Who We Are
Our Big Beliefs
We believe that God created all things.
Everything was created perfect but through Adam’s one act of disobedience, sin entered the world so that from then on a state of disharmony exists. However, it was God’s purpose and plan to restore all things through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We believe that Jesus, through His death and resurrection, has effected this new creation.
We believe that the Bible is God’s Word,
and is the unified account of the gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ. The Bible is therefore the source of truth, life and hope we all need.
We believe that we all need rescuing from our sin
and the judgment of God it has brought upon us. The good news is that Jesus Christ through his life, death and resurrection has provided this very redemption we need, completely, perfectly, once-for-all.
We believe that by the sheer amazing grace of God,
when we repent [turn from our sin] and believe [trust in Jesus alone], this life-transforming, eternity-reaching salvation becomes ours. This means that we don’t just have our sins forgiven and go to heaven, but for the very purpose we were made (and satisfying the very deepest longing in every human heart), we get to enjoy worshipping God forever.
We believe that God’s purpose is not to just save individuals
but through the Holy Spirit to create a new people, a new humanity. Therefore the Christian life is to be bound up in the life of other believers. So we gather together, commit together, as we seek to serve and care and equip and encourage one another, giving real expression to this new community God is making from every tribe nation and tongue.
We believe the church does not exist for itself,
but is here for the world, and so we seek corporately and individually to do everything with gospel intentionality, so as to be speaking and showing Jesus as the Saviour, to a lost and dying world. We are here to make disciples who make disciples.
We believe that the purpose of all of history
and of each of our lives is to declare that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Ultimately life is about God and not about us.
Our Core Commitments
Biblically Reformed
We gladly and boldly hold to the Bible as our highest authority. We aim to be God-centred, always recognising the sovereignty of God. We hold to the 5 Solas of the Protestant Reformation: Scripture alone, Grace alone, Faith alone, Christ alone, to the Glory of God alone. We seek to be expository and Christ-centred in our preaching and teaching.
Unashamedly Evangelical
We stress the uniqueness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We are a Gospel-loving and a Gospel-motivated people. The gospel does not mean good works but good news. It is not what we must do, but what Jesus has done. So our confidence is in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ alone to save us from our sin and transform our lives. In all we do, we seek to relate everything to the Gospel.
Passionately Missional
We exist for mission. The church is called to be salt and light in a spoiled and dark world. We seek to do this by being doc-trinally sound yet culturally relevant, so engaging the world in a way that is ‘against the world, for the world’. We want to be seen in the world as God’s new society, so we adopt a servant men-tality, seek to understand those around us, equip ourselves for public life, seek the welfare of the city, in all this demon-strate the importance of godly families, being good neighbours and faithful em-ployees. This we see as the outworking of the reality of a Christian worldview i.e. that the Gospel changes how we see everything and how we do everything.
Our Contemporary Convictions
Human dignity
We believe God created human beings in his own image with the unique privilege to have fellowship with him. That means that every single person is of great value and that life is a gift of God and therefore owned by God. We believe therefore that abortion, euthanasia, and racism are contrary to God’s purpose and design for human life.
Human sexuality
We believe God has created sex to be enjoyed exclusively in a marriage relationship between one man and one woman. We therefore believe that sexual expressions such as homosexuality and transgenderism are contrary to God’s design. We will thus seek to deal lovingly and truthfully with these realities, seeking to point to the grace in Christ we all need because of our sin.
Gender roles in the church
We are complementarian in our understanding of gender roles in the church. We affirm the equality of men and women, we affirm that women are called and gifted for many ministries, but affirm that men should lead their homes and male elders should lead the church in an attitude of love and servanthood, in submission to Christ.
Exclusivity of Jesus Christ
We resist the relativism and false tolerance of our times. We are not universalists, we believe in the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and His Gospel. We believe that many people will spend eternity in hell for rejecting Christ, as the Bible teaches.
The authentic Christian life
We affirm that God blesses His people tremendously in all kinds of ways. However, we oppose the notion that God promises and guarantees health and wealth and a trouble-free life. We believe that this is a false gospel. We believe that the Gospel calls us to live sacrificially, to suffer and face persecution at times.
The nature of truth
We affirm that truth is absolute and not relative. It is not humanly constructed or personally determined but divinely revealed. We believe the standard for this is the Bible since it is God’s Word. This truth is not only something to be believed, but also to be received in worship and practiced in wisdom. We believe that all theology should lead to doxology.The church is called to be salt and light in a spoiled and dark world. We seek to do this by being doc-trinally sound yet culturally relevant, so engaging the world in a way that is ‘against the world, for the world’. We want to be seen in the world as God’s new society, so we adopt a servant men-tality, seek to understand those around us, equip ourselves for public life, seek the welfare of the city, in all this demon-strate the importance of godly families, being good neighbours and faithful em-ployees. This we see as the outworking of the reality of a Christian worldview i.e. that the Gospel changes how we see everything and how we do everything.
