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what we believe

What is Church?

It has been said that church is here for those that don’t know Jesus, and although there is some truth in that, we believe that there is more to it. The church is here to love God, love each other and those that don’t know Him. Church is not just a Sunday morning meeting but a lifestyle.

The church meets together on a Sunday to offer a united love to God, through songs and prayers. We receive encouragement through testimonies about God’s love and power and strength, encouragement and challenge through His word.

The rest of the week we go and live what we have learned, showing a hurting, dying world that God loves them in a very practical way.

Church Statements

Statement of Faith

We believe:

  • There is only one God, eternally existent in three persons, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.
  • The Bible, consisting of the Old and New Testaments, is the inspired and only infallible and authoritative Word of God.
  • In the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, in His personal future return to this earth to receive to Himself the Church and to reign as king over all.
  • In the universal sinfulness and guilt of fallen man, making him subject to God’s wrath and condemnation.
  • The only means of being cleansed from sin is through repentance and faith in the precious Blood of Jesus Christ.
  • The redemptive works of Christ on the Cross.
  • The essential work of God the Holy Spirit in illumination, regeneration and sanctification to live a holy life; the operation in the believers’ life of the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit.
  • The resurrection of both the saved and the lost, the one to everlasting life and the other to everlasting damnation.

Our Vision

As a church we are in agreement with, and committed to the words of Isaiah 61:

To preach the good news to the poor, to bind up the broken-hearted. To proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners. To comfort all who mourn and provide for those who grieve. To bestow a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

Within this vision, we see our specific purpose in being called together as being three-fold; to:

Know God

Know God

Our priority is to develop a close and passionate relationship with God in all we are and do, and to be changed into Christ’s likeness.

Grow

Grow Together

We are committed to grow together in maturity, and unity, deepening our relationship with one another, and within the whole Church of God, developing true expression of community.

Reach others

Reach Others

Through Christ’s love, we are committed to reach with the gospel especially those who are separated from God and without hope, those who are hurt or unloved by society, and share ourselves with them both spiritually and materially.

Gifts
To recognise and release the genuinely God-given ministry of every committed person in the fellowship. Encouraging the use of gifts and anointing within the body of Christ as well as in the community where we live and work.

Life – Change
To recognise the needs within the community and use various projects and outreaches to meet these needs. Bringing Kingdom values and principles wherever we go and in whatever we do. Knowing that true change can only happen when lives which have been impacted with the love and truth of Jesus Christ are surrendered to him.

Serving
To become a resourcing Church for the Kingdom of God. To train and equip the Church in all ministries required to fulfil this purpose. To reach out to those in need, the lost, the least and the hurting with the love and provision of Jesus.

Our Values
To be worked out personally, through friendship, cell groups and other meetings of the church.

God’s Word
To live in God’s Word, and build our faith on biblical principles.

Worship
To live in worshipful devotion to God, expecting to touch and be touched by the heart of the Father.

God’s Power
To live naturally in God’s power, freely expressing the gifts of the Spirit in loving submission to one another, fulfilling God’s work in His way.

Prayer
To encourage and develop a life of prayer, in order to grow in the knowledge and purposes of God.

Discipleship
To become people who grow effectively in the life and ways of Christ, who acknowledge Him as Lord and not just Saviour, and teach others to live in the same manner.

Relationships
To develop genuine friendships through which to share the love of Christ with the church and the world.

Availability
To have generous hearts, giving freely of our love, energy, time, money and resources, being available to serve whenever, wherever, and in what way we are able.

Integrity in ministry
To respect the dignity of the individual, trusting in the message and power of God’s love and truth.

Humility
To place the development of character before that of gifting, having teachable hearts, serving God and others without pride. To be vulnerable and open enough to be hurt and well as trusted, willingly making ourselves accountable to others and allowing them to speak into our lives.

Leadership
To grow, recognise and release effective leaders for cell groups, congregations and specific areas of ministry.

Cell Groups
To develop and multiply a variety of small groups under genuinely maturing leadership.

Discipling
To encourage and expect each member to make new disciples, teaching them to do the same.

Participation
To expose every person to, and encourage involvement in, the purposes of God throughout the nations.

Statement on the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

We believe in the Holy Spirit.

  • We believe that the Holy Spirit is one with Father and Son in an eternal trinity; God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
  • We believe that the Holy Spirit is eternally and immutably one Person within a triune Godhead.
  • We believe that the Holy Spirit is a Person, and not just a vague force. He is neither created nor made.
  • We believe, however, that Christians need an ongoing and developing relationship with the Holy Spirit. His work is not completed in our lives at conversion, but has only just begun.
  • We believe that Christians will enjoy a variety of experiences of the Holy Spirit at work in their lives. Whether we proceed through an experience of baptism of the Holy Spirit, through release, or through filling, we each in our lives need to know the conquest of the Holy Spirit in order that our spirits might be immersed in Him. This will equip us for significant and relevant service.
  • We believe that within the variety of God’s working there is no graduation or hierarchy. No one experience of the Holy Spirit should be regarded as final or ultimate.
  • We believe that it is possible to grieve the Holy Spirit by resisting His ongoing operation in our lives.
  • We affirm the need for Christians to continue to demonstrate the fruit of the Holy Spirit in their lives both individually and corporately as the Body of Christ.
  • We believe that the gift of tongues is available and valid for today. We do not believe that it is the necessary ‘initial evidence’ of our receipt of the Holy Spirit.
  • We do not believe that receipt of the gifts of the Holy Spirit are a necessary indication of spiritual maturity.
  • We believe that God’s Spirit is given to bear witness to Jesus, as HE is the HOLY Spirit, HIS purpose is to make us more holy, therefore more like Jesus.
  • We believe that the Holy Spirit is the gift of God for his people to equip us for our lives. Human effort can never replace the anointing and empowering of the Holy Spirit.
  • We believe in peculiar outpourings of the Holy Spirit in renewal, awakening and revival, and encourage Christians everywhere to seek for such moves of God as He, in His sovereignty allows.
  • We believe in the gifts of healing and miracles, but recognise that these are not automatic in our experience of God the Holy Spirit.
  • We believe that other spirits exist and that the Holy Spirit would work in our lives to give us victory over such other spirits as might seek to torment and govern our world.
  • We believe that the Holy Spirit speaks through the people of God today in prophecy, through words of wisdom, and knowledge and in inspired speech.
  • We believe that such utterances are recognised only through the witness of the Spirit and as they come under the authority of Scripture, which supremely is God’s word spoken by His spirit.

Foundational Scripture

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion – to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendour. They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations.

Aliens will shepherd your flocks; foreigners will work your fields and vineyards. And you will be called priests of the LORD, you will be named ministers of our God. You will feed on the wealth of nations, and in their riches you will boast.

Instead of their shame my people will receive a double portion, and instead of disgrace they will rejoice in their inheritance; and so they will inherit a double portion in their land, and everlasting joy will be theirs.

“For I, the LORD, love justice; I hate robbery and iniquity. In my faithfulness I will reward them and make an everlasting covenant with them. Their descendants will be known among the nations and their offspring among the peoples. All who see them will acknowledge that they are a people the LORD has blessed.”

I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.

Isaiah 61 – New International Version