What We Believe
Old truth,
without apology
We did not invent our religion, and we are not at liberty to edit it. We confess the faith handed down by the church for two thousand years and recovered in the Reformation, written down plainly so no one has to guess what we teach.
Why this church exists
Walk into most churches today and you will find the sharp edges filed off. Sin goes unnamed. The sermon has been traded for a talk about your best life. The lights dim, the band swells, and somewhere in it all the holiness of God has gone missing. Many faithful Christians have felt it: a hunger the room around them was never built to fill.
We planted this church for them, and for anyone the Lord is calling out of that fog. We are not here to entertain you or to flatter you. We are here to worship the living God as He has commanded, to preach the whole counsel of His Word, to name sin as sin and hold out Christ crucified as the only hope of sinners. That is the whole of it. There is no second agenda.
This is old religion. The religion of the apostles and John the Baptizer. Of Daniel and David, Abraham and Adam. We do not apologize for God's Word, make excuses for what the spirit of the age finds offensive, or reimagine the gospel for a modern audience. If that is what you have been looking for, you have found the right people.
What we confess
Eight convictions we will not move on
The Word of God
The Bible is the very Word of God, without error and sufficient for all of life and faith. We do not stand over it to correct it or curate it. We sit under it. It is read, preached, sung, and prayed in everything we do.
The holiness of God
God is not a tool for your self-improvement. He is the infinite, thrice-holy Maker of heaven and earth, who governs all things by the counsel of His will. Worship begins with the fear of Him, and that fear is the beginning of wisdom.
Creation, in six days
We take God at His word from the very first verse. He made the heavens and the earth, and all that is in them, in the space of six ordinary days, and called it good. We do not bend the plain sense of Genesis to fit the fashions of the age. The same Word we trust for our salvation we trust for our origins.
Sin, named plainly
We will not flatter you. Every one of us is born in sin, dead in our trespasses, unable to save ourselves or even to want to. A church that cannot say this honestly has nothing worth hearing to say next.
Salvation by grace alone
Salvation is the work of God from first to last. The Father chooses, the Son accomplishes, the Spirit applies. We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, so that no man can boast. This is the best news a sinner will ever hear.
Christ crucified
We preach Christ and Him crucified, risen, and reigning. Not principles for better living, not five steps to a better week. A real Savior for real sinners, held out freely to all who will come to Him.
You must be born again
No one tidies himself into the kingdom. You must be born again, and only the Holy Spirit raises the dead. So we preach to the heart and not merely the mind, because the heart of the problem is the problem of the heart, and we ask God to regenerate, justify, and sanctify sinners who cannot lift a finger to save themselves.
The covenant family
The promises of God are to believers and to their children. Our little ones are not sent down the hall to a program. They are raised in the assembly of the saints, under the Word, where they belong.
The Standards we confess
Hold us to it
We don't hide behind a vague statement of faith you have to take on trust. We subscribe in full to the historic confessions of the Reformed church, written down plainly so no one has to guess what we teach. Follow any one of them to read its story, then the original text itself.
On Sunday mornings at 9:30, our Sunday School is working through the Westminster Confession itself, line by line. You are welcome to pull up a chair.
The Ecumenical Creeds
The oldest summaries of the faith, shared by Christians everywhere.
- The Apostles' Creed
- The Nicene Creed
- The Athanasian Creed
The Three Forms of Unity
The confessions of the Reformed churches of the Continent.
- The Heidelberg Catechism
- The Belgic Confession
- The Canons of Dort
The Westminster Standards
The confession and catechisms we preach and teach line by line.
- The Westminster Confession of Faith
- The Westminster Larger Catechism
- The Westminster Shorter Catechism
Who we answer to
Connected and accountable
We are a congregation of the Vanguard Presbyterian Church, in Knox Presbytery. The VPC is a confessional, continuing Presbyterian denomination committed to the full subscription of the Westminster Standards and to Presbyterian government without hierarchy. We are not a law unto ourselves. We are joined to a wider body of churches that believe and practice the same things, and we are accountable to it.
Come and hear it preached
A confession on paper is one thing. Hearing the Word opened and Christ held out is another. Plan a visit, or listen to a sermon before you come.