Who we are
As a Seventh-day Adventist Church, we passionately and whole-heartedly accept the Bible as the bedrock foundation of our lives—actions, words, beliefs, and all. We humbly, but proudly, consider our denominational movement to be the result of the ongoing outgrowth of the Protestant conviction of Sola Scriptura—the Bible as the definitive standard of faith and practice for Christians.
The following is a condensed summary of our beliefs.
GOD
God is love. Both His nature and His character are perfectly other-centered, selfless, and giving. These qualities flow naturally from His essential plurality as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He possesses qualities that are uniquely His own including omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. By virtue of His uniqueness and otherness He is necessarily shrouded in mystery, and yet His self-revelation in nature, humankind, and Holy Scripture gives us compelling and beautiful glimpses of what and who He is. God is infinite yet intimate, three yet one, all-knowing yet all-forgiving. His ways are far beyond us, but He still reaches out to us. He alone is worthy of worship.
Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ of Nazareth was who He said He was: both God and man. Jesus lived and died as a human being. This is a profound mystery. His life was simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary. It was ordinary in the sense that He was truly human, not unlike any other person in terms of His nature and development; it was extraordinary in the sense of His perfect, love-centered, Godward and sinless life and subsequent bodily resurrection. Not only was His life sinless, His death on Calvary’s cruel cross was substitutionary—that is, His life and death stands in the place of the believer’s life and death. Salvation can come only through the faithfulness of God in Jesus Christ. We access this saving faithfulness by believing it, for it is available in no other way—not by works, ceremony, or purchase.
Scripture
The Bible is God’s Word to mankind. Its claims, content, and consistency are without peer on the vast historical landscape of literature. It is the inspired, inspiring, and infallible revelation of God’s loving and saving will. It is also historically, scientifically, philosophically, and experientially sound. We believe the Bible is a fiercely practical and ethical book, designed to be put into practice and not just read devotionally or academically. We believe it possible and wonderful to implement the Bible’s teachings into our lives by the grace, power, and truth of God through the Holy Spirit, which is available to everyone. The Bible contains, among many other useful and essential counsels, the Ten Commandment moral law of God. We affirm this perfect law of love including the seventh-day Sabbath (Saturday) of the fourth commandment, which, tragically, has been largely forgotten, ignored, or otherwise neglected by both the world and the church. We enthusiastically affirm the Protestant conviction of Sola Scriptura.
Humankind
Humankind, both male and female, were created in the image of God. As such, we were created out of love, for love and to love. We do not possess innate immortality, but can receive eternal life as a salvational gift from God. There is a multli-dimensionality to our personhood; we are physical, intellectual, spiritual and social beings. We were made to create, not to control or be controlled. Our greatest happiness is found in fulfilling our creational purpose: to love God supremely and our fellow man genuinely. By physical birth we are fallen and self-centered; by spiritual rebirth, through Jesus Christ, we are redeemed, redirected, and restored.
The world
God made the world in six literal, continuous, and contiguous days. Over and against the prevailing long-ages evolutionary view of earth and life, we affirm, with Jesus, the historicity and accuracy of the biblical creation account found in the opening chapters of Genesis. We reject as unbiblical and unscientific the various permutations of the long-ages evolutionary hypothesis. When we look at the world we see evidences of recent catastrophism, not multiplied millions of years of uniformitarianism. We recognize and deeply grieve the fallen condition of this world, and look forward to its full recreation and restoration at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. We affirm and anticipate the nearness of His return to earth. In the interim, and by God’s enabling grace, we are committed to bettering ourselves, our relationships and communities, and our planet.