Who We Are
“For now, we are all children of God through faith in Jesus Christ, and we who have been baptized into union with Christ are enveloped by Him. We are no longer Jews or Gentiles, or slaves or free men, or even merely men or women, but we are all the same – we are Christians; we are one in Jesus Christ.” Galatians 3:26-28 (LB)
Our Purpose
We believe a Great Commitment to the Great Commandment and the Great Commission to grow a Great Church.
The purpose of First Baptist Church is to glorify God under the lordship of Jesus Christ and the leadership of the Holy Spirit by living lives changed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 3:20-21)
We seek to build up His kingdom in all aspects of life and work through worship, evangelism, discipleship, ministry, and fellowship. (Acts 2:41-47)
Our Mission
Our mission is to fulfill Christ’s Great Commandment (Matthew 22:36-40) “Master, which is the greatest commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets;” and the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20): “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations. baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.
Statement of Faith
Essential Doctrines
There is one and only one living and true God. He is an intelligent, spiritual, and personal Being, the Creator, Redeemer, Preserver, and Ruler of the Universe. God is infinite in holiness and all other perfections. God is all powerful and all-knowing: and His perfect knowledge extends to all things, past, present, and future, including the future decisions of His free creatures. To Him we owe the highest love, reverence, and obedience.
Genesis 1:1, 1:26-27, 3:22 | Psalm 90:2 | Matthew 28:19 | 1 Peter 1:2 | 2 Corinthians 13:14
Christ is the eternal God. In His incarnation as Jesus Christ, He was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. Jesus perfectly revealed and did the will of God, taking upon Himself human nature with its demands and necessities and identifying Himself completely with mankind yet without sin. He honored the divine law by His personal obedience, and in His substitutionary death on the cross. He made provision for the redemption of men from sin. He was raised from the dead with a glorified body and appeared to His disciples as the person who was with them before His crucifixion. He ascended into heaven and is now exalted at the right hand of God the Father where He is the One Mediator, fully God, fully man, in whose Person is effected the reconciliation between God and man. He will return in power and glory to judge the world and to consummate His redemptive mission. He now
dwells in all believers as the living and ever-present Lord.
Matthew 1:22-23 | Isaiah 9:6 | John 1:1-5; 14:10-30 | Hebrews 4:14-15 | 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 | Romans 1:3-4 | Acts 1:9-11 | 1 Timothy 6:14-15 | Titus 2:13
The Holy Spirit is co-equal with the Father and the Son of God. He is present in the world to make men aware of their need for Jesus Christ. He also lives in every Christian from the moment of salvation. He provides the Christian with power for living, understanding of spiritual truth, and guidance in doing what is right. He gives every believer a spiritual gift when they are saved. As Christians, we seek to live under His control daily.
2 Corinthians 3:17 | John 16:7-13, 14:16-17 | Acts 1:8 | 1 Corinthians 2:12, 3:16 | Ephesians 1:13, 5:18 | Galatians 5:25
The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God’s revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. Therefore, all Scripture is true and trustworthy.
2 Timothy 1:13, 3:16 | 2 Peter 1:20-21 | Psalm 119:105, 119:160, 12:6 | Proverbs 30:5
Salvation involves the redemption of the whole man and is offered freely to all who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, who by His own blood obtained eternal redemption for the believer. In its broadest sense salvation includes regeneration, justification, sanctification, and glorification. There is no salvation apart from personal faith in Jesus Christ as Lord. Regeneration, or the new birth, is a change of heart wrought by the Holy Spirit through conviction of sin, to which the sinner responds in repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance and faith are inseparable experiences of grace. Repentance is a genuine turning from sin toward God. Faith is the acceptance of Jesus Christ and commitment of the entire person to Him as Lord and Savior.
Romans 6:23, 10:8-11 | Ephesians 2:8-9 | John 14:6, 1:12 | Titus 3:5
The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being.
We affirm that all things were created by God and they are continuously sustained by God. On the 6*h day of creation, God said, “Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness.” (Genesis 1:26-27). Thus, man’s creation both reflects His glory and reveals His truth. Human beings have not evolved but were directly created in the very image of God, as either biological male or female from the womb.
Election (God’s choosing) is the gracious purpose of God, according to which He regenerates, justifies, sanctifies, and glorifies sinners. It is consistent with the free agency of man and comprehends all the means in connection with the end. It is the glorious display of God’s sovereign goodness, and is infinitely wise, holy, and unchangeable. It excludes boasting and promotes humility. All true believers endure to the end. Those whom God has accepted in Christ, and sanctified by His Spirit, will never fall away from the state of grace, but shall persevere to the end.
A New Testament church of the Lord Jesus Christ is an autonomous local congregation of baptized believers, associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel; observing the two ordinances of Christ, governed by His laws, exercising the gifts, rights, and privileges invested in them by His Word, and seeking to extend the gospel to the ends of the earth. Its scriptural officers are pastors, elders, and deacons. While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.
Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Savior, the believer’s death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus. It is a testimony to their faith in the final resurrection of the dead. Water baptism is in no sense regenerative.
The Lord’s Supper is a symbolic act of obedience whereby members of the church, through partaking of the bread and the fruit of the vine, memorialize the death of the Redeemer and anticipates His second coming. It is in no sense a sacrifice but is designed to commemorate Christ’s death and to profit the believer’s intimacy with God.
We believe that marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in a single, exclusive union, as delineated in Scripture. We believe that God intends sexual intimacy to occur only between a man and a woman who are married to each other. (Genesis 2:18-25, Matthew 19:4-16, 1 Corinthians 6:18-20, 1 Corinthians 7:2-6, and Hebrews 13:4)
We believe that God wonderfully foreordained and immutably created each person as either male or female in conformity with their biological sex. These two genders, distinct yet complementary, together reflect the image and the nature of God.(Genesis 1:27, Matthew 19:4, 1 Peter 3:7, 1 Corinthian 6:9-11)
We believe that human life is formed by God in His image and is therefore worthy of honor and dignity from the moment of conception until natural death. Children, from the moment of conception, are a blessing and heritage from the Lord. We encourage Christians to support ministries that care for and protect the unborn, the vulnerable, the aged, and terminally ill. (John 10:10, Proverbs 31:8, Psalms 139:13-16 & Exodus 1:15-17, Exodus 20:13).