Our Beliefs

We Believe

• We believe that there is one God, infinitely perfect and eternally existent in the persons of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
• We affirm the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, His virgin birth, His sinless life, His miracles, His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, His bodily resurrection, His Ascension to the right hand of the Father, and His personal return in power and glory.
• We affirm the present ministry of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life.  We affirm the fullness of the Holy Spirit as the empowerment of the Christian for witness and service.  We affirm that the Holy Spirit provides one or more spiritual gifts to all believers, manifesting them as He wills.  We affirm that all of the gifts of the Holy Spirit are operative today.
• We affirm that salvation is by grace through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.  We affirm that repentance toward God, faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and regeneration by the Holy Spirit are necessary to salvation.
• We affirm the resurrection of the body.
• We affirm the one, universal church, which is the Body of Christ. We affirm Christ as its head. We affirm all who are born-again as its members. We affirm the church’s purpose as offering worship to God; fellowship, ministry, and instruction to itself; and evangelism and service to the world. We affirm the spiritual unity of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ. We affirm that the church is God’s instrument for revealing His purpose on the earth. We affirm that the church (the people of God) is God’s instrument to distribute His glory on the earth. The church is defined as a gathering of believers, meeting and experiencing God together in order to display His goodness wherever they go.
• We affirm believer’s baptism by immersion in obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ.
• We affirm the importance of regular participation in the Lord’s Supper.
• We affirm the ministry and presence of angels, and the reality of the devil and demonic forces.

Jesus

Jesus is the Son of God who came into the world to die for our sins on the cross and to make a way for us to know our Father God.  He is the only way to God.  He shows us what God is really like.  He also shows us what true humanity is supposed to be like. Through faith in Him and His work for us on the cross, we are forgiven of sins and reconciled to God. By Jesus’ resurrection from death, we see that God has begun preparing a new creation. When we join Jesus in doing the things he loves to do (making wrong things right, working for love and peace in relationships, and helping people find God) we take part in God’s work of setting the world free from sin and death.  When we come to true faith in Christ we are given the same Holy Spirit who empowered Christ. Through faith in Christ, we are brought into relationship with God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) and into a relationship with the family of God around the world (all those who have put their hope and faith in Jesus Christ).  Our hope is that you will put your faith, hope, and life into the hands of the Lord and Savior of the world, Jesus Christ.

The Bible

We believe the Bible is God’s Word written, that it is our supreme, authoritative, living, and eternally-reliable testimony to the mystery of God revealed in Jesus Christ. The Bible points us to the Son of God, who is Himself the Word of God incarnate. We believe the Bible read as a witness to Jesus Christ in the Spirit-filled community of faithful disciples, is our incomparable source of written revelation from the Father. God uses the Bible through the Holy Spirit as an instrument of grace to heal our minds and hearts, our conscience and reason, shaping them into the mind of Christ. The unique authority of the Bible rests in its power, through the Holy Spirit, to create us anew in the image of Jesus and so the Bible is necessary to our daily lives. In the Bible we see our infallible rule of faith and practice revealed, that is, the Gospel in the life, death, resurrection, ascension of Jesus, the sending of the Spirit on the church for its worldwide mission, the resurrection of the dead and the return of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ to judge the world and return all authority to God the Father. [1 Corinthians 15; II Timothy 3:16-17; I Peter 1:23-25; 2 Peter 1:20-21; Hebrews 4:12]

The Church

The church is the gathering of God’s people who have truly put their faith and hope in Jesus Christ. The church gathers to celebrate that Christ has set them free from bondage to sin and death. It is all those who have a share in the resurrection life of Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit, who forms believers from all backgrounds together into one family of our Father God. In the church, Jesus is treasured and honored as Lord and Savior of the world. The church eagerly expects the return of Christ from heaven at any moment as a King to judge the living and the dead. The highest priority for believers in the church is to love as Christ loved and to live in a way that glorifies the Father and furthers God’s purpose to set the world free from the frustrations of sin and death. A great description of church life is found in Acts 2:42-47. Our dream at Antioch has always been to see the church actually be the church that we read about in the book of Acts. We hope you will join us on that journey.