- We believe in one God, maker and giver of all life. God created you in His very own image and He loves you and has a plan for you!
- Though God created humans in His image, we went our own way. All humans are sinful and do not measure up to God's perfect standard. Because God is holy, He cannot accept us in our sinful state. Because God is also just He must punish every sin, and the punishment for sin is death. There is nothing I can do to make myself acceptable to God, no matter how hard I try.
- Yet God is loving and merciful, so He provided a substitute. In His love and mercy, God provided someone to take the punishment for me. No other creature could do the job, so God the Father sent God the Son to be this substitute. The birth of God the Son, Jesus, on earth is celebrated as Christmas.
- Jesus Christ, God's Son, is truly human. This is important because a human had to pay the price for humanity's sin. But He was not a sinful human, because a sinner could never pay the debt for another sinner. Jesus Christ is also fully God. Only by God's power in Him could Jesus Christ bear the full weight of God's anger against the sin of humanity.
- God put my sin on Jesus and punished Him in my place at the cross. Jesus died and was buried. On the third day Jesus rose from the dead, which we celebrate as Easter. The Resurrection of Jesus is a great celebration for Christians! The resurrection of Jesus proved that my two enemies - sin and death - have been completely overcome, guaranteeing my own glorious resurrection.
- Jesus offers forgiveness of sin and the gift of eternal life with Him to those who, through the Spirit's work and by true faith, trust Him to save them from sin and death, to a new life lived with and for Him.
- By His Spirit, Christ is renewing me to be like Him. When I live like Him, I show my thankfulness to God for new life and give praise to Him through my actions and relationships. My life becomes a testimony to others so many other people may come to love and serve Him out of gratitude.
We are part of a larger denomination, the Christian Reformed Church. For more information see their website: www.crcna.org
Many of our beliefs are summarized in the following confessions or creeds: