DOCTRINAL STATEMENT
By the grace of God, our Savior the Lord Jesus Christ, and our faith in Him, we the members of the Community Chapel of Hesston, being completely dependent on the guidance and direction of the Holy Spirit, in order to establish rules and procedures with which to administer this independent local New Testament Church, do ordain and establish the following Constitution and By-laws to which we voluntarily submit ourselves.
Having been led by the Spirit of God to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, and on the profession of our faith, having been baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, we do now, in the presence of God, Angels, and this assembly, most solemnly and joyfully enter into covenant with one another, as one body in Christ.
We engage, therefore, by the aid of the Holy Spirit, to walk together in Christian love; to strive for the advancement of this church in knowledge, holiness, and comfort; to promote its prosperity and spirituality; to sustain its worship, ordinances, discipline, and doctrines; to give it a sacred preeminence over all institutions of human origin; to contribute cheerfully and regularly to the support of the ministry, the expenses of the church, the relief of the poor, and the spread of the gospel throughout all nations.
We also engage to maintain family and secret devotions; to train our children according to the Word of God; to seek the salvation of our kindred and acquaintances; to walk circumspectly in the world; to be just in our dealing; faithful in our engagements, and exemplary in our deportment, and to be zealous in our efforts to advance the kingdom of our Savior.
We further engage to watch over one another in brotherly love, to remember each other in prayer; to aid each other in sickness and distress; to cultivate Christian sympathy in feeling and courtesy in speech; to be slow to take offense, and be always ready for reconciliation, and mindful of the rules of the Savior, to secure it without delay.
Statement of Faith
3.1. Doctrine
3.1.1 The Holy Scriptures - We believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the verbally inspired Word of God, the final authority for faith and life, inerrant in the original writings, infallible and God-breathed.
3.1.2 The Godhead - We believe in one Triune God, eternally existing in three persons; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, co-eternal in being, co-identical in nature, co-equal in power and glory, and having the same attributes and perfection.
3.1.3 Creation - We believe that God created the Heavens and the Earth and all things therein from nothing in six literal days.
3.1.4 The Person and Work of Christ
-
3.1.4.1 We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, having been conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, became man without ceasing to be God, in order that He might reveal God and redeem sinful man.
-
3.1.4.2 We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished our redemption through His death on the cross as a representative, vicarious, substitutionary sacrifice and that our justification is made sure by His literal physical resurrection from the dead.
-
3.1.4.3 We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ ascended to heaven, and is now exalted at the right hand of God, where, as our High Priest, He fulfills the ministry of Representative, Intercessor, Mediator and Advocate.
3.1.5 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit
-
3.1.5.1 We believe that the Holy Spirit is a person who convicts the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment and that He is the Supernatural Agent in re-birth, baptizing all believers into the body of Christ, indwelling and sealing them unto the day of redemption.
-
3.1.5.2 We believe that He is the Divine Teacher who guides believers into all truth and that it is the privilege and duty of all the saved to be filled with the Spirit.
3.1.6 The Total Depravity of Men - We believe that man was created in the image and likeness of God, but that in Adam’s sin the race fell, inherited a sinful nature, and became alienated from God and that man is totally depraved, and, of himself, utterly unable to remedy his lost condition.
3.1.7 Salvation - We believe that salvation is the gift of God brought to man by grace and received by personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, whose precious blood was shed on Calvary for the forgiveness of our sins.
3.1.8 The Eternal Security and Assurance of Believers - We believe that it is the privilege of believers to rejoice in their assurance of their salvation through the testimony of God’s Word.
3.1.9 The Two Natures of the Believer - We believe that every saved person possesses two natures, with provisions made for victory of the new nature over the old nature through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit; and that all claims to the eradication of the old nature in this life are unscriptural.
3.1.10 Separation - We believe that all saved should live in such a manner as not to bring reproach upon their Savior and Lord; and, that separation from all religious apostasy, all worldly and sinful pleasures, practices and associations, is commanded of God.
3.1.11 Missions - We believe that it is the obligation of the saved to witness by life and by word to the truths of Holy Scripture and to seek to proclaim the Gospel to all mankind.
3.1.12 The Ministry and Spiritual Gifts
-
3.1.12.1 We believe that God is sovereign in the bestowment of all His gifts.
-
3.1.12.2 We believe that God does hear and answer the prayer of faith, in accordance with His own will, for the sick and afflicted.
3.1.13 The Church
-
3.1.13.1 We believe that the Church, which is the body and espoused bride of Christ, is a Spiritual organism made up of all born again persons of this present age.
-
3.1.13.2 We believe that the establishment and continuance of local churches is clearly taught and defined in the New Testament Scriptures.
-
3.1.13.3 We believe in the autonomy of the local church free of any external authority or control.
-
3.1.13.4 We recognize the ordinances of water baptism by immersion and the Lord’s Table as a scriptural means of testimony for the church in this age. Where baptism by immersion would be impractical or impossible, a symbolic baptism will be permitted.
3.1.14 Dispensationalism - We believe that the scriptures interpreted in their natural, literal sense reveal divinely determined dispensations or rule of life which define man’s responsibilities in successive ages. These dispensations are not ways of salvation, but rather divinely ordered stewardships by which God directs man according to His purpose. Three of these: the age of law, the age of the church, and the age of the Millennial Kingdom are the subjects of detailed revelation in scripture.
3.1.15 The Personality of Satan - We believe that Satan is a person, the author of sin and the cause of the fall, that he is the open and declared enemy of God and man and that he shall be eternally punished in the Lake of Fire.
3.1.16 The Second Advent of Christ - We believe in that “Blessed Hope”, the personal, imminent, pre-millennial coming of the Lord Jesus Christ for His redeemed ones; and His subsequent return to earth, with His saints, to establish His Millennial Kingdom.
3.1.17 The Eternal State
-
3.1.17.1 We believe in the bodily resurrection of all men, the saved to eternal life, and the unsaved to judgment and everlasting punishment.
-
3.1.17.2 We believe that the souls of the redeemed are, at death, absent from the body and present with the Lord, where in conscious bliss they await the first resurrection, when spirit, soul and body are reunited to be glorified forever with the Lord.
-
3.1.17.3 We believe that the souls of unbelievers remain, after death, in conscious misery until the second resurrection, when with soul and body reunited they shall be cast into the Lake of Fire, not to be annihilated, but to suffer everlasting conscious punishment.
3.1.18 The Nation Israel - We believe in the sovereign selection of Israel as God’s covenant people, that she is now being disciplined because of her rejection of Christ, and that she will be gathered in the Holy Land saved as a nation at the Second Coming of Christ.
3.1.19 The First Day of the Week - We believe that Sunday is to be set aside for special worship in commemoration of the resurrection of Christ. This day should therefore be observed in a manner that calls the world to remembrance of Him.
3.1.20 Marriage - We believe that Holy Matrimony between a man and a woman was instituted of God and sanctioned by our Lord Jesus Christ and shall be honored by all.
3.2 Movements Contrary to Faith
3.2.1 Ecumenism - That movement which seeks the organizational unity of all Christianity and ultimately of all religions.
3.2.2 Neo-Orthodoxy - That theological movement which affirms: the transcendence of God, the finiteness and sinfulness of man, and the necessity of supernatural divine revelation of truth: but; while using evangelical terminology, seriously departs from orthodoxy in accepting the views of destructive higher criticism, in denying inerrancy of the Bible as historic revelation, in accepting religious experience as the criterion of truth, and in abandoning important fundamentals of the Christian faith.