Distinctives

We believe that God has provided us with everything necessary to nurture and sustain spiritual life through the Scripture. That means we are committed to teaching and counseling directly and exclusively from the Word of God. We do not believe that secular psychology has any legitimate role in the sanctification of the believer.


We believe that all those whom God has genuinely saved by grace through faith alone are new creatures in Christ and will demonstrate that new life by submission to Christ and obedience to God's Word. All Christians still sin, sometimes horribly, and sometimes for extended periods of time without repentance. Nevertheless a decreasing pattern of sin and an increasing pattern of holiness will characterize every Christian's life.


We believe that the gift of tongues was the miraculous, God-given capacity to communicate the truth of God's Word in human languages the speaker had never learned or studied. It was a manifestation of God's power and blessing to validate the Gospel message the Apostles taught and to establish the early Church. We believe that ecstatic outbursts and private prayer languages share nothing in common with the New Testament gift of tongues andare patently unbiblical.


We believe that both men and women bear the image of God and those in Christ enjoy equal spiritual standing before God. Scripture also teaches that God has assigned different roles and responsibilities to men and women. In the home, the husband is to be the gracious, loving head and the wife is to submit to her husband's leadership. God has provided equally clear roles in the church. While there are many ways women can serve, we believe that Scripture forbids women from teaching and leading men, in any way exercising authority over men in the context of the church.


We believe Genesis is a straightforward, literal presentation of the historical events it describes. We teach, therefore, that God created everything in six literal days, and we reject every form of theistic evolution.