Under God, and subject to biblical authority, the pastors and elders of The Church We Hope For, bear witness to the following statement of faith to which they subscribe, which they hold to be essential to their ministry, and which are the foundation upon which the church is based.

I. GOD: God has revealed God’s own self to be the living and true God, perfect in love and righteous in all God’s ways, one in essence, existing eternally in the three persons of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

II. God, who discloses God’s own self to humankind through God’s creation, has savingly spoken in the words and events of redemptive history. This history is fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word, who is made known to us by the Holy Spirit in sacred Scripture.

III. SCRIPTURE: Scripture is an essential part and trustworthy record of this divine self-disclosure. All the books of the Old and New Testaments, given by divine inspiration, are the authoritative, written word of God, an infallible rule of faith and practice. They are to be interpreted according to their context and purpose and in reverent obedience to the Lord who speaks through them in living power.

IV. CREATION: God, by God’s own word and for God’s own glory, freely created the world out of nothing. God made man and woman in God’s own image, equal before God and alongside each other, as the crown of creation, that they might have fellowship with God. Tempted by Satan, they rebelled against God. Breaking fellowship from their Maker, they became subject to divine judgement, apart from grace, and in need to be reconciled back to God.

V. JESUS: Jesus Christ, is the only mediator between God and humankind, God’s eternal son, who was fully human and fully divine, and who, being conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, fully shared and fulfilled our humanity in a life of perfect obedience. By his death in our stead, he revealed the divine love and upheld divine justice, removing our guilt and reconciling us to God. Having redeemed us from sin, the third day he rose bodily from the grave, victorious over death and the powers of darkness. He ascended into heaven where, at God’s right hand, he intercedes for his people and rules as Lord over all. 

VI. HOLY SPIRIT: The Holy Spirit indwells all believers, renews our hearts, persuading us to repent of our sins and confess Jesus as Lord, dispenses spiritual gifts to edify and empower the church as the body of Christ. By the same Spirit we are led to trust in divine mercy, whereby we are forgiven all our sins, justified by faith alone through the merit of Christ our Savior, and granted the free gift of eternal life.

VII. God graciously adopts us into God’s familia and enables us to call him Father. As we are led by the Spirit, we grow in the knowledge of the Lord, freely keeping God’s commandments and endeavoring so to live in the world that all may see our good works and glorify our God who is in heaven.

VIII. THE CHURCH: God, by God’s Word and Spirit creates the one holy catholic and apostolic Church, calling humanity into the fellowship of Christ’s Body. By the same Word and Spirit, God guides and preserves for eternity that new, redeemed humanity, which, being formed in every culture, is spiritually one with the people of God in all ages. Through God’s son, Jesus came to reconcile us not only unto God, but with each other, abolishing the enmity of the flesh among humans and creating one new humanity across all ethno-racial and gender lines that divide.

IX. THE CHURCH: The Church is summoned by Christ to be God’s beloved multi-ethnic community, to offer holy worship to God and to serve God by preaching the gospel and making disciples of all nations, by tending the flock through the ministry of the word and sacraments and through daily pastoral care, by striving for justice and the ministry of reconciliation, and by dispensing mercy through relieving human distress and need.

X. God’s redemptive purpose will be consummated by the return of Christ to raise the dead, to judge all people according to the deeds done in the body, and to establish God’s glorious kingdom. Those who have rejected God shall be separated from God’s presence, but the righteous, in glorious bodies, shall live and reign with God forever. Then shall the eager expectation of the creation be fulfilled and the whole earth shall proclaim the glory of God who makes all things new.