Our Local Church
And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers. - Acts 2:42
Worship​
God created humanity for the purpose of glorifying Him and enjoying Him forever. The highest expression of that purpose is when God’s people gather each week, according to His command, to worship Him. It is our joy to gather each Lord’s Day (Sunday) to worship the God who has created us and saved us from our sins and we invite you to join with us in that worship.
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Our worship is centered around the Bible as God’s authoritative word that is sufficient for all things needed to know and worship Him. We read the word, preach the word, sing the word, and apply the word to our hearts, minds, and lives each week. We believe that this focus on the word creates unity in our worship with one another and with the history of the church. Our desire is to offer worship to God, not according to the preferences of any segment of the congregation, but according to the way God has said He desires to be worshipped in the Scriptures.
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Therefore, our worship is simple. From our hearts we sing the Psalms, the songs of the Bible. We preach through entire books of the Bible, rather than according to topics, because that is the way that God gave us the Bible. We pray to the Lord for grace and for the needs of our community and the world. Each week we observe the Lord’s Supper to be spiritually nourished, by faith. All of this we do without pomp or ceremony, knowing that the worship God desires is not flashy but is to be from hearts renewed by His Spirit and guided by the truth of His word (John 4:24).
Community​
The Christian life is meant to be lived in community. That means that it is essential for Christians to be members of the church. However, attending upon the worship of God is not the only way Christians should express community with one another. Hospitality should be a hallmark of the church (Acts 2:46) and we have a number of ways that we try to engage in welcoming others into our midst.
After worship each Lord’s Day, we have a fellowship meal so that we can engage with visitors, build up and catch up with one another, and enjoy the companionship that is fostered by sitting together at the table to eat.
This fellowship shouldn’t be confined only to the church, so we also regularly invite one another and those outside the church into our homes. The Lord has provided us with every spiritual blessing in Christ (Ephesians 1:3) but also with many material blessings that we are to share with our fellow believers and neighbors. So we strive to make our homes open to all. In sharing our lives with one another, we are better able to bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2) and to make the mercy of Christ known to those around us.
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We also seek to benefit the community with service and events. The church is uniquely suited for helping in spiritual matters, so much of what we do is oriented towards establishing prayer groups or Bible studies, offering Biblical counseling, or holding community Psalm-sings. We have a developing ministry to prison inmates and also minister in other ways as the Lord gives us means and opportunity.
Openness
​The call to faith in Christ comes with the call to be open. In the Scriptures, the Lord openly confronts our lives of sin apart from Him but it is because He has confronted it and defeated it in the death and resurrection of Christ that we can be forgiven (Isaiah 53:6).
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Therefore, the church is not a place where we sweep sin under the rug or reclassify it as something less offensive, but a place where we can confess that we have sinned and that sin still hounds our steps but that only Christ has the balm to heal us. We do not celebrate our sins and struggles but neither need we be afraid to confess and strive to turn away from those sins for there is no sin so great that Christ cannot forgive. The church is not a social club for the well-adjusted but a hospital for the healing of sinners (Matthew 9:10-13).
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We seek to be a church where people feel safe to be open with their struggles and sins so that, by God’s grace, we can encourage one another daily to repent and know the mercy of Christ.