What Do We Believe?


Churches often use lots of strange words that don’t exist in everyday language! This is partly because we are trying to explain things that are beyond our everyday experiences, so ordinary language is not sufficient. It is like trying to explain nuclear physics to a 5-year-old. However, we have tried here to explain what we believe in straightforward language. It is not a complete or totally accurate statement, but just an introduction.  (If you want a more complete statement of our beliefs, please go to our denominational website here)


Beliefs

We believe that God inspired the people who wrote the Bible, so that it would be a guidebook for what we believe and what we do.
We believe that there is one God who shows himself to us in 3 ways: as the father of us all, as Jesus who came to earth as a man and lived alongside us, and as a spiritual being called the Holy Spirit.
We believe that people are born wanting to live good lives but we often can’t do it in practice because we choose bad or selfish ways which hurt other people. So we are separated from God and from the life of love and goodness which he wants for us.
We believe that the only person who ever managed to live a totally good life was God’s son, Jesus, when he came to live on the earth. Although we deserve to be separated from God’s goodness and love, because of the things we do wrong, Jesus didn’t deserve this. But Jesus chose to let people kill him, so that he could take the punishment for all the times we fall short. Since Jesus never did anything wrong, death could not hold him and he rose again from the dead and returned to be with his father God. He said he would come back to earth again in the future.
We believe that if we accept Jesus’ offer to take the punishment for our failings, there is nothing left which can separate us from God. So if we admit that we cannot please God by our own efforts, and instead put our trust in Jesus to make it possible for us, we can live for ever in God’s perfect kingdom, even though we don’t deserve to. Jesus made it possible for us because he suffered death on our behalf.
We believe that when we put our faith in Jesus, God’s spirit gives us a new life. It is as though we have been born a second time.
We believe that when we receive this new birth, we should be baptised by immersion in water as Jesus told us to. We also believe that we receive a baptism in God’s Holy Spirit, when he fills us with his spirit so that we can live for him.
We believe the Holy Spirit gives us special abilities so that we can share God’s presence and power with the people around us. This includes being able to minister God’s power to people who are sick, so that they are healed.
We believe that with God’s help we can live lives which are pleasing to God and which will bring other people to share in God’s goodness.
Jesus told his followers to remember his death on our behalf by sharing bread and wine together as symbols of his body and blood. So we join regularly in this act of remembrance known as “Breaking of Bread” or “Communion”.
We believe that everyone will one day rise from death and live for ever. People who have chosen to trust Jesus will share a good and happy life of love with God. Jesus has offered this to everyone, but people are free to refuse his offer, and those who do not accept it will live for ever separated from the goodness and love which God wants us all to share.