TRIUNE GOD

I believe that God is the creator and sustainer of all things and that he exists eternally in three coequal persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

HOLY SCRIPTURE

I believe that God has spoken and continues to speak in and through Scripture, which is inerrant and the only infallible and sufficiently clear rule and authority for Christian faith, thought, and life.

HUMAN BEINGS

I believe that God created human beings, male and female, in his own image and likeness. Gender is thus given by God and part of the goodness of God՚s creation. Accordingly, all men, women, and children have been graciously bestowed with inherent dignity, and every person of every race is thus worthy of respect and Christian love.

FALLENESS

I believe that the original goodness of creation and the human creature has been corrupted by sin and is subject to divine judgment and death. The supreme need of all human beings is to be reconciled to the God under whose just and holy wrath we stand; the only hope of all human beings is the undeserved love of this same God, who alone can rescue us and restore us to himself.

JESUS CHRIST

I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the eternal Son of God, who became human for us and for our salvation, born of the virgin Mary, the Son of David and servant of the house of Israel, one person with two natures, truly God and truly man, the only mediator between God and humanity. He lived a fully human life, having entered into the disorder and brokenness of fallen existence, yet without sin.

THE ATONING WORK OF CHRIST

I believe that God, who is rich in mercy toward the undeserving, has made atonement for human rebellion, corruption, and guilt in the gift of Jesus՚ once-for-all sufficient and sacrificial death on the cross. By his perfect and willing sacrifice, he bore in our place the punishment due us for our sins, making a proper, real, and full satisfaction to God՚s justice on our behalf.

THE GOSPEL

I believe that the gospel is the good news that the triune God has poured out his grace in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ, that human beings might be reconciled to God. This good news is in accordance with the Scriptures, and it was entrusted to and passed on by the apostles. Where it is received, believed, and held firmly, individual persons are saved.

THE PERSON AND WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

I believe that the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity, the unseen yet active personal presence of God in the world, who unites believers to Christ, regenerating them, making them new creatures, and adopting them into God՚s family. By the Spirit՚s agency, believers are renewed and sanctified and receive his sovereignly distributed gifts.

HOLY LIVING

I believe that through both corporate and individual Christian practices, including the ministry of the Word, gathered worship, participation in baptism and the Lord՚s Supper, prayer, and other means of discipleship, we grow into our new reality as God՚s people, putting off the old self through confession and repentance and putting on the new self through the indwelling power of the Spirit.

LAST THINGS

I believe in the personal, glorious, bodily, and imminent return of our Lord Jesus Christ with his holy angels, when he will exercise his role as final Judge and his kingdom will be consummated. We believe in the bodily resurrection of both the just and the unjust—the unjust to eternal judgment separated from God and the just to eternal blessedness in the new heaven and the new earth, the home of righteousness.

To God alone be the glory!

*As much as I would like to take credit for writing this beautiful statement, it has been adapted from a local church here in northeast Ohio. Reach out to me with any questions.