By relying upon the unfailing, active grace of his Spirit and upon his entirely trustworthy Scripture, we embrace the often challenging but always hopeful adventure of sacrificial love, selfless generosity, and healing kindness to which he calls us.10

We also believe life in God’s Kingdom is joyful, so we like to laugh.11

One day in the not-so-distant future, we believe Jesus will return and remake the world, judging and removing every last trace of evil in order to complete the new creation that he began on the first Easter.12

Please note:
For historic and broader expressions of faith with which we align as a community, please see the Apostles’ Creed and the World Evangelical Alliance Statement of Faith.

Also, please note that the Scripture references in the footnotes below are not meant to be “proof texts” conveying the entire sweep of the Biblical ideas in a few quick verses, nor do they represent all of the passages about a particular subject. Rather, we hope these references can be a starting place for further exploration of our convictions about the great story of God.


1 Genesis 1-2; see also Psalm 8:1-9
2 Genesis 3; see also Romans 8:18-25
3 Genesis 12, 15, 18; see also Romans 4:1-25, Galatians 3:1-29, and Hebrews 11:8-22
4 See, especially, Exodus 32-34, the books of Judges, Amos, Hosea, John 8:31-59, and Romans 3
5 These accounts can be found in all four of the Gospels, but Mark 1, John 1, Luke 4 are a good first step
6 For one window into the calling and heart of the disciples’ lives, see Luke 5-10
7 Further understanding about Jesus’ death as a ransom (the “price of release”) can be found in Isaiah 52-53, Matthew 20:26-28, John 11:45-53, 2 Corinthians 5, 1 Timothy 2:5-6, Hebrews 9-10, 1 Peter 2-3
8 For the stories of the resurrection and insight into its meaning, see especially Matthew 28, Luke 24, John 20-21, and 1 Corinthians 15. For more about Jesus’ victory over evil, see Psalm 110, Matthew 12:22-29, Ephesians 6, Colossians 2:13-15, Hebrews 2:14-18, 1 John 3:4-10
9 See also John 13-17, Acts 1-3, Romans 8, and Ephesians 2-3
10 Matthew 28 contains Jesus’ definitive commission to make disciples, and the book of Acts shows a generation of the early church’s efforts to obey that commission. Passages affirming the trustworthiness of Scripture include Matthew 5:17, 2 Timothy 3:16-17, and Hebrews 4:12. Likely the clearest description of a life of love, generosity, and kindness can be found in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7
11 See Deuteronomy 14:26, Isaiah 55:12, Romans 14:17, Philippians 4:4-9, Revelation 5:1-14
12 For glimpses into God’s good future for the cosmos, see Isaiah 60-66, 1 Corinthians 15, and Revelation 21-22

Core Convictions

  • We believe the Bible is God's entirely trustworthy, inspired, and authoritative Word to his people. God's inspiration worked through human authors whose character and context shaped the Scriptures we read today. We labor to link the living Word of the ancient text to the dynamic circumstances of our daily lives - following all of Scripture as it flows toward its single, living center: Jesus Christ.

  • Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God, both fully God and fully human, and the living Word who was with God in the beginning and through whom all things were made (John 1:1–3). In the fullness of time, He took on flesh through the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit and the virgin birth of Mary (Luke 1:35), entering human history not as a distant observer but as one of us - subject to hunger, weariness, grief, and temptation, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15). He is the exact image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15), the one in whom the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form (Colossians 2:9), and the clearest and most complete revelation of who God is and what God is like. He lived the life we could not live, fulfilling the law perfectly and embodying the Kingdom He proclaimed - healing the sick, welcoming the outcast, forgiving the guilty, and announcing that the restoration of all things had begun. At the cross, He bore the full weight of human sin as our substitute, satisfying the justice of God and absorbing the consequence of our rebellion so that we might be forgiven and brought home (Romans 3:25–26; 1 Peter 2:24). He rose bodily from the dead on the third day, not as a symbol but as historical fact, the first fruits of a new creation and the guarantee that death does not have the final word (1 Corinthians 15:20–22). He ascended to the right hand of the Father, where He reigns as Lord over all things and intercedes for His people even now (Hebrews 7:25; Ephesians 1:20–21). And He is coming again, personally, visibly, and in power  to judge the living and the dead, to complete the restoration He began, and to make all things new (Acts 1:11; Revelation 21:5). Jesus is not one path among many. He is the way, the truth, and the life, and the only name given under heaven by which human beings must be saved (John 14:6; Acts 4:12). To know Him is to know God. To follow Him is to find the life we were made for.

  • We affirm one God, eternally existent in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

  • We believe that every human being, though made in the image of God, is born into sin and stands in need of salvation, unable to restore the broken relationship with God through effort, religion, or moral achievement (Ephesians 2:8–9). Salvation is entirely the work of God. The Father, in His love, sent the Son. The Son, in His grace, took on flesh, lived the sinless life we could not live, and died the death we deserved, bearing the full weight of human sin as our substitute on the cross (Isaiah 53:5–6; 2 Corinthians 5:21). He rose bodily from the dead on the third day, defeating sin and death and opening the way back to God (1 Corinthians 15:3–4). Salvation comes through faith alone, in Christ alone, by grace alone, not by works, so that no one can boast (Ephesians 2:8–9). It is received, not achieved. At the moment of genuine faith, the believer is justified before God - declared righteous not because of anything they have done but because of everything Christ has done, and is born again by the Holy Spirit into new life (John 3:3; Titus 3:5). This salvation is not merely a transaction that secures a future destination, but the beginning of restoration - of a person, a life, a story being made new from the inside out (2 Corinthians 5:17). We are delivered from the penalty of sin, freed progressively from the power of sin, and are moving toward the day when God delivers us fully from the presence of sin (Romans 5:1–2; 8:1; 8:30, Revelation 21:5). While we are saved by grace and not by works, genuine faith is never invisible. It reveals itself in a life increasingly bearing fruit: in love for God and neighbor, in restored relationships, in generosity, in witness, and in a growing desire to see God's restoration reach every corner of the world (James 2:17–18; Galatians 5:6). We are saved from something, saved for something, and saved into something: a restored relationship with God, a new identity as His children (1 John 3:1), and a community of fellow image-bearers joining God in His mission to restore all things.

  • We believe in the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity - fully God, eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son, who hovered over the waters at creation (Genesis 1:2) and has been at work in the world ever since. It is the Spirit who convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:8), and it is the Spirit who draws people to faith in Jesus Christ. At the moment of salvation, the Spirit takes up residence in every believer - not as an occasional visitor but as a permanent indwelling presence (Romans 8:9–11), sealing us as God's own and serving as the deposit and guarantee of our inheritance in Christ (Ephesians 1:13–14). The Spirit is the one who makes us new. He regenerates (John 3:5–8), sanctifies (2 Thessalonians 2:13), and produces in us the fruit of a life increasingly shaped by Christ - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22–23). He equips every follower of Jesus with spiritual gifts for the building up of the body and the advance of God's mission in the world (1 Corinthians 12:4–11; Ephesians 4:11–13). We do not follow a set of rules or rely on our own strength to live the Christian life - we are led by a Person, empowered by a Presence. The Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead lives in us (Romans 8:11), and He is both the source of our transformation and the guarantee of what is still to come.

  • We believe that God created human beings, male and female, in His own image (Genesis 1:26–27). To be made in the imago Dei is the irreducible foundation of human dignity, and is true of every person, regardless of race, ethnicity, sex, ability, age, or background. And yet that image has been profoundly marred. Through the disobedience of Adam and Eve, sin entered the world and has touched every human being born into it (Romans 5:12), leaving us not as basically good people who occasionally make mistakes, but as image-bearers in need of rescue - bent toward ourselves and separated from the God for whom we were made (Romans 3:23). This tension between dignity and brokenness is precisely the ground into which the gospel speaks. Jesus did not come for people who had it together. He came for the lost, the broken, the straying, and the proud (Luke 19:10). The incarnation is God's definitive statement that every human life is worth redeeming - Jesus took on real flesh (John 1:14), bore real sin (2 Corinthians 5:21), died a real death, and rose bodily so that everything human life was meant to be might be fully restored (1 Corinthians 15:20–22). His return means the final redemption not just of souls but of all things (Revelation 21:5). We therefore hold two convictions together without collapsing either: every person is deeply loved and made in the image of God, and every person is a sinner in need of grace. These are not in competition. The first is the reason God pursued us. The second is the reason we needed to be pursued.

Position Statements

OF THE GRACE FAMILY OF CHURCHES

  • We believe the Bible is God’s entirely trustworthy, inspired, and authoritative Word to his people, and we take seriously its numerous commands to read, memorize, discuss, teach, and obey it. Of course, doing this well means engaging the text prayerfully and carefully. We believe that God’s inspiration worked through human authors whose character and context profoundly shaped the Scriptures we read today. Therefore, we labor to link the living Word of the ancient text to the dynamic circumstances of our daily lives. Ultimately, this means following all of Scripture’s prose and poetry as it flows like rainfall toward a single, infinitely deep well of living water: Jesus Christ.

  • Just after his resurrection, Jesus walked into a room full of his own frightened followers and said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (John 20:21). How, exactly, did the Father send Jesus? We could respond in many ways, but perhaps the best answer is found at the beginning of John’s Gospel: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (1:14). Theologians call this the “incarnation,” and we are amazed that God’s eternal, divine Word would embrace the lowliness and limitation of human flesh. God chose to stoop and serve us in this way that we might know the glory of his grace.

    God continues to be present and at work in the world, and our goal is to join God’s mission by listening to, imitating, and obeying Jesus. And so we stoop and we serve, going and accommodating and contextualizing without compromising our convictions so that others might have the opportunity to see Jesus clearly and–upon hearing this Good News–determine their own posture toward his universal Lordship. This means becoming students of other cultures, just as the Apostle Paul “observed” the people of Athens (Acts 17:23), so that we might discover ways to communicate as effectively as possible. Moreover, in the same way that Jesus’ impact was both verbal and substantial, we believe that entering into the mission of God means both inviting people to join the great story of God’s love and demonstrating that love through practical, non-coercive contributions to the common good. When we talk about “bringing the Kingdom of God,” then, we are referring to the humble hospitality that welcomes the work of God into our neighborhood, the nations, and the next generation.

  • Ever since the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001, we have felt a very strong call as a church family to prioritize relationships with Muslim communities precisely because many people–especially Christians–do not. Rather than “interfaith dialogue,” we hope to build multi-faith relationships with Muslim communities in which we acknowledge the very real differences between our faith traditions even as we continue in friendship. We hope to see our friends in the Muslim community come to follow Jesus, and we pray for the day when God’s Spirit will heal the current division and antipathy between our faith traditions. Toward that end, we are committed to learning and appreciating the truth many of our Muslim friends already possess even as we seek to discover more truth together. Our weekend intensive Jesus and the Qur’an is offered several times each year across the Grace Family and explores these subjects in much more detail.

  • Across our churches, we affirm the biblical design of marriage from the beginning as being a life-long covenant between one man and one woman, and that sexual intimacy is reserved for the marriage relationship. At the same time, we face very real and very complex ministry contexts in which we are learning how best to share the Good News of Jesus with every person, regardless of sexual orientation. All people live in our beautiful but broken world, and all people long to discover love and relationship and wholeness. We unapologetically believe that Jesus is the way (and the truth, and the life) toward that wholeness, and so our primary focus is meeting Christ so that he can be the one to speak into and heal the wounds that are common to human experience.

  • For us, a fundamental truth of the Bible is that spiritual gifts are not gender-specific. In other words, we believe that the Holy Spirit releases gifts of leadership to both men and women. Our challenge, then, is to disciple and empower both men and women in the areas of their gifting within local contexts for maximum impact for the Kingdom of God. Practically, this means each church in the Grace Family values the God-given capacity of women to lead without limitation even as we humbly evaluate the best empowerment of that leadership in each local situation.

  • We see our world’s profound need forhealing among diverse peoples, and we are committed to labor in the present toward God’s promised future: a redeemed community bound together by the love of Christ and representing every nation, ethnicity, race and language (Rev. 7:9).

    As a Family of Churches, we recognize we cannot accomplish Jesus’ command to “make disciples of all nations” without engaging multi-ethnic discipleship and real cross-cultural friendship. These relationships are built upon our recognition of universal human dignity (Gen. 1:26-28) and repentance from our universal rejection of God’s design that results in dehumanization, structures of inequality, and even enslavement of others (Is. 53:6, Rom. 3:23). While this may seem an improbable task, the Apostle Paul tells us that the reconciling work of Jesus Christ tears down hostility and opens the way “to create in himself one new humanity” (Eph. 2:14-15, NIV). Therefore, within our church communities, we refuse to tolerate any kind of racial or ethnic discrimination, bias, or prejudice. Beyond the church, we are compelled by the love of Christ to fight injustice wherever we find it as we serve and speak out on behalf of the poor, oppressed, vulnerable, and forgotten (Luke 4:18-19, Prov. 31:8-9, Is. 58:1-12).

    Finally, we will persevere in this work no matter the difficulty because we are confident that in the not-too-distant future Jesus will return to judge justly, wipe away every tear, and make all things new (Rev. 21:1-5).