We are a member church in a denomination called the Christian Reformed Church (CRCNA). This is a denomination that has about 300,000 members in about 1,000 congregations across the United States and Canada.
Summary Statement of Creeds and Confessions
We believe that the Old and New Testaments are the inspired Word of God, the only infallible rule for faith and life. We affirm three creeds—the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed—as ecumenical expressions of the Christian faith. We also affirm three confessions—the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons of Dort—as historic Reformed expressions of the Christian faith, whose doctrines fully agree with the Word of God.
Statement of Belief
We believe the Bible is the written word of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit and without error in the original manuscripts. The Bible is the revelation of God’s truth and is infallible and authoritative in all matters of faith and practice.
We believe in the Holy Trinity. There is one God, who exists eternally in three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
We believe that all are sinners and totally unable to save themselves from God’s just judgment, except by His mercy.
We believe that salvation is by God alone as He sovereignly chooses those He will save. We believe His choice is based on His grace and purpose, not on any human individual merit, or foreseen faith.
We believe that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God, who through His perfect life and sacrificial death atoned for the sins of all who will trust in Him, alone, for salvation.
We believe that God is gracious and faithful to His people not simply as individuals but as families in successive generations according to His Covenant promises.
We believe God created marriage to be a lifelong, covenant relationship between one man and one woman mirroring God’s covenant to his people, shown most clearly in Christ’s covenant to his bride, the church.
We believe that the Holy Spirit indwells God’s people and gives them the strength and wisdom to trust Christ and follow Him in service to one another and to all humankind.
We believe that all believers must respond to God’s saving grace in repentance of sin, faith in Christ, and obedience to God and his word.
We believe that Jesus will return, bodily and visibly, to judge all mankind and to receive His people to Himself. We believe that all aspects of our lives are to be lived to the glory of God under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
What is the Gospel?
The Gospel is the good news that, despite humanity’s sin—which separates us eternally from a holy God—God, in His mercy and love, sent His Son, Jesus Christ. In his sovereign and eternal purpose, God atoned for sin, saving and reconciling his people to himself through the sinless life, death on the cross, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. Salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. In response to God’s saving grace, as adopted children of God and citizens of the Kingdom of God, believers are called into new life in Christ—a life of repentance, faith, gratitude to God, and obedience to Christ and his Word, which is summarized in the greatest commandments and the Great Commission.